Shows / Chesterton Radio
Chesterton Radio
Welcome to Chesterton Radio—where stories, ideas, and wonder meet. Discover original fiction, Father Brown mysteries, classic radio drama, literary deep dives, thoughtful conversations, and daily Morning Prayer inspired by G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, and the enduring tradition of Christian storytelling. Broadcasting from the little station on Commercial Street in Atchison, Kansas, Chesterton Radio offers a daily refuge from the noise of modern life. Whether you're drawn to timeless…
Episodes
Chesterton RadioThe Artificial Engineer
AI learned to write. Then it learned to code. Now it is beginning to design. For an experienced mechanical engineer, that raises a much more practical…
Chesterton RadioThe Mystery Theater Companion #3: “The Bullet”
Two old Army buddies meet again after nine years. There is only one problem: one of them is dead. Tonight, on The Mystery Theater Companion, we return to the…
Chesterton RadioLes Misérables: When the Music Comes Home
We’ve heard this before. Near the end of Les Misérables, Javert confronts an act of mercy that shatters everything he believes about justice—and suddenly the…
Chesterton RadioWho’s on First? — The Joke America Never Stopped Telling
A confusing office meeting ended with an unexpected question: “You’ve never seen Who’s on First?” When a new student worker from Eastern Europe didn’t…
Chesterton RadioThe Saturday Night Theatre Companion: The Investigation of a Murder
The Saturday Night Theatre Companion returns to Eric Saward’s The Investigation of a Murder, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 as part of Saturday Night Theatre…
Chesterton RadioDeal with Murder — The Perfect Alibi Nobody Can Prove | Saturday Night Theatre Companion
What if you were innocent of murder—and had the perfect alibi? Now suppose the only people who could prove it had disappeared. Peter Cornish’s Deal with…
Chesterton RadioThe Mystery Theater Companion #2: The Return of the Moresbys
The door had been open for only one night. On January 7, 1974, CBS Radio Mystery Theater stepped through it—and into the supernatural. 🎧 LISTEN TO THE ORIGINAL…
Chesterton RadioDAYBREAK | Stretch Forth Thy Hand
DAYBREAK | Stretch Forth Thy Hand It is Monday morning, September 7—and Labor Day in America. In today’s Daybreak, Adrian and Clara begin with Luke 6:6–11 from…
Chesterton RadioThe Mystery Theater Companion #1: The Old Ones Are Hard to Kill
On January 6, 1974, a door creaked open—and network radio drama came back to life. The Mystery Theater Companion begins at the beginning with CBS Radio Mystery…
Chesterton RadioONE LAST WEEKEND OF SUMMER
There was a time when Labor Day meant one last trip to the lake, one last picnic, one last round of golf—and one last family vacation before summer slipped…
Chesterton RadioWedding Songs | From “True Love” to “I Will Be Here”
What makes a love song become a wedding song? For one family, the answer stretches across generations. Paul’s parents chose Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly’s “True…
Chesterton RadioDaybreak — Where Two or Three Are Gathered
What makes a collection of people a community? On this Sunday edition of Daybreak, Adrian and Clara begin with Matthew 18:15–20, where Christ gives us a…
Chesterton RadioTHE ODYSSEY — WHY DOES ODYSSEUS WANT TO GO HOME?
After Troy, after the monsters, after the gods, after temptation, shipwreck, glory, suffering, and years of wandering, Odysseus wants one thing. He wants to go…
Chesterton RadioSPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY — WOULD YOU STILL BE A HERO IF NOBODY KNEW?
What is a hero when nobody is watching? Spider-Man: Brand New Day finds Peter Parker confronting a question more difficult than defeating a supervillain: Is…
Chesterton RadioFive Little Pigs — Can We Trust What We Remember?
Five witnesses remember the same afternoon. The same dead man. The same woman condemned for his murder. And yet they remember five different stories. In this…
Chesterton RadioThe Charismatic Voice — The Opera Singer Who Taught YouTube How to Listen
What happens when a classically trained opera singer encounters Freddie Mercury, Ronnie James Dio, Floor Jansen, Jinjer—and eventually the almost impossible…
Chesterton RadioThe Trains Don’t Stop Here Anymore
Sometimes history doesn’t announce that an age has ended. One day, you simply discover that the trains don’t stop there anymore. In this Chesterton Radio Deep…
Chesterton RadioA Man Who Dies Twice
Albert Campion has attended the funeral of Pig Peters before. So, when the thoroughly unpleasant man appears to have died again five months later, Campion…
Chesterton RadioEvil Under the Sun — Murder in Broad Daylight
Agatha Christie usually needs very little darkness to hide a murder. In Evil Under the Sun, Hercule Poirot goes on holiday to a beautiful seaside resort—a…
Chesterton RadioDaybreak — When the System Forgets the Person
The disciples are hungry. They pick a little grain. And immediately someone asks whether they have broken the rules. In Luke 6:1–6, Jesus does something more…
Chesterton RadioWhy Great Stories Sometimes Need a Doorway
A Chesterton Radio listener nearly switched off a conversation about a 400-year-old English play. Instead, he stayed — and discovered that the discussion…
Chesterton RadioDaybreak — Old Wine, New Wineskins
It’s Friday morning at the Little Station on Commercial Street. Adrian and Clara begin with Christ’s curious words about old wine and new wineskins, remember…
Chesterton RadioChuck Schaden: The Man Who Kept the Radio Playing
Chuck Schaden did more than play old radio shows. Through Those Were the Days, Nostalgia Digest, countless interviews, and the remarkable Metro Golden Memories…
Chesterton RadioThe Night They Deliver the Money | R.D. Wingfield | BBC Radio Thriller
It should have been a routine night at the bank. A large consignment of money is due to arrive, and manager Mr. Robbins has procedures to follow, forms to…
Chesterton RadioThe Demon King — J. B. Priestley’s Strange Boxing Day Tale
It is Boxing Day in Bruddersford, and the local pantomime is heading for disaster. The company is struggling; the audience is restless—and the actor who is…
Chesterton RadioWhen the Rules Disappeared The Real Moscow Behind East of the Map: The Fax Machine
In the first episode of EAST OF THE MAP, the trouble begins with something wonderfully mundane: an American company’s missing shipment and a fax machine that…
Chesterton RadioThe End of the World Was Run from Omaha
Tonight, The Common Room is on the road in Omaha, Nebraska. At first glance, Omaha seems an unlikely place to begin a story about the end of the world. But…
Chesterton RadioThe Defenders — Philip K. Dick’s Chilling Vision of a War the Machines Refused to Fight
For eight years, humanity has lived underground. Above them, the nuclear war continues. Or so they have been told. The surface belongs to machines now—robot…
Chesterton RadioThe Zeal of Thy House | Dorothy L. Sayers
What happens when the work of your hands becomes the measure of your worth? Dorothy L. Sayers’ The Zeal of Thy House takes us into the rebuilding of Canterbury…
Chesterton RadioWhen the Alarm Rings and Nobody Moves
The warning has been given. Something is wrong. And yet nobody moves. Why? In this Common Room Deep Dive, we explore normalcy bias — the strange and deeply…
Chesterton RadioWhat Does It Mean to Be Human in the Age of AI?
Artificial intelligence can write, calculate, imitate voices, create images, diagnose problems and perform tasks once thought to require distinctly human…
Chesterton RadioThe Enemy Below: The Night History Broke In
On Saturday evening, November 23, 1963, listeners across Britain turned on the BBC Home Service. The world was still reeling from the assassination of…
Chesterton RadioWhat Is College for in the Age of AI?
Artificial intelligence can write the essay, solve the equation, generate the code, summarize the book—and increasingly perform the very tasks students have…
Chesterton RadioOur West Ladyton Branch | R. D. Wingfield
Long before R. D. Wingfield created the world of Detective Inspector Jack Frost, he was writing ingenious dramas for BBC radio. Our West Ladyton Branch, first…
Chesterton RadioThree Days of Frost | Before David Jason, There Was Leslie Sands
Three days before Christmas. Bitter cold. A missing child. And an untidy, irreverent detective named Jack Frost. This Deep Dive includes spoilers. We invite…
Chesterton RadioThrough the Perilous Fight
Before it was a national anthem, it was a question: Was the flag still there? In September 1814, Francis Scott Key watched from the waters outside Baltimore as…
Chesterton RadioAl Jolson: The Greatest Entertainer America Forgot
There was a time when Al Jolson was arguably the biggest entertainer in America. He conquered vaudeville and Broadway, helped usher Hollywood into the age of…
Chesterton RadioDolly Parton: The Girl from the Tennessee Mountains
Before the rhinestones, the movies, Dollywood, and songs known around the world, there was a girl from the mountains of East Tennessee—and a radio. In this…
Chesterton RadioDaybreak: The Weightier Things
Good morning from the little station on Commercial Street. On this Tuesday edition of Daybreak, we begin with a few words from today’s Gospel that seem…
Chesterton RadioThe Dying Boy and the Fall of an Empire
In October 1912, the Imperial Family of Russia retreated to a hunting lodge in the forests of Spała, Poland. It was supposed to be a holiday. Instead…
Chesterton RadioThe Blue Lamp | On the Road in George Dixon’s London
Tonight, The Common Room is on the road. We’ve left the Little Station on Commercial Street behind and crossed the Atlantic to the streets of West London—the…
Chesterton RadioSunday Night Benny: A Day at the Beach
Tonight, on Chesterton Radio, we’re heading to the beach with Jack Benny. We were looking for a Sunday Night Benny adventure we haven’t played before, and this…
Chesterton RadioOperation Pedestal — The Convoy That Saved Malta
Saturday Night Theatre • BBC Radio • 31 August 1974 • 1 hr 28 min In August 1942, Malta was running out of food, fuel, ammunition—and time. Britain’s answer…
Chesterton RadioJohn Wayne Before He Was John Wayne
Tonight, The Common Room leaves the Little Station on Commercial Street and broadcasts from Brooklyn, Iowa — the small town where a boy named Marion Morrison…
Chesterton RadioRebecca: The Story That Never Let Us Go
“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” Few opening lines have cast a longer spell. In this episode of The Common Room, we return to Daphne du…
Chesterton RadioLes Misérables: From Orson Welles to Broadway
A stolen loaf of bread. Nineteen years in prison. A bishop’s extraordinary act of mercy. And two men whose radically different ideas of justice will pursue…
Chesterton RadioWho Is Writing Your Story?
“Do not let the algorithm write your story.” That warning from Pope Leo XIV is the question hanging over Benedictine College’s 2026 Symposium on Transforming…
Chesterton RadioPet Sounds: The Kids Who Learned to Listen
In 1966, Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys created Pet Sounds—an album whose intricate harmonies, unexpected instruments and extraordinary studio craftsmanship…
Chesterton RadioThe Blue Cross — A Father Brown Mystery by G. K. Chesterton
A celebrated detective. A master criminal. A trail of broken windows, spilled soup, and strangely misplaced signs. And in the middle of it all, an unassuming…
Chesterton RadioDaybreak: Goodbye, Mr. Chips — and the Lives That Quietly Matter
Good morning from Chesterton Radio — the little station on Commercial Street in Atchison, Kansas. This is Daybreak, our morning gathering for the Gospel, life…
Chesterton RadioCasablanca: We’ll Always Have Paris
Of all the films Hollywood has given us, few have escaped the screen quite like Casablanca. More than eighty years later, we still know Rick’s Café. We still…
Chesterton RadioThe Desert Song: Romance, Rebellion & The Railroad Hour
Tonight, in The Common Room, we follow The Desert Song across a remarkable century of popular entertainment. Sigmund Romberg’s sweeping operetta opened on…
Chesterton RadioDaybreak: The Corn Is Green — Who Saw Something in You?
Good morning from the little station on Commercial Street. Today on Daybreak, we begin with the morning paper—stories from Atchison, Benedictine College, the…
Chesterton RadioWhat’s Behind the Tapestries? Notre Dame’s Columbus Murals
Twelve paintings have stood inside Notre Dame’s Main Building since the 1880s. Today, they are hidden behind tapestries. Why? This Common Room Deep Dive goes…
Chesterton RadioMy Dearest Angel: The Marriage Behind the Crown
On December 21, 1963, BBC listeners settled in for My Dearest Angel, R. F. Delderfield’s portrait of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert—an 81-minute drama…
Chesterton RadioThe Little Prince: What Grown-Ups Forget
A child draws a boa constrictor swallowing an elephant. The grown-ups see a hat. And with that little misunderstanding, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry opens one of…
Chesterton RadioThey Fell in Love Through a Jukebox — In 1951
In 1951, Night Beat told a remarkably modern love story. George walks up to a jukebox and hears Julie’s voice. She’s miles away, working for a music service…
Chesterton RadioThe Last Train from Bellweather: Why We Still Love a Mystery in the Dark
A railway station is closing for good. A murder reaches back to the war. A young woman returns twenty-one years after she disappeared. And somewhere beyond the…
Chesterton RadioDaybreak: What Is Worth Holding Onto?
Good morning from the little station on Commercial Street in Atchison, Kansas. What is worth holding onto? That’s the question running quietly through this…
Chesterton RadioFrom Dickens to Substack: Is the Future of Books an Old Idea?
What if the future of publishing looks surprisingly like its past? After more than a decade away from fiction, billionaire novelist and philanthropist…