A summer holiday on the Isle of Skye is the setting for Virginia Woolf's most acclaimed and autobiographical novel in which she attempted to redeem and release the ghosts of her past. Mrs. Ramsay, a beautiful mother who Woolf modelled on her own mother, is the centre of a bustling household of eight children, an egotistical and coldly rational husband and their visiting friends: a painter, scientist, poet and young academic. The story begins when James, the youngest child wishes to visit the lighthouse, a hope encouraged by Mrs. Ramsay but quickly crushed by Mr. Ramsay's unfeeling reason. As the years pass and tragedy strikes the family, the visit takes on symbolic meaning and becomes an exploration of time, death and artistic transcendence. Adapted by Eileen Atkins, this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation stars Vanessa Redgrave as Mrs. Ramsay, John Wood as Mr. Ramsay, Juliet Stevenson as the painter Lily Briscoe and Edward Petherbridge as the scientist William Banks. It was first broadcast from 26 March to 2 April 2000.