What is the connection between a corpse with a missing face and a ruthless secret society which once terrorised a desolate region of the United States? With the aid of a local guidebook, a missing dumb-bell and Dr Watson's umbrella, Holmes unravels a tangled web which stretches over fifteen years and two continents; and in the centre of that web lu...

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 You Must Be Joking a friend from Blake's club dies the day after receiving a...

Miss Marple is told that her old friend, Carrie, is in danger and she goes to stay with her at Stoneygates, a home for maladjusted adolescents. While she is there, tragedy strikes as Carrie's step-son, Christian Gulbrandsen, is shot dead. There are at least seven suspects and two more murders follow. But the man with the obvious motive has a cast-i...

To avoid tiresome family engagements, Algernon Moncrieff, a bachelor-about-town, has invented Bunbury, an invalid friend whose bedside he is frequently obliged to attend. At the same time, his friend Jack Worthing has invented a wicked brother called Ernest to disguise his own misdemeanours. When Algernon poses as Ernest, confusion reigns, and it t...

'The Vampire Moon': Sexton Blake and Paula Dane are out at a London restaurant, when one of their fellow diners suddenly collapses. His dying words warn of the danger of the Vampire Moon. Featuring Marjorie Westbury (Paul Temple). 'The Fifth Dimension': Harry Monkton wins œ84,000 on the Pools. Then, one day, the phone rings and he disappears....

A full-cast dramatisation starring Nicholas Le Prevost as Inspector Maigret In 'Maigret: The Yellow Dog', the citizens of Concarneau are not happy when Maigret begins his murder investigation. But there is poison in the Pernod, a howling yellow dog and, it seems, a madman on the loose...

Gwenda Reed arrives from New Zealand, travelling ahead of her husband with the task of finding the perfect place to make their base. In the quiet village of Dilmouth, she finds a house with immediate appeal. A few renovations will convert it into her ideal home. Then things get very strange indeed. Wanting porch stairs, Gwenda hires a builder to pu...

Young Huck Finn can't get along with the Widow Douglas' attempts to `civilise' him, or the smothering discipline which she and her sister serve up at home. So when his drunken, good-for-nothing father turns up and kidnaps him, Huck takes his cue to leave - and escapes to Jackson's Island. There he meets runaway slave Jim, and the two become firm fr...

Richard Eyre directs Ken Stott as Macbeth and Phyllis Logan as Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare's dramatic tale of greed and destiny. BBC radio has a unique heritage when it comes to Shakespeare. Since 1923, when the newly formed company broadcast its first full-length play, generations of actors and producers have honed and perfected the craft of makin...

In The Vampire Moon, Sexton Blake and Paula Dane are out at a London restaurant, when one of their fellow diners suddenly collapses. His dying words warn of the dangers of the Vampire Moon.

A blizzard has hit England. In the tiny village of Sittaford, on the fringes of Dartmoor, a party of six is gathered in Sittaford House, home of Captain Trevelyan. He has rented the house out for the winter and is staying in a nearby village. As evening draws in, a s‚ance is proposed. But it reveals more than they had anticipated - TREVELYAN...

Laurie Lee's evocative account of childhood in the sleepy Gloucestershire village of Slad retains its atmosphere of innocence in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast production. Recorded on location in Gloucestershire, it stars Niamh Cusack as Laurie's mother and Tim McInnerny as Laurie.

A full-cast dramatisation starring Maurice Denham as Inspector Maigret and Michael Gough as his creator Georges Simenon The world's best-known French detective, Jules Maigret, talks to his creator Georges Simenon about one of his most intriguing cases in this full-cast dramatisation that has been specially adapted for radio from the original novel....

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...

In this BBC full-cast production, Julius Caesar is triumphant after his victory over the sons of Pompey. But as bad omens and weather plague Rome, even his most loyal friends are starting to see the signs...Political intrigue and fierce battle rage in this tense and dynamic production in which a country is torn apart under the legacy of Julius Caes...

A compilation of highlights from various Christmas episodes, where we not only hear tidings of the births of Debbie Aldridge and John Archer, but also drop in on shows in the village hall and hear old favourite songs like The Village Pump rendered by Tom Forrest, and Jones' Ale by a group of tuneful male voices.

The second series of Lynne Truss's hugely popular BBC Radio 4 comedy thriller. Inspector Steine - the amiable, unworldly detective who refuses to believe in Brighton's criminal underworld - returns for another six episodes. It is 1957 and, as the series opens, all crime has stopped along the South Coast. But Mrs. Groynes - the cockney charlady who...

A BBC Radio 4 drama looking at the impact on a divorcing couple of recent changes to British prenuptial law. Originally broadcast as the 'Afternoon Play' on 21 January 2011. Two academics, British Paul (Sam Dale) and American Amy (Sally Orrock), have married in the US with a prenuptial agreement. They did so because Paul's previous marriage ended i...

A BBC Radio 4 bittersweet romantic drama by award-winning writer Lou Ramsden, starring Kathryn Hunt and Nicholas Boulton, originally broadcast as the 'Afternoon Play' on 15 April 2011. Hazel (Kathryn Hunt) spends her life describing plays for visually impaired people. But when she starts to describe the real world to her new friend Davy (Nicholas B...

A BBC Radio 3 Sci-Fi drama by Melissa Murray set in the very-near future. When William Hellier dies, his wife creates an avatar of him and has it uploaded onto a cyberspace memorial site. But is he software? Or is his soul trapped in the machine? Perpetual Light was originally broadcast in the Drama on 3 slot on 5 December 2010. A new way to rememb...

A BBC Radio 4 'Saturday Play' investigating how domestic and international politics were about to combine in 1973, to change the Middle East forever. Starring Henry Goodman and Peter Marinker, Payback was originally broadcast on 22 January 2011. 6th October 1973. Golda Meir has become Prime Minister of Israel in her seventies. Syrian and Egyptian t...