AuthorThomas Hardy
NarratorFull Cast
Duration3h 45m
CategoriesAdult Fiction, Plays and Dramatisations
Key StageKS4
PublisherBBC Audiobooks
VersionUnabridged
A new dramatisation of the Thomas Hardy classic, `Tess Of The d'Urbervilles', to be transmitted as the Radio 4 Classic Serial in four hour-long episodes. John Durbeyfield learns that he is descended from the Norman family of d'Urbervilles. He and his wife Joan encourage their daughter Tess to befriend the family of Stoke d'Urbervilles. In doing so she is seduced by their son Alec, and she bears him a child which dies. In order to make a fresh start, Tess goes to work in Wessex on the Talbothays farm, where she meets Angel Clare, the younger son of a parson who asks her to marry him - and after some uncertainty she agrees. However, when Angel learns of her past on their wedding night he rejects her. When he goes to Brazil, Tess begins work at another farm, in the employ of the tyrannical Farmer Groby. She once again meets Alec d'Urberville - and so begins a chain of events which culminate in tragedy for all.
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: Thomas Hardy
Author Thomas Hardy
Narrator Anton Lesser
Duration 12h 20m
In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behind his success there always lurks the shameful secret of his past and a personality pr...
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The Withered Arm and Other Wessex Tales
Author: Thomas Hardy
Author Thomas Hardy
Narrator Various
Duration 7h
Hardy's first collection of short stories was written between 1879-1888, with many of the tales set before Hardy's birth in 1840. These humorous and affectionate observations of rustic life include the following tales: 'An Imaginative Woman', 'The Three Strangers', 'The Withered Arm', 'Fellow-Townsmen', 'Interlopers at the Knap' and 'The Distracted...
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Author: Thomas Hardy
Author Thomas Hardy
Narrator Robert Powell
Duration 2h 21m
A gritty and absorbing glimpse into the lives of women and men living in a small community, and the often unpleasant truths that relationships can sometimes hold. Bathsheba Everdene flees her abusive husband and spends the night by a stagnant and spooky swamp. When light begins to break over her hiding-place, she sees strong parallels between her...
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Far from the Madding Crowd (Movie Tie-in Edition)
Author: Thomas Hardy
Author Thomas Hardy
Narrator Nicholas Guy Smith
Duration 15h 18m
This story of a proud rural beauty and the three men who court her is the novel that first made Thomas Hardy famous.Despite the violent ends of several of its major characters, Far from the Madding Crowd is the sunniest and least brooding of Hardy’s great novels. The strong-minded Bathsheba Everdene—and the devoted shepherd, obsessed fa...
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Author: Tony Kushner
Author Tony Kushner
Narrator Full Cast
Duration 6h 53m
In this production, adapted especially for the listening experience, Andrew Garfield, Nathan Lane, and the entire cast recreate their acclaimed performances from the 2018 Tony Award-winning National Theatre revival of Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. With narration by Bobby Cannavale and Edie Falco, and a musical score by Adria...
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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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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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