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Barbara Pym: A BBC Radio Drama Collection
- Some Tame Gazelle, No Fond Return of Love, Crampton Hodnet & More
- Narrated by: Miriam Margolyes, Hannah Gordon, Samantha Bond, Rebecca Front, Penny Downie, Amanda Root, Annette Crosbie, Penelope Wilton, full cast
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Radio/TV Programme
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction
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Civil to Strangers
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Crampton Hodnet
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Waste of money
- By Christineb on 25-04-22
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Masters' India Saga
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An 18-part serialisation of John Masters' chronicles of the Savage family, spanning the years 1825-1946 and set against the backdrop of British rule in India. Based on the hugely popular novels of John Masters, this landmark BBC Radio adaptation charts the history of the British in India through the perspective of one family over several generations. Ranging over more than 120 years, these thrilling tales of love, murder and espionage take us from the expansion of the East India Company to the last days of the Raj and the approach of Independence.
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ONE OF THE BEST AUDIOBOOKS I HAVE EVER OWNED
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Brighton, 1957: a sunny seaside resort with a sinister underbelly. This den of villainy is policed by the touchingly innocent Inspector Steine, who naively believes he wiped out all the hoodlums in the Middle Street Massacre six years earlier. Can long-suffering Sergeant Brunswick and keen Constable Twitten persuade him that a criminal mastermind is at large - and that the station's charlady, Mrs Groynes, might bear investigation?
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not for me
- By alanjbell on 10-04-22
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Less Than Angels
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Less Than Angels follows the loves, works and hopes of a group of young anthropologists. Catherine Oliphant is a writer and lives with handsome anthropologist Tom Mallow. Their relationship runs into trouble when he begins a romance with student Deirdre Swann, so Catherine turns her attention to the reclusive anthropologist Alaric Lydgate, who has a fondness for wearing African masks. Added to this love triangle are the activities of Deirdre's fellow students and their attempts to win the competition for a research grant.
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Fabulous!
- By me on 25-02-19
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Civil to Strangers
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- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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When Barbara Pym died in 1980, she left a considerable amount of unpublished material. This volume contains an early novel, Civil to Strangers, three novellas and an autobiographical essay, 'Finding a Voice', Pym's only written comment on her writing career.
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Crampton Hodnet
- By: Barbara Pym, Louis de Bernieres - introduction
- Narrated by: Kristin Atherton
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Formidable Miss Doggett fills her life by giving tea parties for young academics and acting as watchdog for the morals of North Oxford. Anthea, her great-niece, is in love with a dashing undergraduate with political ambitions. Of this, Miss Doggett thoroughly approves. However, Anthea's father, an Oxford don, is carrying on in the most unseemly fashion with a student—they have been spotted together at the British museum! But the only liaison Miss Doggett isn't aware of is taking place under her very own roof.
-
Fortunes of War
- A BBC Radio 4 Full Cast Dramatisation of the Complete Balkan Trilogy
- By: Olivia Manning
- Narrated by: Joanna Lumley, Honeysuckle Weeks, James Fleet, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 38 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
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1939, and naïve young newlywed Harriet Pringle arrives in Bucharest with her husband, Guy - just as Europe is about to rip itself apart. She believes she knows everything about the man she has married, but soon realises she knows nothing. Guy is oblivious to her needs and desires, seeming only to care about his job as a university lecturer, his friends and the beautiful, voluptuous Sophie. Struggling to build a life in a strange city, in the face of imminent invasion, Harriet feels bereft - and increasingly isolated.
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Waste of money
- By Christineb on 25-04-22
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Masters' India Saga
- A BBC Radio 4 Full-Cast Dramatisation
- By: John Masters
- Narrated by: full cast, Bill Nighy, Juliet Stevenson, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 30 mins
- Original Recording
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Overall
-
Performance
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An 18-part serialisation of John Masters' chronicles of the Savage family, spanning the years 1825-1946 and set against the backdrop of British rule in India. Based on the hugely popular novels of John Masters, this landmark BBC Radio adaptation charts the history of the British in India through the perspective of one family over several generations. Ranging over more than 120 years, these thrilling tales of love, murder and espionage take us from the expansion of the East India Company to the last days of the Raj and the approach of Independence.
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ONE OF THE BEST AUDIOBOOKS I HAVE EVER OWNED
- By Highlight on 04-05-22
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Inspector Steine
- The Complete BBC Radio 4 Comedy Crime Drama
- By: Lynne Truss
- Narrated by: Michael Fenton Stevens, Jan Ravens, Matt Green, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Original Recording
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Overall
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Brighton, 1957: a sunny seaside resort with a sinister underbelly. This den of villainy is policed by the touchingly innocent Inspector Steine, who naively believes he wiped out all the hoodlums in the Middle Street Massacre six years earlier. Can long-suffering Sergeant Brunswick and keen Constable Twitten persuade him that a criminal mastermind is at large - and that the station's charlady, Mrs Groynes, might bear investigation?
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not for me
- By alanjbell on 10-04-22
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Less Than Angels
- By: Barbara Pym
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- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Less Than Angels follows the loves, works and hopes of a group of young anthropologists. Catherine Oliphant is a writer and lives with handsome anthropologist Tom Mallow. Their relationship runs into trouble when he begins a romance with student Deirdre Swann, so Catherine turns her attention to the reclusive anthropologist Alaric Lydgate, who has a fondness for wearing African masks. Added to this love triangle are the activities of Deirdre's fellow students and their attempts to win the competition for a research grant.
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Fabulous!
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Some Tame Gazelle
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It was odd that Harriet should always have been so fond of curates. They were so immature and always made the same kind of conversation. Now the Archdeacon was altogether different...'Together yet alone, the Misses Bede occupy the central crossroads of parish life. Harriet, plump, elegant and jolly, likes nothing better than to make a fuss of new curates, secure in the knowledge that elderly Italian Count Ricardo Bianco will propose to her yet again this year.
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A charming reassuring tale of normality.
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Excellent - Listened Several Times
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The Elizabeth Gaskell Collection
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In these two series, set on selected dates in January 1895 and December 1896, we follow the day-to-day shenanigans of Bridgford station master Joe Braddock and his staff, along with a motley crew of passengers and passers-by. Each episode is a self-contained drama, as well as telling the ongoing story of the crises and challenges tackled by the team, and their rivalries, enmities, friendships and burgeoning romances.
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The Patricia Highsmith BBC Radio Collection
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The Complete Mapp and Lucia, Volume 1
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Mispronouncing Riseholme? How tarsome!
- By Wee Chrissie B on 02-08-21
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A Small Town Murder: The Complete Series 1-14
- By: Scott Cherry
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West Midlands copper Jackie Hartwell has one of the toughest jobs in CID: comforting and supporting grieving relatives in the aftermath of a serious crime. But there's much more to what she does than providing tea and sympathy. Part social worker, part savvy investigator, she needs to be able to win the trust of families, while simultaneously keeping a watchful eye on their behaviour and reactions. Because often, the suspect she's searching for isn't far from home....
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Easy listening
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The House
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Suave, unflappable and ambitious, veteran politician Charles Bannister knows his way around the corridors of power. As chief whip, he's adept at keeping MPs in line and squashing potential scandals—aided by his brother-in-law, MI6 Agent Henry Colvil, who whispers useful titbits of information in his ear. His position seems invincible—but nothing is forever, and when the tides of politics turn, Charles finds himself under threat. In these six series, we follow his fortunes and those of his close friend Home Secretary Dougal Baxter. Together, the duo rise, fall and rise again.
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TOP NOTCH
- By Highlight on 20-06-22
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No Fond Return of Love
- By: Barbara Pym, Paul Binding - introduction
- Narrated by: Jane McDowell
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Dulcie Mainwaring is always helping others, but never looks out for herself—especially in the realm of love. Her friend Viola is besotted by the alluring Dr Aylwin Forbes, so surely it isn't prying if Dulcie helps things along? Aylwin, however, is smitten with Dulcie's pretty young niece. And perhaps Dulcie herself, however ridiculous it might be, is falling, just a little, for Aylwin. Once life's little humiliations are played out, maybe love will be returned, and fondly, after all.
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Jane and Prudence
- By: Barbara Pym
- Narrated by: Maggie Mash
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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The setting of this very funny novel, one of Barbara Pym's earliest, is an English village where Jane's husband is the newly appointed vicar, and where Prudence will pay Jane a visit and find herself courted by a fatuous young widower.
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A delight
- By Nakul on 30-06-12
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DS Manson
- Three BBC Radio 4 Crime Thrillers
- By: Bill Murphy
- Narrated by: Susan Lynch, Roger May, Ron Cook, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 20 mins
- Original Recording
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After shooting a teenage boy in an undercover operation, DS Sue Manson is taken off the front line and transferred to a desk job in Missing Persons. But no sooner has she arrived than she's in the thick of the action once more, tasked with tracking down a trio of twisted criminals.
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Good but episode 2 of the second story is episode 3.
- By mr J. R. Jolley on 29-06-22
Summary
Dramatisations and a reading of selected novels by Barbara Pym - plus bonus material.
Barbara Pym is one of the 20th-century's wittiest, and most underrated, novelists. Her perceptive comedies of manners, centred around the domestic lives and loves of unassuming middle-class Englishwomen, won her many devoted readers and saw her hailed as a modern-day Jane Austen. Yet she spent 15 years out of print in the 1960s and '70s, until Philip Larkin championed her work in the Times Literary Supplement. Her seventh novel was subsequently shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and writers from Jilly Cooper to Alexander McCall Smith continue to laud her talent today.
Included in this collection are the BBC Radio dramatisations of some of her most beloved books, including her debut Some Tame Gazelle; her second novel Crampton Hodnet, published posthumously in 1985; and its sequel Jane and Prudence. Alongside them are her fifth and sixth novels, A Glass of Blessings and No Fond Return of Love; and a comic spy thriller, So Very Secret. Adapted by actress and writer Elizabeth Proud, they feature stellar casts including Miriam Margolyes, Hannah Gordon, Samantha Bond, Rebecca Front, Joanna David, Penny Downie and Amanda Root.
Her best-known novel, Excellent Women, about a clergyman's daughter whose life is disturbed by anthropologists and a handsome naval officer, is read by One Foot in the Grave star Annette Crosbie. It is followed by a bonus biographical drama, The Resurrection of Miss Pym, starring Penelope Wilton and Bill Wallis and telling the story of Barbara Pym's warm friendship with Philip Larkin, her years in the publishing wilderness and her eventual triumphant rediscovery. And in the fascinating radio talk Finding a Voice, we hear from the author in her own words as she analyses her inspiration, influences, literary style and why she kept on writing 'even in the face of discouragement'.
Cast and credits:
Written by Barbara Pym.
Copyright © Barbara Pym 1950 (Some Tame Gazelle), 1953 (Jane and Prudence), 1958 (A Glass of Blessings), 1961 (No Fond Return of Love), 1987 (So Very Secret).
Crampton Hodnet copyright © Barbara Pym, Hilary Walton 1985, Hazel Holt 2004.
With thanks to the British Library for the sourcing of Crampton Hodnet.
Contents:
Some Tame Gazelle
Crampton Hodnet
Jane and Prudence
A Glass of Blessings
No Fond Return of Love
So Very Secret
Excellent Women
The Resurrection of Miss Pym
Finding a Voice
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What listeners say about Barbara Pym: A BBC Radio Drama Collection
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Giles
- 24-04-22
Hilarious!
Barbara Pym is still underrated.
This compilation had me chuckling and laughing aloud. A fantastic selection of actors makes this a joy.
3 people found this helpful
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- Highlight
- 29-03-22
EXCELLENT WITTY GOOD CLEAN FUN A BOUNTY OF A COLLECTION
This is a bounty of a collection for only one credit. 18 & half hours of good clean old fashioned fun from the past, about the middle classes when life was not as paranoid as it is now, but when people still held some parts of religion as the backbone of their lives and kept up with the Jones’s as men and women peeked from behind the lace curtains…
3 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 31-03-22
A great compilation
I love BBC dramas and adore Barbara Pym's novels - so what is not to like! I just wish the compilation included the rest of her books.
2 people found this helpful
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- Martha Alston
- 24-05-22
A Wonderful Find
I really enjoyed these adaptations. I have only found one book of Pym’s decently read in full - _Excellent Women_ read by Jayne Entwhistle. So, these adaptations are a joy for me! I hope more and more audio versions of Pym keep coming.
1 person found this helpful
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- Pinxit
- 06-05-22
Great for Pym fans!
I mostly enjoyed the radio “stage” adaptations, though I eventually found the frequent musical interludes somewhat intrusive and irritating. At least, unnecessary. The reading of Excellent Women was very good, though the abridgment made the book less rich. I found the letters readings to shed more light on many things, and the very last section, a recording of Barbara Pym herself talking about writing, was illuminating, a treasure! To be listened to again and again
1 person found this helpful
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- julia de vos
- 13-04-22
Wonderful Mostly
I enjoyed every minute of this collection. I’ve enjoyed the performers over the years as well, which added to my pleasure. My only complaint is with Excellent Women, read, in this collection, by the superb Annette Crosbie. My objections aren’t with Ms. Crosbie at all. My objections are with the abridgment— so much significant material was omitted— for example, all of William Caldecott; Pyms glorious, asidic description of shoppers freshening up in a rest room; even Mildred Lathbury’s aside to the reader that she, unlike Jane Eyre who also wrote in the first person, should not bring comfort or encouragement to any single, plain female reader. Many more examples illustrating Pym’s style, wit, and observational skill are omitted —all very surprising and disappointing.
1 person found this helpful