Showing results by narrator "Bill Wallis" in All Categories

Rome, 63 BC. In a city on the brink of acquiring a vast empire, seven men are struggling for power. Cicero is consul, Caesar his ruthless young rival, Pompey the republic's greatest general, Crassus its richest man, Cato a political fanatic, Catilina a psychopath, Clodius an ambitious playboy. The stories of these real historical figures - their alliances and betrayals, their cruelties and seductions, their brilliance and their crimes - are all interleaved to form this epic novel.

A collection of BBC Radio 3's iconic Shakespeare productions: six tragedies with all star casts including Michael Sheen, Juliet Stevenson, Kenneth Cranham, Corin Redgrave, Ken Stott, Geraldine James, Bill Wallis, Siân Phillips and Sophie Dahl.

Major Ernest Pettigrew (Ret’d) is not interested in the frivolity of the modern world. Since his wife Nancy’s death, he has tried to avoid the constant bother of nosy village women; his grasping, ambitious son; and the ever-spreading suburbanisation of the English countryside, preferring to lead a quiet life upholding the values that people have lived by for generations. But when his brother’s death sparks an unexpected friendship with Mrs Ali, the widowed village shopkeeper of Pakistani descent, the Major is drawn out of his regimented world.

When Tiro, the confidential secretary of a Roman senator, opens the door to a terrified stranger on a cold November morning, he sets in motion a chain of events which will eventually propel his master into one of the most famous courtroom dramas in history. The stranger is a Sicilian, a victim of the island's corrupt Roman governor, Verres. The senator is Cicero, a brilliant young lawyer and spellbinding orator, determined to attain imperium - supreme power in the state.

The irrepressible, audacious defence barrister Horace Rumpole whose court scenes are proverbial, and whose home is ruled by Mrs Rumpole, is back in these short stories by John Mortimer. The much loved stories were adapted from his scripts for the hugely popular TV series of the same name.

In this collection of Rumpole stories the comic, courageous, and corpulent 'great defender of muddled and sinful humanity' is joined by a winning cast of villains and victims in tales whose wry humour and sparkling wit deftly send up the legal system. In Rumpole and the Angel of Death our hero achieves resounding triumphs over the forces of prejudice and mean-mindedness. Rumpole and the Way through the Woods involves Rumpole in the world of hunters and the hunted, animal rights and human wrongs.

Horace Rumpole - cigar-smoking, claret-drinking, Wordsworth-spouting defender of some unlikely clients - often speaks of the great murder trial which revealed his talents as an advocate and made his reputation down at the Bailey when he was still a young man. Now, for the first time, the sensational story of the Penge Bungalow Murders case is told in full: how, shortly after the war, Rumpole took on the seemingly impossible task of defending young Simon Jerold.

Robert Harper is going back to school, and it is the first railway journey he has ever made alone. And it is not a very usual sort of railway journey. The train stops at the tunnel’s mouth and in order to help whileaway the time, a strange woman dressed in white tells Robert stories. But these are not the kind of stories normally told to a child. Soon Robert is both entranced and terrified by the strange woman and her macabre stories.... Eleven more spine-chilling tales for older children from bestselling author Chris Priestley.

The Old Inn clings precariously to a cliff top above a storm-lashed ocean. Ethan and Cathy are sick. Their father has left them to fetch a doctor... but they are not alone for long. A visitor comes begging for shelter, and so the children, who have an unnatural appetite for stories of a macabre persuasion, sit out the throes of the storm in the company of a sailor with more than enough grisly tales to satisfy them.

A. A. Milne is most prominently remembered as the author of the well-known Winnie-the-Pooh tales, written for his son, Christopher Robin. Milne was born in London and raised in his father's private school, Henley House, after which he attended Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, to study mathematics. By 1925 he had published 18 plays and 3 novels, including The Red House Mystery (1922).

Robert Herrick's poetic tribute to his mistress' beautifully carefree style of dress, which he finds more strangely attractive than absolute perfection, read by Bill Wallis.

Here are 12 specially selected favourite love poems, read by acclaimed actors Bill Wallis and Jenny Agutter. This literary bouquet of blooms includes Andrew Marvell's classic "To His Coy Mistress"; a beautiful extract from "The Song of Solomon"; Christina Rossetti's joyful "A Birthday"; and Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love".

Edgar Allan Poe is considered the greatest of all writers of macabre stories, was born in Boston, Massachesetts, in 1809. His father, an Irish-American actor, died the following year, and his mother, an English actress, the year after, in Richmond, Virginia. John Allan, a wealthy Richmond merchant, adopted him. When he was 7, the Allans moved to England, sending him to school at Stoke Newington, at age 12 they moved back to Richmond.

Naples, 1913. Sun-baked, blue-skied, and with its amazing bay it is one of the most beautiful spots in Italy. But it’s also one of the most corrupt. A new arrival here is a junior British official, Scampion, who has already been banished from Florence. Scampion, however, brings with him a new craze that is sweeping Italy: bicycling. But one day as he walks home after a bicycle race, he is stabbed to death. That happens all the time in Naples, but remarkably his wallet was not taken.

IQ scores have the power to determine the chances we have in life: the people we meet, the schools we attend, the jobs we get, the lives we live. Very few of us, however, understand what IQ tests and ratings really mean. In this fascinating, provocative book, Stephen Murdoch explains the turbulent history and controversial current uses of intelligence testing.

Andrew Marvell's classic plea to his mistress to show her love for him while they are both still young and passionate, read by Bill Wallis.

John Donne's famous poem about two lovers surprised by the astonishingly rapid arrival of sunrise, read by Bill Wallis.

Edgar Allan Poe, is considered the greatest of all writers of macabre stories. His poems and short stories have influenced scores of writers. He invented the modern detective story, and his tales of terror are as chilling and powerful today as they have ever been. The stories in this volume are "The Tell-Tale Heart", "Hop Frog", and "The Premature Burial".

When a body is found on the new electric railway line, Owen has to discover whether this is just another of Egypt's revenge killings or whether the murdered man had got caught up with the power groups jostling for position around the new railway.

This collection of short stories contains several gothic tales to bear macabre and chilling witness to writers as diverse as Rudyard Kipling, Guy De Maupassant, Edgar Allan Poe, Arnold Bennett, Daniel Defoe, Edith Nesbit and M.R. James. These tales are designed to unsettle you, just a little, while you sit back, and take in their words as they lead you on a walk to places you’d perhaps rather not visit on your own. Our stories include "My Own True Ghost Story" by Rudyard Kipling, "The Horla" by Guy De Maupassant, and more.