Showing results by publisher "BBC Audio" in Literature & Fiction

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.

Sitcom set in a Local Authority Register Office, where the staff deal with the three greatest events in anybody's life. David Schneider (The Day Today, I'm Alan Partridge) stars as chief registrar Malcolm Fox, who is a stickler for rules and would be willing to interrupt any wedding service if the width of the bride infringes health and safety. He's single, but why does he need to be married? He's married thousands of women. Alongside him are rival and divorcee Lorna, who has been parachuted in from Car Parks to drag the office (and Malcolm) into the 21st century.

Multi-award-winning storyteller Sarah Kendall brings her critically acclaimed, funny and moving live shows to audio. In the first trilogy of shows, each takes us on a trip, giving us a unique snapshot of small-town life in Australia in the late '80s and early '90s. At a time when most people were seeing Australians through the filter of Home and Away and Neighbours, Sarah presents a darker underbelly to the stereotype of the sun-loving, happy-go-lucky Aussie teenager.

Vincent Franklin, Rebekah Staton, Kieron Hodgkin and Julia Deakin star in four episodes of the BBC Radio 4 sitcom written by Jack Bernhardt. Welcome to The Lentil Sorters, a sitcom set in the Office of Local & National Statistics which, depending on who you ask, is either where the real power of government resides or the place where fun goes to die.

Strap in for an hour of rip-roaring comedy as Clever Peter bring you a pygmy hippo, a mystery voice, a leap across a ravine, and a sexy clown. This is the complete first series of the debut Radio 4 show from this award winning sketch team. From the team that brought you Cabin Pressure and Another Case of Milton Jones comes the massively bonkers and funny Clever Peter, hot off the Edinburgh Fringe and wearers of tri-coloured jerseys.

A hilarious comedy by Daniel Thurman, first broadcast in the BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play slot. 'Cleaner...only dirtier' is a slogan unlikely to be used by your average domestic cleaner. But Rita is anything but your average domestic cleaner, as an unfortunate former mayor is about to discover. Starring Geoffrey Whitehead as Fawcett, Anne Reid as Mrs Randle, and Janet Dibley as Rita, with Piers Wehner and Emerald O'Hanrahan. Directed by Toby Swift.

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. From drink driving to a missing gnome, road traffic collisions to the tricky subject of Stop and Search, not to mention a case in which you must imagine what it would be like if Bruce Lee came from Scunthorpe and had been hammering the kebabs for 20 years.... 

Rebecca Front and Jeremy Front star in this series of spoof documentaries looking at the lives of some extraordinary and unforgettable characters. We meet some truly remarkable women, such as controversial children's writer and wolf enthusiast Eleanor Fane-Gore; ‘Media Integrity Czar’ Valerie Panther; MI5 whistle-blower Helen McKee; fashion guru Tish Watts; child star Mandy Fenwick; Irina Stonkus, soon to be the first woman on Mars; and National Treasure Dame Cicely Leyland. 

Ian D Montfort is a celebrity spirit medium and psychic, and star of a brand new series for Radio 2. A comedy character created by Tom Binns (the man behind hapless hospital radio DJ Ivan Brackenbury) Ian D Montfort has been a hit at the last three Edinburgh festivals with his combination of magic and laughter. In each radio show Ian makes contact with the celebrity 'spirit guides' secretly chosen by audience members and reveals personal stories that make them laugh-out-loud one moment and gasp in surprise the next.

Produced by Sydney Lotterby of Yes Minister and Porridge fame. Each instalment featured a mixture of sketches (some foreshadowing Bennett's subsequent television dramas, others mocking television clichés, such as documentaries about working-class Northern writers and discussion programmes featuring pretentious critics). This is a never before broadcast compilation of sketches and extracts from the TV series before the tapes where wiped.

Award-winning comedian Alan Davies stars in his own BBC Radio sitcom. Meet Alan. He's a struggling actor trying to cope with life in the 90s - the friends, the work, the romance... Meet the friends: Murray is a local journalist, who's given a crash course in tabloid sensationalism when the entire staff comes down with Peruvian flu. Kate is a primary school art teacher, who tussles daily with the obnoxious seven-year-old Tamara and tries to save time by getting the children to write their own reports.

A deliciously black satirical comedy about the dinner party from hell. The fastidious host, Paige, decides to throw a dinner party in honour of her husband, Lars, who is celebrating the success of his pop psychology book, Beyond Belief. She carefully plans a surprise menu that will mark the occasion and anxiously checks with the waiter she has employed to make sure that everything is perfectly prepared. Her lucky guests include a postfeminist vegetarian artist, a distinguished microbiologist, a TV journalist and an uninvited guest who ends up staying for dinner.

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.

Between 1975 and 1978, when they were at the peak of their popularity on television, Morecambe and Wise also starred in their own radio series, with each episode scripted by the one and only Eddie Braben. This feast of gags, sketches and song and dance numbers - plus of course Ernie’s ‘plays what I wrote’ - features a host of special guests including Ann Hamilton, Anita Harris, Gayle Hunnicutt, Richard Caldicot, Percy Edwards, Nicola Pagett, Brian Wilde, Des O'Connor, Vince Hill, Penelope Keith and The Nolan Sisters. 

A fascinating collection of rare and remastered broadcast material starring Tony Hancock, Sid James and others. This first volume features the recently discovered soundtrack of 'The Horror Serial', a television episode of Hancock's Half Hour from 1959, plus remastered versions of the following radio shows: 'The Blackboard Jungle', 'The Student Prince' and 'The Test Match'. Also included are previously unreleased editions of 'Variety Bandbox', 'Calling All Forces' and 'Educating Archie'.

Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers star in seven early episodes of The Goon Show, plus a plethora of bonus features. Immensely popular and hugely influential, the groundbreaking series The Goon Show changed the face of British comedy.

Set against the 1970s San Fransisco skyline, Maupin's Tales of the City introduces the unconventional tenants of 28 Barbary Lane, the domain of the eccentric, marijuana-growing landlady Anna Madrigal. Mary Ann Singleton, a naive young woman newly arrived from Cleveland, Ohio, moves into an apartment there and soon becomes friends with other tenants of the building....

Another bumper collection of classic fun and games from one of BBC Radio 4's best-loved and most enduring comedy panel games. The inimitable Humphrey Lyttelton is in the chair for these 25 hilarious editions (including the very first episode from 1972) plus two volumes of vintage 'Live' recordings (ad libs, retakes, warm-ups and all), a 35th anniversary special edition, and I'm Sorry I Haven't a Desert Island, in which famous fans Judi Dench, Jim Broadbent and Germaine Greer choose their favourite 'Clue' moments.

Sixteen TV soundtracks from the award-winning TV show collected together for the first time, starring David Jason as ambitious market trader Del Boy Trotter and Nicholas Lyndhurst as his younger brother, Rodney Trotter. For 15 years the brothers of Trotters Independent Traders PLC have entertained us both with Del's extreme optimism and scams and, quite simply, Rodney's reactions upon hearing those scams.

Series five & six of the BBC radio sitcom starring Harry H Corbett and Wilfrid Brambell, adapted from the much-loved TV series. Steptoe and Son ran for eight series on BBC TV and even spawned two feature films. Such was the series' popularity in the mid-1960s that the cast specially recorded several episodes for BBC radio. Here, collected together for the first time, are all episodes from the fifth and sixth radio series, scripted by Hancock's Half Hour creators Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.