Episode 2

Katharine Hilbery is engaged to the eminently suitable, if faintly ridiculous, William Rodney. They’ve gone to Katharine's cousins in Norfolk for Christmas, where things are not going well.

Meanwhile, Katharine's secret admirer, solicitor and aspiring writer Ralph Denham has also gone to Norfolk for Christmas, at the invitation of Suffrage campaigner Mary Datchet. Mary’s been carrying a torch for Ralph, whilst wrestling with her desire for an independent life...

Narrator Kristin Scott Thomas concludes Virginia Woolf's comic novel set in pre-first world war London, challenging all assumptions about the nature of love.

Ralph Denham .... Jamie Glover
Katharine Hilbery ...... Dervla Kirwan
Mary Datchet .... Susannah Corbett
William Rodney.... John MacKay
Mrs Hilbery..... Phyllida Nash
Mrs Seal..... Jacqueline Tong
Aunt Millicent..... June Barrie
Cassandra Otway ...... Rebecca Smart

Dramatised by Lavinia Greenlaw.

Produced at BBC Bristol by Kate McAll

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2003.