Showing results by narrator "Alistair McGowan" in All Categories

Timeless Tales for Kids is an enchanting compilation of children's classic stories read by an all-star cast. Olivia Colman reads E. Nesbit's classic novel The Railway Children, a masterpiece in children's fiction wonderfully evoking a bygone age, packed with fun, excitement and adventure. Bill Nighy reads a much-loved children's classic, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which continues to delight young and old with its enchanting tale of witches, flying monkeys and magical shoes.

Stephen Mangan and Alistair McGowan star in the fantastical BBC Radio 4 comedy by Anil Gupta and Richard Pinto. When fantasy novelist Sam is whisked off to Lower Earth by a band of noble warriors, his dog Amis goes with them. Transformed into human form, Amis turns out to be The Chosen One, whom the warriors need to help find the Sword of Asnagar. Only with the sword can they save Lower Earth from the evil rule of Lord Darkness.

Long before he'd produced any of his great works, Oscar Wilde was already famous for being famous. Armed only with some witty epigrams, a carefully crafted persona and his genius for self-promotion, he had conquered America and transformed himself from nobody to star. This radio collection opens with four plays from Radio 4's Born to be Wilde season, offering a 21st-century perspective on the making of one of the first true celebrities. First up are two sparkling and surprising productions of his two most popular comedies, marking the peak of his theatrical career. 

Alistair McGowan reads Kipling's enchanting classic, The Jungle Book. Mowgli, a little man-cub, wanders into the lair of Father Wolf and Mother Wolf, who bring him up as one of their own. As he grow he makes friends, but he is always aware that Shere Khan, the tiger who killed his parents, is his enemy. The jungle is not an easy place to be a man-cub. He must learn its secrets from Baloo the bear, Bagheera the black panther and Kaa the python.

Irascible phonetics professor Henry Higgins makes a bet with his friend Colonel Pickering that he can train Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle to talk ‘like a lady’ and pass as a duchess at the Ambassador’s Ball. As the day of reckoning approaches, can Eliza convince the assembled aristocrats that she’s one of them? And what will become of her afterwards? This effervescent radio version of Shaw’s classic comedy features a stellar cast, including award-winning comedians Alistair McGowan as Henry Higgins, Morgana Robinson as Eliza Doolittle and Al Murray as Alfred Doolittle.

The award-winning 1990s sitcom, written by and starring Nick Revell Nick Revell plays a slightly stranger version of himself in this surreal comedy – a struggling writer in his mid-thirties who shares his untidy flat with Vince and Alan, a pair of talking geraniums. They, meanwhile, watch on...

Columnist, critic and award-winning author Craig Brown is well known for his Private Eye parodies lampooning politicians and celebrities. He has written for numerous newspapers, both under his own name and as his alter egos Wallace Arnold and Bel Littlejohn. Collected here are Brown's four fantastic radio series, plus two bonus programmes in which he discusses his life and work.

Deep in London's East End, Garry and Barry run a pub, and they're not very good at it. Things usually go from bad to worse when their mate, Dodgy Phil, comes up with increasingly hair-brained ideas to reinvent the local - often with explosive results. Could they make this the world's first environmentally friendly bar? Build the world's biggest pub named after the Titanic (but is it undrinkable)? What about booking Chas and Dave for the Queen's visit? Plus, there's the difficulty of running a pub next door to a zoo.

In Swansden, it seems like the men and women of the Post Office must make their own fun. From following mystic runes on a fantasy journey and competing in a little light professional competitive cycling, to fighting the Tuareg in a fort in Africa after joining the French Foreign Legion and engaging the Jupiter aliens in an amateur musical, via climbing Mount Everest and attempting to record a Christmas Number One - Brian, Derek and Sue will just have to make sure all the boring stuff like sorting and handing out the post is actually done at some point.

The complete collection of the hilarious show-within-a-show about two daytime TV presenters. Sit back, dip your biscuit in your tea, and relax...because Mike and Sue are here! In each episode of this mid-morning spoof, the sofa-bound host couple Mike and Sue and their live studio audience tackle various topics of the day - no matter how clumsily.

Nominated for a British Comedy Award for Best Radio Comedy, The Harpoon is a nostalgic, spiffing spoof of adventure story papers for boys from yesteryear - but on the wireless. In the style of publications such as the Boys' Own Paper - but with its tongue firmly in its cheek - it features a veritable feast of thrilling serials, 'How-Tos', readers' letters and patent cures - all introduced by 'your old chum, the Editor'.

Wickedly funny and bitingly satirical, Dead Ringers has been lampooning politicans, celebrities and media pundits for over 20 years. In these seven series, first broadcast between 2000 and 2002, the team give us their peerless impressions of the personalities we love to laugh at: from Tony Blair and George W. Bush to Brian Sewell, Posh n' Becks and Kirsty Wark.

Little Blighty is an idyllic part of the world, with a church, a market, a small school and a pub, The Cock and Bull. Village life is pretty uneventful, though the humdrum happenings include social turmoil, economic upheaval and vicious political squabbles - all presided over by the redoubtable head of the Parish Council and secretary of the Rotarians, Mrs Roberts.

18 biographical dramas based on the lives and loves of celebrated writers. 

Miles Jupp stars as James Boswell, Dr Johnson's time-travelling biographer, with a host of top actors and comedians as his celebrity interviewees. Before James Boswell penned a biography of his friend, Dr Johnson, they were both nobodies. But his Life of Samuel Johnson made them famous - so now Boswell's out to work his magic on other celebrities. Travelling through the centuries, he gives 12 legendary figures the Boswell treatment, hoping to do for them what he did for Johnson....

Norman is an idealistic, Beethoven-loving revolutionary. Max is a boring but cheerful timeshare salesman who won't stop talking. Fellow passengers on a flight to the Moon, they're thrown together to become reluctant companions after the lunar shuttle's toilet cubicle explodes, crash-landing them both on the desert sands of a distant alien planet. They are rescued by the friendly Oblivions, who could not be more delighted to see them. 

When Tony Hardstaff breaks the bank playing ‘Snap!’ at the St Petersburg Casino, he is swept up in a maelstrom of romance and adventure. Seduced by the sultry Natassia Fillipovna Karamazov – a woman with curves so perfect they could make a geometry professor spontaneously combust – Tony is caught in flagrante by the Russian mafia, and flees for his life.

Roy Hitchcock is a provincial hack journalist and inveterate daydreamer. When he meets his former English teacher at his old school’s prize-giving ceremony, his private fantasies run wild and he sets out to capture her heart. Unfortunately, his attempts to get in Miss Callaghan’s good books constantly backfire – and the more he apologises, the less impressed she is. There’s also another major obstacle in his path, in the macho form of Jane’s current lover, media hero Chad Mann.

A hapless elephant keeper must do everything he can to save his failing zoo Terry Lyon, assistant head keeper of Southwood Zoo, trusts animals because most people think he’s a waste of space. But as the zoo lurches towards bankruptcy, his future looks bleak. As if managing hungry elephants and...

Over 14 episodes, we eavesdrop behind the scenes and in front of the camera, as the hapless team endeavour to capture the zeitgeist and stay ahead of the cultural curve. From exposing heavy metal band Tanks n’ Daisies as closet anoraks, to interviewing sizzling Animalistic Impulse star Karen Stone and schmoozing Hollywood royalty at the Cannes Film Festival, they’ll do anything to boost the show’s ratings – and their own profiles. But whether they’re tangling with a country-and-western legend, delving into lottery corruption or facing an alien incursion, things rarely go according to plan...