The Old Boys & other stories

A collection of some of William Trevor’s most acclaimed works, as heard on BBC Radio William Trevor was an Irish literary legend. In a 40-year career, he published a multiplicity of novels, plays, and short stories, and received numerous awards and honours. He was often compared to Chekhov for his extraordinary insight into the human condition, and in these eleven tales, he delves into the inner lives of ordinary people, with all their passions, secrets, fears and disappointments. We open this collection with two dramatisations taken from the BBC tribute programme I Am a Storyteller: William Trevor at 80, interspersed with excerpts from John Tusa’s 2005 interview with Trevor. Beyond the Pale, which garnered the author his first Giles Cooper Award, centres around four English tourists in Ireland whose complacency is shattered by an encounter with a troubled stranger. The Penthouse Apartment sees a shy spinster’s quiet life violently disrupted when she visits her neighbours’ opulent home. The Hill Bachelors tells the poignant tale of a young man caught between desire and circumstance. Sacred Statues sees a sculptor’s wife hatching a shocking plan to save the family from penury... My House in Umbria focuses on a romantic novelist who finds new purpose caring for three survivors of a train bomb. Autumn Sunshine, the winner of Trevor’s second Giles Cooper Award, concerns a recently bereaved canon, his estranged daughter and her objectionable boyfriend. Set in 1847, The News From Ireland revolves around an unhappy young governess, newly arrived at the Pulvertafts’ Irish estate. Adapted from Trevor’s Hawthornden Prize-winning 1964 comic novel, The Old Boys finds schoolboy rivalries resurfacing when the septuagenarian members of an alumni association convene to elect a new chair. A woman is haunted by visions of her potential replacement in The Mark 2 Wife. In dark comedy The Boarding House, a group of misfits mourn the loss of their landlord. An old Irish schoolteacher re-assesses her life in Attracta. Blending comedy, tragedy and pathos, these absorbing dramas feature a host of seasoned performers including Prunella Scales, Frances Jeater, Maurice Denham, Mary Wimbush, Cecil Parker, Cyril Cusack, Derek Waring and Eileen Walsh. Text copyright © 1964 (The Old Boys), 1965 (The Boarding House), 1967 (The Penthouse Apartment), 1968 (The Mark 2 Wife), 1977 (Attracta), 1980 (Beyond the Pale), 1982 (Autumn Sunshine), 1986 (The News from Ireland), 1991 (My House in Umbria), 2000 (The Hill Bachelors), 2002 (Sacred Statues) © 2026 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2026 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd