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D for Dexter
D for Dexter
Jan 27, 2026 10:11 PM

Author:Amanda Whittington,Sarah Daniels,Sydney Wade,Elsa Rodgers,Alfie Johnson-McCann,Una McNulty,Full Cast

D for Dexter

The award-winning story of Skye and Dexter and their ordinary/extraordinary life

Skye lives in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, with her little brother Dexter and Spider the cat. Their mum, Jak, isn't around much - she's on and off the booze, so it's up to Skye to look out for Dexter, play with him, and make sure he's clothed and fed. He likes it best when she plays her guitar, an electric guitar she found under a heap of clothes in her mum's bedroom. The bailiffs didn't take it even when they came back for the telly.

When we first meet them, Skye is eleven years old, and Dexter two-and-a-half. Through seven series, we follow their highs, lows and struggles to survive through Skye's eyes, as she battles to keep her dysfunctional family together.

From coping with Jak's alcoholism and Dexter's special needs, to being taken into care by social services, getting excluded from school, trying to home educate Dexter during the Covid crisis, falling in love and coming to terms with her sexuality, she has far more on her plate than any young person should have to deal with.

And as Skye turns 18 and prepares to face the challenges of adulthood, we bid farewell to her in a special one-off finale.

Dark, delightful, funny, heartbreaking and heart-warming, this authentic, truthful drama won Best Drama Series/Serial at the BBC Audio Drama Awards 2016. It was developed through close collaboration with BBC Children in Need and projects they fund (including Home-Start UK, Hull Children's University, Voice of Young People in Care, Can Cook, Footsteps 2000, Young Carers' Transition Project and SAYiT) and was inspired by long-term research and ongoing voluntary work with children and families in Gainsborough.

Written by Amanda Whittington (series 1-7) and Sarah Daniels (Finale)

Guitar: Pip Moore and Tom Constantine

Music by Black Sabbath, the Smashing Pumpkins, Beyoncé, The Breeders and David Bowie performed by Tom Constantine

Poem by Octavia Bettis

Directed by Mary Ward-Lowery

Cast

Skye - Sydney Wade

Dexter - Elsa Rodgers/Alfie Johnson-McCann

Jak - Una McNulty

Evan - Samuel Holland

Alice - Jane Thornton

Mags - Sarah Parks

Lin - Martha Godber

Joe - Bill Rodgers

Uncle Dean - Peter Caulfield

Amber - Liz Godber

Ant - John Elkington

Boy - Harry Steel

Dog Man - John Elkington

Shelagh - Sarah Parks

Kim/Clare - Jane Godber

Shanice - Zoe Johnson

Leanne - Etta Fusi

Mia - Julie Riley

Mr Doshi - Tayla Kovacevic-Ebong

Nasty Girl - Octavia Bettis

Pearce - Beau Anten

Alex - Don Gilet

Alisha - Megan Huntley

Alice - Lauren Bowler

Scarlett - Scarlett Courtney

Ryan - Adam Courting

Aiden Hardy - Will Kirk

Ed - Mark Addy

(p) 2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

© 2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Reviews

Malice is the dark and wicked heart of a fairytale carved into a book. This story is beautiful, vicious magic

—— Tasha Suri, author of Empire of Sand

A beautifully imaginative and feminist retelling of a fairytale so often swept into the dark. Walter's debut was engrossing from page one, with a vivid cast of characters, thrilling romance and a world so vivid it will wrap thorns around your dreams.

—— Roshani Chokshi, author of The Guilded Wolves

A truly original and clever retelling of a classic that had me racing to the end - you'll never look at Sleeping Beauty the same again.

—— S.A. Chakraborty, author of City of Brass

The story grows deliciously darker at every turn . . . Fairy tale lovers of all ages will be thrilled

—— Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

Heather Walter writes about magic-and with magic. Her retelling of Sleeping Beauty remains true to the beloved classic, yet every page is completely new and unexpected.

—— Richelle Mead, author of the Vampire Academy series

Enchanting - and enchanted . . . a book to savor

—— Louisa Morgan, author of The Secret History of Witches

Bewitching characters. Fascinating story. An up-all-night read. Why are you not reading this book RIGHT NOW?

—— Tamora Pierce

Absolutely dazzling! Full of love, power, and betrayal, Malice is as compelling as a spell, as captivating as an enchantment, and as fascinating and delicious as a fairy-tale curse. I loved it!

—— Sarah Beth Durst, award-winning author of the Queens Of Renthia series

A spellbinding debut ... for all the queer girls and women who've been told to keep their gifts hidden and for those yearning to defy gravity.

—— Oprah Magazine

Viciously satisfying. Malice takes Sleeping Beauty and turns everything on its head, cutting right to the core of this bejewelled world. Heather Walter has given us a villain to adore.

—— Chloe Gong, New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights

Full of evocative detail and memorable characters

—— Zoe West , Woman & Home

Lily is a wonderful creation - diffident and trying to find her place in the world... But it's Tremain's attention to detail that really sets this novel apart

—— Ian Critchley , Literary Review

Terrific

—— Claire Allfree , Sunday Telegraph, *Novel of the Week*

An authentically melodramatic whydunnit set in Victorian London

—— Anthony Cummins , Daily Mail

Tremain has created a feisty, rebellious heroine in the style of Jane Eyre and Maggie Tulliver, in a setting that owes much to Dickens... a very engaging read

—— Vanessa Berridge , Daily Express

A heart-wrenching tale that blends historical detail, moral fable and fairy story with a powerful heroine at its helm

—— Yours, *Christmas Gift Guide 2021*

Fans of Dickens's heart-tugging Little Dorrit should enjoy this powerful exploration of the human urge to seek places of sanctuary in a pitiless, fickle world. Perfect fireside reading - but better keep a hankie ready

—— Rebecca Wallersteiner , Lady

Tremain brilliantly conjures up the atmosphere of Victorian London while the story is cleverly structured to keep the reader guessing to the end

—— Richard Hopton , Country & Town House

The 19th-century world Tremain paints a wonderfully vivid. She arouses great pity in us for Lily, enhanced here by Hattie Morahan's warm and sensitive narration

—— Julian Margaret Gibbs , Tablet

Daring and sensual, Free Love is a compulsive exploration of love, sexual freedom and living out the most meaningful version of our lives.

—— SheerLuxe

An engrossing ploy, elegant nuanced writing...this is a novel to savour

—— Morag MacInnes , Tablet, *Novel of the Week*

As ever, Ms Hadley's prose is limpid and measured yet richly sonorous: her story combines a modern sensibility with the psychological realism of writers such as Henry James... The ending glimmers with possibility--while suggesting that liberation comes at a cost.

—— Economist

With astute psychological awareness of her characters, Hadley presents a visceral and engaging picture of a bygone time. Unexpected twists and unclichéd characters support the luscious language, making this a real pleasure of a read.

—— UK Press Syndication

Free Love artfully delves beneath the veneer of the British middle class to tell an intimate story of generational discord, political change and sexual freedom.

—— Mark Vessery , i

Hadley's resplendent eighth novel... [has] poignantly astute observations on class, destiny and the false promises of the sexual revolution.

—— Hephzibah Anderson , Mail on Sunday

Hadley's eighth novel is as absorbing as any of her other fiction, with complex family secrets, brilliant insights...and lush descriptions of nature.

—— Markie Robson-Scott , Arts Desk

Hadley chooses her words with spellbinding precision.

—— Claire Allfree , Metro

Hadley's complex sentences are purring marvels of engineering... A brilliant writer of interiority...she has a gift...for portraying the state of wanting to be wanted, or simply to be seen... almost every page struck me anew with some elegant phrasing, feline irony or shrewdly sympathetic insight.

—— Anthony Cummins , Observer

Few contemporary novelists write about their characters' inner worlds with a finely filigreed but plain-spoken acuity that Tessa Hadley brings to her work...accessing roving, rich depths... Hadley is a master in her field.

—— Lucy Scholes , Daily Telegraph

"With each new book by Tessa Hadley, I grow more convinced that she's one of the greatest stylists alive. . . . To read Hadley's fiction is to grow self-conscious in the best way: to recognize with astonishment the emotions playing behind our own expressions, to hear articulated our own inchoate anxieties. . . . The whole grief-steeped story should be as fun as a dirge, but instead it feels effervescent-lit not with mockery but with the energy of Hadley's attention, her sensitivity to the abiding comedy of human desire. . . . Extraordinary.

—— The Washington Post

Brilliant.... In the hands of a lesser novelist, the intricate tangle of lives at the center of Late in the Day would feel like just such a self-satisfied riddle or, at best, like sly narrative machinations. Because this is Tessa Hadley, it instead feels earned and real and, even in its smallest nuances, important.... It's to her credit that Hadley manages to be old-fashioned and modernist and brilliantly postmodern all at once.... We've seen this before, and we've never seen this before, and it's spectacular.

—— New York Times Book Review

Utterly engrossing... Free Love is highly gratifying.

—— Ellen Peirson-Hagger , New Statesman

Free Love is a triumph.

—— Sarah Collins , Prospect

Brilliantly done... Hadley writes with devastating psychological insight, her prose spare and scalpel sharp. But she is also judiciously non-judgemental, a generous chronicler of the foibles and fears that mar and make a marriage.

—— Eithne Farry , Daily Express

Free Love is an absolute joy to read from a writer who never puts a word wrong. Fans of Small Pleasures will love it.

—— Sarra Manning , Red

[A] brilliant, sensual, seductively plotted new novel... Hadley has written an extraordinary story about love and transformation.

—— Independent

Free Love is often deeply perceptive and affecting... it lets you imagine what it was like to wrestle with old and new ways of thinking in an age that shaped (and continues to shape) our own.

—— Guy Stevenson , Literary Review

It's the 1960s and socialism, sex and nuclear anxiety have come crashing into the middle-class bubble Tessa Hadley novels usually operate so brilliant within.

—— The Times, *Summer Reads of 2022*

A story about change and its limits, its beautifully judged ending will bring you to tears.

—— Daily Mail, *Summer Reads of 2022*

[An] acutely realised, deeply humane novel... Unmissable.

—— Tablet, *Summer Reads of 2022*

No novel published this year gave me more pleasure than Tessa Hadley's Free Love.

—— New Statesman, *Books of the Year*

Nothing drew me in as conclusively as Free Love by Tessa Hadley, who is surely one of our most astute and deft observers of everyday lives.

—— New Statesman, *Books of the Year*

Hadley's novels continue to get better and better - and this is her finest, most pleasurable yet... it's near enough the perfect present in book form

—— Daily Mail, *Books of the Year*

She is, in all her mastery of the craft, a writer's writer.

—— Marie Claire
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