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

Left hand down a bit! The clueless crew of HMS Troutbridge have returned to port after months at sea, and are soon getting into more hilarious scrapes... Included here are the complete Series Ten and Eleven of the fondly remembered show, remastered and restored for your listening pleasure. In these 34 vintage episodes, Troutbridge is assigned a new Captain, the seasick Commander Trotter; Povey prepares for a visit from Prime Minister Harold Wilson; the ship is hijacked by Forbodian spies; and Murray is promoted - and gets hitched to the Admiral's daughter...

Michael Hordern stars as Jeeves with Richard Briers as Bertie in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation. The rural beauty of Steeple Bumpleigh holds no attractions for Bertie, containing (as it does) the appalling Aunt Agatha. But there is man's work to do and, with Jeeves at his side, how can Bertie fail?

In 1990, one of BBC TV's most popular sketch shows, Harry Enfield's Television Programme, was born. Later retitled Harry Enfield and Chums, it featured Harry and co-stars Paul Whitehouse and Kathy Burke and ran for eight years and four award-winning series. This collection contains a cornucopia of comic characters and catchphrases from the classic show, including upper-class idiot Tim Nice But Dim, DJ dinosaurs Smashie and Nicey on Radio Fab FM, Kevin the Teenager, Mr Dead, Wayne and Waynetta Slob ('I'm avving a faag'), and the Lovely Wobbly Randy Old Ladies ('Ooh, young man!').

Rod Millet has always dreamed of working at the Maltby Collection, but on being appointed Deputy Curator of Painting and Sculpture, it quickly becomes clear that the son of a self-made biscuit mogul isn't going to fit into the musty, insular world of London antiquities. But when, on his first day, Rod learns that the museum has been earmarked for closure, he starts a campaign to save it (threatening his boss Walter Brindle’s plans for a cushy early retirement). With the collection’s future secured, the staff turn their energies towards romance.

Maggie and John had a passionate but disastrous affair in their younger days, but it didn't last. Now in their late 60s, a surprise encounter gives them another chance to take up where they left off. Will they manage to find the best in each other and finally get together? Or will old wounds and an awareness of their ageing bodies deter them? Will the treadmill created by the high-cost, high-pressure 21st century, and their endless other commitments and interruptions large and small, overwhelm them? Or will they take the final risk?

Bristow is a middle-aged, ineffectual buying clerk for the Chester-Perry Organisation. He is merely a small cog in a gigantic wheel...and he knows it. But he has his own small ways of rebelling, and together with sparring partner, Jones, and tea lady, Mrs Purdy, he weaves hopeless tangles of red tape to confound the system and liven up everyone’s day.

Recorded in front of a live audience at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, this fantastic anthology features a host of diverse short stories, composed and performed by a veritable Who's Who of stand-up comedians. By turns hilarious and irreverent, poignant and bittersweet, together they make up a superb selection box of tasty treats.

Faye Walters knows that today's women are sorted and stylish. They have the job, the house, the colour co-ordinated capsule wardrobe. They cope with the pressures of singledom, marriage and having kids with peanut allergies. And they all do it effortlessly, with nothing more than a women's mag and a poem by Pam Ayres to guide them. So why can't she pull it off?

Nerdy Nick's life takes an abrupt turn into surreal chaos when he returns to England to find the mysterious Ronnie Hazelbeach living in his late father's house. Ronnie has certainly lived an interesting life. He's been a wrestler, a sailor, a thief and a jailbird, a gambler, a husband, a conman, a salesman, a getaway driver, a cook, a priest and much more. James can learn a lot about life from him. Ronnie hatches a plan to help Nick get his ex-girlfriend back. But just as the unlikely pair find domestic harmony, they are visited by an unwanted guest.

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.

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.

Richard Griffiths, Clive Merrison, and Frances de la Tour star as part of the National Theatre cast. At a boys' grammar school in Sheffield, eight boys are being coached for the Oxbridge entrance exams. It is the mid-eighties, and the main concern of the unruly bunch of bright sixth-formers is getting out, starting university and starting life.

When the middle-class Empsons move from London to picturesque Winterleaf Gunner, they find themselves totally unprepared for country life - and utterly reliant on Winston. Handyman, village poacher, scholar, gentleman romantic and out-and-out rogue, Winston transforms their lives, fixing up their dilapidated house, introducing them to the works of Kingsley Amis - and giving Nancy a lesson in love.

It's all aboard for more entertaining escapades, as the classic comedy sets sail for its last two series. Included here are all 24 episodes from Series Fourteen and Fifteen, starring Leslie Phillips, Jon Pertwee and Stephen Murray. In these hilarious shows, HMS Troutbridge joins a flotilla travelling round the world on a Navy goodwill mission - but en route, the crew are ensnared in the revolutionary plans of El Godmother and the Raffia, and come up against The Master and his female associate The Mistress.

Novelist, poet and critic Kingsley Amis was one of Britain’s greatest postwar writers. A master of comic fiction, he came to fame in 1954, and won the 1986 Booker Prize for The Old Devils. Included in this collection are dramatisations of seven of his short stories and two novels, all imbued with his characteristic wit and social satire. These are complemented by readings of selected correspondence and an interview with Amis himself.

Sitcom set in a Local Authority Register Office, where the staff deal with the three greatest events in anybody's life. David Schneider (The Day Today, I'm Alan Partridge) stars as chief registrar Malcolm Fox, who is a stickler for rules and would be willing to interrupt any wedding service if the width of the bride infringes health and safety. He's single, but why does he need to be married? He's married thousands of women. Alongside him are rival and divorcee Lorna, who has been parachuted in from Car Parks to drag the office (and Malcolm) into the 21st century.

Viktor Alekseyevich Zolotaryov is an aspiring writer in Ukraine, with only his pet king penguin, Misha, for company. After Viktor gets a job writing obituaries for a local newspaper, he soon finds that his articles are being used as a hit list by some unknown organisation. Feeling as lost and unhappy as his penguin, Viktor’s life takes a complicated turn when he takes in Sonya, the young daughter of an old friend, and hires Nina to be her nanny. Can Viktor protect everyone and keep himself (and his penguin) alive, or is he destined to become the subject of the paper’s latest obituary?

The spoof hardboiled thrillers with Wales's top private investigator dramatised by BBC Radio. This marvelous collection of Malcolm Pryce's acclaimed Aberystwyth Noir radio productions are set in an alternative version of Aberystwyth, where the streets are filled with veterans of the Patagonian War (Wales's answer to Vietnam), the Druids are mob bosses, and the ice cream is...unusual, to say the least.

Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers star in seven early episodes of The Goon Show, plus a plethora of bonus features. Immensely popular and hugely influential, the groundbreaking series The Goon Show changed the face of British comedy.

A collection of BBC readings and dramas celebrating the much-loved schoolboy terror. First featured in five books by Geoffrey Willans, with cartoon illustrations by Ronald Searle, Nigel Molesworth is one of the funniest comic creations in literature. A superbly satirical chronicler of 1950s England, he influenced a generation with his anarchic take on life.