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Samuel Pepys - After the Fire
Samuel Pepys - After the Fire
Nov 30, 2025 9:21 PM

Author:Samuel Pepys,Hattie Naylor,Kris Marshall,Katherine Jakeways,Full Cast

Samuel Pepys - After the Fire

Kris Marshall (My Family) stars in this BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of the famous diarist's account of the aftermath of the Great Fire of London.

Following on from the acclaimed radio dramatisation of Pepys' complete diaries, this further instalment of his chronicles focuses on events following the cataclysmic inferno that destroyed much of the capital four hundred years ago.

When the Great Fire of 1666 was finally extinguished, little remained of London but smouldering rubble. Samuel Pepys witnessed firsthand the impact it had on the city and its people, and would be haunted by what he had seen for the rest of his life. Thousands of homes and many key buildings had been destroyed or damaged, including St Paul's Cathedral.

Now aged 70, in poor health, and living with his servant Will in Clapham, Pepys remembers the devastation. He recalls burying his prize Parmesan to keep it safe, standing in Moorfield among the homeless as London burned, going out in his carriage to look at the ruins, and viewing the plans for the new city that would rise from the ashes – its centrepiece a magnificent cathedral that would be hailed as a masterpiece.

Starring Kris Marshall as Samuel Pepys, this entertaining and enlightening adaptation by Hattie Naylor vividly conjures up the sights and sounds of Pepys' world. Duration: 1 hour 15 mins approx.

Reviews

"...balancing domesticity, business and history so vividly and unexpectedly it sounds as if 1660 were the day before yesterday."

—— Gillian Reynolds , Daily Telegraph (review of the first series)

Anita Brookner has sublimely mastered the art of making her reader interested in her characters . . . a thoroughly enjoyable and most unusual novel.

—— Spectator

An enchanting, honest novel.

—— Time Out

A writer at the peak of his powers; it reminds you what good reading is all about

—— Chicago Sun Times

Reading Turgenev is one of the most beautiful and memorable things he has written. It stays in your memory -like Turgenev

—— Independent on Sunday

He writes like an angel, but is determined to wring your heart. Trevor at his most evocative and haunting

—— Daily Mail

The essential novel for any Star Wars fan

—— Inverse

The greatest of all novels. Read it again, to test and savour the infallible truth of Tolstoy’s understanding of every stage and aspect of human life

—— Alan Hollinghurst , New York Times

To read him . . . is to find one's way home . . . to everything within us that is fundamental and sane

—— Thomas Mann

In War And Peace, richly observed human life - its catastrophes and passions, its thrills and tedium - mark out Tolstoy as a fox, who knows all about the dizzying diversity of existence

—— Observer

Highly and deservedly praised...is a remarkable achievement.

—— Contemporary Review

Wonderfully readable

—— Wendy Cope , The Week

Translators give their wits and craft selflessly in service of others' work; this is a triumph of fidelity and unpretentiousness.

—— The Independent
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