Showing results by narrator "Tony Robinson" in All Categories

Dodger is a tosher – a sewer scavenger living in the squalor of Dickensian London. Everyone who is nobody knows Dodger. Anyone who is anybody doesn’t. But when he rescues a young girl from a beating, suddenly everybody wants to know him. And Dodger’s tale of skulduggery, dark plans and even darker deeds begins….

When a large, heavily fortified and armoured empire makes a faintly menacing request of a much smaller, infinitely more cowardly neighbour, it would be churlish, if not extremely dangerous, not to comply; particularly if all they want is a wizard, and they don't specify whether competence is an issue.

Polly Perks had to become a boy in a hurry. Cutting off her hair and wearing trousers was easy. Learning to fart and belch in public and walk like an ape took more time. And now she's enlisted in the army, and searching for her lost brother. But there's a war on. There's always a war on. And Polly and her fellow recruits are suddenly in the thick of it, without any training, and the enemy is hunting them.

Koom Valley? That was where the trolls ambushed the dwarfs, or the dwarfs ambushed the trolls. It was far away. It was a long time ago. But if he doesn't solve the murder of just one dwarf, Commander Sam Vimes of Ankh-Morpork City Watch is going to see it fought again, right outside his office. With his beloved Watch crumbling around him and war-drums sounding, he must unravel every clue, outwit every assassin, and brave any darkness to find the solution. And darkness is following him.

Time is a resource. Everyone knows it has to be managed. And on Discworld, that is the job of the Monks of History, who store it and pump it from the places where it's wasted (like underwater; how much time does a codfish need?) to places like cities, where there's never enough time. But the construction of the world's first truly accurate clock starts a race against, well, time for Lu Tze and his apprentice, Lobsang Ludd. Because it will stop time. And that will only be the start of everyone's problems.

Other children receive xylophones. Susan just had to ask her grandfather to take his vest off. Yes. There's a Death in the family. It's hard to grow up normally when Grandfather rides a white horse and wields a scythe: especially when you have to take over the family business, and everyone mistakes you for the Tooth Fairy. And especially when you have to face the new and addictive music that has entered Discworld. It's lawless. It changes people. It's called Music With Rocks In.

"Look after the dead," said the priests, "and the dead will look after you." Wise words in all probability, but a tall order when you have just become the pharaoh of a small and penniless country whose largesse, and indeed treasury, is unlikely to stretch to the building of a monumental pyramid to honour your dead father. And particularly when your only visible means of support is a recently acquired qualification from the Guild of Assassins.

For members of the City Watch, life consists of troubling times, linked together by periods of torpid inactivity. Now is one such troubling time. People are being murdered, but there's no trace of anything alive having been at the crime scene. Is there ever a circumstance in which you can blame the weapon not the murderer? Such philosophical questions are not the usual domain of the city's police, but they're going to have to start learning fast.

Shortlisted for the British Book Awards, Children's Book of the Year, 2007.
Tiffany Aching is a trainee witch now working for the seriously scary Miss Treason. But when Tiffany witnesses the Dark Dance, the crossover from summer to winter, she does what no one has ever done before: she leaps into the dance. And into the oldest story there is.

To the consternation of the patrician, Lord Vetinari, a new invention has arrived in Ankh-Morpork - a great clanging monster of a machine that harnesses the power of all of the elements: earth, air, fire and water. This being Ankh-Morpork, it's soon drawing astonished crowds, some of whom caught the zeitgeist early and arrive armed with notepads and very sensible rainwear.

Delight in the wonderful story of Puss in Boots, voiced by the marvellous Tony Robinson. Puss in Boots is a European fairy tale about a cat who uses trickery to gain power, wealth, and the hand of a princess in marriage for his low-born master. Sir Anthony Robinson, known professionally as Tony Robinson, is an actor, comedian and TV presenter among other things. Tony has also written 16 children's books.

When the very fabric of time and space are about to be put through the wringer, in this instance by the imminent arrival of a very large and determinedly oncoming meteorite, circumstances require a very particular type of hero. Sadly, what the situation does not need is a singularly inept wizard, still recovering from the trauma of falling off the edge of the world. Equally it does not need one well-meaning tourist and his luggage, which has a mind of its own¿which is a shame, because that's all there is.

This isn't real life. This isn't even cheese mongering. It's opera - where the music matters, and where an opera house is being terrorised by a man in evening dress with a white mask, lurking in the shadows, occasionally killing people, and, most worryingly, sending little notes, writing maniacal laughter with five exclamation marks. Opera can do that to a man. In such circumstances, life has obviously reached that desperate point where the wrong thing to do has to be the right thing to do.

A real witch never casually steps out of her body, leaving it empty. Eleven-year-old Tiffany Aching does. And there's something just waiting for a handy body to take over. Something ancient and horrible and that can't die. Tiffany returns in this exciting new adventure, helped as before by the Nac Mac Feegle - the rowdiest, toughest, smelliest bunch of fairies ever to be thrown out of Fairyland for being drunk at two in the afternoon. They'll fight anything!

The most powerful men in the world were all together in a circle in the middle of the room. Drawing their daggers, they cut their right hands and, above the pile of gold, swore Odysseus’ vow: Helen could marry whom she liked, and the Princes would defend them both.… Everyone’s heard of the wooden horse of Troy, and of the beauty of Helen. Well this is the story as Odysseus saw it, from his boyhood in Ithaca to his participation in the bloody Trojan war itself.

An aura of mean-minded resentfulness is thick in the streets of Ankh-Morpork. Insurrection is in the air. The Haves and Have-Nots are about to fall out all over again. The Have-Nots want some of their own magic. But magic in the hands of amateurs is a dangerous thing. The City Watch is the last line of defence against such unnatural goings-on. But when even the Watch have trouble telling right from wrong, you know that law and order ain't what they used to be. But that's all about to change.

Religion is a controversial business in the Discworld. Everyone has their own opinion, and indeed their own gods - who come in all shapes and sizes. In such a competitive environment, there is a pressing need to make one's presence felt. And it's certainly not remotely helpful to be reduced to be appearing in the form of a tortoise, a manifestation far below god-like status in anyone's book. In such instances, you need an acolyte, and fast - preferably one who won't ask too many questions.

Theseus certainly has a reputation to live up to! After being saved from death as a baby, he goes on to fight the Great Tosser, falls into the clutches of Pine Bender and duffs up his uncle Laius. He even manages to defeat a horde of pirates and visits the Underworld. Oh, and he kills the Minotaur. And all in the space of this book!

Mightily Oats has not picked a good time to be priest. He thought he'd come to the mountain kingdom of Lancre for a simple little religious ceremony. Now he's caught up in a war between vampires and witches, and he's not sure there is a right side.

Tony Robinson stars in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of E. T. A. Hoffmann's renowned Christmas story, which inspired Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker. It is Christmas Eve, and young Mary and Fred are opening presents from their godfather, Drosselmeier the toymaker. Mary's favourite gift is a nutcracker soldier, and she is disappointed when his jaw breaks on a particularly hard nut.