Showing results by publisher "BBC Audio" in Literature & Fiction

Between 1980 and 1988 on BBC television and radio, the exploits of the Rt Hon Jim Hacker MP (Paul Eddington) - later Prime Minister - kept the British nation enthralled. Helped - and hampered - by his diligent Permanent Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby (Nigel Hawthorne) and his Principle Private Secretary Bernard Woolley (Derek Fowlds), Hacker and his department became synonymous with government bureaucracy and administrative double dealing.

From Parents’ Evening to the PTA, and from supply teachers to staff room squabbles, every day brings fresh challenges for headmaster Mr Beeston. Among the problems facing him are a flu epidemic, a shortage of computers, a phantom prune thief and a mysterious graffiti artist - and there’s trouble in store when in comes to sex education, school trips and Sports Day. Meanwhile, idealistic newcomers Mr Brown and Mr Sims learn some lessons about teaching, and their battle-scarred colleagues vie for promotion - or look forward to retirement.

All five series of the award-winning sketch show - plus standalone comedy Daydream Believers 'Fresh and full of invention' The Telegraph Welcome to the inside-out world of Mitchell and Webb, a strange and surreal place populated by misfits, eccentrics, talking animals and a few stray Radio 4...

Through the ages of Britain, from the 15th century to the 21st, Edmund Blackadder has meddled his way along the bloodlines, aided by his servant and sidekick, Baldrick, and hindered by an assortment of dimwitted aristocrats. Now the complete history of Blackadder is collected together, including the four TV series: The Black Adder, Blackadder II, Blackadder the Third and Blackadder Goes Forth.

Welcome to Fawlty Towers, where attentive hotelier Basil Fawlty and his charming wife Sybil will attend to your every need - in your worst nightmare. With hapless waiter Manuel and long-suffering waitress Polly on hand to help, anything could happen during your stay - and probably will. John Cleese’s special introductions to each episode are included in this collection of all 12 TV soundtrack episodes.

Welcome to Hell—where nobody can ever quite catch the barman's eye. In this collection, which contains all seven series of Old Harry's Game, get ready for some wicked one-liners and scorching satire. Satan is fed up after a millennia in charge of Hell, especially given the prospect of an eternity still running the damned place. Although he does enjoy playing pranks on the world of the living and devising wry torments for the souls in his keeping, he often wistfully recalls his past as an archangel.

A rollicking collection of six fully dramatised Jeeves & Wooster novels, starring Michael Hordern and Richard Briers. In The Inimitable Jeeves, Aunt Agatha is forcing Bertie to get engaged to the formidable Honoria Glossop. Can Jeeves save the day? Right Ho, Jeeves sees mayhem breaking out at...

John Fuller-Carp, the Machiavellian head of chambers at Forecourt Buildings, is determined to become a QC and will perform almost any moral contortion to achieve his goal. When left-wing Ruth Quirke, rumoured to be a High Court judge's daughter, applies to join his chambers, Fuller-Carp's imagination goes into overdrive and promotion seems inevitable. However, his attempts to project a 'New Labour' image cut no ice with Ruth, and the two are soon at each other's throats.

Comedy drama set in Hardacre's, the worst advertising agency in London For three decades, Rupert Hardacre was one of the big beasts of advertising: he worked hard, played hard, and lived hard. But he fell harder... Driven out of every reputable agency in town for drinking all their whiskey and...

Meet Budleigh Salterton's most famous son, Giles Wemmbley Hogg: bumbling backpacker, fearless investigator of cultural diversity, connoisseur of Eastern philosophies and upper middle-class student ponce. In these five series, armed with his trusty portable DAT and his Charterhouse rugby shirt, Giles bravely ventures forth to far-off foreign lands and records his adventures. His meanderings take him from the Sudan to Las Vegas - but wherever he goes, he always manages to make a thumping great prat of himself.

The hugely popular precursor to ‘Yes Minister’, The Men from the Ministry had the nation in stitches for 13 series between 1962 and 1977. In 1980, a fourteenth series, comprising remakes of episodes from Series 1-4, was made by the BBC Transcription Service and aired abroad. Some of these remakes are the only surviving versions of their stories, as recordings of series 1-4 have been lost to time.

The complete soundtracks of the first two series of the iconic comedy show, plus Christmas specials Often voted Britain’s best-loved sitcom, Only Fools and Horses ran on BBC One from 1981 to 2003, spanning seven series and 16 Christmas specials. Created and written by John Sullivan, the show...

Series five & six of the BBC radio sitcom starring Harry H Corbett and Wilfrid Brambell, adapted from the much-loved TV series. Steptoe and Son ran for eight series on BBC TV and even spawned two feature films. Such was the series' popularity in the mid-1960s that the cast specially recorded several episodes for BBC radio. Here, collected together for the first time, are all episodes from the fifth and sixth radio series, scripted by Hancock's Half Hour creators Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.

A stunning collection of Just William stories, narrated by Martin Jarvis. These BBC radio readings of the adventures of William have come to be some of the most loved adaptations.

Living in flats in a converted house in North London, a group of middle-aged neighbours navigate their careers, love lives and family dramas in this charming sitcom full of heart.

A dynamic remastering of the original BBC Radio 4 full-cast serial - Fit the First to Fit the Sixth - which spawned a phenomenal hitchhiking legend The original series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, remastered by Dirk Maggs (director of the Tertiary, Quandary and Quintessential Phases)...

Meet Dr Anthony Webster and Dr Ruth Anderson, two pathologists attempting to live normal lives in an atmosphere of death, decay and seriously unpleasant smells. Anthony loves his chosen profession, finding every cadaver exciting and surprising: 'they're like Kinder eggs that have died'. Ruth, however, longs for a juicy murder mystery, instead of one routine autopsy after another.

All four series of the hilarious historical sitcom set just before and during the American Revolution. Baltimore, 1770, and shopkeeper Samuel Oliphant has much to worry about. Storm clouds are gathering, business is bad and to make matters worse, he’s been forced to play host to two British soldiers. Hapless officer Captain Brimshaw is decent enough, but his fellow redcoat - the one-eyed, one-eared, one-armed and one-legged Sergeant McGurk - is a shameless rascal obsessed with money and sex.

Sixteen TV soundtracks from the award-winning TV show collected together for the first time, starring David Jason as ambitious market trader Del Boy Trotter and Nicholas Lyndhurst as his younger brother, Rodney Trotter. For 15 years the brothers of Trotters Independent Traders PLC have entertained us both with Del's extreme optimism and scams and, quite simply, Rodney's reactions upon hearing those scams.

After the death of her GP husband, widow Sarah is battling to bring up her strong-willed 18-year-old daughter, Clare, hindered by her meddling mother, Eleanor. Living on the middle floor of the family home, with Clare downstairs and Eleanor upstairs, Sarah finds herself besieged from above and below as she tries to cope with the demands of both her mum and her daughter. Luckily, she finds solace at work, where her best friend and boss at Bygone Books, Russell, provides a sympathetic ear.