Nicolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) wrote only one major work as a gift for his ruling Prince, Lorenzo de Medici. When the senior civil servant role he had held for fourteen years came to an end due to the downfall of the Republic in 1512, he poured out his ideas and resentment in his writings. 'The Prince' has remained a classic ever since; valued for...

When he hears her favourite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki. Immediately he is transported back almost twenty years to his student days in late 60s Tokyo, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, casual sex, passion, loss and desire - and the two women he found himself torn between,...

Our narrator is sent on an errand to visit an old man, Simon Wheeler by a friend to find an old acquaintance of his. This is clearly a joke, because once our narrator gets there and asks about the acquaintance, Wheeler immediately begins to tell a long, boring, droll story about Jim Smiley. Jim Smiley is addicted to gambling. He bets on anything fr...

English poet and playwright, Robert Browning's mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets. Here his finest work is read by James Mason, Boris Karloff and Robert Donat.

When the Doctor arrives on Earth in the far future, he is horrified to find the planet beset by famine and starvation. England is a barren wasteland, and scientists are desperately seeding the ground to make the crops grow again. But now it seems that something even worse is happening. Karl Baring, the owner of research facility The Grange, has bee...

Visiting the English seaside town of Cromer in the summer of 1932, the Doctor happens upon the strange world of the Cromer Palace of Curios. The young Ernestina Scott is unusually beguiled by one of the museum's exhibits, and when the Doctor befriends her, they unwittingly embark upon a terrifying escapade. Chased by animated dolls through a nightm...

Returning for a second series, the nation's favourite agony uncle - Mr. Spectator - continues to offer his wit and wisdom on the morals and manners of his countrymen in his daily writings; but who exactly is this mysterious Spectator, and why does everyone want to find him all of a sudden?Embarking on a quest to discover the identity of London's mo...

The very first adventure of radio legend and national hero Special Agent Dick Barton. Captain Richard Barton, late of the Commandos, made his radio debut on the Light Programme in 1946 and quickly went on to become Britain's most popular hero. For years the nation tuned in to hear the famous signature tune, Devil's Gallop, herald another cliff-hang...

Captain Richard Barton, late of the Commandos, made his radio debut on the Light Programme in 1946 and quickly went on to become Britain's most popular hero. This is the 1972 re-make of the very first adventure of the radio legend.

BBC Radio 4 Dramatisation starring Jamie Glover and featuring Jasmine Hyde. Charles Dickens was, for a time, Editor of a daily newspaper. This series takes an imaginative look at how Dickens would have tackled bringing the news to the masses. Railway Kings As Editor of a new campaigning weekly, 'The Herald', he has just appointed a Chief Correspond...

Sebastiene was human...once. He might look like a nineteenth-century nobleman, but in truth he is a ruthless hunter. He likes nothing more than luring difficult opposition to a planet, and then hunting them down for sport. And now he's caught them all - from Zargregs to Moogs, and even the odd Eternal. In fact, Sebastiene is after only one more pri...

Doctor Who is strangely concerned about Professor Horner's plan to cut open an ancient barrow near the peaceful English village of Devil's End; equally worried is Miss Hawthorne, the local white witch, who foretells a terrible disaster if he goes ahead. Determined that the Professor should is Mr Magister, the new vicar whose secret ceremonies are d...

Forced off course by the Mandragora Helix, the TARDIS lands in the province of San Martino in fifteenth-century Italy. Here, the court astrologer, Hieronymous, has been taken over by the Mandragora energy-form - Hieronymous and the other members of his star-worshipping black magic cult will be used as a bridgehead, enabling the Mandragora Helix to...

The year is 2540, and two powers loom large in the Galaxy - Earth and Draconia. After years of peace, their spaceships are now being mysteriously attacked and cargoes rifled. Each suspects the other, and full-scale war seems unavoidable. The Doctor, accused of being a Draconian spy, is thrown into prison. And only when the Master appears on the sce...

Mud, barbed wire, the smell of death...The year is 1917 and the TARDIS has materialised on the Western Front during the First World War. Or has it? For very soon the Doctor finds himself pursued by the soldiers of Ancient Rome; and then he and his companions are reliving the American Civil War of 1863. And is this really Earth, or just a mock-up cr...

Patrick Troughton stars as the Doctor in the soundtrack of this classic TV story from 1968, in which he finds the humanoid Gonds enslaved by the monstrous, crystalline Krotons. Along with his companions, Jamie and Zoe, the Doctor befriends the Gonds and enters the lair of their enemies. Can he halt the years of tyrrany and also escape with his life...

The third series of this live, uncompromising phone-in show hosted by award-winning talk radio DJ, Gary Bellamy.

The second series of this live, uncompromising phone-in show hosted by award-winning talk radio DJ, Gary Bellamy. Down the Line stars Rhys Thomas as Gary Bellamy with Amelia Bullmore, Simon Day, Felix Dexter, Charlie Higson, Lucy Montgomery and Paul Whitehouse.

Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4 to wide acclaim, Earthsearch is set in the far future and concerns Earth's sole survivors, now living on the massive Challenger starship but longing to return to the home they have never known. Their problems arise when it transpires that the planet Earth has disappeared...

Edward, preoccupied by the banishment of his lover, Gaveston, barely acknowledges the nascent crises that threaten his realm. Chief among his critics is the morally righteous Mortimer, horrified by the king's criminal lapse of duty and yet able to countenance the further crime of taking arms against his king. As their enmity develops, and Mortimer'...

At the heart of the ruined city of Arcopolis is the Fortress. It's a brutal structure placed here by one of the sides in a devastating intergalactic war that's long ended. Fifteen years ago, the entire population of the planet was killed in an instant by the weapon housed in the heart of the Fortress. Now only the ghosts remain. The Doctor arrives,...