Arts

Opening Lines

by BBC Radio 4

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Latest episodes

Celtic Christie: Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?

October 11, 2026 · 14 min

A dying man’s final, puzzling question - “Why didn’t they ask Evans?” – provides the title for Agatha Christie’s 1934 novel. What singles this book out is that the investigation is not undertaken by Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple, but by…
The Things They Carried

September 6, 2026 · 14 min

John Yorke explores The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, novelist and veteran of the Vietnam War. Published in 1990 it’s a collection of interlinked stories about a platoon of American soldiers fighting an invisible enemy in the…
Midnight Cowboy

August 23, 2026 · 14 min

Midnight Cowboy, a 1965 novel by the American writer James Leo Herlihy, is best known to most for its film adaptation, starring Jon Voight as Joe Buck – a naïve dreamer from Texas - and Dustin Hoffman as Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo, a New York…
Libra - Episode Two

August 16, 2026 · 14 min

For the 100th title to be explored in Opening Lines, John Yorke picks up the 1988 novel Libra by the heavyweight American writer, Don DeLillo. In this second episode considering the book, he focuses in on the endless conspiracies that…
Libra - Episode One

August 9, 2026 · 14 min

For the 100th title to be explored in Opening Lines, John Yorke picks up the 1998 novel Libra by the heavyweight American writer, Don DeLillo. The book centres around the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the event DeLillo says…

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Trouble in Mind

July 26, 2026 · 14 min

Alice Childress’s first major work is set in a world that she knew very well both as a performer and a writer – the theatre. It’s 1957 and rehearsals are beginning for a new Broadway production – Chaos In Belleville – an anti-lynching play…
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

July 19, 2026 · 14 min

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? takes us into the strange and brutal world of dance marathon competitions dating from the Great Depression in America. It follows Robert and Gloria, a couple who’ve washed up in Los Angeles and whose last…
Anna Christie - Episode 2

July 12, 2026 · 14 min

In this second episode, John Yorke digs deeper into Euguene O’Neill’s 1921 play “Anna Christie” – about an estranged daughter who is reunited with her sea captain father, and falls in love with a sailor. The play examines identity, family…
Anna Christie - Episode 1

July 5, 2026 · 14 min

In the first of two episodes, John Yorke looks at “Anna Christie” by Eugene O’Neill - one of American theatre’s founding fathers, and the only American dramatist to have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. The play is about a…
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog

June 7, 2026 · 14 min

John Yorke examines Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog, ten semi-autobiographical short stories in which Dylan Thomas looks back and observes himself growing into the artist – the writer – that he became in adult life. The stories…
Moon Tiger

May 31, 2026 · 14 min

Writer Penelope Lively’s enduring themes are the connections and interplay between memory, history and time. Nowhere is this more compelling than in Moon Tiger, published in 1987 and widely regarded as one of her best novels. It won the…
Don Quixote - Episode Two

May 10, 2026 · 14 min

John Yorke explores why Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes has had such a profound influence on storytelling in the 400 years since it was published in 1605. ‘Like Shakespeare, Cervantes is inescapable for all writers who have come after…

Full episode archive on Apple Podcasts →

About the show

Producer and writer John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and he shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact behind the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in Radio 4's weekend afternoon dramas.