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

A job in pantomime seems the perfect way to spend the Christmas season for Charles, but the cast of Cinderella are a motley crew from reality TV and Charles finds himself having to explain the traditions of panto to their baffled American star whose career is on a downward trajectory. When the star is shot dead, and Charles finds the body, he finds himself under suspicion.

Two episodes from the award-winning BBC TV series I'm Alan Partridge starring Steve Coogan. Listen to Alan attempt to rebuild his career as an early-morning DJ on Radio Norwich. His wife has left him for a fitness instructor and Alan had moved to the luxury of the Linton Travel Tavern (big plate not included!).

Dame Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer star as old flames Jean Pargetter and Lionel Hardcastle. Their love story was all set for a happy ending in the 1950s when Jean was a student nurse and Lionel, a young army officer. But he was posted abroad and they lost touch. Thirty-eight years later, Lionel has returned to London to publish his autobiography and, through a strange coincidence, he is reunited with Jean who has set up a secretarial agency.

Alfie Moore spent 18 years on the Humberside police force before turning to stand-up comedy. In each episode of this live stand-up show, he takes his audience through a scenario based on a real-life case and tasks them with deciding how they would have acted in the circumstances. Along the way Alfie spills the beans on what it's really like to be one of Britain's finest, tells us some great anecdotes about law breakers and makers that he's come across and gets his audience to divulge secrets about their own, sometimes less than strictly law-abiding lives.

John Finnemore (Dead Ringers & Mitchell & Webb) has written this brilliant new sitcom starring Stephanie Cole, Roger Allam & Benedict Cumberbatch. Cabin Pressure is set in a small airline business. The flipside of the glamorous world of international airlines.

In each episode of this BBC Radio 4 series Mark Steel visits a UK town and researches its history, heritage and culture, after which he performs a bespoke evening of comedy for the local residents. Mark's destinations in Series 1 & 2 are Skipton; Boston; Lewes; Walsall; Merthyr Tydfil; Portland; Dartford; Wilmslow; Dumfries; Penzance; Gateshead and Kirkwall. Duration: 6 hours approx.

Join Professor John Lloyd and curators Jimmy Carr, Humphrey Ker, Phill Jupitus and Sarah Millican as they plunge down the badger hole of ignorance in a search for the universe's most mind-boggling oddnesses. 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 that doesn't make you scratch your head, stroke your chin or, at the very least, go 'hmm'.

The complete fifth series of BBC Radio 4's award-winning sketch show, written by and starring the writer of Cabin Pressure. John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme has won a host of awards, including the 2015 BBC Audio Drama Award for Best Scripted Comedy with Live Audience. Written by and starring John Finnemore, this fifth series of the hit show returns with more witty wordplay and laugh-out-loud sketches.

Born the same year as Radio 4 itself, Just a Minute is one of the BBC's longest-running and most popular panel games. In these five series from 2016-2018, collected together to mark the 55th birthday of the show, Nicholas Parsons presides over more hilarious linguistic shenanigans. Highlights include a festive edition, Just a Minute Does Panto!, which sees the players journeying through Panto-land in search of the missing Golden Whistle. Also featured is Just a Minute: 50 Years in 28 Minutes, which was specially compiled to celebrate the show's 50th anniversary.

A complete collection of the talk show with a twist—the guest each week becomes the interviewer in the following episode. Focusing on the career and passions of a figure in the entertainment world whose work they admire, each interviewer gets to delve into the life of their hero as well as revealing hidden aspects of themselves. Featuring great British comedians, award-winning actors, and iconic musicians and writers, Chain Reaction serves you double helpings of amazing individuals.

Arthur Lowe, John Le Mesurier, Ian Lavender, and Bill Pertwee star in the radio sequel sitcom to Dad’s Army.

John Finnemore, writer and star of Cabin Pressure, returns in four episodes of his own sketches, as heard on BBC Radio. These episodes feature a tiger with a gun, reveal the truth behind the war effort, visit some documentary-makers, has a big debate and then treats itself to a little trophy. Plus, there are also some musical interludes from the zoo. John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme is written by and stars John Finnemore (The Now Show, Miranda, That Mitchell and Webb Look).

A full-cast BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman’s celebrated apocalyptic comic novel, with bonus length episodes and outtakes. According to the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday in fact. Just after Any Answers on Radio 4….Events have been set in motion to bring about the End of Days. The armies of Good and Evil are gathering and making their way towards the sleepy English village of Lower Tadfield.

With its brilliant blend of the silly, the serious and the satirical, The News Quiz has been a must-listen for comedy fans since it started 46 years ago. Recorded in front of an audience, these three series see Andy Zaltzman presiding over a motley crew of comedians and journalists as they trawl through the biggest (and smallest) news stories of 2024 to provide comedy, commentary, irony and irreverence.

Julie Walters, Alan Rickman, Dora Bryan, Jim Broadbent and Celia Imrie, Hugh Lloyd, and many more join Victoria Wood in this positively bloated bumper collection oozing with songs, sketches, and monologues.

Chaired by Simon Brett (author of the hugely popular Charles Paris series), this intriguing, interactive panel show challenges professional crime novelists to put their experience and expertise to the test as they try to unravel various mind-bending mysteries. Each episode features a death and a denouement - with various red herrings and misdirections along the way. As the murder scenario is described and the clues laid out, our writer-detectives take turns cross-examining the suspects.

Four more series of the long-running satirical panel show chaired by Miles Jupp. Since its inception in 1977, The News Quiz has been taking an irreverent sideways look at the headlines, playfully poking fun at the issues, incidents and individuals that make the news. These 32 episodes, first broadcast between January 2017 and February 2018, see Miles Jupp in the chair once more, as he shepherds the panellists through the top stories from that eventful period.

Presented by writer, comedian and self-confessed listomaniac Susan Calman, this hilarious show celebrates the power of the humble list—from 'Buzzfeed' to 'bucket' and everything in between. Accompanying Susan for a spot of comic categorising are a panel of special guests, including Lucy Porter, Joe Lycett, Richard Herring, Katherine Ryan, James Acaster, Miles Jupp, Lucy Beaumont, Nat Luurtsema, Alun Cochrane, Sarah Millican, Ricky Wilson, Roisin Conaty and Isy Suttie. Together, they participate in a variety of anarchic games themed around lists both magnificent and mundane.

Carla Lemarchant was a child of five when her mother was accused and convicted of poisoning her father, the famous painter Amyas Crale. After Caroline Crale dies in prison, Carla is sent to live with her uncle and aunt in Canada. Only on her 21st birthday does Carla learn of her family history when she reads a letter written by Caroline before her death, in which she denies murdering her husband. But if her mother didn't kill Amyas Crale, who did?

For years they thought it was just them. Irritated and tormented by everything around them from call centres to nose studs, from speed bumps to ring tones. Then along came the BBC2 series Grumpy Old Men, and the subsequent best-selling book, and they knew they were not alone.