Daughters and Sons

A dark domestic comedy by one of English literature’s most distinctive and idiosyncratic authors Life in the Ponsonby household is an emotional battleground, where tyrannical grandmother Sabine and her equally despotic daughter Hetta struggle to control the fate of the family. Caught in the crossfire are Sabine’s son John, a self-absorbed novelist; his five children, Clare, France, Chilton, Victor and Muriel; and Muriel’s beleagured governesses. When John’s daughter, France, completes her first novel, she is persuaded by her father to publish it under a pseudonym to spare him the embarrassment of being overshadowed by his own flesh and blood. This act of selflessness sparks a series of deceptions, misunderstandings and manipulations: culminating in a family crisis which plays out across the dining-room table over the course of one hair-raising and hilarious dinner party... First published in 1937, Ivy Compton-Burnett’s deft dissection of a dysfunctional Victorian family was acclaimed by contemporary critics and admired by Virginia Woolf for its ‘bitter truth and intense originality’. This sublime adaptation, featuring an ensemble cast including Patricia Lawrence and Ann Mitchell, breathes new life into her brilliant, blackly comic tale. Production credits Written by Ivy Compton-Burnett Adapted by John Spurling Directed by Liane Aukin Piano: Martin Goldstein Cast Sabine Ponsonby – Patricia Lawrence Hetta – Ann Mitchell John – John Rowe Clare – Tessa Worsley France – Kathryn Hunter Victor – Simon Hewitt Chilton – Graham Blockey Muriel: – Pamela Moiseiwitsch Miss Bunyan – Merelina Kendall Gertrude – Narissa Knights Charity Marcon – Anne Jameson Stephen – Bernard Brown Alfred – Christopher Good Sir Rowland Seymour – Arnold Diamond Jane – Ellen McIntosh Evelyn – Daniel Webb Edith Hallam – Vivian Pickles Dr Chaucer – Robert Lang Miss Blake – Fidelis Morgan Mr Russell – John Forbes-Robertson First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 10 May-9 June 1985 © 2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd