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The Oresteia
The Oresteia
Dec 21, 2025 1:29 PM

Author:Aeschylus,Lesley Sharp,Hugo Speer,Will Howard,Joanne Froggatt,Full Cast,Niamh Cusack

The Oresteia

The classic trilogy about murder, revenge and justice, as heard on BBC Radio 3 – plus a bonus documentary exploring Aeschylus's seminal Greek tragedy

A chilling tale of homecoming, violent death and bloody vengeance, The Oresteia dates back to the 5th Century BC, but its themes still resonate today. At once a family saga, morality tale and courtroom drama, it recounts how two generations of the cursed House of Atreus become locked into a deadly cycle of atrocities. To break the chain, their private vendetta must become public, as questions of guilt and justification are decided in the first ever homicide trial…

Agamemnon

The Trojan War is over, and conquering hero Agamemnon arrives home to Argos. But victory came at an appalling price – the sacrifice of his eldest daughter, Iphigenia. Now, his wife Clytemnestra is determined to take a grisly revenge …

The Libation Bearers

Returning from exile, Agamemnon's son Orestes vows to avenge his father’s death by murdering his killer, his own mother Clytemnestra. But where can he find the strength to carry out such a horrific deed?

The Furies

Having committed matricide, Orestes flees to Delphi. But the remorseless Furies, ancient deities of vengeance, are on his trail and baying for blood. Can the young gods Apollo and Athena save him from a terrible fate?

Adapted by three of Britain’s most imaginative writers, Simon Scardifield, Ed Hime and Rebecca Lenkiewicz, these contemporary versions of Aeschylus’s trilogy are atmospheric, fast-moving and superbly accessible. The star casts include Lesley Sharp as Clytemnestra, Hugo Speer as Agamemnon and Will Howard as Orestes.

Each of the plays is introduced by Edith Hall, Professor of Classics at Kings College London.

Also featured is an episode of In Our Time, in which Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how The Oresteia has fired the modern imagination, inspiring artists ranging from Richard Wagner to T. S. Eliot.

Written by Aeschylus

Agamemnon

The Chorus – Arthur Hughes, Philip Jackson and Carolyn Pickles

Clytemnestra – Lesley Sharp

Agamemnon – Hugo Speer

Cassandra – Anamaria Marinca

Calchas – Karl Johnson

Aegisthus – Sean Murray

Iphigenia – Georgie Fuller

Herald – John Norton

Guards – Steve Toussaint and Harry Jardine

Adapted by Simon Scardifield

Directed by Sasha Yevtushenko

BBC Concert Orchestra Percussionists: Alasdair Malloy, Stephen Webberley and Stephen Whibley

Singer: Adriana Festeu

Sound design by Colin Guthrie

First broadcast BBC Radio 3, 12 January 2014

The Libation Bearers

Orestes – Will Howard

Electra – Joanne Froggatt

Clytemnestra – Lesley Sharp

The Chorus – Sheila Reid, Amanda Lawrence and Carys Eleri

Aegisthus – Sean Murray

Cilissa – Carolyn Pickles

Pylades – Joel MacCormack

Servants – David Seddon and John Norton

Iphigenia – Georgie Fuller

Adapted by Ed Hime

Directed by Marc Beeby

BBC Concert Orchestra Percussionists: Alasdair Malloy, Stephen Webberley and Stephen Whibley

Singer: Adriana Festeu

Sound design by Cal Knightley and Colin Guthrie

First broadcast BBC Radio 3, 19 January 2014

The Furies

Narrator – Niamh Cusack

Alecto – Polly Hemingway

Megaera – Maureen Beattie

Tisiphone – Carolyn Pickles

Orestes – Will Howard

Athena – Chipo Chung

Apollo – Joel MacCormack

Clytemnestra – Lesley Sharp

The Pythia – Priyanga Burford

Girl – Carys Eleri

Judge – Sean Murray

Adapted by Rebecca Lenkiewicz

Directed by Sasha Yevtushenko

BBC Concert Orchestra Percussionists: Alasdair Malloy, Stephen Webberley and Stephen Whibley

Sound design by Colin Guthrie

First broadcast BBC Radio 3, 26 January 2014

In Our Time

Presented by Melyvn Bragg

With Edith Hall, then Professor of Greek Cultural History at Durham University; Simon Goldhill, Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge; Tom Healy, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London

Produced by Charlie Taylor

First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 29 December 2005

Reviews

'Wood's lively translations grasp the irrepressible sense of freedom which is the poet's hallmark ... Pushkin is lucky in Antony Wood. Pleasure is to be found on every page of this book'

—— The Times Literary Supplement

This Selected Poetry by Antony Wood supersedes all previous translations ... Wood's 'The Bronze Horseman' gives us Pushkin at his most tragic. 'Count Nulin' shows him at his most light-hearted. 'The Tale of Tsar Saltan' bounces along with delightful vitality. Even with the delicately musical short lyrics - still harder to translate - Wood's success rate is remarkable ... The result is a more rounded picture of Pushkin - in many ways the most universal of poets

—— Robert Chandler , The Financial Times

This Selected Poetry deserves a wealth of praise . . . a truly valuable edition both for its scrupulous and often magnificent versions of individual poems and as a worthy general introduction to this poet, who is such a treasure for Russia and for the world

—— Los Angeles Review of Books

Everybody knows how difficult Pushkin's poems are to translate. Antony Wood has succeeded, within the limits of the possible

—— John Bayley

Re-creating Pushkin requires skills approaching magic. Antony Wood is one of the two or three best translators of Russia's greatest poet in the Anglophone world, because his Pushkin moves: you watch him dance as well as hear him sing

—— Caryl Emerson

Antony Wood's translations show an unusual grace and a deep knowledge of Pushkin's poetry

—— Elaine Feinstein

Pushkin's poetry is lyrical, beautifully simple, vivid, and endlessly emotive. It can be enjoyed by all readers, regardless of their background in poetry. And there is now one definitive book of Alexander Pushkin's poetry, the one book you need to read in order to fully appreciate Alexander Pushkin's poems: Alexander Pushkin Selected Poetry, translated with complete command and majesty by Antony Wood

—— Books and Bao

A volume to keep within easy reach at most times

—— East-West Review

Anthony Wood is to be congratulated on this suburb collection, which renders Pushkin in all his matchless grace, wit and musicality

—— The Tablet

A masterpiece. This book haunts me more than any other novel I've read in recent years.

—— Garth Greenwell

A highly unusual novel in which a writer confronts one of life's deepest sorrows in losing her child. . . Funny, touching and profoundly moving

—— Chigozie Obioma

‘Getting inside a living person’s head sounds like a colossally bad idea, but Sittenfeld makes it convincing here, just as she did with a character based on First Lady Laura Bush in her 2008 novel, AMERICAN WIFE’

—— BBC CULTURE

Deviously clever . . . Sittenfeld’s Hillary is both a player in the Game of Thrones and a romance novel heroine. She’s a brilliant badass who has found her voice and knows how to use it. She’s whoever she wants to be

—— THE OPRAH MAGAZINE

As Hillary finds her groove, so the momentum and entertainment builds, as does your admiration for how ingeniously and plausibly Sittenfeld has re-written the script

—— DAILY MAIL

A counterfactual novel ... throbs with energy

—— TLS

A fascinating glimpse into an alternative future

—— DAILY MIRROR

Pacy... plenty of sex and gossip - and a cameo from a certain yellow-haired, orange-faced president-to-be... ripe for TV adaptation

—— SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

A brilliantly smart re-imagining

—— WOMAN AND HOME

Sittenfeld's writing is so fine, her characters so vivid, her empathy so profound that she manages to absorb the reader on a level that transcends partisanship. In 2020, that was a remarkable achievement and an enormous gift to her readers

—— THE NEW YORKER

It ends up being a love letter to a type: the female intellectual, who is given none of the licence of her less talented male peers. At the end, i found myself saying Oh My God

—— OBSERVER

A triumphant feminist reinvention. Sittenfeld is the bard of presidential female adjacents

—— VOGUE

RODHAM is wide- ranging political anthropology, concerned not so much with what makes Hillary tick as it is with the culture around her and how she might have shaped events, and been shaped by them, if the pieces of reality's jigsaw were rearranged just so. It's stippled with clever mischief

—— NEW YORK TIMES

A smartly structured character study and a stay- up- all- night plot . . . A captivating and durable story containing rooms within rooms. RODHAM turns into a high- speed bildungsroman about a woman of formidable intellect and self- insight.

—— THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

It's the genius of Sittenfeld's prose that we come to understand this ambivalence,as well as the deep conflicts in this complicated character. In the longing and loneliness, the anger as well as ambition, this Hillary makes RODHAM a compelling portrait of a future that might have been.

—— THE BOSTON GLOBE

Tantalizing . . . part thought experiment, part wish- fulfillment fantasy . . . delectably discussable, a book tailor- made for book clubs.

—— USA TODAY

Wildly compelling . . . What RODHAM is interested in is examining what feminine ambition looks like when it is untethered from a man. . . . Sittenfeld is free to invent, and the reality she builds is deliciously dishy.

—— VOX

Thought-provoking and compelling

—— SUNDAY EXPRESS

A moving feat of feminist and novelistic imagination

—— THE TABLET

From this memorable novel's eerie first paragraph to its enigmatic ending, Laura van den Berg has invented something beautiful indeed

—— LA Times

This is one of my favorite novels of 2015, and we’re not even IN 2015 yet . . .The language is beautiful, spare, and carefully crafted, and the characters are fully realized and unforgettable. There is tension and redemption and insight and even humor in these pages, and they make for a really incredible read

—— Bookriot

Surreal adventures blend with a reflective and sad sensibility in van den Berg’s lyrical debut novel

—— Library Journal

Both novels offer precision of language and metaphor and scene even as what is being constructed feels messy, chaotic, sad, hopeless... Both orphaned and alone in the world, both so completely real, both telling a story that feels important and exciting to read. I feel lucky to have stumbled upon these books this year, and challenged by them to be better

—— The Millions

This debut novel by acclaimed short story writer van den Berg tends to lean much closer to the realms of literary fiction with its complex psychology. . . Van den Berg's writing is curiously beautiful

—— Kirkus

a strange beauty in this apocalyptic tale

—— Psychologies
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