For William 'Billy' Fisher, an energetic imagination makes life tolerable, but well-nigh intolerable for all around him. He lies his way into and out of every situation, making any promise to get him out of trouble, thereby creating ever more tortuous entanglements to be wriggled out of in the future. Billy dreams of escaping the dull drudgery of h...

What To Do If You're Not Like Everybody Else is a four-part mini-series of short comedic monologues on BBC Radio 4. Written and performed by stand-up comedian Andrew Lawrence, it takes a light-hearted look at various aspects of conventional living and the pressure we feel to conform to social norms and ideals. In these four episodes, all recorded...

David Soul (Starsky and Hutch) narrates and Simon Day (The Fast Show) stars in this fantastical BBC Radio 4 comedy series looking at the most entertaining apocalypses on parallel Earths. Originally broadcast from 15 December 2010 - 19 January 2011. We all worry about the end of the world, as economists and environmentalists speak in apocalyptic...

Edward Marshall-Hall, who was born in Brighton in 1858, became perhaps the country's most successful advocate of all time, building his reputation on a phenomenal talent for acquitting defendants in murder trials where a guilty verdict had seemed a foregone conclusion. Given that murder during this period carried a sentence of execution by hanging,...

The fashion for keeping chickens in your back garden shows no sign of waning, but Natalie Haynes has heard some dark rumours about the true habits of the hen. Can they be true? Natalie's own chicken knowledge being limited entirely to their lives in Ancient Rome, she hears from chicken breeders and keepers; but perhaps the most keen insight is from...

A BBC Radio 4 comedy written and performed by Alice Lowe. 'Alice's Wunderland' is about a trip round Wunderland, the Poundland of magical realms. It's a kingdom very much like our own but it's also nothing like it! So stay a while and meet the waifs, strays, ghosts, murderous pensioners and squirrels of this delightful land as they go about their...

The first series of the BBC Radio 4 comedy, Mark Thomas: The Manifesto, recorded with participation from a studio audience. This series was originally broadcast on 25 June and 2 July 2009. Comedian and activist Mark Thomas creates a People's Manifesto, taking suggestions from his studio audience and then getting them to vote for the best. Some of...

A poignantly funny retrospective of the genteel wit of broadcaster, comedienne, poet and entertainer, Joyce Grenfell, superbly performed by Maureen Lipman and heard on BBC Radio 3. Together with the creative team that produced the stage show, ReJoyce, Maureen perfectly recreates the much-loved material of the late, great Joyce Grenfell. Featuring m...

In Dad is Fat, stand-up comedian Jim Gaffigan, who's best known for his legendary riffs on Hot Pockets, bacon, manatees, and McDonald's, expresses all the joys and horrors of life with five young children--everything from cousins ("celebrities for little kids") to toddlers' communication skills ("they always sound like they have traveled by horseba...

A lot has happened to Danny Wallace in the past year. He has had a baby and has been hobnobbing with the powers that be in Hollywood. But that hasn't made him any less awkward. Being more of a grown up brings its own baffling etiquette and expected social graces, and no-one has told Danny. Join Danny once again on his very funny stumble through mor...

Al Murray grabbed the headlines when he announced his intention to stand in the UK General Election as his most famous creation, the 'Pub Landlord', for the newly-formed Free United Kingdom Party. He will be contesting the seat of South Thanet against UKIP leader Nigel Farage, in a battle that is sure to see comedy and clashes from now until pollin...

Journalist, presenter, broadcaster, husband, father, vigorous all-rounder: Alan Partridge. Star of action blockbuster Alpha Papa; a man with a fascinating past and an amazing future. Gregarious and popular, yet Alan's never happier than when relaxing in his own five-bedroom, south-built house with three acres of land and access to a private stream....

According to Amy Sedaris, it's often been said that ugly people craft and attractive people have sex. But in her new audiobook SIMPLE TIMES she sets the record straight, doing for crafting what she did so brilliantly and successfully for entertaining in her bestseller I Like You. Demonstrating that crafting is one of life's more pleasurable and con...

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of The Bible According to Spike Milligan, written and read by Spike Milligan. The Old Testament: but more mad, more merry, more... Milligan! "And God said, Let there be light; and there was light, but Eastern Electricity Board said He would have to wait until Thursday to be connected....

Christmas is supposed to be a time of peace on earth and goodwill toward all. But not for Lewis Black. He says humbug to the Christmas tradtitions and trappings that make the holiday memorable. In I'm Dreaming of a Black Christmas, his hilarious and sharply observed book about the holiday, Lewis lets loose on all things Yule. From his own Christma...

***THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP 5 BESTSELLER*** ***Shortlisted for the Specsavers National Book Awards 2018*** Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Everything I Know About Love written and read by Dolly Alderton. A Spot-on, wildly funny and sometimes heart-breaking book about growing up, growing older and navigating all kinds of love along the way Whe...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of An Almost Perfect Christmas written and read by Nina Stibbe. "I vowed from a young age never to cook a turkey and I never have - unless you count turkey mince (which you don't). I've seen the damage turkeys can do and the tyrannical hold they have over otherwise robust, rational people and my mother. My mot...

A series of three brand new short stories written and performed by leading comedians. Stairlift Us Up Where We Belong, written and read by Sarah Millican, is a poignant and funny monologue exploring the tricky turning point in a woman's life, when she goes from being thought of as useful to becoming invisible. In Spooky and the Van, written and rea...

Bingo Little, friend of butler Jeeves' master Bertie Wooster and a member of the Drones Club, is also a hopeless romantic. Our heroes Jeeves and Wooster often try to help him into or out of romantic entanglements but to little avail, or at least they often make matters worse! Sublime comedy from the master of humor.

Three more short stories which capture the atmosphere of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Recorded live at The Pleasance last week, leading comedians perform their own work in front of a packed audience. The Woman Who Sniffed, written and read by Susan Calman, is a wry look at office politics. Just When You Thought It Was Safe to be Green, written an...

Three short stories written and performed by leading new comedians at The Pleasance Theatre in Edinburgh as part of the Festival Fringe. In May Contain Nuts, by Janey Godley, a woman glimpses her own mortality when she calculates that only twenty-seven years separate her from her cantankerous father. The Hair of the Dead, by Sarah Millican, is a mo...