Showing results by publisher "BBC Audio" in All Categories

Jules Verne's two novels featuring Captain Nemo (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island), condensed down to two thrilling hours. In 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, marine scientist Professor Aronnax and his stowaway daughter, Connie, join whaler Ned Land aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln to hunt an aggressive sea monster, believed to be a giant narwhale. When they engage the monster, they find to their astonish­ment it's an electrically powered submarine, the Nautilus, techno­logically far superior to any vessel known.

Sorry I Haven't a Clue has Radio Four's highest listening figures for light entertainment and won the 1998 Voice of the Listener and Viewer for top radio show.

Poet Ian McMillan is our host in this gleeful game of literary tomfoolery, outrageous parody and biting wit. Joining him for some lighthearted competitive wordplay are a quartet of writers and comedians, all ready and eager to run riot through the halls of great literature. 

A compendium of radio sitcoms and retrospectives celebrating the legendary duo: Ray Galton and Alan Simpson were Britain's best-loved and most successful comedy writing partners. Together, they created two of the greatest sitcoms of all time, Hancock's Half Hour and Steptoe and Son. This compilation brings together some of the finest programmes from their 60-year career, as well as interviews with them both.

Sarah Millican picks through her guests' minds and secret routines—using simple surveys from the Great British Public on childhood habits, daily rituals, and preferred cheeses—to discover which of them fits the pattern of the average person on the street, and which is so far from the norm we really ought to be worried.

All 13 episodes of the classic role-reversal comedy starring Leslie Phillips and Jill Bennett. It's not easy being chauffeur to your ex-wife. Especially when she's wealthy and you're broke.... Leslie Duggan was once a high-flying property tycoon - but then came the 1980s property crash, which wiped out his business and left him broke. Down on his luck and desperate to earn a living, he takes a job chauffeuring his wealthy ex-wife, Caroline, who owns a successful mail order company and is very much on the up.

Martin Christmas is a local government worker in the Sanitation department, whose days are shaped by endless recycling initiatives and green league tables, and whose nights are shadowed by his failed relationships and curmudgeonly interior monologues. While Martin is trying to cultivate his inner peace, things keep getting in his way.

First published between 1870 and 1893, Émile Zola’s 20-book cycle chronicling four generations of the Rougon-Macquarts was a shocking exposé of the decadence, degradation and moral decay of 19th-century France. It included some of his greatest novels, among them his masterpiece, Germinal. These innovative, ambitious dramas, first broadcast on Radio 4 over 24 hours in 2015-16, are a radical reimagining of Zola’s classic series, introducing us to 104-year-old matriarch, Dide, imprisoned in an asylum in southern France. 

Paul Sellar is an award-winning playwright working in theatre, film and radio. This compulsive collection brings together four of his gritty, modern thrillers, set at the intersection of the murky worlds of corrupt business and criminality.

From 1974, five full-cast dramatisations of the short stories by GK Chesterton, starring Leslie French as the investigating Roman Catholic priest and Willie Rushton as GK Chesterton. Created in 1910, Father Brown inhabited the pages of several short story collections and novels before appearing in adaptations for film, TV, radio and theatre. His most recent incarnation is in the hit BBC TV series starring Mark Williams in the title role.

Sylvia Townsend Warner was a prolific author of novels, short stories and poetry, who also wrote a biography of T. H. White, translated Proust and was an authority on Tudor church music. A sharp, insightful storyteller, she was one of the 20th Century's most acute observers of English mores, and her work is infused with subversive themes reflecting her feminist and Marxist views. This comprehensive anthology includes dramatisations of her two best-known novels.

With his devoted Dr Watson, Holmes emerges from his smoke-filled rooms in Baker Street to grapple with the forces of treachery, intrigue and evil, including the diabolical Professor Moriarty.

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast production of one of the earliest plays by Alan Bennett. The 1970s are a time of change, but Labour MP George Oliver feels stuck in one place: distrusting the ‘mawkish mentality’ of the young and fearing the encroaching life of the middle-aged, with little to look forward to but the imminent end of a not-very-interesting road.

Adam Buxton takes a sideways look at some of our confusing modern ideas and explains why you're definitely doing it all wrong. Across five episodes he explores the worlds of work, parenting, diet, the environment and family. Is the idea of a 'dream job' - one that inspires and fulfils us and makes our lives worth living - really possible? Does your toddler eat strictly rationed organic produce, or are they allowed to eat what they want? Does installing solar panels and despairing over plastic bottles make a difference if we continue to jet off on holidays and eat imported guava?! 

Deep in London's East End, Garry and Barry run a pub, and they're not very good at it. Things usually go from bad to worse when their mate, Dodgy Phil, comes up with increasingly hair-brained ideas to reinvent the local - often with explosive results. Could they make this the world's first environmentally friendly bar? Build the world's biggest pub named after the Titanic (but is it undrinkable)? What about booking Chas and Dave for the Queen's visit? Plus, there's the difficulty of running a pub next door to a zoo.

After being mugged by a pair of pensioners outside the Darby & Joan Club, the Reverend Timothy Carswell has had enough of his rough, tough inner-city parish. Convinced that someone so meek would be better suited somewhere quieter, the Bishop packs him off to a nice, sedate residential neighbourhood where nothing ever seems to happen. However, unbeknownst to the vicar, his apparently respectable new parish is a hotbed of passion, paranormal experimentation and geriatric prostitution.

For more than half a century, Alistair Cooke entertained millions of listeners across the globe with his weekly BBC radio programme Letter from America. An outstanding observer of the American scene, he became one of the world's best-loved broadcasters and had the distinction of presenting the longest running one-man show in radio history. Following the sad death of Alistair Cooke after 58 years in broadcasting, this impressive collection features all three volumes of Letters from America.

The hilarious comic lovechild of A Question of Sport and QI, Jest a Minute is a light-hearted, lively show that quizzes leading comedians on their knowledge of comedy. Host Rhod Gilbert accepts no backchat and gives short shrift to cheek as he recklessly awards points based on how quick, agile and witty he considers the panellists to be. In a series of fast-paced, chaotic rounds, they are tasked with answering quickfire questions on comedy history, sitcom titles, catchphrases and classic comedy films.

Ready with his black bag, Dr Finlay sets out to remedy all manner of ailments suffered by his patients in the Scottish Highland town of Levenford. In this complete BBC Radio collection, we meet the surprising Dr Finlay as he is welcomed to the practise with a black eye. Over the course of these series the early years of Dr Finlay are explored, as he gets to grips with the locals in the Scottish Highland town of Levenford.

From the annals of wartime Britain come four brilliantly funny episodes with Captain Mainwaring's Home Guard, ever ready to strike terror into the heart of the Wehrmacht from their unit in Walmington-on-Sea.