Present Laughter

Renowned for his wit, style and sophistication, Noël Coward was one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century. His plays, set in the glittering world of high society in which he lived, are much admired and have remained in the popular theatre repertoire to this day. This collection brings together the very best radio adaptation

Seven BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisations of P. D. James' acclaimed mysteries, plus P. D. James in Her Own Words. This collection includes: Cover Her Face, A Taste for Death, Devices and Desires, A Certain Justice, The Private Patient, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman and The Skull Beneath the Skin.

Peggy Ashcroft and Tony Britton star in this 1971 BBC Radio production of Noël Coward’s classic comedy about a disastrous weekend house party. Judith Bliss is a famous actress who, after a string of successful roles, has retired to her country retreat. Missing the adulation of her public, she has has invited a fan over for a weekend of uninterrupted adoration - unaware that the rest of her family has company arriving too.

Paul Scofield and Patricia Routledge star in Noël Coward’s classic comedy of manners. Private Lives was written in 1930 and has been a mainstay of British theatre ever since. This sharply funny play of reversals focuses on Elyot and Amanda, a passionate but feuding couple who divorced five years before. Now, on the first night of their honeymoons with their new partners, they find that they are all staying in the same hotel on the French Riviera. Fireworks are inevitable....

Christmas is the season of good cheer and harmony among men, but things are not working out quite that way in the Bunker household. As a motley collection of friends and relatives fill the house with their own wishes, dreams and attitudes, the stage is set for seasonal disharmony and romantic intrigue. It’s Christmas Eve and while Belinda is rushing around decorating the tree and seeing to all the guests and their needs, Eddie and Pattie are having a serious bust-up.

This classic comedy is set in the charming country home of Charles Condomine, a remarried widower. A witty and convivial evening party among friends is transformed when a seance conjures the ghost of Elvira, Charles' first wife, who delights in wreaking havoc among the living. An enchanting Coward comedy!

David Tennant stars as Malvolio in Shakespeare's comedy of disguise, madness and love. One of Shakespeare's happiest plays, Twelfth Night is both a comedy of misrule and a trenchant attack on puritanism. Disguise and deceit leads to misadventure, madness and mistaken love. Orsino loves Olivia, but she loves Cesario, who really does love Orsino (for Cesario is actually Viola).

Understandably, Lord Burford had some misgivings about hosting another house party at Alderley, his beautiful country mansion. After all, the previous two could at best be described as disastrous, since a couple of their guests were bumped off during their stay on each occasion. But with family members travelling down for the funeral of an elderly relative, the Earl really had no choice but to offer them accommodation.

Lady Jane Grey was born into the most dangerous of times. Child of a scheming father and a ruthless mother for whom she was a pawn in a dynastic game with the highest stakes, she lived a life in thrall to political machinations and lethal religious fervour. Growing up with the future Queen Elizabeth and her reluctant nemesis, Mary, she soon learned the truth of the values imparted to her by Henry VIII's last Queen, Katherine Parr.

Wealthy Sir Hubert Handesley's original and lively weekend house parties are deservedly famous. To amuse his guests, he has devised a new form of the fashionable Murder Game, in which a guest is secretly selected to commit a 'murder' in the dark, and everyone assembles to solve the crime. But when the lights go up this time, there is a real corpse....

Stephen Fry narrates this full-cast dramatisation of the famous Victorian comic novel, a portrait of English society and its mores, with Emma Fielding as Becky Sharp. Duration: 5 hours approx.

Six phenomenally sophisticated Noël Coward comedies: Fallen Angels, Hay Fever, Private Lives, Design for Living, Blithe Spirit, Present Laughter.

From 1958, The Lady in a Fog is an original radio crime drama starring Robert Beatty as Philip Odell. Such was the popularity of the eponymous radio detective that the series - which ran on the BBC Light Programme between 1947 and 1961 - spawned novels and even a 1951 feature film. Among the supporting cast of this thrilling eight-part serial are Mary Wimbush, James Thomason, John Bennett, Jeffrey Segal, June Tobin, David March, Trevor Martin and members of the BBC Drama Repertory Company.

Clarissa, the wife of a Foreign Office diplomat, is given to daydreaming. "Supposing I were to come down one morning and find a dead body in the library, what should I do?" she muses. Clarissa has her chance to find out when she discovers a body in the drawing-room of her house in Kent. Desperate to dispose of the body before her husband comes home with an important foreign politician, Clarissa persuades her three house guests to become accessories and accomplices.

Seven instalments of the classic radio crime drama starring Cecil Parker, plus special documentary feature 'A Case for Dr Morelle'. Dr Morelle uses psychological insight, criminology and dogged persistence to solve cases. Here he must deduce the answers to mysteries including a hotel death, a man tormented by nightmares, and deadly threats made to an elderly spinster.