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

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of D. H. Lawrence's classic story about working class love, loss and hardship. Sensitive, intellectual Gertrude Coppard married miner Walter Morel for his rich, ringing laugh and colourful character. But now, years later, she finds there is little behind the bluster and their marriage has become riddled with disillusionment. Instead, Gertrude pours all her love and attention into her two sons, William and Paul.

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.

Described by Radio Times as "a brilliant observer of the domestic scene, a master reporter of life as we know it", Al Read's weekly show drew audiences of 35 million during the 1950s and 60s. His rich Northern humour stands the test of time, as this collection of four shows from the 50s hilariously demonstrates.

Patrick Stewart stars as Raymond Chandler and Adrian Scarborough as Billy Wilder in BBC Radio 4's entertaining glimpse inside the Hollywood film industry. Double Jeopardy was originally broadcast as the 'Afternoon Play' on 4 February 2011. In 1944 Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder came together to work on a screen adaptation of James M. Cain's novel Double Indemnity. The play follows their famously difficult collaboration.

Here are all six episodes from this one-off 1987 radio comedy series, written by John Antrobus and starring Spike Milligan, Chris Langham, John Antrobus, and a jazz quartet. Episodes include "The Incredible Case of the Vanishing Flying Scotsman", "Jonah and the Whale", "From Rags to More Rags", "That 'Cake' Elusive Pimpernel", and "The Incurables".

In this fascinating collection of interviews from the BBC radio and TV archive, John Mortimer, creator of the much-loved Rumpole of the Bailey, talks about his life and career as a barrister, screenwriter and novelist.

A BBC Radio 4 drama in which professional illusionist, Will Morgan, fronts a TV show in which he exposes spiritualist mediums as frauds. Haunted was originally broadcast as the 'Afternoon Play' on 19 January 2011. Hayley Taylor is the spiritualist medium who refuses to back down under illusionist Will's scrutiny - a challenge Will can't walk away from. Both are to have their belief systems sorely tested when a voice from one of their pasts refuses to keep silent...

A BBC Radio 4 drama by Dan Allum, ‘Atching Tan’ was recorded on location on a Traveller site, with all Traveller parts cast from the Traveller community. Originally broadcast as the ‘Afternoon Play’ on 23 November 2010.Lovvie Arkley is torn. Does she marry childhood sweetheart Nelius and live a traditional yet isolated Traveller life? Or does she renounce her culture to pursue a career in the outside ‘Gorgia’ world? Drama teacher John threatens to tip the balance.

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.

Two new dramas which get inside the emotional realities of dealing with ethical dilemmas. When a confused young man with no I.D. and a Doctor Who fixation is brought into hospital, the staff have clear rules about how decisions can be made on his behalf. But when he starts to make his own wishes clear, are they right to listen? Starring Gunnar Cauthery, Clare Perkins, Simon Bubb, and Carl Prekopp.

Davis Finch is a hack TV writer with aspirations to write a novel. In order to be a real writer he feels he needs a proper desk. The one he buys changes his life. He becomes a success - but at what price? This spooky psychological thriller by Andrew Readman stars Graeme Hawley, Tim McInnerny, Karen West, Greg Wood, Melissa Jane Sinden and Russell Richardson. Producer/Director: Gary Brown.

Here is Gary Brown's BBC Radio 4 full-cast comedy dramatisation about artist Eric Gill's clash with the BBC over his famous sculpture of Prospero and Ariel. It stars Anton Lesser as Eric Gill and Tim McInnerny as Sir John Reith, the first Director General of the Corporation, and was originally broadcast in the Afternoon Play slot on Wednesday 9 June 2010.

Inspired by real events, the play charts a clash between the BBC's governors and the artist over the propriety of the sculpture's appearance.

Stuart Milligan reads this exclusive audio adventure featuring the Eleventh Doctor, Amy and Rory as they encounter aliens in America. November 9th, 1965. New York City is plunged into darkness, a taxi driver has bad dreams, and an invisible spacecraft hovers ominously above the skyline. As an extra-terrestrial disease sweeps the populace, Amy and Rory must sabotage the city’s water supply to slow the spread of infection, and a dying Doctor holds another man’s life in his hands.

Highlights from the classic BBC TV comedy sketch show starring Lenny Henry, Tracey Ullman and David Copperfield. Broadcast over three series between 1981 and 1983, Three of a Kind made stars out of Tracey Ullman and Lenny Henry, and helped writers such as Rob Grant, Doug Naylor, Ruby Wax and Ian Hislop hone their considerable comedic talents. Full of quickfire quips and silly sketches, as well as spoof songs, it was hugely popular for its gentle humour, sarcasm and witty satire.

Helen Macdonald is a falconer and poet. She keeps a goshawk called Mabel. As a child she fell in love with a rare book of intense nature writing, J.A. Baker's The Peregrine, which records a winter watching wild peregrines on the Essex coast. Her new play brings her birds and his together. Baker tramps the bleak coastal marshes scanning the skies for fleeting moments of bloody drama as a peregrine stoops at immense speed after a plover or a pigeon.

Matt Lucas hosts the newest and most prestigious awards ceremony of the year - the perfectly-title 'Lucases'. Including awards for the Lamest Excuse of All-Time, the Lucas for Most Pointless Member of the Royal Family and the Lucas for Greatest Song By A Musical Artist Who Is Otherwise Rubbish.

Beasts on the Lawn is a collection of Edwardian short stories by Saki (H. H. Munro) recycled and restaged in a modern-day gated community for the far-too-wealthy-for-their-own-good. The tales are woven together by the character of Clovis, a security guard. She recalls the events of strange days and long nights. The five stories are: "Tobermory", "The Interlopers", "Sredni Vashtar", and "Gabriel Ernest and Mrs Packletide's Tiger".

Becky, AKA 'Azaria The Amazon', shows Shanice the ropes, and she is soon wowing the rowdy stag night audiences with her slams and smackdowns. By night she's bikini clad 'Alice Malice', by day she's mum to gymnastics-mad Alex and a devoted daughter to her disabled, ex-army dad. When these two worlds threaten to collide, it reawakens a painful episode from Shanice's childhood which threatens to tear apart her cherished family life and leads to a show-down with the father she adores.