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

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.

In this major BBC Radio 4 series, James Naughtie uncovers the roots of our music and reveals the soundtrack to our own history. The history of classical music is inextricably linked with the places it was written, its purpose and its patrons as well as with politics, war and social change. From the earliest music of the monasteries to the court and church music of the Renaissance and Reformation and beyond, composers have always changed with the times.

Just a Minute has been entertaining generations of listeners since its first series in 1967. This collection of five series from 2018-2019, commemorating the programme's 55th anniversary, contains the last ever episodes chaired by broadcasting legend Nicholas Parsons, as well as several shows in which Gyles Brandreth sits in for him as temporary host. Between them, they keep the scores and the peace.

Alexei Sayle’s two favourite things are pretending and places that sell sandwiches, and in his hit BBC radio series he mixes both to hilarious effect. As he welcomes made-up customers to buy notional snacks, he dispenses outlandish monologues, fantastical flights of fancy and a bumper helping of hilarity.

Immensely popular and hugely influential, The Goon Show changed the face of British comedy. This 14th and final collection returns to the programme's fourth series and includes the episodes 'The History of Communications', 'The Kippered Herring Gang', 'The Tooth-Paste Expedition', 'The Case of the Vanishing Room', 'The Greatest Mountain in the World', 'Collapse of the British Railways Sandwich System', 'The Case of Agent X2 (aka The Silent Bugler)', 'The Story of Brain [sic] (aka Western Story)', 'The Saga of the Internal Mountain' and 'Bank of England Robbery'.

Not long after their mother's death, sisters Maureen and Lesley are packing up their family home. It's a painful duty, with Maureen trying to control the worst of Lesley's projectile lamenting. Then a strange man knocks at the door and introduces himself as David Johnson, a friend of Maureen's neighbour. He'd like to view the house if they are thinking of selling - which Maureen definitely is.

In this sitcom, Harry Hill stars as the governor of Britain’s remotest prison. In Series 1, he has to contend with the prison inspectors, mysteriously malfunctioning CCTV cameras, escaping prisoners and even the prison being attacked by a pair of mating whales. In Series 2, he and the team pitch a new invention to Dragon’s Den, he tries to get his stomach around a food shortage and a self-destruct button is found in the prison.  

Sue Perkins chairs Radio 4's longest-running panel game in which contestants are challenged to speak on a given topic for 60 seconds without hesitation, deviation or repetition.

Welcome to Washington, DC's favourite political phone-in show, as multi award-winning comedian (and American citizen) Rich Hall and a selection of comedians from both sides of the Atlantic reflect on the latest political events in the United States. Using a combination of stand-up, sketch and interview, Rich Hall’s (US) Breakdown broadcasts live from the fictional IBBC network in Washington to the whole of America, as Rich and his producer Nick Doody take calls from every corner of the country to hear the concerns of voters.

Through the medium of open letters, the comedian Tom Wrigglesworth investigates the myriad examples of corporate lunacy and maddening jobsworths in modern Britain. His subjects range from traffic wardens to estate agents, with Tom recalling his own funny and ridiculous experiences, as well as recounting the absurd encounters of others.

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.

One of the most important and influential Russian writers of the 19th century, Fyodor Dostoevsky is admired worldwide for his great realist novels, exploring questions of morality, philosophy and the nature of existence. This compilation contains the BBC radio productions of his four most famous novels - as well as three lesser-known works and two bonus documentaries - collected together for the first time.

Another helping of inspired ad-libbery from the multi award-winning BBC Radio 4 series.

Miles Jupp stars as James Boswell, Dr Johnson's time-travelling biographer, with a host of top actors and comedians as his celebrity interviewees. Before James Boswell penned a biography of his friend, Dr Johnson, they were both nobodies. But his Life of Samuel Johnson made them famous - so now Boswell's out to work his magic on other celebrities. Travelling through the centuries, he gives 12 legendary figures the Boswell treatment, hoping to do for them what he did for Johnson....

The show that grabs listeners by the waist, swirls them round in time to a Strauss waltz, and then trips over the banana skins of convention.

Miranda is an unconventional woman. She’s six feet tall, self-conscious and posh. And is frequently mistaken for a man. She’s also invested her inheritance in a joke shop that she runs with her friend Stevie while trying to deal with her outrageously embarrassing mother. Though surrounded by chocolate willies, Miranda is determined to suss out what it takes to be a girly girl and to not look a complete idiot every time she meets the gorgeous Gary. 

Join sad pervie Richard Richard and his masochistic flatmate Eddie Hitler (a.k.a. Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson) for some disgusting toilet humour, caustic merriment and charming English pleasantries in these four pungent classic TV episodes of anarchic sitcom Bottom. In addition, we join charismatic ace investigative reporter Kevin Turvey (Mayall) as he combs the back of his mind to bring us exclusives on such soul-searching subjects as death, sex and the supernatural in Kevin Turvey Investigates.

Welsh comedian Rhod Gilbert is one of the biggest names in UK stand-up, performing to sell-out audiences in Britain and abroad. Now he has his own radio series, recorded in front of a live audience and packed with laughs. Joining Rhod on stage are fellow comedians Lloyd Langford and Greg Davies ('We Are Klang'), along with Sarah Millican who takes a look at The Six Stages of Woman.

Mark Steel is back with two more series of his award-winning show, in which he explores nine weird and wonderful places around the UK and beyond. After thoroughly researching each town's history, people and idiosyncrasies, he goes on to write and perform a tailor-made evening of stand-up for the residents.

An everyday story of towering genius, set in and around the Lakeland retreat of William and Dorothy Wordsmith. The Wordsmiths have not long settled in their sublime cottage when they are visited by the inebriate Samuel Tailor Cholericke and the lascivious Lord Biro, followed by numerous other romantically inclined writers and leech-pedlars who arrive at the door of Vole Cottage. Dorothy must manage the increasingly chaotic household (assisted by Stinking Iris) while William focuses on his latest masterpiece, 'The Withered Turnip'.