Read by Stephen Mangan

Directed by Richard Twyman, with sound design and composition by Helen Skiera.

Theme tune by Max Pappenheim.

I want to go home.

I’m sorry.

I want to go home.

I’m so sorry.

I want to go home.

I know.

A man wakes up in a world like his, but different. A world that’s… shifted, somehow. A world without windows, without colour, without children. Desperately, he tries to unravel what’s happened and find his way home…

by Francis Turnly

Read by David Harewood

Directed by Jennifer Bakst, with sound design and composition by Helen Skiera.

Theme tune by Max Pappenheim.

Britain is full. Offshoring is the most practical and humane way for Britain to protect its borders. And I’m proud to have voted this policy through.

Home Secretary Robinson is proud to protect Britain’s borders. But when he unexpectedly finds himself stranded on a distant shore with no way home, he begins to reconsider his beliefs – while facing stranger and stranger encounters in this strange land…

by Chris Bush

Read by Sophie Melville

Directed by Jennifer Bakst, with sound design by Helen Atkinson.

The theme tune was composed by Max Pappenheim.

This refusal to be contained meant my people remained boundless – in geography and in imagination. A great-great-uncle on my mother’s side grew tired of the constraints of gravity, and opted to live amongst the clouds instead, where there are fewer walls and arguments. Not to be outdone, his sister began to proselytise against the tyranny of three dimensions, and through a combination of early morning breathing exercises and fish oil supplements managed to access a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, and at that point lost count, because numbers no longer understood her. 

The story of a giant – a vast, happy, enormous giant. But when a cataclysmic event changes the world and means everyone has to stay indoors for a while – even giants – something begins to change, things become tighter, smaller, and nobody knows if things will ever quite be the same… Can we ever feel as big and as free as we did before?

by Yasmin Joseph

Read by Tamara Lawrance

Directed by Jennifer Bakst, with sound design by Xana.

The theme tune was composed by Max Pappenheim.

And in this moment, I’m reminded of my sweet Gran. How she found home in the strict four walls of order and regimen. I imagine her. A younger version just like me. Faced with this fucked apparition but smart enough to step back. Smart enough to get out just in time.

Sasha has just moved into her first home. On her grown woman shit. But just as she’s unpacked the last box, hung the last mirror, she sees something out of the corner of her eye that changes her life forever… A story about trauma, inherited over generations of women, passed on, hidden, waiting, lurking in the shadows of the unconscious… 

by Kwame Owusu

Read by Jamael Westman

Directed by Jennifer Bakst, with sound design by Helen Atkinson.

The theme tune was composed by Max Pappenheim.

The world’s on fire 

Temperatures rising 

costs rising 

cruelty rising 

we’ve had enough.

Jeremiah has had enough. But when he gets arrested at a protest and taken to a strange underground facility, his life starts to change in weird, unexpected ways. Come with Jeremiah into a world of dreams, nightmares, and the darker corners of the human imagination as he struggles to survive a dystopian vision of the world that resonates with what we wrestle with today…

by Sonya Kelly

Read by Justine Mitchell

Directed by Richard Twyman, with sound design by Xana.

The theme tune was composed by Max Pappenheim.

Out beyond the neon fringes of the city, lay the forsaken wasteland of Bennett’s docks, where the warehouses of the manufacturing era lay in empty ruins. Once a thriving industrial hub, it now formed a foreboding no man’s land…

Tim’s life is not going according to plan. Tim wanted to be an architect. Tim wanted to be successful. Tim didn’t want to be an insignificant accounting cog in a faceless corporate machine, didn’t want his marriage to fail spectacularly – and yet here he is. But that’s not going to stop Tim. Tim is going to make some big changes. Tim is going to buy the abandoned docks on the edge of the city and transform them into something bigger, better. Tim is definitely in over his head. 

by Ella Hickson

Read by Maxine Peake

Directed by Jennifer Bakst, with sound design and composition by Helen Skiera. 

The theme tune is by Max Pappenheim.

I once saw a woman eating an almond croissant with a knife and fork. Some things are weird enough that you should do them in private.

A story about getting on the property ladder, having your own space, safety; about class, neighbours, and sex. A weird and wonderful story of some “frankly very fucking odd” neighbours with dog-advert shiny hair, expensive jeans, and unexpected habits…

Strange stories for stranger times. With the contemporary world being the troubled, complicated, messy place it is – difficult enough for us to wrap our conscious minds around – we want to interrogate the ugly underbelly of what haunts our unconscious minds.

F**ked Up Bedtime Stories (for Adults) consists of 7 stories from 7 writers, read by leading actors and put out as a podcast and listened to by audiences right before bedtime, all exorcising different and unique horrors from our world and from our lives.

Commissioned and Produced by ETT

In its second series, The Othello Project seeks to explore the themes of Othello in contemporary Britain, empowering Muslim journalists and interlocutors to tell the story of Othello through the exploration of race, class, masculinity, gender and belonging. Its goal is to bridge the gap between the production and the way it influences the way we see and understand the world today – and vice versa.

Journalist and broadcaster Remona Aly hosts.

In this first episode, Remona and journalist Aina Khan head to Oldham to see the play up close. Speaking to director Richard Twyman and the the cast, we’ll hear how the Moor has been brought to the foreground of English Touring Theatre’s production.

We’ll also hear the essay from Professor Aaqil Ahmed, media consultant and former Head of Religion at The BBC and Channel 4, on what being a Muslim in Britain means for him.

The Othello Project is created by English Touring Theatre and is kindly supported by Amal (a programme of the Saïd Foundation).

Music played (Creative Commons):
Tours – Enthusiast
Black Ant – Fater Lee
The Insider – Right
Lee Rosevere – All the Answers
nisei23 – Drowned in Space
nisei23 – 303