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With Great Pleasure, Neil Gaiman – and Mitch Benn, Peter Capaldi, Nina Sosanya and John Finnemore – on the BBC for Christmas

Published Tue, 25 Dec 2018 14:26:02 -0600

Last updated Tue, 25 Dec 2018 14:27:58 -0600

Just aired on BBC Radio 4 was With Great Pleasure, Neil Gaiman, a series of readings and audio extracts for Christmas Day presented by Neil Gaiman.

With actors Peter Capaldi, Nina Sosanya and John Finnemore, with music from Mitch Benn and members of Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain.

Recorded in front of an audience at the BBC Radio Theatre, and presented from the writer of Sandman, it includes extracts from Neil Gaiman's favourites:

Mary Poppins Comes Back by P.L. Travers
Fair Mistress Dorothy by A.A. Milne, performed by the cast
Charles Dickens' Captain Murderer story from The Uncommercial Traveller
The poem Differences of Opinion by Wendy Cope.
Alan Moore's song Me & Dorothy Parker performed by Mitch Benn,
A clip of BBC radio series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
And two ukulele songs.

The producer is Beth O'Dea and the show is available free, for 29 days, globally without restriction or paywall, right here.

And some folk have been tweeting up a storm.

OMG listening to @neilhimself With Great Pleasure and it's the Mary Poppins baby story, which I first read when we had our first baby and good lord.

— David Quantick (@quantick) December 25, 2018

Think of it as a Desert Island Discs going out on Xmas day. You wouldn't expect every song to be a Carol. (And yet, gruesome Dickens is Xmassy too. Remember the undertaker scenes in A Christmas Carol where they are dividing up Scrooge's possessions?)

— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) December 25, 2018