What would you do if you found out that your husband, your father, your son - was not who you thought? Could you ever love him again? Luke Livingstone is a lucky man. He's a respected solicitor, a father and grandfather, a pillar of the community. He has a loving wife and an idyllic home in the Oxfordshire countryside. Yet Luke is struggling with a...

As World War II sweeps the continent and England steels itself against German attack, Maggie Hope, former secretary to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, completes her training to become a spy for MI-5. Spirited, strong-willed, and possessing one of the sharpest minds in government for mathematics and code-breaking, she fully expects to be sent abro...

"A bear on Paddington Station?" said Mrs Brown in amazement. "Don't be silly - there can't be." The original story of Paddington, the classic bear from Darkest Peru, read by Stephen Fry. The Browns first meet Paddington on a railway station - Paddington station, in fact. He has travelled all the way from Darkest Peru with only a jar of marmalade, a...

The third episode of North by Northamptonshire, a BBC Radio 4 comedy drama series with a stunning cast including Sheila Hancock, Mackenzie Crook, Penelope Wilton, Felicity Montagu and Kevin Eldon about a small town in the middle of Northamptonshire as it prepares for a talent night. Originally broadcast at 11:30 on 30 June 2010. Recently divorced J...

Featuring: The Moriaty Murder Mystery, King Solomon's Mines, The œ1,000,000 Penny and The Vanishing Room. Anarchic, ground-breaking and hilariously inventive, The Goon Show re-shaped comedy and set new standards in the genre. The mix of brilliant wordplay, mental slapstick and surreal clowning ensures the popularity of Spike Milligan, Peter S...

A study guide to 'Romeo and Juliet'. The play's commentary focuses on themes, language, imagery and Shakespeare's most beautiful use of poetry to express the fated teenagers' love and tragic end.

What do tigers, giant pandas, blue whales and great white sharks have in common? Within a generation they may join dinosaurs, dodos, woolly rhinos and great kangaroos - they will become extinct. Human dominance on earth may be good news for us, but it's bad news for many other animals that share our planet. 'Countdown to Extinction' looks at the ca...

It's back! the Radio Four panel game that's not about sport, music, television, advertising, books, hats or gardening. Just funny rounds with funny ideas. The line up for this show is Peter Baynham, Jack Docherty, Armando Iannucci and Sean Lock and was broadcast on 4th March 2003.

A third selection of verses, stories and sketches from the much-loved poet and comedian. Pam Ayres brings you four brand new shows made up of a delightful mix of poems, personal stories and sketches on subjects that have recently inspired her: 'In the Doghouse', 'Passion', 'On Yer Bike' and 'Shopping'.

The year is 1920, and an ambitious doctor meets a nun apparently traumatised by what she witnessed in the Great War. An attempt to restore the woman's sanity results in the uncovering of something very sinister indeed.

When a woman's body is found submerged in icy water, police are shocked to find she is alive. But she won't disclose her name or what happened to her - even when a second body is discovered. And then she disappears from her hospital bed. Detectives Adrian Miles and Imogen Grey follow their only lead to the home of the Corrigans, looking for answers...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Underland by Robert Macfarlane. A Guardian Best Book of the 21st Century The highly anticipated new book from the internationally bestselling, prize-winning author of Landmarks, The Lost Words and The Old Ways Discover the hidden worlds beneath our feet... In Underland, Robert Macfarlane takes us on a journ...

Just after midnight, a snowdrift stopped the Orient Express in its tracks. The luxurious train was surprisingly full for the time of the year. But by the morning there was one passenger fewer. An American lay dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside.

In a small town where everyone knows everyone, Emma O'Donovan is different. She is the special one - beautiful, popular, powerful. And she works hard to keep it that way. Until that night.... Now she's an embarrassment. Now she's just a slut. Now she is nothing. And those pictures - those pictures that everyone has seen - mean she can never forget....

Maggie Hope has come a long way since serving as a typist for Winston Churchill. Now she's working undercover for the Special Operations Executive in the elegant but eerily silent city of Paris, where SS officers prowl the streets in their Mercedes and the Ritz is draped with swastika banners. Walking among the enemy is tense and terrifying, and ev...

Is death the end...or only the beginning? Ethan Wate always dreamed of leaving the stifling Southern town of Gatlin. But he never dreamt that finding love with Lena Duchannes would drive him away. Lena is a Caster girl whose supernatural powers unveiled a secretive and cursed side of Gatlin, so powerful it forced him to make a terrible sacrifice. N...

A collection of short stories from the Archives read for Radio 4, by bestselling author Maeve Binchy. Stories included are: The Garden Party read by Niamh Cusack - Helen looked down at Mrs Kennedy's garden. It was cheerfully coloured yet ordered like Mrs Kennedy. But first impressions are not always reliable. The Special Sale read by Dervla Kirwan...

Set in the ruggedly wild countryside of West Cork, Ireland, in the early part of the twentieth century, Songs of Love and War is an epic tale of three very different women all born in the year 1900: Kitty Deverill, the flame-haired Anglo-Irish daughter of the castle, Bridie Doyle, the daughter of the cook and Celia Deverill, Kitty's flamboyant Engl...

World War II rages on across Europe, but Maggie Hope has finally found a moment of rest on the pastoral coast of western Scotland. Home from an undercover mission in Berlin, she settles down to teach at her old spy training camp, and to heal from scars on both her body and heart. Yet instead of enjoying the quieter pace of life, Maggie is quickly d...

Grace Nichols gives us images that stare us straight in the eye, images of joy, challenge, accusation. Her 'fat black woman' is brash; rejoices in herself; poses awkward questions to politicians, rulers, suitors, to a white world that still turns its back. Grace Nichols writes in a language that is wonderfully vivid yet economical of the pleasures...

Oh yes, the hilariosity goes on for one last time. Here it is ... maybe probably ... pants for the memories! My marvy Luuurve God boyfriend has got the full Humpty Dumpty with me for accidentally twisting with Dave the Laugh. Which is not actually my fault. For instance my lips do ad-hoc puckering up every time Dave the Laugh comes near them, I don...