So you might have thought that the link I posted a while ago, to Anansi Boys on BBC4, was some particular and specific one-time event that I knew about due to my deep and abiding love for Neil Gaiman. That I knew it was there because I love Neil Gaiman and I keep track of his doings. Actually not the case. Actually I was totally surprised to find it there.

I am addicted - like, seriously, you have no idea how addicted - to BBC4 radio plays. If I could inject them into my veins I would do it, that is how much I need my BBC4 radio plays fix. Every day I go to the BBC4 radio plays page and I scope out the plays that have been going on. In my Anansi Boys post, I was acting all blasé about it like, Oh, hey, this Anansi Boys adaptation has just reminded me about a largely forgotten-by-me medium, which has a sort of old-fashioned charm that I don't really think about much on a day-to-day basis.

Such a lie. I need my BBC4 radio plays. I've been lying to everyone and I've been lying to myself, assuring myself that it's all part of my useful project to become good at placing British accents*, and I just can't keep it inside anymore. The first step is admitting your addiction**, so here I go.

The truth is that BBC4 radio plays are not part of my project to become good at placing British accents, although they are helpful in that regard, when I can discover where the actors are from which isn't always. The truth is that I am addicted to BBC4 radio plays.

I will give you an example, since I'm guessing you didn't listen to Anansi Boys although you should have because Neil Gaiman is a genius and I believe I recall him saying that radio plays are his preferred medium and Anansi Boys is done most gorgeously by Lenny Henry reading Fat Charlie and Spider. For the past six weeks (I just found out because, fool! fool! fool!, I never checked the "Classic Serial" section which yes, I hate myself for), they have been serializing a radio play of Dr. Zhivago and I have been missing out on it, damn it. With Ian McDarmid. (Emperor Palpatine.) See, if I had been a vigilant radio play junkie, this serious crisis could have been averted. Meanwhile they have been doing a serial radio play of Dr. Zhivago. Serially. On the radio. And we all could have been listening to it. I only know about it at all because the Saturday play this past week, Beast at Bay, was all about Boris Pasternak and the publication of Dr. Zhivago, and the announcer guy was all, To go along with our Classic Serial of Dr Zhivago, and I was really sad about it. Although Beast at Bay, it was le awesome.

As I recall this all started when Laura (happy belated birthday, Laura!) was complaining about some people near us who were going on and on about English accents in a really annoying way, and she said, "Oh my GOD. Listen to the BBC and GET OVER IT." And I was like, Yes! You're a genius! The BBC! Which is how I got put on to this radio play business that now controls my life.

BBC Radio 4 - Radio Plays

Yeah. Go on. Try it. First one's free.

*I have a project underway that will help me become good at placing British accents. Every time I see a British actor on TV or in films I promptly look them up to discover where they are from (or where they were raised). I am already not terrible at it - obviously I was in England for a year, so I can more or less place accents to north, east, and midlands, with a reasonable degree of success. Bonnie says this can never work because people do fake accents sometimes for movies and also because a lot of people ditch their home accents and become properly well-spoken and posh when they go to swanky schools. But I am not stupid, and obviously if I hear someone with a posh accent and look them up and discover they are from Liverpool or someplace, then I will be well aware that they are just speaking Standard The Queen's English and not English with a Liverpool overlay.
**I mean, of course, the first step to getting everyone else addicted.