Jeremy Irons to Read T.S. Eliot on New Year’s Day

Jeremy Irons returns to Radio 4 after the success of last year’s T. S. Eliot readings on Christmas Day. On New Year’s Day 2017, he will read from the complete collected English-language poems of T. S. Eliot over five periods throughout the day.

The full schedule has now been released for the readings on BBC Radio 4 by Jeremy Irons from the complete canon of TS Eliot, across 1st January 2017.

The timings of the five broadcasts are:

09.00 Prufrock and Other Observations

13.30 Poems 1920

14.00 The Waste Land

17.00 The Hollow Men, Ash Wednesday and the Ariel poems

19.15 Four Quartets

Shortly after the live broadcasts, the readings will be available on the BBC iPlayer

Each section will be presented by Martha Kearney and a special guest. They will explore the excitement and the achievement of Eliot’s language – from the early work including The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, through poems like Ash Wednesday and Journey of the Magi, and will celebrate works that transformed the literary landscape such as The Waste Land and Four Quartets. The acclaimed novelist Jeanette Winterson will be one of the guests joining Martha for this celebration of the enduring power of Eliot’s writing.