Radio Classics

A collection of thrilling tales from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, including six full-cast dramas and a short story read by Benedict Cumberbatch In the first half of the 20th century, the detective story exploded in popularity. Innovative authors penned whodunits, whydunits and...

Twelve dramatisations of the best love stories ever written, performed by star casts Treat yourself to this stunning collection of classic stories of love, loss, obstacles overcome and desperate attraction. This is a beautiful, moving and at times thrilling listen which takes you on a journey...

This 16-episode collection includes the greatest comedy teams of the Golden Age of Radio and includes Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Abbott and Costello, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Fibber McGee and Molly, Baby Snooks and Daddy, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, and Phil Harris and Alice Faye. You’ll laugh till your sides ache at these great comedy duos!

Maurice Denham is the famous French detective Maigret and Michael Gough is his creator Georges Simenon in these five classic radio dramatisations. Parisian detective Jules Maigret first appeared in print in 1931, and went on to feature in 76 novels and 28 short stories. An enduringly popular...

Blake Ritson, David Warner, Hattie Morahan and John Hurt star in this BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Dante's epic poem. Inferno: Thirty-five year old Dante finds himself in the middle of a dark wood, in extreme personal and spiritual crisis. Hope of rescue appears in the form of the venerable poet...

The complete canon of the Brontë sisters' classic novels, dramatised by bestselling author Rachel Joyce Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë Orphan Jane falls in love with the enigmatic Rochester, but he is concealing a dark secret. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë On the bleak Yorkshire moors...

A bumper collection of accessible classics from the perennially popular BBC Radio 4 series This diverse, wide-ranging anthology features readings of 10 of the greatest books in the English language, taken from the BBC's Book at Bedtime and performed by a stellar cast of narrators. Here are...

33 episodes from Series 8-10 of the much-loved Civil Service sitcom, plus the 1971 Special For fifteen years between 1962 and 1977, The Men from the Ministry kept audiences laughing over the course of 13 series, plus a fourteenth series recorded for overseas in 1980. This third volume features...

The highly-acclaimed BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Milton's epic poem telling the story of the fall of man, and also its sequel, "Paradise Regained". Out of chaos shall come order and out of darkness shall come light. Paradise is lost - and then regained. John Milton's epic, biblically inspired...

Come, listen to the sweet jungle orchestra, featuring the Woodpecker's drums, the Hornbill's trumpet and the Kingfisher's blues When curious little Gul hears some strange sounds coming from her radio, she follows the musical clues into . . . an Indian jungle! On her walk, she finds feathered...

A vintage 13-part dramatisation of Jeffery Farnol’s historical romance When 22-year-old Barnabas Barty, the son of a landlord and ex-prize fighter, unexpectedly inherits £700,000 from his uncle in Jamaica, he decides to fulfil his dream of becoming a gentleman. Leaving his father’s country...

A definitive collection of eight full-cast BBC Radio productions, featuring stellar talent including Alex Jennings, Michael Kitchen, Ben Miles and Bernard Cribbins ‘Great value for money and a fine celebration of one of the most important English authors of the second half of the Twentieth...

Full-cast dramatised retellings of the two most important epic Sanskrit poems of ancient India The Mahabharata and the Ramayana are literary classics, the longest epic poems in world literature, as significant as the Bible, the Qu'ran and the works of Shakespeare. Estimated to have been composed...

Nikos Kazantzakis’ two most popular novels, adapted for BBC Radio Nikos Kazantzakis is widely regarded as the greatest Greek writer and philosopher of the 20th century. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature 14 times, and his works have been translated into over 50 languages...

Four full-cast stories of suspense from the creator of Dr Gideon Fell The master of the ‘impossible crime’ novel, American author John Dickson Carr was renowned for his Golden Age detective stories featuring the eccentric genius Dr Gideon Fell. This collection brings together four of his...

The Birling family are spending a happy evening celebrating the engagement of Sheila Birling to Gerald Croft - a marriage that will result in the merging of two successful local businesses. Yet just when everything seems to be going so well, they receive a surprise visit from an Inspector Goole...

Dramatisations of some of Kipling’s finest fiction for adults, including ‘The Man Who Would Be King’ and The Light That Failed Well-known for his poems and stories set in India during British Imperial rule, Rudyard Kipling was the first English author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature...

BBC Radio adaptations of Aldous Huxley’s finest works – plus a bonus documentary programme ‘Over nine hours’ worth of quality drama… The stories presented in ‘A BBC Radio Collection’ combine to give the listener a taste of Huxley’s versatility as a writer. His vivid imagination...

Full-cast productions of five plays by the celebrated Russian author, plus a reading of one of his most famous short stories Alexei Maximovich Peshkov, known under his pseudonym Maxim Gorky, was one of Russia's greatest Soviet writers and the founder of the ‘socialist realism’ literary...

Seven legendary unproduced screenplays, resurrected and reinvented for BBC Radio 4 The annals of movie history are full of lost treasures – spectacular scripts from world-renowned writers that could have been classics, had they only been made. Now, for the first time, some of these forgotten...