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: 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: 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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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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Lilies For Ladies and Other Stories
Author: Donald Stuart
Author Donald Stuart
Narrator William Franklyn
Duration 1h 38m
The history of crime detection has produced no more famous name than that of Sexton Blake...' William Franklyn stars as paperback hero Sexton Blake, with David Gregory as his assistant Tinker, in four original BBC Radio dramatisations from 1967. Lost from the BBC archives for over 40 years, these rediscovered episodes are presented for the very...
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Author: Thomas Hardy
Author Thomas Hardy
Narrator Michael Kitchen
Duration 9h 51m
The unhappily married Lady Constantine breaks all the rules of social decorum when she falls in love with Swithin St. Cleeve, an astronomer who is ten years her junior. Her husband's death leaves the lovers free to marry, but the discovery of a legacy forces them apart.
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Far from the Madding Crowd (Movie Tie-in Edition)
Author: Thomas Hardy
Author Thomas Hardy
Narrator Nicholas Guy Smith
Duration 15h 18m
This story of a proud rural beauty and the three men who court her is the novel that first made Thomas Hardy famous.Despite the violent ends of several of its major characters, Far from the Madding Crowd is the sunniest and least brooding of Hardy’s great novels. The strong-minded Bathsheba Everdene—and the devoted shepherd, obsessed fa...
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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: Thomas Hardy
Author Thomas Hardy
Narrator Martin Shaw, Lindsay Duncan
Duration 2h 22m
Tess goes through her life at the mercy of unscrupulous men, who take advantage of their positions in society and of her. But how far can a woman be pushed before she is forced to take revenge? Tess of the D'Urbervilles is an early exercise in girl power, Tess spends her life being bullied by men and is pushed to the brink. A dramatic and tragic st...
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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: 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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