Showing results by narrator "Joan" in All Categories

One of the BBC's most acclaimed programmes, Great Lives has been a regular Radio 4 fixture for 20 years, presented by Joan Bakewell, Humphrey Carpenter, Francine Stock and Matthew Parris. Every week, a famous name is invited into the studio to nominate a figure from the past who has inspired them, and discuss their subject with the presenter and a guest expert.

"The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door." A new crop of writers emerged from the dawning of the nuclear age, grappling with humankind's place in the universe. While imagining the wonders of space exploration and the rise of technological advancements, they questioned whether we were prepared to encounter aliens, or even control the machines and weapons we'd built ourselves.

Experience Othello as a powerful full-cast drama with entertaining and enlightening commentary that explains what's what and who's who as the plot unfolds. To help you get the most out of Shakespeare, the narrator offers historical insights and background information, so you can enjoy the jokes, appreciate the references, and get a real sense of Shakespeare's world.

On Christmas Eve in 1988, seven-year-old Alfie Marsden vanished in the Wentshire Forest Pass when a burst tyre forced his father, Sorrel, to stop the car. Leaving the car to summon the emergency services, Sorrel returned to find his son gone. No trace of the child, nor his remains, have ever been found. Alfie Marsden was declared officially dead in 1995. Elusive online journalist Scott King, whose Six Stories podcasts have become an internet sensation, investigates the disappearance, interviewing six witnesses, to try to find out what really happened that fateful night.

A leading light of British stage and screen from the 1950s onwards, Ian Carmichael made a career out of playing the amiable, bumbling nincompoop in films such as Private's Progress and I'm All Right Jack, and TV shows including Bachelor Father and The World of Wooster. This dithering persona was expanded and amplified in his first radio comedy, Play It Cool. Written in 1964 by Beyond Our Ken's Eric Merriman, it sees him joined by Carry On's Joan Sims and radio veteran Hugh Paddick (Beyond Our Ken, Round the Horne) for a series that mixes music and comedy to provide a slice of 1960s cool.

Everyone knows Ruby Devereaux's books. But no one knows her story. Until now. From a teenager in wartime England to a veteran of modern-day London—via 1950's New York, the Swinging Sixties, Cold War Berlin, Venice and Vietnam—Ruby Devereaux has lived one hell of a life: parties, scandals and conflict zones, meeting men and adventure along the way. In a writing career spanning seven decades and more than twenty books, she's distilled everything into her work. Or has she?

She is hunting for the truth, but who is hunting her? Freelance journalist and single mother Hannah Weybridge is commissioned by a national newspaper to write an investigative article on the notorious red light district in Kings Cross. There she meets prostitute Princess and a police inspector in the vice squad, Tom Jordan. When Princess later arrives on her doorstep beaten up so badly she is barely recognisable, Hannah has to make some tough decisions.

Emma Harvey is a brilliant and gifted young pianist, accepted into one of the most prestigious music conservatories in the country and prepared to do whatever it takes to accomplish her dreams of playing professionally. With a renowned jazz musician for a father and a world-famous mentor growing up, she is convinced her path is easy. Until her world is suddenly silenced when she loses her hearing.

1928. Agatha Christie leaves England for Baghdad, where two years ago, explorer and writer Gertrude Bell died from a drugs overdose. The authorities believed that Bell had taken her own life, but a letter now unearthed reveals she was afraid someone wanted to kill her. Bell writes that if she were to die, the best place to look for her murderer would be Ur, an archaeological site in Mesopotamia. Looking into Bell's death, Agatha discovers the mission is not without risk. She must use all her skills to try to outwit a killer who hides among the desert sands....

America in the 1920s was a place of drama, tension and hedonism. It glittered and seduced: jazz, flappers, the birth of Hollywood, and a glamorous gangster- led crime scene flourishing under prohibition. But it was also punctuated by momentous events such as the political show trials and the huge Ku Klux Klan march. But it also produced a splendid array of writers, musicians and film stars, from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Bessie Smith and Charlie Chaplin.

Bernarda Alba, viuda de dos matrimonios, es de un carácter intransigente que no permite la mínima separación de sus órdenes. La acción comienza el día de los funerales por el segundo marido de Bernarda.

Today, there is more science-based evidence for God, the soul, and life after death than ever before. Then why are scores of people turning to unbelief because of “science”? The answer is simple: they do not know the science. Science at the Doorstep to God presents in depth the latest evidence to turn the rising tide of unbelief. Father Robert Spitzer, S.J., synthesizes eight recent studies confirming an intelligent creator of physical reality as well as a transphysical soul capable of surviving bodily death.

Constance Fitzgerald may be approaching 70, but she's never been one for putting down roots. She's spent her life untethered and free, but when she finds herself newly engaged and a soon-to-be grandmother, Constance is forced to accept it may be time—perhaps—to settle down. Until a chance encounter throws open a window to her past, and Constance decides to head to the Highlands to find an old friend...

1918. Fleeing from her past, Cathy Carmichael is new to the Sixteen Streets. She has nothing to her name, no plan and nowhere to go. Cathy thinks she's struck gold when she runs into Mrs Sturrocks, an elderly lady who offers her a room at her boarding house. Her son, Noel, might be strange and sulky, but he gives her a job at the Robin Hood pub and before long, Cathy is thriving as the new barmaid. The Sixteen Streets was only meant to be a temporary stop for Cathy...but could it become home instead?

Discover the genius of William Shakespeare in this entertaining and educational full-cast drama, designed to whet the appetite and introduce you to the man, the life, the legacy. Includes key scenes from the major plays.

Most of the conventional productivity advice you'll find in the soft business section simply does not work for creative people. Surprisingly, to date there has not been a single book or audiobook that addresses the unique organisational challenges that artists face. This audiobook sets out to change that, and it addresses the myth that truly creative people are messy and that they need mess in order to create. Sheila Chandra applies her professional insights as a creative and organizing expert to the lives of other busy creative people in all disciplines.

One in three women in the United States will be diagnosed with cancer - a situation that can throw even the most self-assured individual into a crisis of body, mind, and spirit. To survive - and, more than that, to thrive - we must rally all of our inner resources. In Cancer as a Turning Point, nine best-selling authors and healers, many of whom are thriving after cancer diagnoses, reframe the healing process in a positive, creative, and spiritual light.

Some friendships are made to be broken.... Cornwall, summer of 1986. The Davenports, with their fast cars and glamorous clothes, living the dream in a breathtaking house overlooking the sea. If only...thinks 16-year-old Tamsyn, her binoculars trained on the perfect family in their perfect home. If only her life was as perfect as theirs. If only Edie Davenport would be her friend. If only she lived at The Cliff House...

I know many things about Larissa. I know what she eats, which must-have brands she applies to her face, and the price of each carefully selected ‘piece’ in her multi-million-pound home in Belgravia. Because Ris, as she is known to her many followers, likes to share. And now I’m here, in her home, watching her every move. Entrusted with her secrets and running her diary from the bijou basement flat, I’m on hand to fulfil Ris’ every need. Her right-hand woman. But what she doesn’t know is why I’m really here.

Newly married to dashing RAF officer Tom, Irene Farley leaves behind her safe countryside life to move in with his family by the docks in South Shields. Little prepares her for the devastation the Jerry bombers have wreaked on the Sixteen Streets or that they would be living under her mother-in-law's roof, alongside Tom's three brothers and two wives!