Did you miss Clarissa?

Clarissa was a BBC radio play a few years ago where RA voiced the rake, Lovelace (Loveless). The original book was practically the first novel in the English language and is very, very long. It tells the story of the innocent heiress, Clarissa, who is being forced to marry an undesirable suitor by her brother. Lovelace helps her to escape - but only because he lusts after her himself. When she refuses to succumb to his wooing, he rapes her. She fades and dies and Lovelace realises what he has done. His best friend, Jack, is so angry that he challenges him to a duel and kills him because Lovelace does not defend himself.

All sexy rakes in subsequent romantic novels/bodice-rippers have been based on Lovelace. The radio play was very well done and RA gave a marvellous performance but I could only listen to it once because I found it very disturbing. Most fans missed it, of course, which is a pity. But, here is a link to a load of extracts. Look down the list for all those headings starting with 'Lovelace'. What a shame you can't buy it as a DVD. Did anyone else hear it at the time?

https://soundcloud.com/barsine_ar

PS You can find an old BBC drama series of the book on YT with Sean Bean as Lovelace. Again, it is well done, but SB just cannot shake his Yorkshire accent which spoiled it a bit for me.