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

Arch-Brutalist Sir Lucien founded his architectural practice on a commitment to brutalist concrete in all its forms. But fashion has been a cruel mistress, and four decades later things are not going well for Sir Lucien and his loyal(ish) employees. With no money and no commissions, times are tough – but it’s onwards and upwards (and upwards again) for the staff, as they go all out to win new contracts, deal with nightmare clients and fight to get their ambitious projects past the planners.

Terry Lyon, assistant head keeper of Southwood Zoo, trusts animals because most people think he’s a waste of space. But as the zoo lurches towards bankruptcy, his future looks bleak. As if managing hungry elephants and contrary polar bears wasn’t complicated enough, the humans in Terry’s life pose their own challenges. Having had to move back in with his parents after his divorce, life becomes complicated when Terry’s ex Margaret starts seeing his best friend Richard.

Regular team captains Stephen Fry and John Sessions are joined by Lenny Henry, Dawn French, Hugh Laurie, Enn Reitel, Jimmy Mulville, Nonny Williams, Griff Rhys Jones, Kate Robbins, John Bird, Rory Bremner and Jon Glover as they battle their way through a succession of games and romp through a world of literary styles, TV theme tunes, and film genres. Chairman Clive Anderson desperately tries to hold the whole thing together, and the guests make it up as they go along in this riot of improvisation.

First broadcast on the BBC Home Service, We’re in Business ran for two series between 1959 and 1960. It starred Peter Jones as dodgy small-time businessman Dudley Grosvenor, who’s always looking to make a fast buck with his crooked schemes – usually at the expense of his hapless sidekick, Harry (Harry Worth). Dudley spends his life lurching from one crisis to another, secure in the belief that “it might never happen" – but when it inevitably does, both men end up in a fix…

A BBC radio recreation of the Marx Brothers’ lost shows, starring Michael Roberts and Frank Lazarus. First broadcast on America’s NBC network between 1932-33, Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel charted the exploits of shady lawyer Waldorf T Flywheel (played by Groucho Marx) and his dopey assistant, Emmanuel Ravelli (played by Chico Marx). The original recordings were lost, but the scripts were rediscovered and edited by Michael Barson. These were published as Flywheel, Shyster & Flywheel: The Marx Brothers Lost Radio Show and licensed for a dramatic adaptation by the BBC.

When unemployed teacher Patrick and his wife, high-flying professional Helen, move back to the town where Patrick grew up, they thought life would be simpler. But Patrick's hazy and fond memories of his schooldays are brought back into sharp relief once he's surrounded by the people and places he'd long stopped thinking about, and he realises things were not always as he'd seen them. As Patrick begins to rebuild bonds and make new discoveries with his old school friends, Helen is making friends of her own.

Newly graduated from university, Alex Fisher returns home depressed and suffering from existential angst. But when his father encourages him to make himself useful by killing the snails in the garden Alex has an epiphany. Instead of murdering them, he will save them – and soon, he has a whole escargatoire of snails, all named after celebrities, crawling over the carpet, climbing the walls and hanging off the lampshades.

In Swansden, it seems like the men and women of the Post Office must make their own fun. From following mystic runes on a fantasy journey and competing in a little light professional competitive cycling, to fighting the Tuareg in a fort in Africa after joining the French Foreign Legion and engaging the Jupiter aliens in an amateur musical, via climbing Mount Everest and attempting to record a Christmas Number One - Brian, Derek and Sue will just have to make sure all the boring stuff like sorting and handing out the post is actually done at some point.

Suzie’s never been to Cornwall before, but one day she finds herself on the Cornish Riviera Express, hurtling from Paddington to Penzance. She sits next to David and over the course of an eventful five-hour journey an intense relationship develops. But both she and David are married, so they don’t expect to see each other again.

Fleeing across England in a fruit shaped van, attending his own wake and shouting the word 'parsnip' at inopportune moments wasn't exactly what Reginald Perrin had planned. But for Reggie, nothing in life is really going to plan. This brand-new dramatisation of David Nobbs's hilarious classic novel follows the adventures of a middle-aged, middle-of-the-road, middle management dessert salesman, as he decides he's finally had enough.

Explore the green and nether regions of the South West with ‘Bob Bradman’s Bed & Breakfast’; join Quentin Montreal for ‘New Movements’, as he looks into such disturbing trends as the suffragette diet, fox hunting in Maida Vale and blind motor racing; and help yourself to a heaped spoonful of Sugar Cane, the sultry Detective Sergeant whose hand is firmly wrapped around the throbbing pulse of crime.

Buy Me Up TV is a live, 24-hour cable channel, described by its CEO, Jacky Tanner, as ‘the crop of the top of the television shops’. Its perky presenters Angela and Bob are experts at flogging you everything you could possibly want for your home, wardrobe and lifestyle – and if the price isn’t right, the Bargain Bee will sting it right down. From ceramic hammers and a home Satanist test, to Robert Mugabe beach towels and a guitar bra (with matching banjo briefs), it’s all on special offer for a limited time only – buy now, while stocks last…

When Marcia Hulme inherits her uncle's medical practice, she decamps from London to a remote island off the coast of Northumbria. There's not a lot to do in Paradise, other than fish or drink, and Marcia's soon missing her favourite restaurants, cinemas and theatres - and her boyfriend, Clem. But as she plans her escape back to the Big Smoke, she gets drawn into island life and discovers that swapping West End wine bars for the Wind O'Change pub is really not so bad....

Life for supply teacher, Phil (Jim Sweeney), is turned upside down when his wife, Sarah (Caroline Quentin), is offered a new job. Phil agrees to give up work and become a stay-at-home dad to daughter Sophie - after all, how hard can it be? Phil quickly realises parenthood isn’t all coffee mornings and cake. He has to grapple with playgroups (when he can find them), new friends (some a little more ‘out there’ than others), a ‘helpful’ mother-in-law (she isn’t) and when Sarah goes to Paris with work, can Phil contain his jealousy?

Dave Mabbutt is having a crisis. He’s the richest man in Britain, a bona fide rockstar with fans, fame and fortune. He even has a personal assistant called Mr. Tumble, who is in fact an elephant - but he’s not happy. When you have more money than sense life can have hilarious consequences. And how rock and roll does it really feel to have your mum at every gig?

Flatmates Judith, Giles and David once had it all: youth, optimism, ambition and degrees from one of the country's best universities. In their 20s, they were full of potential, but 10 years later, they're simply might-have-beens. Stuck in Streatham and strapped for cash, they're forced to mooch off their more successful mates just to get by.

Vincent Franklin, Rebekah Staton, Kieron Hodgkin and Julia Deakin star in four episodes of the BBC Radio 4 sitcom written by Jack Bernhardt. Welcome to The Lentil Sorters, a sitcom set in the Office of Local & National Statistics which, depending on who you ask, is either where the real power of government resides or the place where fun goes to die.

In these three series, policeman turned stand-up Alfie Moore gives his audience of deputies the chance to find out, as he swears them in and presents them with some real-life scenarios to see how they’ll deal with the dilemmas he faced. Sharing hilarious anecdotes from his time on the front line and giving a helpful breakdown of the ins and outs of British law, he invites them to explain what decisions they would have made – and why...

The Museum of Curiosity is BBC Radio 4's monumental comedy edifice, and the only one with gargoyles in the foyer. It allows nothing inside unless it makes you scratch your head, stroke your chin or, at the very least, go 'Hmm'. Secondly, it is almost completely empty. Fortunately, helping to fill its vacant plinths is a gathering of the world's most original minds.

A current affairs parody and stupidly feasible visit to the 24-hour Hall of Opinion Mirrors. Because there are two stories to every story. Carrie Quinlan (John Finnemore’s Souvenir Programme), Justin Edwards (The Thick of It), Melanie Hudson (I’m Alan Partridge), Samson Kayo (Famalam), Jess Robinson (The Imitation Game), Luke Sumner and Tony Way (Game of Thrones) star in the first episode - 'Breakthrough' - where a scientific breakthrough, a human rights scandal and Britain’s favourite fruit come under the idiot microscope of a team of talking heads.