"Tremendous things are in store for you! Many wonderful surprises await you!"

Radio 4 is marking the birth centenary of the British novelist, short story writer, poet and screenwriter Roald Dahl who is especially known and loved for his children's books, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, Fantastic Mr Fox and The BFG.

Dahl was born on 13 September 1916 in Llandaff, Cardiff. His Norwegian father Harald was a ship broker and he was named after the polar explorer, Roald Amundsen. During WW2, Dahl took to the skies in the service of the Royal Air Force, rising to the rank of acting wing commander. He came to prominence in the 1940s, through his writings for both children and adults. His short stories (some of which were turned into a TV series, Tales of the Unexpected) often have sudden twists at the end. And his children's books are celebrated for the mixture of comedy and dark undertones which feature in the storylines, in which villainous adults are often pitted against the child characters.

The life and work of Roald Dahl features in a short series of plays and documentaries on Radio 4.

To celebrate the centenary year of Roald Dahl’s birth, Radio 4 broadcasts a dramatisation of tales from Dahl's own childhood. Sometimes magical, sometimes grotesque, but always true, Dahl’s boyhood stories are as remarkable as the acclaimed fiction he would go on to write as an adult.

Patrick Malahide in the BBC TV series, Luther

The story of the Welsh writer’s childhood is filled with excitement and wonder but also terror and great sadness. Listeners learn of his experiences at cruel boarding schools, his daring Great Mouse Plot, the dangers of Boazers, the pleasure and pain of the local sweet shop, and his time as a chocolate taster – just some of the marvellous, extraordinary events that no doubt went on to inspire his best-selling books.

Actor Patrick Malahide provides the voice of Dahl in a colourful adaptation by Lucy Catherine.

Saturday 2 July at 2.30pm.

Dahl said, "Life is made up of a great number of small incidents and a small number of great ones." With the help of his granddaughter Sophie, Roald Dahl tells his own remarkable story in the style of one of his much-loved books. Illustrated with newly discovered archive recordings and specially recorded music, this Archive on 4 marks the centenary of the writer dubbed "the best storyteller in the world".

Roald Dahl with his granddaughter Sophie

Saturday 2 July at 8pm.

Radio 4's dramatisation of Roald Dahl's gripping autobiographical overseas adventure begins aboard the SS Mantola: at the age of 22, Dahl sets sail for Africa, where he experiences the remnants of colonial British life – filled with eccentric characters – and is thrown into a world as bizarre and surprising as any you will find in his fiction.

John Heffernan

Stationed in Tanzania, Dahl is faced with the excitement of the wild – lions carrying off women in their mouths and fatal green mambas captured by snake men. But his Savannah sun-drenched life is interrupted when WW2 erupts: Dahl is ordered to round up the German inhabitants of the city of Dar es Salaam and experiences first-hand the horror of war.

Patrick Malahide provides the voice of Dahl, with John Heffernan, one of the stars of Radio 4's Emile Zola – Blood, Sex and Money, as Young Dahl.

Part 1: Sunday 3 July at 3pm. Part 2: Sunday 10 July at 3pm.

The cartoonist and illustrator Gerald Scarfe tells the story of one of the greatest movies never made.

Gerald Scarfe

Walt Disney sent a telegram to Roald Dahl saying he wanted to make a film based on Dahl's 1943 book, The Gremlins. Around 50,000 dollars were invested and more than a year of pre-production time was spent, but in the end the story of little creatures who sabotaged wartime planes never made it into cinemas.

Scarfe, who has provided illustrations for both Dahl and Disney's works, paints a picture of how a RAF myth nearly became a Disney classic alongside The Jungle Book or Mary Poppins. He reveals the factors that eventually became the project’s own "gremlins in the works".

The programme features Dahl’s official biographer Donald Sturrock – who also directed a TV adaptation of his 1970 book, Fantastic Mr Fox – and Scarfe was given exclusive access to some of Dahl's original papers.

Thursday 7 July at 11.30am.

Charles Dance leads the cast as the urbane Storyteller in dramatisations of five classic tales by Roald Dahl. Bizarre and amusing by turns, these dark comedies are justly famous for their surprise endings, and for their rogues gallery of crooks, cheats and schemers.

Charles Dance

The stories show Dahl at the height of his powers as a writer of adult fiction, combining black comedy with sly social satire. They are stylishly plotted, vividly characterised and made unforgettable by their breezy cynicism, presenting a hilariously bleak view of human nature.

Monday to Friday, 4-8 June, at 11.45am and 7.45pm