Showing results by publisher "BBC Audio" in Literary Fiction

Brendan Behan is widely remembered as a hard-drinking, wise-cracking writer who turned up roaring drunk for interviews and cared little for authority. But he was more than just a hell-raising celebrity. His wit, expressive use of language and understanding of human nature made his writing famous around the world, and his masterpieces The Quare Fellow, Borstal Boy and The Hostage rank among the greatest works of 20th century Irish literature. Dramatisations of all three appear here, alongside a short interview with Behan himself and a fascinating biographical programme celebrating his genius.

Robert Lindsay stars in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of the classic novel by Charles Dickens. From the echo of the first line ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times’ to the final ‘It is a far far better thing that I do than I have ever done’, Dickens’...

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation starring Michael Hordern as Jeeves and Richard Briers as Wooster. Mayhem has broken out at Brinkley Court... Gussie Fink-Nottle has fallen in love with Madeline Bassett. Angela has argued with young Tuppy and the air is full of mangled fragments of...

Full-cast dramatisations and a reading of works by Iris Murdoch, plus a bonus interview with the author herself Booker Prize-winning author Iris Murdoch is renowned for her sublime fiction, exploring themes such as art, passion, morality and human freedom. Included in this collection are...

Fee Drummond has taken over the running of the Carnbeg Hydro Hotel following the death of her husband in a speedboat accident. But Fee is not short of enemies who would love to see her fail. Can she hold her nerve? Meanwhile, the staff of the Hydro are having their ‘Potential Superfactors’ assessed by a management guru, a distinguished concert violinist suffers stage fright on the eve of the Edinburgh Festival, and the bank drops a legal bombshell.

Young Robinson Crusoe has a burning ambition to be a sailor. Paying no attention to his parents’ warnings he runs away to sea to embark on a series of thrilling adventures: struggles with Barbary pirates, a shipwreck and the extraordinary meeting with Man Friday... Roy Marsden plays the older...

Angela Carter was one of the most important writers of the 20th century. A pioneer of British magical realism, her work was described by Salman Rushdie as 'without rival and without equal'. Her radical, inventive novels influenced countless writers, while her dark, sensual short fiction turned traditional fables inside out, giving women the power over their desires and fates. Susannah Clapp, Angela Carter's literary executor and friend, introduces the productions and offers fascinating insights into Angela Carter's life and work.

Benedict Cumberbatch reads Franz Kafka's famous story of man-turned-insect, Metamorphosis Winner of AudioFile Earphones...

A collection of full-cast dramatisations and readings from the best-selling author. Maeve Binchy was one of Britain's best-loved storytellers, and this compilation of her finest fiction, as heard on BBC Radio, demonstrates all the warmth, wit and compassion that made her so popular.

Dramatisations of Calvino’s most famous works, starring Toby Jones and Mackenzie Crook, plus bonus programmes Italo Calvino was one of the 20th Century's great experimenters, who consistently pushed the boundaries of literature. His works ranged from fantasy and science fiction to folktales...

**Winner of the Gold Award for Best Drama in the New York Festivals Radio Awards 2018*** A BBC radio adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Michael Cunningham, inspired by Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway Three separate women, living in different locations and eras, are linked by their...

Miner's son David Powlett-Jones returns from the carnage of the Western Front in 1918, shell-shocked and bitterly hardened by the violence of war. He begins life again as a master at a remote Devon school, controlling the destiny of boys barely his junior. As the years pass David becomes a teacher of rare talent, begins to find peace, and is able to adjust to the changes which are overwhelming society. But soon he will have to face up to the prospect of another terrible war...

All three BBC radio dramatisations of Edna O’Brien’s coming-of-age trilogy set in 1950s Ireland Now a much-loved modern classic, The Country Girls Trilogy was fiercely controversial when first published in the 1960s. Banned by the Irish censors and burned by the Church, the books nonetheless...

Beneath the streets of London there is another London. A subterranean labyrinth of sewers and abandoned tube stations. A somewhere that is Neverwhere... An act of kindness sees Richard Mayhew catapulted from his ordinary life into the strange world of London Below. There he meets the Earl of...

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Paul Gallico’s ‘The Snow Goose’ by Nick Warburton, starring Steven Mackintosh. When 'Open Book' asked various authors to champion a favourite neglected classic on the programme, Michael Morpurgo chose 'The Snow Goose'; perhaps no surprise, with his...

When fifteen-year-old John Trenchard discovers a secret passage into the vault of the powerful Mohune family, his peaceful life in the Dorset village of Moonfleet is at an end. It is said that Captain Mohune, the notorious Blackbeard, haunts the place with wild and bloodcurdling cries, forever...

Acclaimed author JG Farrell came to fame with his Empire Trilogy, exploring the collapse of British colonialism and its repercussions in three different countries. The first book in the series, Troubles, won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and the Lost Man Booker Prize, while the second, The Siege of Krishnapur, was awarded the Booker Prize for Fiction. Included here are three BBC Radio adaptations of the trilogy, plus an edition of Witness History exploring Farrell's tragic accidental death.

A full-cast BBC Radio dramatisation of Arundhati Roy's Booker Prize-winning novel - plus bonus interview with the author Arundhati Roy's debut novel The God of Small Things took the literary world by storm, winning the Booker Prize in 1997. It went on to sell over six million copies in 40...

Inspired by the novels of D.H. Lawrence, particularly The Rainbow and Women in Love, this ambitious quartet from Booker Prize-winning novelist A.S. Byatt charts the lives of the Potter family between 1953 and 1970. Set against the changing social and political landscape of England in the '50s and '60s, it follows the heroine, Frederica, from precocious teenager to TV talk-show host and from her Yorkshire home to the heart of swinging London.

Saleem Sinai is born on the stroke of midnight on 14th-15th August 1947, at the exact moment that India and Pakistan become separate, independent nations. From that moment on, his fate is mysteriously handcuffed to the history of his country. But Saleem's story starts almost 30 years earlier, when his grandfather, Dr Aadam Aziz, falls in love with a woman concealed behind a perforated sheet. That pivotal moment in Kashmir in 1919 sparks a series of bizarre events that will lead to the birth of a boy with an extraordinary destiny.