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Audiobooks, film and stage versions of the set texts

A Christmas Carol and Macbeth are out of copyright, so free recordings are easy to find; An Inspector Calls is still in copyright. What LibriVox, the National Theatre Collection and the ERA licence give a school, and when to press play.

Quick guide for teachers · 4 minute read

Read aloud at a steady pace, Macbeth takes about two hours and A Christmas Carol just over three, by the count in our article Do students need to read the whole text?. That article argues for getting the whole story in place quickly and keeping slow, close reading for the main extracts. A good recording or production can carry the quick part, in class or at home. The sources below are free or already paid for, and legal.

In the UK, copyright in a written or dramatic work lasts “70 years after the author’s death”, according to the government’s guidance on copyright. A Christmas Carol and Macbeth are long out of copyright, so free texts and recordings of them are legal to use. An Inspector Calls is still in copyright: there is no free legal text or recording, and students need their own copy.

LibriVox

LibriVox publishes recordings of out-of-copyright books, free to download. Its pages note that “LibriVox recordings are Public Domain in the USA” and ask listeners elsewhere to check the copyright status of the work in their own country, which for Dickens and Shakespeare in the UK is not in doubt.

  • A Christmas Carol (version 7), read by Cori Samuel, is one of several versions. It has one file for each stave and runs to 3 hours 41 minutes.
  • The Tragedy of Macbeth is a full-cast dramatic reading with one file for each act, about 2 hours 12 minutes in all.

Students follow the text while they listen. Readings vary in quality, so listen to the first few minutes of a file before you play it to a class.

The National Theatre Collection

The National Theatre Collection is “Free for all UK state schools (primary and secondary) and FE colleges”. A member of staff registers the school, and fee-paying schools can subscribe through Bloomsbury. It streams filmed National Theatre productions through Drama Online.

The Collection’s Macbeth is an adaptation. Drama Online lists it as a new version by Justin Audibert and the company, first staged in the National Theatre’s Shakespeare for younger audiences programme. When it toured schools in 2017, the British Theatre Guide reported it as Audibert’s 90-minute adaptation for teenage audiences. Treat it as an introduction: a 90-minute version leaves much of the text out. When we checked in October 2026, the Collection had no production of A Christmas Carol or An Inspector Calls.

Recording programmes: the ERA licence

Copyright law allows schools to record broadcasts for teaching only where no licensing scheme exists, and the government’s guidance on exceptions to copyright says that “Generally a licence will be required from the Educational Recording Agency”. According to ERA, “all state-funded schools in England are licensed via an agreement between ERA and the Department for Education.” That licence covers recording programmes and keeping them for teaching.

ERA’s video streaming platform holds programmes already recorded, mostly from the BBC, with some from ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. It is open to “staff and students (aged 16 and over)” of licensed schools, so students under 16 cannot register, and teachers show programmes from their own login. ERA also points out that watching live broadcasts or BBC iPlayer needs a TV Licence as well.

Films and DVDs

Showing a film in class is covered by the exception for “performing, playing or showing copyright works in a school, university or other educational establishment for educational purposes”, as long as the audience is limited to teachers, students and others directly connected with the school. The same guidance adds: “It will not generally apply if parents are in the audience.” A DVD the department owns, or a programme recorded under the ERA licence, can be shown in a lesson. For An Inspector Calls, short of a theatre trip, that is the legal route to a performance.

When to press play, and when to read

Use a version for the first meeting with the story, or to carry it between the extracts you will analyse. Read the printed text for the extracts themselves, because the exam prints extracts from the text and students quote it from memory. Films add scenes and cut others, so check any quotation students take from a screen against the text.

Listening with the book open is a good way into long sentences and verse. Our deliberate practice booklets for A Christmas Carol, Macbeth and An Inspector Calls open each week with the part of the text to read, listen to or watch before the week’s first lesson, with five check questions to answer from memory.

Sources

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