The Fable of the Bees

David Timson has worked extensively in BBC Radio Drama since winning the BBC Student Prize in 1971. He has made over a thousand broadcasts and has worked regularly for Naxos AudioBooks as actor, director and writer since 1997. For Naxos AudioBooks, he has recorded the complete Sherlock Holmes stories, five Dickens novels, and a complete unabridged reading of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. In conjunction with Naxos AudioBooks and Cambridge University Press, David has directed five of the successful audio series of Shakespeare’s plays. In 2001, he won the Spoken Word Publishers Association Award for Best Original Production with The History of Theatre, which he wrote, as well as Best Drama Production with Richard III (with Kenneth Branagh), which he directed. In 2002 he won the Audiobook of the Year Award for his reading of A Study in Scarlet. Since 2004, he has been a teacher at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Will Kirk trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and was a recipient of the BBC Carleton Hobbs Award. His theatre credits include The Snow Queen (Storyhouse), The Sicilian Courtesan (Richard Burton Theatre Company), Between Eternity and Time (Sherman Theatre and Richard Burton Theatre Company), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (The Marlowe Society) and Ginger Beer (King’s Head Theatre). His television and film credits include The Gathering (Channel 4) and Serial Cheat (Sketchlight Films) and his selected radio credits include The Shell Seekers, Middlemarch, A Charles Paris Mystery, The Pallisers, Stalingrad, The Mill on the Floss, Henry IV Part II (BBC Radio), Doctor Who: Anti-Genesis, Torchwood: God Among Us (Big Finish Productions).

Justin Avoth was born in Cardiff and grew up in Shropshire. He trained at RADA and has worked for over 30 years in theatre, television, film and radio. His work in theatre includes productions at the National Theatre, the RSC, Hampstead Theatre, the Almeida Theatre, Headlong Theatre Company, the Orange Tree Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, Southwark Playhouse, the Print Room, Curve Theatre, the Royal Exchange Theatre, Birmingham Rep, The Wrestling School and Fiery Angel among others. Justin’s work in television has been similarly varied, with performances in Ripper Street, Bad Education, Medici: Masters of Florence, Dracula, The Borgias, Merlin, Spooks, Father Brown, Judge John Deed, Whitechapel and Persuasion. His radio work includes many audio dramas.