Written by BBC Radio 4
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 128 Kbps

Bleak Expectations is a Radio 4 comedy, whose first series premiered in August 2007.

It is a pastiche of the works of Charles Dickens – such as Bleak House and Great Expectations, from which it derives its name – and costume dramas set in the same period, and parodies several of their plot devices (such as cruel guardians, idyllic childhoods interrupted, lifelong friendships, earnest young people), whilst simultaneously tending toward a highly surreal humour along the lines of The Goon Show.

The series has also demonstrated a fondness for allusions to and parodies of the films of Alec Guinness, particularly the Edwardian satire Kind Hearts and Coronets.