The story unfolds through four middle class families - the Mehras, Kappoors, Khans and Chatterjis. Lata Mehra, a university student, is under pressure from her mother to get married. But not to just anyone she happens to fall in love with. There are standards to be met and finding a husband for Lata becomes a family affair in which all the members...

BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of one of the most famous adventure stories of all time, starring Roy Marsden as Robinson Crusoe. Young Robinson Crusoe has a burning ambition to be a sailor. Paying no attention to his parents' warnings, he runs away to sea to embark on an extraordinary series of adventures: struggles with Barbary pirates, a shi...

A BBC Radio 3 full-cast dramatisation by Annie Caulfield, starring Lenny Henry as singer and political activist Paul Robeson. Originally broadcast Sunday 21 February 2010. As an outspoken apologist for Stalin and agitator for civil rights Paul Robeson had many enemies, including the CIA. His passport was taken away, his career curtailed and his...

Jim Broadbent stars as 'mad' King George III in this radio adaptation of Alan Bennett's award-winning play, which co-stars Cheryl Campbell, Nicholas Farrell and Alun Armstrong. The King is losing his mind. Doctors are brought in as his eccentric behaviour becomes more bizarre and erratic, while his son, the Prince Regent, waits - and plots.

A new Radio 4 adaptation of one of Alan Bennett's most well-loved works. In the 1970s, an eccentric old lady called Miss Shepherd lives in an old caravan opposite Bennett's house in Camden. That is until new parking regulations come into force - and he suggests moving the van onto his driveway...

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...

A BBC Radio 4 production of Othello, starring Lenny Henry in title role. The comic makes his stage debut as the tortured Moor. One of Shakespeare's most revered tragedies, the play tells the story of a noble African commander in the service of the Venetian army, whose mind is poisoned against the one he loves by the jealous and hate-filled Iago....

"I prithee, daughter, do not make me mad..." Alec Guinness's performance as King Lear stirs the listener in this recording from the BBC Sound Archives.

Duncan Macmillan's romantic comedy drama about the end of the world, a woman who falls in love with the moon, and her husband who falls back in love with her.

Alan Bennett stars in a new production of his own acclaimed satrical comedy, thirty years after its original West End debut. The Headmaster has been at Albion House for fifty years, man and boy. Now he is retiring and takes part in the end-of-year entertainment for the last time. Entitled Speak For England, Arthur, it weaves together a multi-genera...

These two much-loved series, originally available as separate cassette releases, featured the late Peter Tinniswood's legendary creations Uncle Mort and Carter Brandon. As the pair tour Britain, Uncle Mort's recollections make for some hilarious moments. In Uncle Mort's North Country, having been granted a week's holiday, Carter Brandon, with hi...

Kafka's Dick - Bennett's brilliantly clever comedy not only examines the relationship between life and art, but also asks what was Kafka's embarrassing little problem? Forty Years On - Alan Bennett stars in the production of his own acclaimed satirical comedy about a headmaster of Albion House who is retiring and takes part in the end-of-year en...

Robin Herford and Tessa Peake-Jones star in Alan Ayckbourn's award-winning trilogy: Table Manners, Living Together and Round and Round the Garden. When the deviously amorous Norman plans a clandestine weekend away with his sister-in-law, he has some fun and games in mind. But not quite the fun and games that he gets... Ayckbourn's trilogy has bee...

Paul Scofield and Patricia Routledge star in Noel Coward's classic comedy of manners. Private Lives was written in 1930 and has been a mainstay of British theatre ever since. This sharply funny play of reversals focuses on Elyot and Amanda, a passionate but feuding couple who divorced five years before. Now, on the first night of their honeymoons w...

"This day is called the feast of Crispian...." In one of the most famous and inspirational of Shakespeare's speeches, Richard Burton's rich and resonant voice delivers Henry V's address to his army on the eve of Agincourt!

"To be or not to be - that is the question...." In this BBC Sound Archive recording, Michael Redgrave stars as Shakespeare's troubled Prince of Denmark.

A quizzical look at the life and legend of celebrated poet Dylan Thomas, through the critical eyes of the infamous Chelsea Hotel. In Room 206 of the Chelsea Hotel in New York, Dylan Thomas went into the coma that led to his death.

Three lives on three continents connected by one event...A young British schoolboy obsessed with school massacres, a radio journalist in India on the trail of a scoop for the BBC and the boss of an American church-owned clothing firm are the threads that run through this intricate, suspenseful three-part thriller from award-winning writer-director...

Chris Harrald's play takes a light-hearted look at a chaotic day in the life of an emerging poet. One morning in September 1957, Philip Larkin receives a very official looking letter which sends him into a spin.

A full-cast dramatisation of Robert Graves' brilliant account of the madness and debauchery of ancient Rome, starring Tom Goodman Hill as Claudius and Derek Jacobi as Augustus. The wickedly entertaining inside story of the lives and deaths of the Imperial dynasty from Augustus to Caligula is told by their obscure relation, Claudius. In public...

A desperate love story, and a beautiful history of the treatment of mental health, written by one of Britain's foremost playwrights for the two lead actors. Sarah and Ken met as foster siblings, and fell in love. While he has married a good wife and fathered beautiful children, she has spent her whole life in institutions, and they have maintained...