Once Upon a Time...

As part of the BBC's 'Once Upon a Time...' week, we're meeting a princess, a prince, a wicked stepmother... and a whole host of other characters in this fairy tale-inspired edition of Words and Music. We're travelling back in time with readings from some of the earliest written versions of classic stories from fairy tale masters Hans Christian Anderson, The Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault; and we're also bang up to date with modern retellings from Nikita Gill and Helen Oyeyemi. There's music from Tchaikovsky's ballet Sleeping Beauty, Stephen Sondheim's Into The Woods and Ravel's Mother Goose.

We're visiting Bluebeard's Castle with music from Bartok and Angela Carter's version, visiting The Land of Nod in Robert Louis Stevenson's poem, and visiting grandma with Rachmaninoff's Little Red Riding Hood. But will it all end happily ever after?

The readers are Pearce Quigley and Lydia Wilson.

Producer: Jessica Treen

The BBC’s ‘Once Upon a Time…’ week celebrates fairytales and storytelling in partnership with the British Library. On BBC Radio 3, Edith Bowman explores fairytales and fantasy in 'Sound of Cinema', actors Pearce Quigley and Lydia Wilson delve into the worlds of princesses, frogs, and spells in 'Words & Music', Sara Mohr-Pietsch charts a course to Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf in 'Music Map', and Elizabeth Alker presents music inspired by enchanted lands, magical creatures, and timeless tales in 'Classical Live' and 'Unclassified'. Just search ‘Once Upon a Time…’ in BBC Sounds. The British Library’s major new exhibition Fairy Tales runs from 27th March – 23rd August 2026.