''Book at Bedtime'' (''A Book at Bedtime'' until 9 July 1993) is a long-running

radio programme A radio program, radio programme, or radio show is a segment of content intended for broadcast on radio. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series. A single program in a series is called an episode. Radio networ ...

that is broadcast on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

each weekday evening between 22.45 and 23.00. The programme presents readings of fiction, including modern classics, new works by leading writers, and literature from around the world. Books are abridged and typically serialised over one or two weeks and occasionally three, usually read by well-known actors. Occasionally, from a collection of short stories, five stories from the book will be selected and one broadcast each evening.

History

The series began on the

BBC Light Programme The BBC Light Programme was a national radio station which broadcast chiefly mainstream light entertainment and light music from 1945 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 1. It opened on 29 July 1945, taking over the ...

on 31 January 1949, billed for the first week only as "Late-Night Serial", with the first instalment of a 15-part reading of the John Buchan novel ''

The Three Hostages ''The Three Hostages'' is the fourth of five Richard Hannay novels by the Scottish author John Buchan, first published in 1924 by Hodder & Stoughton, London. Hannay had previously appeared in '' The Thirty Nine Steps'' (1915), his most famous ...

'', read by Arthur Bush. There was a break after 29 March 1957, but the programme returned under its old title, now on the BBC Home Service, on 2 April 1962; the Home Service had in fact been broadcasting weekday evening 15-minute readings since 19 September 1960, but not under the ''Book at Bedtime'' heading.

References

External links

* BBC Radio 4 programmes 1949 radio programme debuts {{BBC-radio-stub