Tolkien's famous saga, the prelude to 'The Lord of the Rings', has all the ingredients of fantasy and adventure: dwarves, elves, goblins and trolls, a fearsome dragon, a great wizard, a perilous quest and a dramatic climax. At the centre is the unsuspecting hero Bilbo Baggins, a home-loving, unambitious Hobbit who is suddenly thrust into the bigges...

Four Maeve Binchy short stories, exclusively written for BBC Radio 4. Maeve Binchy is one of Britain's most popular storytellers, and these four tales demonstrate the warmth and compassion that have made her many novels bestsellers. In 'Homecoming', read by Sean Campion, the Brennans run Quentin's restaurant in Dublin for the owner, who lives abroa...

A cBBC Radio 4 dramatisation of John le Carr‚'s fourth novel, starring Simon Russell Beale as Smiley and Piotr Baumann as Fred Leiser. When word reaches 'The Department' - an ailing section of British intelligence - that Soviet missiles are being installed close to the West German border, it seems the perfect opportunity to show Control and S...

It's San Francisco, 1928, and Sam Spade is a wisecracking, womanising Private Investigator. Missing husbands and unfaithful wives are his usual stock-in-trade, but when the beautifully distressed Miss Wonderley calls he gets involved in a dangerous caper most people would run a mile from. Miss Wonderley asks Sam's partner, Miles Archer, to shadow F...

In this BBC full-cast production of The Merchant of Venice, love, bigotry, greed, and justice are entwined.Shakespeare's classic play explores the eternal themes of love and hate, mercy and justice, with parallel stories centred on the moneylender, Shylock, and the lovers, Portia and Bassanio. Shylock's angry insistence on the repayment of his...

The Mighty Boosh is unlike any show you are ever likely to see, and one that defies description. The closest you could get to the unique style of Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding would be in the early days of Reeves and Mortimer, with their cardboard props and men with sticks. But unlike Reeves and Mortimer, the Boosh zookeepers turned postmen Howa...

A Special Edition of the original radio series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1978. Starring Peter Jones, Simon Jones, Geoffrey McGivern, Mark Wing-Davey, Susan Sheridan and Stephen Moore, these six episodes (Fit the First to Fit the Sixth) have been remastered to modern-day standards by Dirk Maggs, and for...

The Hitchhiker's saga returns once again with a brand new full-cast dramatisation of So Long and Thanks For All the Fish, the fourth book in Douglas Adams's famous `trilogy in five parts'. The Earth has miraculously reappeared and, even more miraculously, Arthur Dent has found it. Returning to his cottage after... well... ages, he falls in love wit...

It's the last ever installment of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, with a brand new full-cast dramatisation of Mostly Harmless, the final book in Douglas Adams's famous `trilogy in five parts'. While frequent flyer Arthur Dent searches the universe for his lost love, Ford Prefect discovers a disturbing blast from the past at The Hitchhiker's G...

A BBC radio full-cast dramatisation of the third book in JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy. Brian Sibley's famous 1981 adaptation, starring Ian Holm and Michael Hordern, has been divided into three corresponding parts, with newly-recorded beginning and end narration by Ian Holm (who plays Frodo in this and Bilbo in the feature films).

A Special Edition of the original radio series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1978. Starring Peter Jones, Simon Jones, Geoffrey McGivern, Mark Wing-Davey, Susan Sheridan and Stephen Moore, these six episodes (Fit the First to Fit the Sixth) have been remastered to modern-day standards by Dirk Maggs, and for...

Simon Russell Beale stars in this BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of John le Carr‚'s novel, which introduced his most famous character, George Smiley. It is 1962: the height of the Cold War and only months after the building of the Berlin Wall. Alec Leamas is a hard-working, hard-drinking British intelligence officer whose East Berlin network is in...

The long-awaited, brand new third series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comes to audio with 25 minutes of unbroadcast footage. Many of the cast of the original BBC Radio 4 series have been reunited for this new six-part dramatisation of Douglas Adams's book 'Life, the Universe and Everything'. Amongst the returning cast are Simon Jones as...

In a nationwide poll conducted by BBC Television's Bookworm to find the nation's favourite poem, Rudyard Kipling's 'If' was voted number one. This compilation brings together over forty poems from the poll, including the top ten, read by John Nettles, Siobh…n Redmond, Greg Wise and Emma Fielding.

This original 6-part BBC Radio 4 comedy sci-fi series, written by Graham Duff and starring Mark Gatiss (League of Gentlemen) and David Warner, was first broadcast in January 2004. The year is 2099 and Professor Nebulous (Gatiss) is the director of KENT - the Key Environmental Nonjudgemental Taskforce. Nebulous runs an eco-trouble shooting organisat...

This classic TV comedy sketch show launched the careers of Rowan Atkinson, Griff Rhys Jones, Mel Smith and Pamela Stephenson. Written by some of Britain's finest comedy writers including Richard Curtis, Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin, and David Renwick, the show was groundbreakingly irreverent, outrageous, innovative and rude. This compilation of mat...

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast production of Homer's epic seafaring adventure, dramatised by poet Simon Armitage. In a twenty-year journey, fabulous fantasy mixes with extraordinary reality as Odysseus encounters enchantresses, nymphs, monsters, prophets and ghosts. From the temptations of the lotus flowers and the Sirens' song to the horrors of the Cyclo...

Andy Hamilton's fiendishly funny BBC Radio 4 sitcom set in Hell returns for a two-part festive special. Satan embarks on an epic quest and encounters Queen Victoria, Harpo Marx, a highly intelligent bluebottle, Death, Davina McCall, and St Peter and his rottweilers. The cast includes Andy Hamilton, James Grout, Jimmy Mulville, Claire Skinner and Mi...

The complete Series One of Andy Hamilton's BBC Radio 4 comedy set in Hell. It's not easy being Satan. Thrown out of heaven, he is condemned for eternity to listen to Edith Piaf and Elvis Presley. Still, there are new arrivals to welcome: the Professor (James Grout), whose unerring optimism is a nasty blow and Thomas (Jimmy Mulville), one of the vil...

The complete Series Two of Andy Hamilton's BBC Radio 4 comedy set in Hell. Satan has to deal with a rebellion and with human depravity on the increase, Hell's getting over-crowded. It's time for a new assistant. But will Scumspawn (Robert Duncan) get the job?

A BBC radio full-cast dramatisation of the second book in J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy. Brian Sibley's famous 1981 adaptation, starring Ian Holm and Michael Hordern, has been divided into three corresponding parts, with newly-recorded beginning and end narration by Ian Holm (who plays Frodo in this and Bilbo in the feature films...