The Complete George Smiley Radio Dramas: BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatization

John le Carré

Jun 2016 · BBC Digital Audio · Narrated by Full Cast and Simon Russell Beale

About this audiobook

The complete collection of acclaimed BBC Radio dramas based on John le Carre's bestselling novels, starring Simon Russell Beale as George Smiley.

With a star cast including Kenneth Cranham, Eleanor Bron, Brian Cox, Ian MacDiarmid, Anna Chancellor, Hugh Bonneville and Lindsay Duncan, these enthralling dramatisations perfectly capture the atmosphere of le Carre's taut, thrilling spy novels.

Call for the Dead is the first Smiley novel, which sees him looking into an apparent suicide only to uncover a murderous conspiracy;

A Murder of Quality finds Smiley investigating a murder in a private school;

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold introduces Alec Leamas, a British intelligence officer whose East Berlin network is in tatters;

The Looking Glass War features former spy Fred Leiser, lured back from retirement to investigate a claim that Soviet missiles are being installed close to the West German border;

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is the first book in the Karla trilogy, and sees Smiley searching for a mole who has infiltrated the Circus;

The Honourable Schoolboy sees Smiley determined to destroy his nemesis, Karla, and his spy networks;

Smiley's People finds George Smiley called out of retirement to exorcise some Cold War ghosts from his clandestine past;

The Secret Pilgrim sees Smiley invited to dine with the eager new recruits at the Circus. He offers them his thoughts on espionage and, in doing so, prompts a former colleague to re-examine his own eventful secret life.

'A radio triumph...Simon Russell Beale's pitch-perfect master spy' - "Financial Times".


©2016 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2016 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Ratings and reviews

It really doesn't get any better. If espionage turns your screws, then it's full steam ahead here. The BBC at it's best, every character jumps into your ear and puts you in a room with them. Buy this excellent value audiobook

Excellent dramatisation

Excellent dramatization

About the author

John le Carré was born in 1931. For six decades, he wrote novels that came to define our age. The son of a confidence trickster, he spent his childhood between boarding school and the London underworld. At sixteen he found refuge at the university of Bern, then later at Oxford. A spell of teaching at Eton led him to a short career in British Intelligence (MI5&6). He published his debut novel, Call for the Dead, in 1961 while still a secret servant. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, secured him a worldwide reputation, which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogy Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People. At the end of the Cold War, le Carré widened his scope to explore an international landscape including the arms trade and the War on Terror. His memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel, was published in 2016 and the last George Smiley novel, A Legacy of Spies, appeared in 2017. He died on 12 December 2020.