Showing results by narrator "Simon Callow" in All Categories

Exclusively from Audible. 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.' So begins Charles Dickens' most famous historical drama: a gripping tale of war, social injustice and the choice between darkness and light. After being unjustly imprisoned for 18 years, French doctor Manette is released from the Bastille jail in Paris and embarks upon a journey to London in the hope of finding the daughter he never met.

"It is the history of a revolution that went wrong - and of the excellent excuses that were forthcoming at every step for the perversion of the original doctrine". So wrote George Orwell in the original blurb for the first edition of Animal Farm in 1945. His simple and tragic fable, describes...

The first nine audiobooks in the best-selling adventure series, all about Alex T. Smith's unforgettable canine hero, Claude. Now the star of his very own TV show on Disney Junior and ITVBe! 

Ackroyd portrays London from the time of the druids to the beginning of the twenty-first century, noting magnificence in both epochs, but this is not a simple chronological record. It is a comprehensive account, animated by Ackroyd's concern for the close relationship between the present and the past as well as by what he describes as the peculiar "echoic" quality of London whereby its texture and history actively affect the lives and personalities of its citizens.

In The Eyes of Max Carrados, our blind hero, who can read a newspaper headline with the touch of his fingers and shoot a villain by aiming at the sound of his beating heart, discovers a story of murder, suicide and a desperate daughter’s quest to clear her father’s name. As the First World War rapidly approaches, we arrive in a sleepy south coast town where Max Carrados, the celebrated blind detective, is soon investigating the sudden death of the local museum curator. All is not as it seems, as our blind hero finds himself on the cliff top in a duel to the death.

The perfect introduction to the Master. Over a century after his death, Richard Wagner’s music dramas stand at the centre of the culture of classical music. He was a walking contradiction: aggressive, flirtatious, disciplined, capricious, heroic, visionary and poisonously anti-Semitic. His ten...

The hilarious and moving tell-all memoir from the UK's queen of crime drama. This edition includes content exclusive to the audiobook: alongside Lynda, you will hear from close friends, family and stars she's worked with during her long career, including Dame Helen Mirren, Simon Callow, Victoria...

Set during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, we meet Max Carrados, the celebrated blind detective who can read a newspaper headline with the touch of his fingers and shoot a villain by aiming at the sound of his beating heart...and Norman Conquest, the fast talking, hard hitting adventurer with a nose for trouble and a hell-rake disregard for danger, who keeps up good cheer while he biffs the baddies...and not forgetting Ben, the chivalrous and perky non-descript little man, whose thumbs itch just before ‘something ‘orrible ‘appens’.

Ackroyd portrays London from the time of the druids to the beginning of the twenty-first century, noting magnificence in both epochs, but this is not a simple chronological record. It is a comprehensive account, animated by Ackroyd's concern for the close relationship between the present and the past as well as by what he describes as the peculiar "echoic" quality of London whereby its texture and history actively affect the lives and personalities of its citizens.

Ackroyd portrays London from the time of the druids to the beginning of the twenty-first century, noting magnificence in both epochs, but this is not a simple chronological record. It is a comprehensive account, animated by Ackroyd's concern for the close relationship between the present and the past as well as by what he describes as the peculiar "echoic" quality of London whereby its texture and history actively affect the lives and personalities of its citizens.

A BBC Radio 4 parody of the lives of the Romantic poets by Sue Limb, writer of the hit comedy Gloomsbury. 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...

For fans of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and ElvenQuest, this is the epic fantasy series first heard on BBC Radio 4 in 1980 that wonderfully parodies J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. The kingdom of Albion is under threat from The Evil One, and the wizard Radox The Green has...

A stunning new reading of Oscar Wilde's De Profundis (adapted by Frank McGuinness, from the stage production directed by Mark Rosenblatt) and The Ballad of Reading Gaol, performed by one of Britain's greatest actors. One of the most famous and successful writers of his day, Oscar Wilde was celebrated as much for his flamboyant personality and his prodigious wit as for his provocative essays, touching fairy stories and satirical plays.

The days are getting colder, the nights are getting longer, and as Christmas approaches the time is high for some ghostly tales. As an exclusive gift for Audible members, settle down, snuggle up and listen to four chilling ghost stories, read by Simon Callow. Four great stories, one master storyteller - what could be simpler than that?

'I would be most unhappy to think that any part of this memoir should be cut on grounds of 'decency', for those bits are essential....' So begins the lively true story of aristocrat and travel writer Roderic Fenwick Owen. Born in 1921, Fenwick Owen had an extraordinary life, which careered between some of the biggest moments in history and took him to the ends of the earth, meeting (and even living with) some of the 20th century's most well-known people along the way, including Eisenhower, Jackson Pollock, Christopher Lee and Sean Connery. 

Read by Juliet Stevenson and Simon Callow, A Literary Christmas is a seasonal anthology that collects together poems, short stories, and prose extracts by some of the greatest poets and writers in the English language. Like Charles Dickens’ ghosts of Christmas Past and Present, they are representative of times old and new - from John Donne’s Elizabethan hymn over the baby Jesus to Rudyard Kipling’s "Christmas in India", from Thomas Tusser counting the cost of a Tudor feast to Laurie Lee’s "Cider with Rosie".

Ackroyd portrays London from the time of the druids to the beginning of the twenty-first century, noting magnificence in both epochs, but this is not a simple chronological record. It is a comprehensive account, animated by Ackroyd's concern for the close relationship between the present and the past as well as by what he describes as the peculiar "echoic" quality of London whereby its texture and history actively affect the lives and personalities of its citizens.

The Thames has been a highway, a frontier, and an attack route; it has been a playground and a sewer, a source of water, and a source of power. Every stretch has its own character, atmosphere, and stories. Thames: Sacred River explores the river from source to sea. Peter Ackroyd, best-selling author of London: The Biography, tells the story of the river and the people who have lived on and by it over the centuries.

One of Russia's most iconic poets, Alexander Pushkin is often described as the 'father of Russian literature'. A gambler, playboy and social reformer, he was exiled by the Tsar for his controversial poetry and died aged 37 in a duel defending his wife's honour. This BBC Radio anthology includes dramatisations and readings of Pushkin's most famous works - plus biographical programmes and an original play based on his life.

First published in 1975, The Unexpurgated Code is a gloriously improper manual of survival and manners for social climbers, elegant impostors, wounded underdogs and anyone attempting to navigate the absurdities of civilized life. Across hundreds of indispensable lessons, Donleavy dispenses fearless advice on improving your accent, choosing the correct neighbours, surviving disastrous parties, behaving at funerals, confronting the rich and powerful, and preserving one's dignity during even the most unlikely personal catastrophe.