Showing results by publisher "BBC Audio" in Historical

Can a young country girl lead an army? Joan, guided by her guardian angels St Catherine and St Margaret, decides to wage war against the English. Starring Dawn French as Joan of Arc. The cast also includes Anne Reid, Maggie Steed, Kevin Eldon and Jim Broadbent.

The Emperor Domitian has informers everywhere; no-one is safe. He rules Rome with a rod of iron, and he is dangerously unstable and paranoid. In the snake pit of Imperial Rome, all Pliny the Younger wants to do is get his letters ready for publication. Except if he, his mother, their Greek cook Doris (who narrowly missed out on becoming the next Oracle at Delphi), and Venta, their slave with secretarial skills, have any chance of surveying, they are going to have to negotiate a political minefield, keep their eyes peeled for spies and, most of all, not do anything to annoy the Emperor.

George Orwell - the pen name of Eric Blair - was a writer and political commentator who is very hard to pin down. He is a complex mass of confusions - an antiestablishment, pro-English, ex-Etonian, ex-policeman and socialist who was ardently antiauthoritarian. He was as antifascist as he was anticommunist, a former Spanish Civil War soldier who was antiwar but pro the Second World War.

This illuminating serial charts the transformation of the young Victoria from spirited teenager to shy young bride to celebrated ruler of Britain and ‘Mother of Europe’. But while her roles changed, her essential nature remained the same: vibrant, passionate, principled and fiercely independent. Through extracts from Victoria’s own diaries and letters, and dramatised episodes featuring the characters closest to her, we are given thrilling insight into the thoughts and feelings of the woman behind the crown - and the secrets of her mind and heart. 

Richard Burton narrates the second volume of this famous dramatic chronicle of the English Crown, a treasure of the BBC radio archive published in audiobook for the very first time. Vivat Rex is the landmark drama series first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1977. Over the course of 26 installments, each one narrated by Richard Burton with a full cast, the fortunes of the English Crown are followed through 225 years of British history, from Edward II’s accession in 1307 to the birth of Elizabeth I.

Jane Austen's acclaimed comedy of manners contains a truly memorable cast of characters, including the snobbish Mrs Ferrers, impetuous Marianne, selfish John Dashwood, and his awful, grasping wife. Annette Crosbie captures all the wit and charm of the romance in this BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour reading.

A new adaptation of L. P. Hartley's story of a boy who is betrayed by a sophisticated young rich woman and her farmer lover who use him to ferry letters back and forth in the blazing summer of 1900 - with Richard Griffiths and Harriet Walter. It's best known from the 1970 film, which focused on the main plot line. But on re-reading the book, adaptor Frances Byrnes found within it another drama perfect for audio in which an old man finds a boyhood diary and is forced to unlock the trauma inside.

The legendary demise of Phil Archer's first wife is recalled in these archive editions of the much-loved BBC radio serial, plus a unique behind-the-scenes drama about Grace's death. The Archers is the longest-running radio drama in the world, and in 1955 the death of Grace Archer became one of the most notorious - and controversial - events in the history of the show.

A thrilling BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation based on CJ Sansom's best-selling Tudor crime novel. Winter, 1537. Henry VIII has declared himself Supreme Head of the Church and instructed his Chief Minister, Thomas Cromwell, to dissolve England's religious houses and seize their wealth. But Cromwell's plot to bring down the abbeys has hit a snag - one of the King's Commissioners has been found brutally murdered in Scarnsea monastery, on the south coast of Kent.

An atmospheric BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation based on C. J. Sansom's best-selling Tudor crime novel featuring hunchback lawyer detective Matthew Shardlake. Autumn, 1541. King Henry VIII has set out on a spectacular Royal Progress to York, aiming to strike fear and awe into his rebellious northern subjects. Shardlake and his assistant, Barak, arrive in the city a day ahead of the 3,000-strong procession.

Stephen Fry, Daniel Rigby and Tamsin Greig star in all three series of the poignant BBC Radio 4 comedy drama. Warhorses of Letters is the world's finest and best-loved equine, military, epistolary romance, comprising the newly discovered love letters between two horses united by passion but cruelly divided by conflict.

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation based on the best-selling novel by CJ Sansom.

Shardlake returns in this atmospheric BBC Radio 4 full-cast adaptation of the fourth novel in C. J. Sansom's bestselling Tudor crime series.Spring, 1543. London's streets are filled with preachers; strange signs and portents are seen everywhere; and young men, maddened by differing interpretations of the Bible, are drawn into dangerous fundamentalism.

A six-part BBC Radio 4 crime drama set in 19th-century London. It is 1830, a year after Sir Robert Peel’s creation of the Metropolitan Police, known as the 'Peelers'. As the brand-new bobbies patrol the beat in their smart blue uniforms, armed only with truncheons and rattles, they form the first line of defence against crime. But as this thrilling series opens, the fledgling detective force is proving unpopular, sparking deep political unrest and public protests. Rioters take to the streets of London, and the police struggle to contain the violence. 

The complete series 1 and 2 of the BBC Radio comedy set in an 18th-century Cornish village. In the first series, Tamsyn Trelawny's band of 18th-century Cornish smugglers try to outwit customs officers, a hairy folk band helps Tamsyn and the Cornish smugglers to escape the law and Tamsyn tries to keep her love-life out of the scandal rags. Also, when a new rival appears in town, Tamsyn tries to quit then, finally, Tamsyn joins customs men to stop Courageous Kate from marrying her dad. 

1920s Stirling, and Chief Pathologist Dr Wallace is the town's acknowledged expert on all matters forensic. But he's not the only detective in the family - his daughter Barbara, a medical student, also has quite a talent for investigating. In these six one-off dramas, the two amateur sleuths join forces to tackle a string of tricky cases, each involving a suspicious death.

1917. As the British enter Palestine with the aim of facilitating a Jewish homeland, young Arab Youssef Bannourah befriends Harry Lister, an English civil servant who has come to live in his village of Deir Yassin. Impressed by Youssef's intelligence, Harry finds him a job working for the British administration. Meanwhile, fleeing Jewish persecution in Russia, Miriam Cohen and her mother, Sara, set sail for the promised land. On arrival, they move to a newly constructed kibbutz near Jerusalem, where - divided by faith and a fence - Miriam meets Youssef for the first time.

Pierce Egan's renowned 19th-century comic novel adapted by Dan Tetsell is a rollicking real tour of the sprawling post-Regency metropolis in the years before the Victorians turned up and made everything boring.

London, 1853, and the sedate religious publishing house of Spavin and Spavin is about to experience a radical shake-up. Vivacious actress Cordelia is on the hunt for a husband and has her eye on Gerald, one of the firm's partners, while her son, Primus, has ambitions to take over the firm. And when he does, it'll be out with the Bibles and in with the best sellers - starting with Charlotte Brontë's latest blockbuster.

A landmark drama series telling the compelling real-life WW1 love story of English soldier Eric Appleby and his Irish sweetheart Phyllis Kelly. Eric Appleby was an engineering student from Liverpool who joined the Royal Field Artillery when war began in 1914. Posted to Athlone, he met and fell in love with solicitor's daughter Phyllis Kelly at a dance. Their romance was interrupted when he was sent to fight in the trenches on the Western Front, but they kept their love alive through a series of wonderfully crafted letters.