Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Find out how to listen to other BBC stations

Episode details

Radio 4 Extra,08 Oct 2017,70 mins

Available for 30 days

Class 4D go on a school trip to the British Museum. Adrian has his tonsils out. Sue Townsend's hilarious and heart breaking chronicle of a teenager growing up in the Midlands in the 1980s. Omnibus of last five of ten parts abridged by Sara Davies. Read by Harry McEntire. It's 1981 and Margaret Thatcher is in power, Britain is at war in the Falklands and teenagers are growing up in a world without mobile phones or computer games. While his parents are downstairs, drinking, smoking and arguing about their failing marriage, Adrian is upstairs in his bedroom listening to Abba, reading great works of literature, writing poems, and penning letters to the BBC. Despite the many challenges that life throws at him - including regular beatings from the school bully, unrequited love, raging hormones, a severe case of acne and numerous rejection letters - Adrian soldiers on bravely and wins a place in our hearts with his charming naïveté. Producer: Alexa Moore A Pier production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in October 2017.

Programme Website
More episodes