I Capture the Castle: A BBC Radio 4 Full-Cast Dramatisation – Dodie Smith Free Audiobook

Written by Dodie Smith
Read by Toby Jones, Holliday Granger, full cast
Format: M4B
Bitrate: 32 Kbps
Dramatization

Toby Jones and Holliday Grainger star in a new BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Dodie Smith’s enduringly popular coming-of-age novel.

In the 1930s, 17-year-old Cassandra Mortmain lives in a crumbling ruin of a castle in the Suffolk countryside. Her father, an author wrestling with writer’s block, spends his time reading detective stories; her bohemian stepmother, Topaz, is an artist’s model; and her beautiful older sister, Rose, is determined to escape the poverty of their existence – ideally by marriage to a rich man.

Intelligent and observant, Cassandra chronicles the eccentricities of her relations in her journal in a bid to capture her family and their lives at the castle.

When two rich American brothers, Simon and Neil Cotton, arrive unexpectedly, the family’s isolation is disrupted. Rose accepts a marriage proposal from Simon, and as she is whisked off to a world of wealth in London, Cassandra is left to deal with the increasingly bizarre behaviour of her father – as well as her own feelings for Simon….

Dodie Smith’s charming, funny and poignant love story is a classic of 20th-century English literature, and this sparkling adaptation, starring Toby Jones and Holliday Grainger, will enchant and delight.

Cassandra …. Holliday Grainger
Rose …. Scarlett Alice Johnson
Mortmain …. Toby Jones
Topaz …. Charlotte Emmerson
Thomas …. Sam Hattersley
Stephen …. Harry McEntire
Simon …. John Macmillan
Neil …. Henry Devas
Shop Assistant …. Martha Loader

Written by Dodie Smith

Directed by Nadia Molinari

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2015

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A Note on Audio Metadata

One of my frustrations with the audio content I download from ABB is the amount of time I always need to spend fixing the metadata and adding cover art to make it work nicely with Plex/Prologue. With that in mind, all audio content I share on ABB will always have complete and correct metadata, including:

– Author and Title
– Description (using the DESCRIPTION field read that can read by Plex)
– Narrator (using the COMPOSER field which can be read by Prologue)
– Genre Tags (I add all relevant Genres typically taken from Goodreads. These can be used to create smart collections in Plex.)
– Cover Art (I always use the highest resolution image I can find. Where none exists, I will find a suitable image from the internet – often r/audiobookcovers – or create one based on existing artwork.
– Date (For audiobooks I use the year the book was first published. For audio dramas I use the year the drama was produced.)

Furthermore, the audio will always be in m4b format (to support chapter markers and ensure Plex can read the Description tag). The audio will always be correctly chapterized, where necessary, and chapter markers will be correctly named.

This means that all content I share here can be considered Plex/Prologue-ready with all metadata and artwork included. I hope this encourages others to do the same.

(FYI: I typically add metadata using kid3 and chapter markers using Ocenaudio.)