Showing results by publisher "BBC Audio" in Historical 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.

The legendary demise of Phil Archer's first wife is recalled in these archive editions of the much-loved BBC radio serial, plus a unique behind-the-scenes drama about Grace's death. The Archers is the longest-running radio drama in the world, and in 1955 the death of Grace Archer became one of the most notorious - and controversial - events in the history of the show.

Budapest, 1963. Special Investigator Bertalan Lázár and his wife, spymaster Franciska Lázár, face formidable challenges as they try to navigate a path through the dangerous underworld of Cold War-era Hungary. Catching the criminals is difficult enough, but there are other more threatening battles raging in higher places.

In this radical reinterpretation of six brilliant Arnold Bennett novels, it’s the 19th-century Midlands and over 10-and-a-half sweeping hours individuals rise and fall, they age, flourish, and try to keep up as the world around them changes into something unrecognisable, transformed by new technology. Fortunes are made and lost, hearts broken, empires built and deals made. These tales of aspiration and passion, damage and danger are told with Bennett's forensic, (journalist’s) eye for human psychology and a surprising degree of witty comedy.

Can a young country girl lead an army? Joan, guided by her guardian angels St Catherine and St Margaret, decides to wage war against the English. Starring Dawn French as Joan of Arc. The cast also includes Anne Reid, Maggie Steed, Kevin Eldon and Jim Broadbent.

Charles Dickens was, for a time, editor of a daily newspaper. This series takes an imaginative look at how Dickens would have tackled bringing the news to the masses. We follow Dickens the editor as he contends with railway crashes, gory deaths in the River Thames, having his editorial judgment scrutinised, working with tyrannical landowners, entering the murky worlds of opium and prostitution and, most tragically of all, investigating a child's death. He and his newspaper tackle financial plotting, encountering a young and secretive Disraeli, and the prospect of war overseas.

A new adaptation of L. P. Hartley's story of a boy who is betrayed by a sophisticated young rich woman and her farmer lover who use him to ferry letters back and forth in the blazing summer of 1900 - with Richard Griffiths and Harriet Walter. It's best known from the 1970 film, which focused on the main plot line. But on re-reading the book, adaptor Frances Byrnes found within it another drama perfect for audio in which an old man finds a boyhood diary and is forced to unlock the trauma inside.

A superb collection of dramas guaranteed to thrill and entertain from best-selling author Peter Ackroyd. Set in the heart of London, these star-studded adaptations feature parallel investigations into killings across two centuries, black magic, haunted houses, holy ghosts and a stunning performance by Simon Callow as the magnificent Charles Dickens. Novelist, biographer and critic Peter Ackroyd has cemented his place at the heart of the culture and history of London. This fantastic collection is full of vitality from a world-class author and stellar cast.

18 biographical dramas based on the lives and loves of celebrated writers. 

This is the story of Thomas "Tommo" Peaceful, a young soldier who finds himself in Belgium, in the trenches of the First World War, with his brother Charlie. It is also the story of Tommo’s life, growing up in Devon with his brothers, and of his love for Molly, the beautiful girl he met on his first day at school. As the story unfolds, from past to present, so approaches the hour when Tommo and Charlie will be separated forever.

This illuminating serial charts the transformation of the young Victoria from spirited teenager to shy young bride to celebrated ruler of Britain and ‘Mother of Europe’. But while her roles changed, her essential nature remained the same: vibrant, passionate, principled and fiercely independent. Through extracts from Victoria’s own diaries and letters, and dramatised episodes featuring the characters closest to her, we are given thrilling insight into the thoughts and feelings of the woman behind the crown - and the secrets of her mind and heart. 

Richard Burton narrates the second volume of this famous dramatic chronicle of the English Crown, a treasure of the BBC radio archive published in audiobook for the very first time. Vivat Rex is the landmark drama series first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1977. Over the course of 26 installments, each one narrated by Richard Burton with a full cast, the fortunes of the English Crown are followed through 225 years of British history, from Edward II’s accession in 1307 to the birth of Elizabeth I.

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.

With its shocking portrayal of incest, intrigue and murder, this powerful Jacobean revenge drama scandalised audiences when it was first performed in the 1620s and it is still controversial today. When siblings Giovanni and Annabella embark on a passionate affair, Annabella falls pregnant with her brother's child. Knowing she must marry to protect her honour, she chooses one of the many suitors clamouring for her hand - but when her secret is revealed, the lovers are caught up in a bloody chain of events that culminate in a poisoning, a blinding, a stabbing and a brutal massacre.

1730. Driven by a wild romantic impulse, Francis Herries uproots his family from Doncaster to the lakeland valley of Borrowdale. Accompanied by his housekeeper/mistress, Alice, they settle in his tumbledown ancestral home, Herries, in the shadow of the Cumberland fells. Proud, stubborn and temperamental, Francis cuts himself off from his brother, spurns his long-suffering wife and becomes embroiled in drink and debauchery. When he sells Alice at Keswick Fair, his reputation is ruined, and the locals dub him 'Rogue' Herries.

Leon Garfield was the renowned author of more than 30 novels for children and adults. He won numerous awards for his work, including the Carnegie Medal, the Whitbread Award and the inaugural Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. Inspired by Charles Dickens, he set many of his tales in the 18th and 19th century, and became Dickens’ co-author when he wrote an ending to The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which was left unfinished on Dickens’ death. Their joint version was dramatised for radio in 1990, and is included here, together with adaptations of two of Garfield’s own thrilling adventures.

1839, and Bow Street Runner Pip Shepherd is out of a job. The Runners have been disbanded, merged with Sir Robert Peel's new Metropolitan Police - and there's no way Pip's signing up with them. But when he befriends 'Peeler' Thomas Tedman, and hears about an upcoming detective division, he has second thoughts, and soon the duo are investigating their first cases together.

Comedian Al Murray plays his great-great-great-grandfather William Makepeace Thackeray as the unreliable narrator in this radical makeover of his ancestor’s celebrated satire on class, sex, money, hypocrisy and snobbery in 19th-century England. As the curtain rises on our ‘story without a hero’, moneyless Becky Sharp leaves school with her upper-class best friend Amelia Sedley. Clever, cunning and ambitious, Becky is determined to make her way in Regency society - and she’ll trample on anyone who gets in her way. 

In the early hours of 5 June 1944, Captain Rob Collins, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who is languishing in hospital, receives a call that will take him on a journey through England that will change his life. Mike Walker's play is an epic journey across England poised on the edge of a historical moment. It is set on June 5th, the day before the invasion. It is a portrait of England waiting for the invasion that will change the course of history, but an invasion only a very few know that is about happen. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Juliet Stevenson and Claudia Harrison.

The complete Series 1 and 2 of the drama based on the publications of the real-life Lady Whistledown - the anonymous 18th Century columnist, 'Mr Spectator'.