F**ked Up Bedtime Stories (for Adults)

by Ella Hickson Read by Maxine Peake Directed by Jennifer Bakst, with sound design and composition by Helen Skiera.  The theme tune was composed by Max Pappenheim. CONTENT WARNING - This audio drama contains disturbing scenes and sexual references, and is recommended for people aged 16+ I once saw a woman eating an almond croissant with a knife and fork. Some things are weird enough that you...

Written by Sonya Kelly Read by Justine Mitchell Directed by Richard Twyman, with sound design and composition by Xana. The theme tune was composed by Max Pappenheim. CONTENT WARNING - This audio drama contains disturbing scenes and is recommended for people aged 16+ Tim downed his Don Perignon, and headed for the lift, out of the life he’d been living, and into the unknown. His future was in the w...

Written by Kwame Owusu Read by Jamael Westman Directed by Jennifer Bakst, with sound design and composition by Helen Atkinson. The theme tune was composed by Max Pappenheim. CONTENT WARNING - This audio drama contains disturbing scenes and is recommended for people aged 16+ The world's on fire. Temperatures rising. Costs rising. Cruelty rising. We've had enough. When Jeremiah is captured at a prot...

Written by Yasmin Joseph Read by Tamara Lawrance Directed by Jennifer Bakst, with sound design and composition by Xana. The theme tune was composed by Max Pappenheim. CONTENT WARNING - This audio drama contains disturbing scenes and is recommended for people aged 16+ You carry the wound. I'm so sorry. But you carry the wound. Lots of us do. Sasha has just moved into her new home. Finally. Her own...

Written 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. CONTENT WARNING - This audio drama contains disturbing scenes and is recommended for people aged 16+ This refusal to be contained meant my people remained boundless – in geography and in imagination. A great-great-uncle on my mother’s side gr...

Written by Francis Turnly Read by David Harewood Directed by Jennifer Bakst, with sound design and composition by Helen Skiera. The theme tune was composed by Max Pappenheim. CONTENT WARNING - This audio drama contains disturbing scenes and is recommended for people aged 16+ Britain is full. Offshoring is the most practical and humane way for Britain to protect its borders. And I’m proud to have v...

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 listen...

Heathstead by Simon Stephens Read by Stephen Mangan Directed by Richard Twyman, with sound design and composition by Helen Skiera. The theme tune was composed by Max Pappenheim. CONTENT WARNING - This audio drama contains disturbing scenes and is recommended for people aged 16+   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 worl...

"Listen only to my voice. Listen to the sound it makes. Concentrate on the next word: NUMB" It's been a stressful time. You want to unwind. That's understandable. You want to escape. You deserve it. To lose yourself... Dissolve.. Disintegrate... Break down. Don't be scared. Just focus on the voice. The voice is the only thing you can hear. The voice is your whole world. Don't be scared...&nb...

"This wasn’t the life Mr and Mrs Olanrewaju conjured up in their dreams. When they thought of Stratford, they pictured the Olympic Park, not a cramped flat in a rat-ridden tower block" Rotimi is born to loving, if poor, parents. When they see an opportunity to provide him with all the things they never had, they take it - at which point things take a very dark turn indeed. Part horror, part s...

"He sits in the middle of her room, dizzy and weirded out. He stares at her. Neither of them knows what to do with the other. This goes on for a number of days until the man’s mother takes action. She decides to love him." This is a story about a dog. It is also a story about love, and abandonment, and hope. About anger, and bitterness, and whether the fish are coming back. About gu...

“Don’t panic, it’s not real. Don’t move, it’s can’t hurt you. You don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to, it’s your dream, you can go anywhere." Vee suffers from sleep paralysis. No big deal right? Loads of people do. Except, nothing is quite as it seems - and with the barriers between worlds becoming more and more porous in these troubled times, things start creeping through that shouldn't...

"You'll never be a grown up if you can't face the dark, it said. Be brave. Be brave" When his marriage fails to survive the lockdown, a man moves into his Mother's empty house. It's too big for one person - a strange and unsettling place to isolate in. But something far stranger - and infinitely more terrifying - is about to occur. Anthony Neilson's The Ground Floor takes you o...

"The story begins The Day The World Stood Still. Do you remember that day? The day time stopped" Maggie is a magpie of a person - she loves pretty her some pretty thangs. She loves admiring pretty thangs, collecting pretty thangs... When lockdown begins, Maggie decides to buy a sewing machine, determined to surround herself with beautiful clothes, made by her very own hand. She and the machine sta...

"The government had been looking for an angle, they said. These things would become symbols of hope. Ninety of them. From Plymouth to Carlisle." This is not a heartwarming story about a sweet old lady. This is not a story about heroes, and martyrs, and knights of the realm. This is a story about the true meaning of dedication. A sharp satire bursting with dark humour cutting insight - Tim Crouch's...

F **ked Up Bedtime Stories (for adults) features seven short stories written by Alissa Anne Jeun Yi , Dipo Baruwa-Etti ,  Tim Crouch ,  Vivienne Franzmann ,  Matilda Ibini ,  Amy Jephta  and  Anthony Neilson. We asked these 7 brilliant and provocative writers to tackle the strangeness of our nighttime imaginings and twist the familiar form of bedtime stories into some...