Showing results by narrator "Maureen O'Brien" in All Categories

George Eliot's most ambitious novel is a masterly evocation of diverse lives and changing fortunes in a provincial community. Peopling its landscape are Dorothea Brooke, a young idealist whose search for intellectual fulfillment leads her into a disastrous marriage to the pedantic scholar Casaubon; and the charming but tactless Dr Lydgate, whose marriage to the spendthrift beauty Rosamund and pioneering medical methods threaten to undermine his career.

Nine classic works by the Russian literary giant, adapted for BBC Radio Ivan Turgenev stands alongside Tolstoy and Dostoevsky as one of the three great Russian novelists of the 19th century. He was also a consummate short story writer, poet and playwright, and the first Russian author to become...

Set in the rural midlands of England, The Rainbow revolves around three generations of Brangwens, a family deeply involved with the land and noted for their strength and vigour. When Tom Brangwen marries a Polish widow, Lydia Lensky, and adopts her daughter Anna as his own, he is unprepared for the conflict and passion that erupts between them. Their stories continue in Women in Love.

Four full-cast adaptations of Rosamund Lehmann’s best-known novels, plus short stories and a bonus programme about her life and work.

Three classic radio productions from the BBC archives starring Nigel Hawthorne, Miriam Margolyes, Geraldine McEwan and a host of celebrated acting talent. These three legendary plays, performed by some of the best-known theatrical actors of the 20th century, are the perfect way to commemorate England's greatest dramatist.

Maisie is an innocent six year-old, torn between her divorced parents, pathetically isolated yet tragically involved.

Mrs Gereth, a wealthy widow, is dreading the day that her son, Owen, gets married. She hopes that he will marry a woman who will appreciate their home and all of its treasures as she does. So she enlists the help of Fleda Vetch to try to corrupt the impending marriage of her son and Mona Brigstock - a philistine who is determined to marry Owen in order to inherit Mrs Gereth’s valuable possessions and home by any means. Meanwhile, Fleda hides her real feelings towards Owen. Even when he ends up feeling the same way, Fleda cannot bring herself to marry him as this would force him to break his engagement to Mona, and thus betray all of her own ideals.

Lawrence explores love, sex, passion, and marriage through the eyes of two sisters, Gudrun and Ursula Brangwen. Intelligent, incisive, and observant, the two very different sisters pursue thrilling, torrid affairs with their lovers, Rupert and Gerald, while searching for more mature emotional relationships. Against a haunting World War I backdrop of coal mines, factories, and a beleaguered working class, Gudrun and Ursula's temperamental differences spark an ongoing debate regarding their society and their inner lives.

At the end of the universe, a mysterious storyteller builds a campfire to draw his audience. He has gathered tales like any minstrel of old - and his specialty is tales of the Doctor. In this book of stories both long and short, you can experience Doctor Who's adventures through the prism of folk tales and fables. Retold from unusual perspectives, 1001 Nights in Time and Space is a bubbling mix of heroes and villains, soldiers and monsters, princesses, goblins, demons, tricksters, computers, ghosts and gods from all across the universe...

It's the 1970s, and you're invited behind the scenes of Doctor Who. You'll go on location to witness the recording of two classic TV adventures (The Sea Devils and Robot) and spend time inside a vintage BBC television studio. You'll also learn how to write a script or make a monster, 1970s-style! Authors Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke will guide you through the first ten years of Doctor Who history, detailing how it was created, the people who brought it into being, and the actors who portrayed the Doctor, his friends and their monstrous enemies.

The first human colony on Mars is destined for destruction in a nuclear explosion. This tragedy is a fixed point in history. The laws of time dictate that it cannot - must never - be changed. But as the Doctor's darkest hour comes calling, he resolves to break the rules as he never has before.

The TARDIS crewmembers have taken a break from their adventures and are enjoying a rest in a luxury villa. But, in the gory grandeur that is Imperial Rome, things don't stay quiet. If the time travellers can save themselves from being sold as slaves, assassinated by classical hit-men, poisoned by the evil Locusta, thrown to the lions, maimed in the arena and drowned in a shipwreck, they still have to face the diabolical might of the mad Emperor Nero. As if that wasn't enough, they also discover that, although Rome wasn't built in a day, it burnt down in considerably less time.

Written by an anonymous storyteller in the 13th Century, and describing events between 960 and 1020, Njáls saga is one of the great works of medieval literature. The longest and most celebrated of the Icelandic sagas, it deals with family honour, vengeance and a vicious blood feud spanning almost 50 years. Based on the classic translation by Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Pálsson, this gripping dramatisation centres around two friends.

When Professor Irene Hyde's Monday morning lecture at St Luke's University is rudely interrupted by a man named the Doctor, it's the beginning of an adventure she could never have dreamt possible. Soon they are hurtling backwards in time to 1806, where the crew of the trading ship Favorite, led by the 'Ice King' himself, Frederic Tudor, are being picked off, one by one, by a hideous monster that lurks in the shadows.

Four exciting novelisations of classic TV stories in which the Doctor and his companions traverse the Fourth Dimension. This collection includes Doctor Who: The Space Museum, Doctor Who and the Day of the Daleks, Doctor Who: City of Death and Doctor Who: The Two Doctors.

Six classic Doctor Who TV soundtrack adventures starring William Hartnell as the First Doctor.

In this vintage six-part serial, first shown on BBC TV in February and March 1965, a strange magnetic force pulls the TARDIS down to the craterous surface of Vortis. The Doctor and his friends learn that the planet has been invaded, and the parasitic Animus is slowly enveloping it in a web-like domain. The giant ant-like Zarbi are under its control, whilst the butterfly-like Menoptra are battling to reclaim their planet.

Five exciting novelisations featuring adventures for the Doctor and his companions on weird and wonderful planets. In The Rescue, the First Doctor meets the sole survivors of a crashed spaceliner on Dido. In Doctor Who and the Creature from the Pit, the ruthless Lady Adrasta is keeping an...

When her goddaughter is arrested, Isabel Vernon is startled to discover that the child of her memory has become an overweight, shaven-headed environmentalist and that Isabel herself is now regarded as Emily Frost's next of kin. Emily is then released on bail to the Vernons in the villlage of Fordswick. But her presence in the Vernons' house proves troubling, and is deepening the tensions already within it.

When the Doctor and his companions Ian, Barbara and Vicki enter a museum on the planet Xeros, they are astonished to find themselves displayed as exhibits! The TARDIS has jumped a 'time track' and offered them a glimpse of what the future could hold... The native Xerons are planning a rebellion against the occupying force of the Moroks who have invaded their world. The Doctor and his friends struggle not only to survive in the midst of battle, but to help change the future sufficiently to ensure their own freedom!