Showing results by publisher "BBC Audio" in World Literature

Forerunner to the renowned operas, The Figaro Plays by Pierre Augustin Caron De Beaumarchais are a celebration of how intelligence and wit can bring any servant level with their aristocratic masters. Considered scandalous in their time, the plays went on to be adapted by Rossini (The Barber of Seville) and Mozart (The Marriage of Figaro) to become some of the most popular and acclaimed operas of all time. These original plays show us the stories behind these popular operas.

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde by poet and writer Lavinia Greenlaw.

One of the great works of English literature, this powerful, compelling story explores love from its first tentative beginnings through to passionate sensuality and eventual tragic disillusionment. Lavinia Greenlaw's new version for radio brings Chaucer's language up-to-date for a modern audience while remaining true to his original poetic intention.

Patrick Troughton stars as the Doctor in the soundtrack of this classic TV story from 1968, in which he finds the humanoid Gonds enslaved by the monstrous, crystalline Krotons. Along with his companions, Jamie and Zoe, the Doctor befriends the Gonds and enters the lair of their enemies. Can he halt the years of tyrrany and also escape with his life? Written by Robert Holmes. Linking narration will be provided by a member of the original cast.

It’s 1985 and the Stage Left Theatre Collective is founded by a group of friends with a shared vision: Emma, the artistic manager and Robert the literary manager, director Saul, playwright Alan, and finance manager, Frank. This funny, moving and pin sharp drama follows the fate of the company and its members over the course of four decades. We catch up with the characters as they negotiate changing cultural and economic climates.

Young, beautiful and courageous, Milady de Winter is a cunning spy, talented thief, and ruthless killer. She glides with ease through the streets and gilded halls of 17th-century France and England, turning heads or, with a click of her fingers, disappearing anonymously into a crowd. Driven by intellect and fierce desire, she is willing to go to any lengths to achieve her ambitions - and outwit the powerful men who try to crush her.

One of Britain's leading contemporary playwrights, Howard Brenton is well known for his controversial state-of-the-nation plays, dark comedies and powerful political satires. He has written over 50 works for the theatre and numerous screenplays, including 13 episodes of the hit TV series Spooks. Included here are some of his most acclaimed dramas, including the award-winning Pravda, co-written with David Hare.

Faith, Hope and Glory charts the lives of three African-Caribbean families, connected forever by the theft of a beautiful pram in Tilbury in 1946. As they live through the eighty years since then, they witness and take part in the emergence of the modern United Kingdom.

This is a BBC Radio adaptation of J. M. Barrie's classic satire about the changing fortunes of Crichton, the perfect butler. Liberal aristocrat Lord Loam favours a return to nature, with masters and servants living together as equals, but Crichton is the perfect butler and the perfect snob who adores the intricacies of the class system. He cannot help but be horrified by his master's opinions, and it will take a sea change to alter them.

Responding to an advert apparently worded for him alone, Captain Mike Yates (retired) is reunited with a ghost from the past. But why has the Doctor, that mysterious traveller in Time and Space, sent for his former UNIT acquaintance? Trapped by a horde of vicious creatures in an apparently innocuous English country cottage, the two old friends are on the brink of an enormous adventure.

The TARDIS arrives on a vast spaceship in the distant future, and the Doctor, Steven, and Dodo meet the only survivors from the planet Earth. They are on a 700 year voyage to the planet Refusis II, in the company of their mute, one-eyed servants the Monoids. Dodo unwittingly spreads her cold amongst the Monoids, and it proves deadly to them. The Doctor provides a cure, and they leave, but the TARDIS jumps forward in time, taking its occupants to the Ark's future.

A radio drama of the classic, universal tale of the corrupting influence of power, the healing force of love, and how the truth must always be told - heedless of the consequences. In the New York docks of the 1950s, at least ten percent of everything is paid to the mob. Longshoremen looking for work either pay kickbacks or face starvation. One-time fight contender Terry Malloy has been led into crime by his older brother Charley, and he's being used in a plot to get young Joey Doyle murdered for not 'dummying up'.