Radio Show Audio Books

Baltimore, 1770, and shopkeeper Samuel Oliphant is worried. There are weevils in his biscuits, the impending war looks set to impact badly on his business ("dead people tend to shop less") and to cap it all, a pair of British soldiers have been billeted on him.

Captain Brimshaw is ineffectual but decent, while Sergeant McGurk is a corrupt multiple amputee. Together with Olpihant's family - elder daughter Cora and her insufferably pompous fiance Ezekiel; younger daughter Mary, a passionate revolutionary; and son Joshua, who is large and dim - they make life increasingly difficult for the beleaguered Samuel.

In these six episodes, Samuel plays host to the two redcoats, Mary tries to start a mutiny at her sister's wedding (while the bride drinks herself under the table), and Samuel's crooked brother turns up and inveigles Joshua into a prize fight. In addition, revolutionary orator Nathaniel Hopkins arrives and has designs on Mary, Cora discovers she is pregnant, and feared British commander General Venables rides into town demanding executions at sunset (so that he has all day to look forward to them.)

Starring Jay Tarses, James Fleet, and Andy Hamilton, Revolting People is a feast of daft puns, literary silliness and bayonet-sharp political satire.