A Radio 4 dramatisation of John Galsworthy's gripping trilogy that concludes the Forsyte Saga, featuring a star cast including Sophie Thompson, Dorothy Tutin, John Moffatt and Miranda Foster. The End of the Chapter is an adaptation of Galsworthy's three novels chronicling the lives of the Cherrells, cousins of the Forsytes. Maid in Waiting starts i...

Peter Coke and Marjorie Westbury star in another intriguing case for BBC radio's smoothest sleuth and his glamorous wife. From 1938 to 1969 the fictional crime novelist and detective Paul Temple, together with his Fleet Street journalist wife Steve, solved case after case in one of BBC radio's most popular series. When young drama student Mary Drei...

Ed Bishop stars as Philip Marlowe in this powerfully atmospheric dramatisation of Raymond Chandler's novel about the cynical, world-weary, wise-cracking shamus whose honesty in a dishonest world sent him down the mean streets again and again in search of some kind of justice. Blonde, beautiful and wild, Crystal Kingsley had never exactly been the f...

Love and death are the principal players in these two BBC Radio full-cast dramatisations of chilling Ruth Rendell stories. In 'The Bridesmaid', when Philip embarks on an affair with Senta, his sister's bridesmaid, she reminds him of the stone statue he adored as a child. Yet Senta is married, and Philip's overwhelming aversion to violence leads ind...

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation written by Eoin McNamee, originally broadcast as the Afternoon Play on 23 March 2009. A truck driver in Ireland gives a lift to a female Asian hitchhiker but gets more than he bargained for, especially when his truck is stopped by immigration officers and he and his illegal occupant are taken in for questioning...

In this BBC full-cast production, King Lear tests his three daughters' love, to disastrous consequences.Some of the most stirring scenes Shakespeare ever wrote resonate powerfully in this dramatic radio production. Tortured madness, pure evil, and the fatal struggle for power grip the listener until the final, shockingly tragic conclusion.Starring&...

Two stand-alone BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramas adapted by Alexander McCall Smith from his much-loved series 'The Kalahari Typing School for Men' opens with bad news for Mma Ramotswe - her agency has competition in the form of the Satisfaction Guaranteed Detective Agency, run by a man. Mma Makutsi has entrepreneurial ambitions too, and has conceived t...

An atmospheric drama set on the east coast of Scotland in 1791. A watchmaker pours all of his skill and knowledge into making a machine that will alter time and create a different universe; one in which he hopes his desperately ill daughter will be returned to him, fully recovered. Starring Cal MacAninch, Liam Brennan, Pauline Knowles and Finn de H...

Anton Lesser and Anna Madeley star in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of the fourth novel in Lindsey Davis's bestselling series featuring Roman private eye Falco. The Iron Hand of Mars sees Falco being dispatched to one of the most hostile parts of the Empire to deliver a new standard - an iron hand - to one of the legions. Germania is col...

Warm, humorous and uplifting, Alexander McCall Smith's hugely popular novels featuring Precious Ramotswe, proprietor of Botswana's only female private detective agency, have become international bestsellers, sold over seven million copies, and been translated into 26 languages.These acclaimed productions, complete with vibrant music, bring the exot...

Tim, Meredith and Harry are three sassy, thirty something traders who, tired of making money for someone else, combine to launch a new hedge fund. But it doesn't take long before they get seriously above themselves, losing a small fortune and making some pretty heavy enemies in the City markets. Facing financial meltdown, Harry is deputed to exploi...

A BBC Radio 4 production of Priestley's classic thriller, starring Toby Jones and Frances Barber. The Birling family are spending a happy evening celebrating the engagement of Sheila Birling to Gerald Croft-a marriage that will result in the merging of two successful local businesses. Yet, just when everything seems to be going so well, they receiv...

The writer David Eldridge introduces his BBC Radio 3 full-cast drama, The Picture Man starring Martin Freeman, about a man who despairs of the behaviour he sees around him and decides to take action. Originally broadcast in the "Drama on 3" slot on 6 January 2008. Neil decides he has been pushed too far by the uncaring and often callous behaviour h...

Michael Sheen stars as Hamlet with Kenneth Cranham as Claudius, Juliet Stevenson as Gertrude and Ellie Beaven as Ophelia in the best-known and most powerful tragedy of modern times. 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...

A strange but funny BBC Radio 4 'Afternoon Play' about sex, betrayal, the housing market and a love triangle that follows its own surreal logic. 'Cavity' was originally broadcast 29 January 2009, and repeated 24 March 2011. Kirsty is having an affair with a married man, Adrian. When his wife, Lucy, returns unexpectedly from a business conference, K...

Ed Bishop stars as Philip Marlowe in a powerful and atmospheric full-cast dramatisation of Raymond Chandler's classic noir novel. The first time Marlowe sets eyes on Terry Lennox, he is lying drunk in the passenger seat of a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith. The next time, he's on Skid Row. After they share a few Gimlets, Marlowe thinks he seems like a ni...

A BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Virgil's sweeping epic, starring Ralph Fiennes as Aeneas and Derek Jacobi as the Narrator. One of the classics of all time, The Aeneid was Virgil's last and greatest work. In it, he recounts in vivid imagery the legendary origin of the Roman Empire. The story begins after the Greeks have destroyed the city of Troy. Th...

John Gordon Sinclair stars as Scotland's most celebrated doctor in six BBC Radio full-cast dramatisations. When Dr Cameron gets called in to see a patient, he doesn't expect it to be his new partner Dr Finlay. But the new doctor is full of surprises: caring, stubborn, idealistic and clever, Finlay might have been welcomed to the practice with a bla...

'The Daddy' introduces us to Mma Ramotswe as she embarks on her first case and takes on a new secretary, the resourceful and talented Mma Makutsi. Together, they must find the truth about a Daddy who appears to have returned from the dead - as well as investigating a wayward teenage girl and attempting to find a vanished child. 'The Bone' sees the...

In this BBC full-cast production of Coriolanus, allies and enemies become blurred just as Rome is in sight...Coriolanus tells of a proud Roman general who captures the town Corioli but subsequently falls from favour with the Roman people. He allies himself with the Volscians and leads an attack on Rome, but allegiances are won and lost be...

'The Chief Justice of Beauty' finds the ladies hired by a beauty contest judge to check up on the integrity of the finalists in a forthcoming competition, following the embarrassing arrest for shoplifting of a previous winner. Meanwhile, Mma Ramotsweis worried about her fianc‚, Mr J. L. B. Matekoni. 'The Confession' sees Mma Ramotswe consulti...