Strong of will and slender of ankle, twenty-year-old orphan Flora Poste is blessed with every virtue save that of being able to earn her own living. Casting around for suitable relatives with whom she can make her home, Flora alights on the mysterious Starkadders and, ignoring the horrified shrieks of her friends, heads down to darkest Sussex. Ther...

A gripping BBC Radio 4 drama about King George VI's struggle to overcome his stammer and his close working relationship with his speech therapist. It is Coronation Day, 1937. As the country celebrates, the new monarch must face one of the most difficult challenges he has ever encountered: the dreaded BBC Radio Broadcast to the Nation. Only one man...

Patricia Hodge stars as Mattie in Juliet Ace's four linked dramas, written especially for Patricia's voice, in which Mattie reflects on her life as a naval wife, an actress and as a mother and daughter. In these funny and beautifully observed performances we come to meet Mattie as she shares her hard-earned understanding of her life, in all its int...

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation starring John Moffatt as the great Belgian detective with Simon Williams and Philip Jackson. Alice Ascher, a poor, elderly shopkeeper, is murdered in Andover. Betty Barnard, a young waitress, is strangled with her own belt at Bexhill-on-Sea. Next comes Carmichael Clarke, collector of Chinese art, clubbed to dea...

One fine day, A.D. 70, Sosia Camillina quite literally runs into Marcus Didius Falco on the steps of the Forum. It seems Sosia is on the run from a couple of street toughs, and after a quick and dirty rescue, P.I. Falco wants to know why. Falco finds out that Sosia, the niece of a highly placed senator, holds the secret to a stockpile of silver pig...

The Cagebirds were happy ignoring each other, until The Wild One came. The Wild One has a lot to say, but the Cagebirds aren't listening. This play is about whether freedom is being outside a cage or inside.

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of M. M. Kaye's epic novel of love and war. M. M. Kaye's masterwork is a vast, rich and vibrant tapestry of love and war that spans over twenty years, moving from the foothills of the Himalayas, to the burning plains, to the besieged British Mission in Kabul. It begins in 1857 when, following the Indian Mutiny,...

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation by Michael Butt about the death of the poet and playwright Christopher Marlowe, originally broadcast in the "Afternoon Play" slot on 17 August 2010. In May 1593, the playwright Christopher Marlowe was killed. Apparently, it was because of an argument over a bill. Michael Butt's innovative drama dons the cloak o...

A middle-aged man in search of adventure, Bobby Roberts answers an advert in The Times and is dispatched to Milan, to collect a harmless package from a scientist. However, he very soon gets caught up in a terrifying murder...

No caveats for readers of Davis's second playful, well-plotted mystery featuring imperial agent Marcus Didius Falco and based in first century, C.E., Rome. Nero's successor Vespasian has squelched an early treasonous plot and assigned Falco to take care of loose ends, which include the body of the uncle of the high-born young widow Helena Justina,...

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...

'The Return of Note' finds Mma Ramotswe in a compromising situation when her past catches up with her. But things are looking brighter for her assistant, Mma Makutsi, when she takes up ballroom dancing... 'The Ceremony' sees Mma Ramotswe's agency work under control at last, so she has time to take care of her own problems. Can she release her fianc...

Ian Carmichael is Lord Peter Wimsey in these consummate BBC radio dramatisations of Dorothy L Sayers' much-loved mysteries. Elegant, erudite and sharp-witted, aristocratic detective Lord Peter Wimsey featured in numerous novels and short stories by 'Queen of Crime' Dorothy L Sayers. These full-cast adaptations - first broadcast on BBC radio between...

In 2010, the 30th anniversary year of the Independence of Zimbabwe, BBC Radio 4 commissioned two Friday Plays from leading writers. The first play, God's President: Mugabe of Zimbabwe by Kwame Kwei-Armah, tells the story of the tense negotiations around the Lancaster House Conference, and the road to Zimbabwe's Independence. On 4th March 1980 the S...

Seven instalments of the classic radio crime drama starring Cecil Parker, plus special documentary feature A Case for Dr Morelle. Dr Morelle uses psychological insight, criminology and dogged persistence to solve cases. Here he must deduce the answers to mysteries including a hotel death, a man tormented by nightmares, and deadly threats made to an...

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of the bestselling novel by John le Carr‚, starring James Fox, Harriet Walter and Julian Rhind-Tutt. Magnus Pym, Counsellor at the British Embassy, is hosting a dinner party at his home in Vienna when he receives an unexpected telephone call that will profoundly affect his life. Once the guests have gone,...

'The Maid' sees Mma Ramotswe visiting the house of the mechanic she has agreed to marry, Mr J. L. B. Matekoni. But there is a shock in store for her... Back at the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, there is the mystery of the erratic doctor to look into, and a 'cold case' involving an American who went missing from a communal farm. 'Tears of the Gira...

A Radio 4 dramatisation of John Galsworthy's second absorbing trilogy about the lives and loves of the Forsytes, with a star cast including Amanda Redman, Gary Bond and Belinda Lang. A Modern Comedy is a gripping dramatisation of Galsworthy's three classic books following the fortunes of the Forsytes throughout the Roaring Twenties. The White Monke...

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. Inspir...

Alexander McCall Smith's delightful series of novels form the basis of these radio dramas featuring the inhabitants of an Edinburgh tenement building. With its multiple-occupancy flats, Scotland Street is an interesting corner of Edinburgh's New Town. Verging on the Bohemian, here the haute bourgeoisie rubs shoulders with students and the more colo...

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Anthony Burgess's novel which became a controversial film in the 1970s. In a nightmare world of the near future, packs of teenagers run wild, beyond the control of their families or the police. Alex is a gang-leader, addicted to drug-fuelled assault, torture and rape.