Showing results by narrator "Harriet Walter"

Featuring a fictional version of himself - 'Marcel' - and a host of friends, acquaintances, and lovers, In Search of Lost Time is Proust's search for the key to the mysteries of memory, time, and consciousness. As he recalls his childhood days, the sad affair of Charles Swann and Odette de Crecy, his transition to manhood, the tortures of love and the ravages of war, he realises that the simplest of discoveries can lead to astonishing possibilities.

23 stories, all unabridged, from a diverse group of star writers and readers. A truly memorable collection with a wide appeal. Includes "The Years Midnight" by Helen Simpson, read by Harriet Walter; "On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful Morning" by Haruki Marukami, read by Walter Lewis; "Bablady" by A. S. Byatt, read by Roslaind Eyres; "Hotel des Vaoyaguerus" by William Boyd, read by Martin Jarvis; and "Who?" by Fay Weldon, read by Julie Christie.

Like most families, they had their secrets...and they hid them under a genteelly respectable veneer. No onlooker would guess that prim Vera Hillyard and her beautiful, adored younger sister, Eden, were locked in a dark and bitter combat over one of those secrets. England in the '50s was not kind to women who erred, so they had to use every means necessary to keep the truth hidden behind closed doors - even murder.

Series 1-5 of the groundbreaking BBC Radio 4 drama charting life on the home front during World War One. First heard on radio between 4 August 2014 and 9 November 2018, each episode of Home Front is set exactly 100 years before the broadcast date, and each follows one character’s day. Together they create a mosaic of experience from a wide cross section of society, mixing historical fact with enthralling fiction to explore how ordinary people coped with daily life in wartime Britain.

A notorious author shares a train compartment with a long-time reader. But can they connect with each other through a silent tide of self-doubt and second-guessing? From the playwright of Art. Sir David Suchet and Dame Harriet Walter star in L.A. Theatre Works' performance of Yasmina Reza’s The Unexpected Man. Translated by Christopher Hampton. Directed by Gordon House.

Renowned for his wit, style and sophistication, Noël Coward was one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century. His plays, set in the glittering world of high society in which he lived, are much admired and have remained in the popular theatre repertoire to this day. This collection brings together the very best radio adaptation

Angela Brazil wrote school stories for girls throughout the first half of the 20th century. She was the first author to relate this experience from the girls' perspective, offering a more sympathetic and intimate view of school life. Funny, touching, and wonderfully "jollyhockey sticks", The Nicest Girl in the School remains one of the most popular of her stories. It features Patty Hirst and her cousin Muriel, and tells of their turbulent times together at Morton Priory.

Catherine McCormack, Joseph Fiennes, and Harriet Walter star in this BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's last and most remarkable novel. Passion and perception run through this fascinating study of loneliness, love, and ultimate triumph over adversity.

It is 1905. Asta and her husband, Rasmus, have come to East London from Denmark with their two little boys. With Rasmus constantly away on business, Asta keeps loneliness and isolation at bay by writing a diary. These diaries, published over 70 years later, reveal themselves to be more than a mere journal. For they seem to hold the key to an unsolved murder and to the mystery of a missing child. It falls to Asta's granddaughter, Ann, to unearth the buried secrets of nearly a century before.

Bucharest has fallen, and Harriet and Guy Pringle have escaped to Athens in the nick of time to find several of their old acquaintances there already. But even Guy's eternal optimism fails him when he realises that his former employees feel no gratitude or loyalty to him. Guy and Harriet both come to realise that with Greece threatened by the Axis Powers, Athens is not the safe harbour they thought.

The Best of Women's Short Stories, Volume 2 is a celebration of iconic female writers from the 19th and 20th centuries; featuring eight full-length stories relating the many experiences and complexities of womanhood. This collection brings together stories by Katherine Mansfield, Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Gaskell, Kate Chopin and Jane Austen.  

Ragnarok is the story of the end of the world. It is a tale of destruction of life on this planet and the end of the gods themselves. What more relevant myth could any modern writer find? As the bombs rain down in the Second World War, one young girl is evacuated to the English countryside. She is struggling to make sense of her new wartime life.

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. But it soon becomes apparent that the meal may contain some rather nasty surprises....

'Now what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life…'. So says Thomas Gradgrind in Dickens' immortal story set in the North of England in the 19th century. Gradgrind, a local industrialist, gave this advice to his children, set against a backdrop of huge wealth and even huger poverty, where the rich marry for money and the poor cannot afford to divorce.

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.

I live on Brazzaville Beach... I am here because two sets of strange and extraordinary events happened to me... One in England, first, and then one in Africa. On Brazzaville Beach, on the edge of Africa, Hope Clearwater examines the complex circumstances that brought her there. Sifting the details for evidence of her own innocence or guilt, she tells her engrossing story with a blunt and beguiling honesty that not only intrigues and disturbs but is also completely enthralling.

Imogen Waterstone has always prided herself on being a thoroughly independent young woman. But now she needed a man: one with an implacable will and nerves of iron. That's why she invited Matthias Marshall, the infamous explorer and Earl of Colchester, to her home in Upper Stickleford. Her scheme was simple, really: She would let it be known that when she inherited her uncle's collection of antiquities, she would also inherit a map to a fabulous ancient treasure. Certain that her enemy would risk financial ruin in pursuit of the artifact, Imogen expected Colchester to set himself up as the ruthless lord's rival and pretend to seduce her so that he, too, could get his hands on her map. In all of her pleading, Imogen never anticipated Colchester's reaction to her request or her own electrifying response to him. With his powerful build and the swath of silver in his dark hair, Matthias was more than magnificent. And as he entered her charade, Imogen found herself in the thrall of true passion at last.

It is a summer's night in 1860. In an elegant detached Georgian house in the village of Road, Wiltshire, all is quiet. Behind shuttered windows, the Kent family lies sound asleep. At some point after midnight, a dog barks. The family wakes the next morning to a horrific discovery: an unimaginably gruesome murder has taken place in their home. The household reverberates with shock, not least because the guilty party is surely still among them.

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of the bestselling novel by John le Carré, starring James Fox, Harriet Walter and Julian Rhind-Tutt. Magnus Pym, Counsellor at the British Embassy, is hosting a dinner party at his home in Vienna when he receives an unexpected telephone call that will profoundly affect his life. Once the guests have gone, Pym breaks the news to his wife, Mary: his father, Rick, is dead. In a state of shock, he says something Mary cannot understand - 'After all these years, I'm free.'

When a skeleton is unearthed in the Martellos' garden, Jane Martello is shocked to learn it's that of her childhood friend Natalie, who went missing 25 years ago. Encouraged by a therapist to recover lost memories, Jane hopes to find out what really took place when she was a child - and what happened to Natalie. But in learning the truth about her and Natalie's past, is Jane putting her own future at terrible risk?