Pin Drop Podcast: Stephen Fry reads Miss Featherstone and the Beast by Bethan Roberts from A Short Affair
Stephen Fry presented the inaugural RA & Pin Drop Short Story Award to Bethan Roberts for Ms. Featherstone and The Beast. In June 2015, at a special awards ceremony at the Royal Academy of Arts, Stephen Fry narrated the winning story to a rapt audience, which you can listen to below, and commented:
“Pin Drop is a wonderfully innovative scheme that unites the written arts with the visual. I really believe in Pin Drop and felt immensely rewarded to be involved.”
From all of the superb entries received, we discovered a truly exceptional winner and our choice was unanimous. Bethan Robert’s evocative story Ms. Featherstone and The Beast, is both tender and poignant. It deals with big themes – love, war and loss of innocence – with a restrained lightness of touch. And, like all the best short stories, its impact lingered and continues to do so.
Bethan Roberts is an award-winning author. Her novel, My Policeman, the story of a 1950s policeman, his wife, and his male lover, is being made into a movie rumoured to be starring Harry Styles and Lily James. Bethan won the inaugural RA & Pin Drop Short Story Award 2015 – listen to the story being narrated in our Pindrop Podcast with Stephen Fry.
