Showing results by narrator "Anna Massey" in All Categories

Fresh new look for this bestselling book & tape featuring the Smarties prizewinner of 1995. It's Christmas, but Irina's family don't have enough money to buy her the present she wants. Then Irina sees the wooden horse in the junk shop window and all she wants is to take it home with her. Irina is sad and lonely and knows that the little horse is lonely too. But what Irina doesn't know is that this dusty little horse with the tattered mane is really an enchanted horse who comes to life and takes Irina on magical journeys.

Laura Thornby is swept by an irresistible desire to interfere when she meets struggling writer Claude Bannister. What she doesn't foresee is that he may write well - and she might fall in love.

The Sceptred Isle provided the definitive radio account of the British nation, from 55BC to the end of the 20th century. Now its attention turns towards the incredibly powerful families which have wielded power behind the scenes for the past 1,000 years. The Dynasties relates how the loyalties of this privileged elite, many of whom are older than the monarchy itself, were tested and rewarded; it also uncovers a multitude of murderous plots, bloody battles, adulteries, intrigues and shocking executions.

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 13 terrifying tales that will make your flesh crawl. With eerie sound effects that enhance the atmosphere of dread, these bloodcurdling adaptations run the gamut from the mysterious to the macabre. With superb casts including Imelda Staunton, Bernard Cribbins, Anna Massey, Thora Hird and Sean Barrett.

Christopher Lee's highly acclaimed and award-winning BBC Radio 4 history of the British Empire.

When Anna Durrant is reported missing her friends seem unconcerned at her disappearance. After all, her life has been one of concealment. For years Anna submitted to the protective dependence of her mother, and even after Amy Durrant’s death she simply conformed to the expectations of others. Increasingly, Anna feels herself trapped by these expectations.

For the whole of Rose's respectable married life, she had kept faith with two men. To Ned she was a perfect wife, mother of his son, and elegant hostess of Slepe. To Mylo, Rose was an impetuous and unconventional mistress, answering his erratic and impassionate calls throughout 50 years of tactful duplicity. After Ned's funeral Rose looks back on a life of dual constancy, passion, humour, and the ambiguities of love - and chooses her future.

Inspired by the novels of D.H. Lawrence, particularly The Rainbow and Women in Love, this ambitious quartet from Booker Prize-winning novelist A.S. Byatt charts the lives of the Potter family between 1953 and 1970. Set against the changing social and political landscape of England in the '50s and '60s, it follows the heroine, Frederica, from precocious teenager to TV talk-show host and from her Yorkshire home to the heart of swinging London.

Rachel Joyce captured the hearts of millions with her best-selling debut novel, which told the moving tale of an ordinary man, Harold Fry, who embarks on an epic journey to deliver a message and save a life. But Harold’s story began its life on radio, in the award-winning play which opens this collection: To Be a Pilgrim, starring Anton Lesser, Anna Massey and Niamh Cusack.

The new edition of Salley Vicker's sensational debut novel. ‘Miss Garnet's Angel' is a voyage of discovery; a novel about Venice but also the rich story of the explosive possibilities of change in all of us at any time. Julia Garnet is a teacher. Just retired, she is left a legacy which she uses by leaving her orderly life and going to live - in winter - in an apartment in Venice. Its beauty, its secret corners and treasures, and its people overwhelm a lifetime of reserve and caution.

In these four supernatural dramas, first broadcast on radio in 1984, a house hides more than meets the eye; a B & B landlady helps her guests forget their troubles; a Japanese man inadvertently awakens a vengeful spirit; and a mother and baby become unsettled in remote mill.

Full-cast adaptations of three of Winifred Holtby’s best-known novels, plus short stories and bonus programmes about the author: Winifred Holtby was an acclaimed novelist, journalist, feminist and social reformer. Her work encompasses six novels, two short story collections, a play and the first critical study of Virginia Woolf, but she is best known for her posthumously published masterpiece South Riding, which won the James Tait Black Memorial Award. She died in 1935, aged just 37.

Othello revolves around four central characters: Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army; his wife Desdemona; his lieutenant, Cassio; and his trusted ensign, Iago. Because of its varied and current themes of racism, love, jealousy, and betrayal, Othello is still often performed in professional and community theatres alike and has been the basis for numerous operatic, film, and literary adaptations.

Sinéad Cusack, Anna Massey, Patricia Routledge, Andrew Sachs and Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies star in this 1974 BBC Radio full-cast production of Chekhov’s classic play.Madame Ranyevskaya and her daughter Anya have returned home from Paris to discover that their family estate - which includes their beloved cherry orchard - has to be sold to cover the family’s debts.

In 2005, Anna Massey was awarded a CBE for services to drama.Daughter of the Canadian actor, Raymond Massey (perhaps best-known for his role as Dr Gillespie in the TV series Dr Killdare), and Adrianne Allen (also a very successful stage actress), drama was in her blood. Her brother, Daniel, was a much-acclaimed actor. And even her godfather was one of the great film directors of all time – John Ford.

In the cosmopolitan Paris of the 1880s, the new proprietors of the Opera House are amused to discover that their costly acquisition is said to be haunted. But their smiles quickly vanish as tragedy follows misfortune: a murdered stagehand, a fatal accident, a missing girl. Fearful tales of the Opera Ghost race through the corridors and dressing rooms of the theatre. And with good reason - for deep in the catacombs beneath the Opera House, something is stirring.

At twenty-seven, Anne Elliot is no longer young and has few romantic prospects. Eight years earlier, she had been persuaded by her friend Lady Russell to break off her engagement to Frederick Wentworth, a handsome naval captain with neither fortune nor rank. What happens when they encounter each other again is movingly told in Jane Austen's last completed novel.

This illuminating serial charts the transformation of the young Victoria from spirited teenager to shy young bride to celebrated ruler of Britain and ‘Mother of Europe’. But while her roles changed, her essential nature remained the same: vibrant, passionate, principled and fiercely independent. Through extracts from Victoria’s own diaries and letters, and dramatised episodes featuring the characters closest to her, we are given thrilling insight into the thoughts and feelings of the woman behind the crown - and the secrets of her mind and heart.

These fairy tales are nasty. This is the land of goblins and sorceresses, with serious lines in revenge, not the land of unicorns and once upon a Barbie. The tales that the Brothers Grimm collected during their time as linguistics professors, first at the University of Göttingen and then in Berlin, at the request of the King of Prussia, were an attempt to map the folklore of the German-speaking people.

A classic Agatha Christie short story, available individually for the first time on audio. What is the mystery of the velvet-suited doll that appears to move from place to place? Is someone responsible, or can it be possible that it possesses its own sinister qualities?