Paradise Lost & Paradise Regained cover art

Paradise Lost & Paradise Regained

Two BBC Radio 4 dramatisations

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Paradise Lost & Paradise Regained

By: John Milton
Narrated by: Denis Quilley, Full Cast, Ian McDiarmid, Robert Glenister
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The highly-acclaimed BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Milton's epic poem telling the story of the fall of man, and also its sequel, "Paradise Regained".

Out of chaos shall come order and out of darkness shall come light. Paradise is lost - and then regained.

John Milton's epic, biblically inspired poems are wonderfully dramatised for BBC Radio starring Denis Quilley as Milton, Ian McDiarmid as Satan and Robert Glenister as Christ, enhanced by specially composed music.

First published in 1667, Paradise Lost describes Satan's plot to ruin God's new and most favoured creation, Mankind, and recounts the temptation of Adam and Eve and their banishment from the Garden of Eden.

Paradise Regained, published in 1671, tells of the temptation of Christ by Satan as he wanders in the wilderness for forty days and nights.

Full cast:
Milton: Denis Quilley
Satan: Ian McDiarmid
Christ: Robert Glenister
Raphael: John Rowe
God: Godfrey Kenton
Adam: Linus Roache
Michael: Mark Straker
Abdiel/Andrew: Julian Rhind-Tutt
Nisroc: John Church
Simon/Angel: Matthew Morgan
Belial: Steve Hodson
Angel: David Thorpe

 Classics Literature & Fiction Poetry
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All stars
Most relevant
Giving depth and character to the Bible, wonderfully executed by the writer and inspiring by the narration 🥰

Simply devine

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...but you can't listen to this for long stretches. It was originally 50 radio episodes, so every 13 minutes there's an introduction and cast list, which completely breaks the flow. I wish this version was available without these interruptions, as it would be 5* without them. However, if you listen in bite-sized portions, you can still appreciate this great production.

Beautifully performed...

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Great poem but didn't finish listening to this recording because it is abridged. I was not told this in the description. Also it seems the arguments before each book are not read. The books are decided into parts which is not in the original text. Readers can be quite irritating.

Abridged

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Paradise Lost is a poem of sound - it’s meant to be spoken out loud, or heard, not read on the page. That’s how you experience its extraordinary vivid energy & dynamism. It’s absolutely amazing. And the psychological penetration, the sadness, the subtlety. And contrary to what C. S. Lewis and many others thoughtlessly assumed, it’s not misogynistic: Milton’s Eve is sympathetic, complex, & acts because she wants agency, to be the best she can be.

This version is, I think, the best reading. The voices are unparalleled: Ian McDiarmid (the Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars) as Satan, Denis Quilley as the narrator. The energy never stops, carries you right through this thrilling poem.

Slightly abridged, but very unobtrusively: some long epic simile passages that aren’t key.

Nobody knows about Paradise Lost these days: I came to it by way of Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials, & an essay he wrote about Milton. It was Paradise Lost that galvanised Pullman’s creative life. Armando Iannucci, the great satirist (The Thick of It, David Copperfield) also studied Paradise Lost for his doctorate & was inspired by him.

Discover Milton. You’ll never look back.

Fabulous

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The good stuff - it is great having multiple voices reading Paradise Lost as sometimes reading it on your own it isn't always obvious who is speaking. All the actors do a good job on this recording

The not-so-good stuff - Paradise Lost has been abridged for this recording. In the early books, the passages omitted are few, and are largely those containing lists of classical references that modern audiences probably won't get. But by Book 5 (as far as I've got so far), there is more and more omitted, including more than an entire page at the end of Book 5 (almost as if they are desperate for Book 6 in the Milton to coincide with the start of Chapter 19 on this recording. Some chapters in the recording also end at the end of a line that is actually midway through a sentence. I don't really understand what the thought process was here.

Great reading but over-abridged

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