AuthorThomas Hardy
NarratorFull Cast
Duration3h 45m
CategoriesAdult Fiction, Plays and Dramatisations
Key StageKS4
PublisherBBC Audiobooks
VersionUnabridged
A new dramatisation of the Thomas Hardy classic, `Tess Of The d'Urbervilles', to be transmitted as the Radio 4 Classic Serial in four hour-long episodes. John Durbeyfield learns that he is descended from the Norman family of d'Urbervilles. He and his wife Joan encourage their daughter Tess to befriend the family of Stoke d'Urbervilles. In doing so she is seduced by their son Alec, and she bears him a child which dies. In order to make a fresh start, Tess goes to work in Wessex on the Talbothays farm, where she meets Angel Clare, the younger son of a parson who asks her to marry him - and after some uncertainty she agrees. However, when Angel learns of her past on their wedding night he rejects her. When he goes to Brazil, Tess begins work at another farm, in the employ of the tyrannical Farmer Groby. She once again meets Alec d'Urberville - and so begins a chain of events which culminate in tragedy for all.
Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
Author Arthur Conan Doyle
Narrator Various
Duration 2h 33m
London, 1907; Journalist Edward Malone, rejected by the woman he loves because he is too prosaic, decides to go in search of adventure and fame to prove himself worthy of her. Soon after, he meets Professor George Challenger, a controversial scientist who claims to have discovered a 'lost world' populated by pterodactyls and other prehistoric monst...
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Author: Smith Alexander Mccall
Author Smith Alexander Mccall
Narrator Full Cast
SeriesThe No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Book 2
Duration 5h 50m
A second collection of eight BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisations based on the popular books by Alexander McCall Smith. 'this full- cast production will charm listeners whether they already know and love these stories or are hearing them for the first time' - Audiofile Magazine 'How to Handle Men through the Application of Psychology': Precious Ram...
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Author: Thomas Hardy
Author Thomas Hardy
Narrator Robert Powell
Duration 2h 21m
A gritty and absorbing glimpse into the lives of women and men living in a small community, and the often unpleasant truths that relationships can sometimes hold. Bathsheba Everdene flees her abusive husband and spends the night by a stagnant and spooky swamp. When light begins to break over her hiding-place, she sees strong parallels between her...
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Author: Anton Chekhov
Author Anton Chekhov
Narrator Full Cast
Duration 2h 2m
Chekhov's masterpiece in a full-cast performance starring Tessa Thompson, Jennifer Westfeldt, Sarah Zimmerman and Jon Hamm. Meet Olga, Masha, and Irina, warm and cultured young sisters who were reared in the exciting hubbub of Moscow, but have been living in the dull, gossipy backwaters of Russia for far too long. With their father's passing, an...
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Author: Dorothy L. Sayers
Author Dorothy L. Sayers
Narrator Full Cast
Duration 2h 20m
Ian Carmichael is Lord Peter Wimsey, with Patricia Routledge as his mother, in this BBC radio 4 full-cast dramatisation. Dorothy L. Sayers' first Lord Peter Wimsey tale introduces many of the author's best-known characters. Wimsey's mother, the Dowager Duchess of Denver, rings her son with news of 'such a quaint thing'. She has heard through a frie...
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Author: William Shakespeare
Author William Shakespeare
Narrator Various
Duration 2h 1m
Foretold he will become King of Scotland and spurred on by his wife, Macbeth commits deadly treason to seize the throne. Once crowned, guilt and mistrust of all around him leads Macbeth to embark on a trail of bloodshed and murder to stay in power. But under the yoke of his brutal reign, civil war breaks out and a rebellious army gathers to overthr...
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Author: Julia Blackburn, BBC Radio 4
Author Julia Blackburn, BBC Radio 4
Narrator Various
Duration 42m
A BBC Radio 4 drama of mesmerising delicacy from Julia Blackburn, winner of the Pen Ackerley prize for memoir 2009, and daughter of poet Thomas Blackburn. Originally broadcast as the 'Afternoon Play' on 29 March 2011. Thomas Blackburn was an alcoholic before he became a poet, but in spite of his drunken rages, his erratic behaviour and his crazy ob...
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The Withered Arm and Other Wessex Tales
Author: Thomas Hardy
Author Thomas Hardy
Narrator Various
Duration 7h
Hardy's first collection of short stories was written between 1879-1888, with many of the tales set before Hardy's birth in 1840. These humorous and affectionate observations of rustic life include the following tales: 'An Imaginative Woman', 'The Three Strangers', 'The Withered Arm', 'Fellow-Townsmen', 'Interlopers at the Knap' and 'The Distracted...
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The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion
Author: Thomas Hardy
Author Thomas Hardy
Narrator Martin Jarvis
Duration 42m
A tale by Hardy, master of human tragedy, about a girl's sacrifice for her long-engagement and her doomed love for a visiting soldier.
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Author: Thomas Hardy
Author Thomas Hardy
Narrator Martin Shaw
Duration 2h 23m
Rivalry and love and hate are explored in this intense study of two men's struggle for power. An interesting novel due to its depiction of a violent love/hate relationship between two men, this story highlights the strains of competition in pre-industrial rural society. Michael henchard attains the position of town mayor, but the lies that lead him...
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