Bedtime stories with comic bite.
R.A. Spratt writes and performs comic stories that treat bedtime as a launchpad for ridiculous trouble. Greek myths, Friday Barnes mysteries, Nanny Piggins escapades, and author-life digressions all arrive with quick banter and gleeful misrule.
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Bedtime Stories with R.A. Spratt is a children’s storytelling show with the volume turned toward comedy rather than hush. The premise is simple. R.A. Spratt writes and performs stories, many drawn from or connected to Nanny Piggins and Friday Barnes, with occasional audiobook excerpts and updates from the writing desk. The results are brisk, theatrical, and cheerfully unruly. A Greek myth can become a Nanny Piggins explanation of Helen of Troy, complete with practical objections, terrible men, and a suspiciously useful discussion of what rhymes with orange. A Norse or sea-monster tale can begin with a shredded homework excuse and grow into kraken-sized nonsense. A Friday Barnes episode can turn a stolen lunch into office chaos among unpaid museum interns. A Nanny Piggins story can make local politics feel like a public meeting, a bakery detour, and a wrestling emergency all at once. The show’s comedy often comes from very serious narration applied to very silly behavior. It is blunt without losing its family shape. Adults, institutions, museums, mayors, wealthy donors, and pompous logic are all fair game, but the tone stays playful. The storytelling also has a running backstage quality, with R.A. Spratt talking about book edits, releases, launches, festivals, audiobook chapters, and the effort of making more stories. That makes the podcast feel personal without turning it into a chat show. The fiction remains the center. Characters argue, interrupt, misunderstand, and escalate. Myths are not treated as fragile monuments; they become raw material for jokes, character banter, and child-friendly chaos. Bedtime is more of a destination than a mood. The show works best for kids who like language, silliness, mysteries, mythology, and fast comic dialogue. It also gives adults enough dry wit to stay awake during the ride. The recurring promise is dependable: a story will arrive, it will probably misbehave, and someone will almost certainly need snacks before the serious business can continue.
Made for: Best for kids around primary-school age and families who like energetic storytelling, mythology made silly, and mysteries with a sharp comic edge. It also suits grown-ups who prefer bedtime audio with jokes that do not flatten themselves for children.
What sets it apart: Many bedtime shows aim for calm; this one uses bedtime as a comic frame for performed fiction, myth retellings, and book-world adventures. Its edge is the mix of children’s-story accessibility with fast dialogue, dry asides, and absurdly practical logic.
This is a weekly podcast of funny stories for kids. There are side-splitting versions of my own fractured fairy tales. Also short stories from some of my best-selling books, featuring characters from 'The Adventures of Nanny Piggins' and 'Friday Barnes, Girl Detective'. The stories are perfect for bedtime, long car rides or even if you're just stuck waiting a really long time at the doctor's office. They're written for 7-11 year olds but these are tales the whole family can enjoy. The silliness is ageless. I hope you enjoy listening to this as much as I enjoy recording it. After years of being a children's author, typing away in my office with only my goldfish for company, I was bursting to…
Based on 4 episodes we listened to · September 2026
R.A. Spratt makes myths and Nanny Piggins adventures accessible through brisk dialogue, comic reversals and a child's-eye challenge to adult logic.
R.A. Spratt turns storytelling into comic performance, moving between Nanny Piggins adventures, audiobook excerpts and myths retold through the character's cheerfully unruly logic.
A wood chipper eats the homework; Nanny Piggins offers you a much better excuse.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Helen of Troy becomes a brisk, snake-filled family myth with a comic edge.
R.A. Spratt sets the story at the start of the Trojan War by circling back to Helen of Troy, then lets Nanny Piggins turn it into a comic sweep through Theseus, Pyrrhus, Persephone, and Hades.
A stolen lunch turns a museum internship into comic chaos.
Friday Barnes and the Mystery of the Stolen Lunch turns a museum internship into comic chaos, starting with Ingrid finding Lynn trying to kill Harrison over a missing lunch while Kate films the scene and Harrison cries assault and bullying.
A homework excuse grows into a kraken-sized bedtime caper.
The episode turns a homework excuse into a kraken story, with Nanny Piggins steering Michael toward something far grander than a simple lie. The comedy stays rooted in school offices, the public address system, and the nervous scramble that follows a very bad decision.
A bakery stop turns a mayoral meeting into Nanny Piggins chaos.
R.A. Spratt opens with Nanny Piggins moving from a bakery stop into a public meeting, and the joke lands in the sheer mismatch between her hot pink wrestling leotard, her appetite for a couple of dozen lemon tarts, and the dusty hall of folding chairs around her.
A rainy museum visit turns into gloriously silly trouble for Nanny Piggins.
R.A. Spratt revisits chapter seven, Nanny Piggins and the Last Cake of the Romanovs, and sends a rainy day in St. Petersburg toward trouble at the Hermitage Museum.
Classic tales, calmly brought back to life.
Folktales with music, heart, and momentum.
Fast, familiar story time for young listeners.
Frogopolis chaos with a bedtime-story frame.
Classic bedtime mischief after dark.
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A children's author reads funny bedtime stories and fractured fairy tales for kids aged 7-11.
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Nanny Piggins discovers Mr. Green is running for mayor to divert a new motorway through their house.
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Odin trades one eye to drink from Mímir’s wisdom spring, then discovers the bargain was literal.
Ms. Karim explains that Shakespeare's Juliet is 13 while the average marriage age in his time was 23 for women.