Lucy Speed and Sarah Mills
A Good Read
BBC
4.2 • 848 Ratings
🗓️ 24 March 2025
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
EVERYONE BRAVE IS FORGIVEN by Chris Cleave, chosen by Lucy Speed THE HUMAN FACTOR by Graham Greene, chosen by Harriett Gilbert 253 by Geoff Ryman, chosen by Sarah Mills
Former Eastenders and present-day Archers actor Lucy Speed and comedian Sarah Mills talk about books set in wartime London, a 1990s underground train, and Graham Greene's MI6.
Lucy's choice is Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave, Which tells the tale of Mary, a woman who becomes a teacher at the beginning of the war, only for her life to take some unexpected turns during the Blitz.
Sarah has selected 253 by Geoff Ryman, the novel originally published on the Internet which tells the stories of 253 passengers on a London Underground train. Harriett proposes a lesser known a Graham Greene novel, The Human Factor, which takes in apartheid South Africa and communism as well as espionage.
Producer for BBC Audio Bristol: Sally Heaven
Join the conversation on Instagram: agoodreadbbc
Photo: Louise Cole
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Things just swirling around my head. |
| 0:03.6 | Am I really the product of this? |
| 0:06.1 | Astonishing secrets uncovered by at-home DNA tests. |
| 0:11.0 | Little did I know what more was to come. |
| 0:13.4 | I'm Jenny Clemen and in the new series of The Gift, |
| 0:17.5 | we'll hear more stories emerging out of the ever-expanding global DNA database. |
| 0:22.8 | They didn't know that I was different. |
| 0:25.7 | You had kids together. |
| 0:27.0 | Yeah. |
| 0:27.5 | Then you met. |
| 0:28.3 | Then we met. |
| 0:29.2 | The Gift. |
| 0:30.1 | Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:34.3 | BBC Sounds, music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:38.3 | Hello, you love books, we love books, and we're going to share with you some of our favourites. |
| 0:44.1 | With me today is first the actor Lucy Speed, known among much else as Natalie in EastEnders, |
| 0:50.3 | a role she played for over a decade, and currently as Stella, in Radio 4 as The Archers. |
| 0:56.5 | Lucy's most recent stage appearance was in the UK tour of Steel Magnolias. |
| 1:01.6 | With her as the comedian and writer Sarah Mills, whose TV credits include The Last Leg |
| 1:06.7 | and Rosie Jones' disability extravaganza. |
| 1:10.2 | Sarah's recent Radio 4 series, The Bad BOD Squad, is available on BBC Sounds. |
| 1:16.7 | Lucy Speed, would you start us off? |
... |
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