麻豆约拍

Over the course of the 19th century, murder - in reality a rarity - became ubiquitous: transformed into novels, into broadsides and ballads, into theatre and melodrama.

Seeing therein the foundation of modern notions of crime, Judith Flanders explores this fascination with deadly violence by relating some of the century's most gripping and gruesome cases and the ways in which they were commercially exploited.

The decreasing age of the British population - in the 1820s half the country was under 25 - meant there was a lucrative market for lively entertainment. Children flocked to penny gaffs: unlicensed theatres which offered cheap entertainment, often dramatisations of notorious murders.

One of the most infamous, the Red Barn Murder of 1828, was being performed as a melodrama even before the prime suspect was put on trial.

Written by Judith Flanders.

Read by Robert Glenister.

Abridged by David Jackson Young.

Producer: Kirsteen Cameron

First broadcast on 麻豆约拍 Radio 4 in January 2011.