AuthorVasily Grossman
NarratorKenneth Branagh
Duration7h 35m
CategoriesAdult Fiction, Plays and Dramatisations
Key StageA Level
PublisherAudio Go Ltd
VersionAbridged
Kenneth Branagh stars in BBC Radio 4's ambitious eight-hour dramatisation of 'Life and Fate', Vasily Grossman's epic masterpiece set during the Battle of Stalingrad. This powerful work, completed in 1960, charts the fate of both a nation and a family in the turmoil of war. Its comparison of Stalinism with Nazism was considered by Soviet authorities to be so dangerous that the KGB placed the manuscript under arrest and Grossman was informed his book would not be published for at least 200 years. Having been a household name as one of Russia's most distinguished war correspondents, Grossman died aged 58 - the banning of his book hastening the end of his life - and he would never know the fate of his masterpiece: smuggled out of the Soviet Union on microfilm, to freedom and eventual publication in the West. Today it is increasingly hailed as the most important Russian novel of the 20th Century.
Fear On 4: 13 Chilling BBC Radio 4 Dramas
Author: Various
Author Various
Narrator Various
Duration 6h 18m
An unsettling collection of full-cast dramas from the long-running BBC Radio 4 horror series. Throughout five series of Fear on 4 from 1988-1997, Edward de Souza was The Man in Black, a sinister raconteur who introduced a weekly half-hour of terror and suspense. Here, he welcomes us to his house of horrors as he presents thirteen terrifying tales t...
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Author: Anton Chekhov
Author Anton Chekhov
Narrator Full Cast
Duration 2h 2m
Chekhov's masterpiece in a full-cast performance starring Tessa Thompson, Jennifer Westfeldt, Sarah Zimmerman and Jon Hamm. Meet Olga, Masha, and Irina, warm and cultured young sisters who were reared in the exciting hubbub of Moscow, but have been living in the dull, gossipy backwaters of Russia for far too long. With their father's passing, an...
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Author: Smith Alexander Mccall
Author Smith Alexander Mccall
Narrator Full Cast
SeriesThe No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Book 2
Duration 5h 50m
A second collection of eight BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisations based on the popular books by Alexander McCall Smith. 'this full- cast production will charm listeners whether they already know and love these stories or are hearing them for the first time' - Audiofile Magazine 'How to Handle Men through the Application of Psychology': Precious Ram...
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Vasily Grossman From the Front Line
Author: Vasily Grossman
Author Vasily Grossman
Narrator Elliot Levey
Duration 40m
Vasily Grossman, author of Life and Fate, was transformed by his experiences as a war correspondent. Following the shock invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Grossman volunteered for front line duty. Declared unfit for active service he was assigned to Red Star newspaper as a special correspondent. In these BBC Radio programmes, Elliot Levey...
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Author: Dorothy L. Sayers
Author Dorothy L. Sayers
Narrator Full Cast
Duration 2h 20m
Ian Carmichael is Lord Peter Wimsey, with Patricia Routledge as his mother, in this BBC radio 4 full-cast dramatisation. Dorothy L. Sayers' first Lord Peter Wimsey tale introduces many of the author's best-known characters. Wimsey's mother, the Dowager Duchess of Denver, rings her son with news of 'such a quaint thing'. She has heard through a frie...
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Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
Author Arthur Conan Doyle
Narrator Various
Duration 2h 33m
London, 1907; Journalist Edward Malone, rejected by the woman he loves because he is too prosaic, decides to go in search of adventure and fame to prove himself worthy of her. Soon after, he meets Professor George Challenger, a controversial scientist who claims to have discovered a 'lost world' populated by pterodactyls and other prehistoric monst...
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Lilies For Ladies and Other Stories
Author: Donald Stuart
Author Donald Stuart
Narrator William Franklyn
Duration 1h 38m
The history of crime detection has produced no more famous name than that of Sexton Blake...' William Franklyn stars as paperback hero Sexton Blake, with David Gregory as his assistant Tinker, in four original BBC Radio dramatisations from 1967. Lost from the BBC archives for over 40 years, these rediscovered episodes are presented for the very...
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Author: Donald Stuart
Author Donald Stuart
Narrator Various
Duration 30m
William Franklyn stars as paperback hero Sexton Blake, with David Gregory as his assistant Tinker, in the original BBC Radio dramatisations from 1967. Lost from the BBC archives for over 40 years, these rediscovered episodes are presented on CD for the very first time. In the first episode of the series, Lilies For The Ladies, Blake investigates th...
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Author: Julia Blackburn, BBC Radio 4
Author Julia Blackburn, BBC Radio 4
Narrator Various
Duration 42m
A BBC Radio 4 drama of mesmerising delicacy from Julia Blackburn, winner of the Pen Ackerley prize for memoir 2009, and daughter of poet Thomas Blackburn. Originally broadcast as the 'Afternoon Play' on 29 March 2011. Thomas Blackburn was an alcoholic before he became a poet, but in spite of his drunken rages, his erratic behaviour and his crazy ob...
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Author: William Shakespeare
Author William Shakespeare
Narrator Various
Duration 2h 1m
Foretold he will become King of Scotland and spurred on by his wife, Macbeth commits deadly treason to seize the throne. Once crowned, guilt and mistrust of all around him leads Macbeth to embark on a trail of bloodshed and murder to stay in power. But under the yoke of his brutal reign, civil war breaks out and a rebellious army gathers to overthr...
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