Showing results by publisher "BBC Audio" in Entertainment & Performing Arts

A sweeping radio saga of political intrigue, love affairs, financial wrangles and murder, based on the books by Anthony Trollope, creator of The Barchester Chronicles. This epic drama follows several generations of the Palliser dynasty as they navigate the twists and turns of political and high society in Victorian England. Starring Ben Miles as Plantagenet, Sophie Thompson as Glencora, Conleth Hill as Phineas and David Troughton as the Narrator, with a star cast including Bertie Carvel, Juliet Stevenson, Greg Wise and Rachael Stirling. 

Seven more series of the popular BBC Radio 4 impressions show - plus a selection of unbroadcast material. Since the turn of the millennium, Dead Ringers has been giving us its skewed, hilarious take on the famous and the infamous. The show has won a British Comedy Award, a Sony Gold Award, and a Press Guild Award for Radio Programme of the Year - and won a legion of fans with its merciless parodies, mocking every programme, institution and politician you hold dear.

Alex Horne and his special guests bring together stand-up and live music in a free-wheeling and spontaneous combination. Each episode sees Alex, his band and guests explore a different topic. These range from love to technology, the seasons to the body. In this collection of the complete series 1-3 Alex is joined by comedians including David O’Doherty, Isy Suttie, Kevin Eldon, Phill Jupitus, Matt Lucas, Doc Brown, Sara Pascoe, James Acaster, Marcus Brigstocke and Adam Buxton.

Wickedly funny and bitingly satirical, Dead Ringers has been lampooning politicans, celebrities and media pundits for over 20 years. In these seven series, first broadcast between 2000 and 2002, the team give us their peerless impressions of the personalities we love to laugh at: from Tony Blair and George W. Bush to Brian Sewell, Posh n' Becks and Kirsty Wark.

Yes, it's hello again from them. For nearly 25 years The Two Ronnies were a TV institution, a much-loved double-act, each with his own inimitable, individual appeal. Who could forget Barker's hilarious 'pispronunciation', Corbett's witty monologues, the risque limericks, the puns, the patter, and the parody? So enjoy another fun-filled feast of verbal fireworks. Inspired classic comedy from the two one-offs who said goodnight but not goodbye.

The final five volumes from the landmark BBC radio series This Sceptred Isle. Christopher Lee's epic history tells the story of Britain from the Romans to the death of Victoria. This collection includes the original volumes 6-10. 1702-1760: the First British Empire; the reign of George I; Britain's first Prime Minister, Robert Walpole; and the first rendition of Rule Britannia. 1760-1792: the Age of Revolution; the Industrial Revolution begins....

Comic phenomenon Kevin Eldon has appeared in almost every hit comedy series in the last 25 years, from Fist of Fun, Brass Eye and This Morning with Richard Not Judy to Jam, Harry & Paul and Inside No. 9. Having starred alongside Stewart Lee, Richard Herring, Chris Morris, Harry Enfield, Paul Whitehouse, Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, he's decided to take it up a notch with his very own show. It features sketches, characters, sound effects, a bit of music and a lot of messin' about.

Shardlake returns in this atmospheric BBC Radio 4 full-cast adaptation of the fourth novel in C. J. Sansom's bestselling Tudor crime series.Spring, 1543. London's streets are filled with preachers; strange signs and portents are seen everywhere; and young men, maddened by differing interpretations of the Bible, are drawn into dangerous fundamentalism.

The events of 1950-1999 are described by the people who saw them happen, from the Festival of Britain in 1951 through to the dawn of a new millennium at the end of 1999. In between are the eras of the Angry Young Men, the Teddy Boys and the Punk Rockers; the arrival of rock and roll and the permissive society; the advent of industrial strife in England and sectarian unrest in Northern Ireland; the rise to power of Margaret Thatcher; the miners' strike, three-day week and Winter of Discontent; the Queen's Silver Jubilee....

A sparkling BBC Radio 4 adaptation of J.B. Priestley’s comic play, starring Alan Bennett, Brenda Blethyn, Gwen Taylor, Alun Armstrong, Michael Jayston and Nicola Pagett. Three eminently respectable Yorkshire couples are in the midst of their joint silver wedding celebrations when they receive a rude shock - they are not legally married.

A brand-new dramatised retelling of Milton’s epic poem about the fall of man, with Milton as the narrator, adapted by one of the leading poets and thinkers of our generation: Michael Symmons Roberts. Paradise Lost was first published in 1667 and tells the story of Satan’s plot to bring about the fall of man by tempting Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. This brand-new adaptation begins in the midst of the action and follows the exploits of a hero (or antihero) taking in warfare and the supernatural and expressing the ideals and traditions of a people. Milton himself is the blind narrator, grieving the loss of his wife, whose eyesight worsens as the drama develops.

In these series, Rhod Gilbert and Chris Addison introduce a line-up of the best and brightest stand-ups, inviting fresh faces and old hands onstage to display their comic talents. Each programme features three different stars - a newcomer who performs the opening act, an established comedian or double act offering up sketches, musical numbers or character pieces and a final headline artist. There’s some top-notch comedy from the compères, too, as they showcase their funniest routines.

Released from prison early, chirpy Cockney conman Terry King is given a chance to find his feet again. His challenge is to breathe new life into a run-down community centre - with the support of Sandra Gaines, a social worker with a warm heart but an unhappy past. If he succeeds, he'll prove that rehabilitation is possible. But if he fails, he'll be sent back to jail.... Situated in the middle of a rough council estate, Grove Hill Farm needs a lot of work. The windows are broken, the plumbing's out of action and part of the centre was burned down during a riot.

Jeremy Hardy returns with a brand-new series that not only seconds that emotion but explains it, too. Yes, BBC Radio 4's most passionate polemicist returns to the airwaves with a new format which promises to be both personal and profound, and to present sides of Jeremy you won't have heard before. He may even sing. (He won't sing.)

All 16 episodes of the BBC radio comedy about the dysfunctional Burbage siblings: Brothers Nigel and Michael share everything - home, work and acute neuroses. Several years ago, they gave up respectable careers to set up a website design company in Nigel's living room. That was their first mistake....

Timothy West takes on the role of Rumpole in these two thrilling dramas featuring the wily magician of the Old Bailey at his implacable best. Rumpole takes up the cause of young Bertie Timson, whose sole ‘crime’ seems to be playing football in the street. As he endeavours to defend our ancient freedoms, he becomes uneasy about exactly what his wife Hilda is up to in her continuing friendship with a high court judge.

Idiosyncratic detective duo Max Matthews and Sean Armitage are back for three more series, in which they expertly extract confessions from their suspects during the course of one interview. Their relationship has evolved since they were first paired up, back when Armitage was a rookie constable, but their interrogation technique is as incisive as ever. These 11 compelling dramas all shine the spotlight on a different suspect, each with their own tale to tell - and their own selective version of events.

The Pin are a multiaward-winning comedy duo with a unique brand of self-reflexive comedy. Performed in front of a live studio audience, their sketches exist somewhere between razor-sharp smartness and joyous silliness. Expect sketches, commentary on the sketches, subtext, rewinds and replays until the line between the performance and critique blurs to hilarious effect.

This third treasury of rare archive material presents another four newly restored radio episodes of Hancock’s Half Hour: ‘The 13th of the Series’ (1957), ‘The Male Suffragettes’ (1958), ‘The Sleepless Night’ (1958) and ‘The Last Bus Home’ (1959). Starring once again alongside Tony Hancock are Sid James, Bill Kerr, Hattie Jacques and Kenneth Williams. Three further editions of the radio hit Calling All Forces, from 1952, feature Hancock as co-compere with Charlie Chester, with a bill featuring Robb Wilton and many other light entertainment stars of the day.

Award-winning comedian Tom Allen is one of Britain's best and brightest stand-ups. He's appeared on Mock the Week, The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice and Live at the Apollo, toured several sell-out solo shows, starred in his own TV pilot and even written an autobiography. He's always seemed pleasant and polite on the surface: but the truth is, he's a monster - or so he says. In Tom Allen Is Actually Not Very Nice, he stages a stand-up intervention to find out what turned him from sweet to naughty and how he can get back on the straight and narrow.