AuthorGary Brown
NarratorFull Cast
Duration43m
CategoriesAdult Fiction, Plays and Dramatisations
PublisherAudio Go Ltd
VersionAbridged
Gary Brown's BBC Radio 4 full-cast comedy dramatisation about artist Eric Gill's clash with the BBC over his famous sculpture of Prospero and Ariel, starring Anton Lesser as Eric Gill and Tim McInnerny as Sir John Reith, the first Director General of the Corporation. Originally broadcast in the 'Afternoon Play' slot on Wednesday 9 June 2010. Inspired by real events, the play charts a clash between the BBC's Governors and the artist over the propriety. Gill became quite a celebrity as he carved the statue in situ on scaffolding in front of Broadcasting House. In his trademark smock and beret, he drew the attention of the tabloid papers and became known as the "Married Monk". The play imagines conversations between Sir John and the artist as he passes him on his way into Broadcasting House each morning. Framed with a period newsreel-style commentary, the comedy playfully deals with the perennial tension between the Establishment and the Artist. The strange and mysterious Gill contrasts with the authoritarian but often troubled figure of Reith, but in the end the sculpture focuses their thoughts about the role of Art in the life of mankind. While this is a comedy, the play touches a little on the well-documented darker side of both men's nature, and offers an insight into one of the more celebrated events of early BBC history. Brown's play speculates on how Reith struggled with the Governors and with his own psyche in dealing with one of the trickier events in the early days of the BBC. It also looks at how Gill, the artist, struggled with reconciling his unusual beliefs and lifestyle with a major commission from the heart of the Establishment.
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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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: Gary Brown
Author Gary Brown
Narrator Full Cast
Duration 43m
Market is an umbrella series of six plays, originally broadcast in BBC Radio 4's 'Afternoon Play' slot, about people who work in and around its stalls. Each story is a self-contained quirky tale. Loco Parentis is a bitter-sweet comedy about Jim, who can't sleep because his daughter's left for uni, his business is going belly-up, and his father is g...
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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: 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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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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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: 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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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: 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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