BBC Radio 4 has commissioned a week of programming to mark the 100th anniversary of the publication of A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh. The series, titled Winnie-the-Pooh 100, will broadcast daily from Monday 12 October to Friday 16 October at 11.45am. The sequence is introduced by Her Majesty the Queen, who recorded her contribution at Pooh Sticks Bridge in Ashdown Forest.
The schedule consists of five 15 minute readings from the original Winnie-the-Pooh collection. These readings are produced by Reduced Listening, with Kate MacDonald serving as producer and Jeremy Mortimer handling abridgments. The cast of readers includes Sir Lenny Henry, Ambika Mod, Jim Broadbent, Toby Jones, and Hayley Atwell. Alison Hindell, Commissioner for Drama and Fiction at BBC Radio 4, confirmed the cast and the focus on the landscape of Ashdown Forest.
The programming concludes on Saturday 17 October with a production for Drama on 4 titled Save the Hundred Acre Wood. Written by Edward Kemp, the play is based on the campaign to protect Ashdown Forest and the role of Christopher Robin Milne in those preservation efforts. The play focuses on the real life history of the forest that served as the basis for the fictional Hundred Acre Wood.
The readings and the drama are scheduled to air in October to coincide with the centenary of the original stories. The production of the readings was managed by Reduced Listening. The series follows the original publication date of the first Winnie-the-Pooh collection.