A series of five dramas by Katie Hims.

After developing the means to make long distance radio transmissions, Marconi devoted much of the rest of his life to listening out for the voices of the dead. If radio can conjure a voice disembodied in space, he expected, as have legions of people since, that radio can capture the voices of those disembodied in other dimensions – in time, in ethereal planes. As technology becomes more sensitive, more diverse, more obscure, there are pioneers always ready to harness the new to the service of this age old fascination.

This is the story of five generations of a family whose members can and can’t hear the dead. It’s an enterprise to explore the myriad ties, stories and quirks that bind families through the generations, across the spectrum of meanings of ‘listening to the dead’. Between allowing the echoes of a beloved’s voice to live on, and the notion that the dead can engage in communicating new information, are vast grey areas of misinformation that beguile the bereaved and thrill the imagination.

Enoch’s Machine – Enoch Cartwright, Victorian gentleman scientist, invests everything in the development of a machine to record the voice of his dead daughter, Emily, unaware that his living daughter Clara talks to her sister every night.

Four Sons – It’s 1914, and Clara Tully, a Leeds baker’s wife and the proud mother of four beautiful boys, knows the war won’t be over by Christmas. And she knows a much darker secret besides.

The Great Pretender – A small-time 1950s psychic hungers for fame, despite his inability to read the thoughts of anyone, let alone the woman he works with.

Ruby’s Shoes – Ruby Tully grows up unaware of her clairvoyant heritage, and finds that her gift is a curse in an age of experimental psychology.

Tuesday’s Child –
Tuesday grows up assuming her mother abandoned her, despite the voices in her dreams that try to tell her otherwise.