Showing results by publisher "BBC Audio" in Arts & Entertainment

A lonely bachelor avoids personal contact as much as humanly possible, despite the best efforts of his well-meaning but nosey next door neighbours. Gwilym Lloyd whiles away his time, pottering in the garden, learning the harmonica, and writing letters to women serving long-term prison sentences in various jails around the world. Women that he knows he'll never have to meet. Or so he thinks....

Sean Lock replaces Bill Bailey in this second series with Professor John Lloyd in a search for the universe’s most mind-boggling oddness’s. 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 quirky BBC Radio 4 comedy by Ben Lewis about a teenager who becomes an internet phenomenon. Originally broadcast as the ‘Afternoon Play’ on 17 September 2010.This is the story of a legend in the making. A nervous young man lives at the dead end of a dead-end town. On his eighteenth birthday he comes into his inheritance. With a little help from an old teacher, he finds it equips him to broadcast over the internet.

Comic icon Spike Milligan recollects highlights from his stellar career. The comic genius of Spike Milligan changed the face of radio comedy through The Goon Show. Here Milligan chooses and introduces classic clips from an astonishing career: readings from his books Puckoon and Adolf Hitler, My Part in his Downfall, poems, songs, sketches, extracts from Q6 and In the Psychiatrist’s Chair. He reminisces about India and Bexhill and reads his favourite poems, including 'Fred Fernakerpan'.

Luke and Nettie are 15-year-old twins in a normally dysfunctional family. But when something bad happens to Nettie, it becomes clear that no one knew much about her. As the family wait by her hospital bedside, they gradually discover more about what was going on in her life.

What To Do If You're Not Like Everybody Else' is a four-part mini-series of short comedic monologues on BBC Radio 4. Written and performed by stand-up comedian Andrew Lawrence, it takes a light-hearted look at various aspects of conventional living and the pressure we feel to conform to social norms and ideals.

Songwriter, broadcaster and award-winning entertainer Sir Richard Stilgoe goes out, about and around Britain in this amusing musical revue, which finds him taking a wry look at the pastimes and professions of our wayward island. In the company of a troupe of star guests including Sandi Toksvig, Emma Thompson, Kathryn Tickell, Pam Ayres and John Hegley, he visits locations ranging from the Boat Show to the City of London to perform a unique themed comedy show full of fun and laughter.

Art critic and broadcaster Alastair Sooke, accompanied by some of the world's leading creative thinkers, takes an in-depth look at the outstanding exhibits in New York's MoMA, exploring how the way we 'see' art is shaped by our experiences and perspectives. His guests include some of the sharpest minds of our time - artists, writers, designers, comedians, musicians and scientists, among them Steve Martin, Margaret Cho, John Waters, Roxane Gay, Fiona Shaw, Orhan Pamuk and Stanley Tucci.

Vanessa Redgrave is an Oscar-winning actress, well known for her theatre appearances and roles in such films as Howards End and Mrs Dalloway, as well as her political activism. She discusses her life and achievements in this collection of BBC Radio and TV interviews.

Clare is the golden middle sister in a family headed by a formidable matriarch, Luca. Clare meets and quickly marries Martin, who falls just as much in love with her fun, sparky family. But Martin makes a mistake and sets in train a series of events which brings the family to its knees.

It's That Man Again is a giant in the history of radio comedy. As Mat Coward's book Classic Radio Comedy says, "Surely the most written-about radio series in history, it was successful to an extent which is hard to imagine today. Its international audience was measured in the tens of millions. Its star, Tommy Handley, was undoubtedly the most popular performer, in any field, ever known in Britain."

Sir Stirling Moss, OBE, is a legendary British racing driver. In this collection we hear - in his own words - about his family and upbringing, on starting out and his early career choices and why he became a racing driver. He discusses being a businessman, his relationships and the bittersweet feelings that occur with racing. He also touches on the many dangers involved with the sport, including the loss of friends. Stirling talks about his crash in 1962 - including his injuries and recuperation - as well as his celebrity lifestyle, his continuing popularity and reaching 70.

A BBC Radio 4 drama by Fin Kennedy, set in London in the near future, about Caesar Price, an illusionist who has reproduced nearly all of the miracles of Jesus and built a massive cult following. Is he prepared for what will happen when he decides to stage the Crucifixion? Originally transmitted on 26 September 2008, and re-broadcast as the ‘Afternoon Play’ on 30 August 2010.In a near-future London, society is in distress.

Matti is the 14-year-old son of a traditional Sami family living in Lapland, living 250 miles inside the Arctic Circle. Matti is a modern boy, who loves messing about with computers and hates pollution, drugs and Ginger Spice. By the author of Billy Elliott. Performed by Ben Tibber. Written by Lee Hall.

Ronald Pickup, Angela Pleasance, and Maxine Audley star in this BBC Radio 4 1971 production of Shakespeare’s famous tragedy of the Prince of Denmark. Written over 400 years ago, Hamlet still remains one of the most powerful, influential, and thrilling tragedies in the English language.

A BBC Radio 4 dark comedy by Alison Kennedy, set in 1870s London and based on a true story. Originally broadcast in the ‘Saturday Play’ slot on 13 March 2010.Mr Parker is a sincere and kind man who, in search of a higher meaning to life, has moved from conventional religion to séances and spiritualism. He believes he has met his saviour in the guise of Mr Thomson, a charming, erudite and utterly mesmerising medium. But, unbeknown to Parker, Thomson is a complete and utter fake.

This fascinating celebration of BBC Radio 4 features archive clips from some of the channel's best-loved programmes, including The Archers, Desert Island Discs, Today, Woman's Hour, Weekending, I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, The Now Show, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Just a Minute, and many more. Amongst the personalities heard from during this radio extravaganza are Dame Edna Everage, Sue Lawley, Neil Kinnock, John Humphrys, Humphrey Lyttelton, Douglas Adams, John Peel, Angus Deayton, Kenny Everett, and Roy Plomley to mention just a few.

Three lives on three continents connected by one event… A young British schoolboy obsessed with school massacres, a radio journalist in India on the trail of a scoop for the BBC and the boss of an American church-owned clothing firm are the threads that run through this intricate, suspenseful three-part thriller from award-winning writer-director John Dryden.

Dave has a pretty good life: his company is thriving, he's got a lovely wife, a big house, kids at private schools. But then he gets a bit careless and things start to go wrong. Katie Hims is well-known to Radio Four listeners for her many original dramas and adaptations on that network. Most recently she dramatised some of the Martin Beck novels (with more to come); and she won an Audio Drama Award in 2012 for her play Lost Property - A Visit from the Queen, to name but two of her many successes. This is Katie's first Drama On 3. Directed by Mary Peate.

Ken Dodd and a supporting cast give us Ken's unique look behind the scenes of the show at his fictional theatre, the Palace of Laughter. Enjoy more hilarity from the Squire of Notty Ash in these four classic radio shows, recorded in 1986 and 1987 at the Wigan Little Theatre, the Southport Little Theatre, Crewe's Lyceum Theatre, and the Garrick Theatre, Stockport, respectively.