09.06.2010 10:30

What's on?: Afternoon Play

At 14.15 every weekday afternoon on BBC Radio 4, there is a chance to hear the Afternoon Play, 45-minute radio dramas which delight and surprise.

Each week a selection of plays are performed, ranging from period pieces to futuristic science fiction, from domestic dramas to political thrillers – and all lasting just three quarters of an hour.

Afternoon Play lets you hear old favourites: five-part adaptations of the John Irving novel A Prayer for Owen Meany and of the Louis de Bernière novel Captain Corelli’s Mandolin both reached the airwaves last year in dramatized versions. Joe Orton’s play Funeral Games was broadcast earlier this year.

But there is also plenty of new writing to hear – nearly 200 plays are broadcast annually. The quirky, dark comedy Highgate Letters and a production called I love Stephen Fry, which, not surprisingly, had a small part for the well-loved performer Mr Fry himself, were both heard in April this year.

On a more serious note, a play based on the true story of Edith Scholem, 16-year-old daughter of the leader of Germany’s communists who was forced to flee Berlin in 1934, was broadcast in February this year.

Sometimes the plays are even set on location: in October last year a Japanese murder mystery in three parts (A Tokyo Murder) was recorded on the streets of the Japanese capital.

Around 1 million listeners tune in to hear the programme each afternoon. And which day do you think has the biggest audience? Well, it’s Monday’s play – perhaps people feel they deserve some drama after the weekend. And the smallest audience? That’s on Thursday.

Tune in and listen to Afternoon Play this week and allow yourself 45 minutes which will delight and surprise you. It is broadcast every weekday afternoon at 14.15 (British time). Just click on: