'Under Milk Wood' is Dylan Thomas' most successful play: an all-seeing narrator invites the audience to listen to the dreams and innermost thoughts of the inhabitants of an imaginary small Welsh village, Llareggub. The classic 1954 recording, featuring a cast led by Richard Burton as 'First Voice', is considered to be definitive. This collection al...

One of the best-known Irish playwrights, John Millington Synge premiered this play in 1907. It immediately provoked controversy, eventually resulting in the infamous 'Playboy' riots. It has been recorded and adapted many times, but this recording stars the Irish actors who made it a classic, including Siobhan McKenna and Cyril Cusack

Two stories of love, lust, happiness and heartache from Britain's longest-running radio serial. Pub landlord Sid Perks is led astray when his keep-fit regime at the local gym leads to a steamy affair with Jolene Rogers, a country-and-western singer. For Emma Carter, choosing a husband is not so straightforward. She finds herself torn between loyal,...

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...

The story unfolds through four middle class families - the Mehras, Kappoors, Khans and Chatterjis. Lata Mehra, a university student, is under pressure from her mother to get married. But not to just anyone she happens to fall in love with. There are standards to be met and finding a husband for Lata becomes a family affair in which all the members...

In the rigid theocracy of Salem, Massachusetts, rumors that women are practicing witchcraft galvanize the town. The ruthlessness of the prosecutors and the eagerness of neighbor to testify against neighbor, THE CRUCIBLE mirrors the anti- Communist hysteria in the 1950's.

BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of one of the most famous adventure stories of all time, starring Roy Marsden as Robinson Crusoe. Young Robinson Crusoe has a burning ambition to be a sailor. Paying no attention to his parents' warnings, he runs away to sea to embark on an extraordinary series of adventures: struggles with Barbary pirates, a shi...

Laurie Lee's evocative account of childhood in the sleepy Gloucestershire village of Slad retains its atmosphere of innocence in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast production. Recorded on location in Gloucestershire, it stars Niamh Cusack as Laurie's mother and Tim McInnerny as Laurie.

A BBC Radio 3 full-cast dramatisation by Annie Caulfield, starring Lenny Henry as singer and political activist Paul Robeson. Originally broadcast Sunday 21 February 2010. As an outspoken apologist for Stalin and agitator for civil rights Paul Robeson had many enemies, including the CIA. His passport was taken away, his career curtailed and his...

Marcia Warren and Stella Gonet star in J. B. Priestley's classic family drama about the nature of time. Time and the Conways follows the fortunes of one family over a period of years, and offers a moving perspective on the abstract nature of the past, present and future. It is 1919, the War is over and the Conway family are celebrating their...

Jim Broadbent stars as 'mad' King George III in this radio adaptation of Alan Bennett's award-winning play, which co-stars Cheryl Campbell, Nicholas Farrell and Alun Armstrong. The King is losing his mind. Doctors are brought in as his eccentric behaviour becomes more bizarre and erratic, while his son, the Prince Regent, waits - and plots.

A new Radio 4 adaptation of one of Alan Bennett's most well-loved works. In the 1970s, an eccentric old lady called Miss Shepherd lives in an old caravan opposite Bennett's house in Camden. That is until new parking regulations come into force - and he suggests moving the van onto his driveway...

Willy Loman, a sixty-year-old travelling salesman, is having trouble lately because he can't seem to keep his mind on the present. He keeps drifting back and forth between reality and memory, looking for exactly where his life went wrong. Having been demoted to a strictly commissions salesman, as he was in the beginning of his career, Willy begins...

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...

A BBC Radio 4 production of Othello, starring Lenny Henry in title role. The comic makes his stage debut as the tortured Moor. One of Shakespeare's most revered tragedies, the play tells the story of a noble African commander in the service of the Venetian army, whose mind is poisoned against the one he loves by the jealous and hate-filled Iago....

"I prithee, daughter, do not make me mad..." Alec Guinness's performance as King Lear stirs the listener in this recording from the BBC Sound Archives.

Duncan Macmillan's romantic comedy drama about the end of the world, a woman who falls in love with the moon, and her husband who falls back in love with her.

This full-cast drama is based on the classic post-war 'science fantasy' novel which made John Wyndham famous, and whose appeal endures to this day. Giles Cooper's six-part adaptation stars Gary Watson, Barbara Shelley and Peter Sallis, with appearances from Doctor Who names Peter Pratt, Christopher Bidmead and David Brierley. Divided by blindness a...

An extraordinary tale of desire, betrayal and death from Britain's longest running and best loved radio serial. Wealthy, philandering gentleman farmer Brian Aldridge embarked on a casual fling with freelance translator Siobhan Hathaway, but what ensued was the most explosive affair in the history of Ambridge.

Alan Bennett stars in a new production of his own acclaimed satrical comedy, thirty years after its original West End debut. The Headmaster has been at Albion House for fifty years, man and boy. Now he is retiring and takes part in the end-of-year entertainment for the last time. Entitled Speak For England, Arthur, it weaves together a multi-genera...

These two much-loved series, originally available as separate cassette releases, featured the late Peter Tinniswood's legendary creations Uncle Mort and Carter Brandon. As the pair tour Britain, Uncle Mort's recollections make for some hilarious moments. In Uncle Mort's North Country, having been granted a week's holiday, Carter Brandon, with hi...