Written by Matthew Solon. This play tells the story of the tense negotiation that followed the 2010 general election, which led to the country's first post-war coalition. Based on interviews with those who were at the meetings, political journalists and on published material-and using actors to play all the key characters-this is a compelling accou...

A BBC Radio 4 fictional dramatisation of L‚on Theremin's espionage work in the lead up to the Cold War, written by Melissa Murray. L‚on Theremin, gifted inventor and reluctant spy, is forced to find a way to bug the US Embassy in London. Now he has to save himself and his former lover from both the CIA and the KGB. Starring Tom Hollande...

Melvyn Bragg goes back to his home town of Wigton in Cumbria to see how English is developing-and how dialects are still spoken. He meets townspeople from all generations and walks of life, from octogenarian horse-dealer Tommy Miller to local poet Mary Haslam, and finds that the old ways of speaking are being lost.

Where better than Hastings to look at the impact of the French on the English language? Melvyn Bragg goes to Hastings, where in 1066 William, Duke of Normandy, defeated King Harold and invaded England. The actual fighting took place in the nearby village of Battle. It was to be the starting point of a long and intense relationship between England a...

A BBC Radio 4 black comedy by Michael Butt, originally broadcast as the Afternoon Play on 19 October 2009. Max is set to inherit a small fortune when he turns 25, but standing between him and the money is his sister Katrin. And then there's the grandmother. It's dog-eat-dog on the mean streets of Weston-super-Mare.

Peggy Ashcroft and Tony Britton star in this 1971 BBC Radio production of Noel Coward's classic comedy about a disastrous weekend house party. Judith Bliss is a famous actress who, after a string of successful roles, has retired to her country retreat. Missing the adulation of her public, she has has invited a fan over for a weekend of uninterrupte...

Toby Stephens stars in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Raymond Chandler's final completed Philip Marlowe mystery. Fast-talking, trouble-seeking private eye Philip Marlowe is a different kind of detective: a moral man in an amoral world. California in the '40s and '50s is as beautiful as a ripe fruit and rotten to the core, and Marlowe...

Edith Wharton displays typical expertise in this portrayal of high society tensions. Jane Lethbury surprises and confounds her husband in asking him to let her adopt a baby.

Margaret Hale moves from the country into the inner-city and starts to learn what life is like for the workers. Elizabeth Gaskell highlights the difference between the middle and working classes in this tale set in the time of the Industrial Revolution. A largely autobiographical story, she also highlights the good that each group can do for each...

The story of a dark and dangerous love, set on the moors surrounding the looming, oppressive and isolated house, Wuthering Heights.

Evelyn Waugh's acidly funny and daring satire, Vile Bodies reveals the darkness and vulnerability that lurks beneath the glittering surface of the high life. In the years following the First World War a new generation emerges, wistful and vulnerable beneath the glitter. The Bright Young Things of twenties' Mayfair, with their paradoxical mix of inn...

Pat Hobby is an ageing film writer who used to do well, but these days is low on ideas that pay, until he stumbles across someone else's flash of inspiration.

These UNABRIDGED short stories largely depict middle-class human relationships within and outside the family written with biting satire, irony, much humour and a pervading sadness.

The 'little cleric from Essex' Father Brown features in this intriguing detective story from master of twists and turns G. K. Chesterton. A man's body is found in a passage, and the suspect must be found. But what motive could have possessed someone to kill in such cold blood? A listener will find out...with a few unexpected surprises along the way...

Dorothea is on a quest to find heroism in ordinary people, an enthralling journey which encompasses both highs and lows. Praised by Virginia Woolf as one of the only novels 'written for grown-up people', Middlemarch is a highly accomplished story, whose characters are involving and intreguing. Dorothea's story interlinks powerfully and tantalisin...

A family living on the edge of the river struggle with the thought of losing their livelyhood, whilst battling to keep family relationships together. Maggie and Tom, brother and sister, try to save their livelihood as their parents flounder in the face of modernization. Maggie befriends the disabled son of a family rival in an attempt to build bri...

The first episode, Astronomy for Dummies, of the BBC Radio 4 comedy series, All of the Planet's Wonders, in which award-winning comedian Josie Long attempts to better herself through learning from reference books, with help from Irish comedian Maeve Higgins. Originally broadcast 18 February 2009 and repeated on 28 December 2010. In this episode Jos...

The second episode, The Enlightenment, of the BBC Radio 4 comedy series, All of the Planet's Wonders, in which award-winning comedian Josie Long attempts to better herself through learning from reference books, with help from Irish comedian Maeve Higgins. Originally broadcast 25 February 2009 and repeated on 29 December 2010. In the second episode,...

The third episode, Obscure Animal Facts, of the BBC Radio 4 comedy series, All of the Planet's Wonders, in which award-winning comedian Josie Long attempts to better herself through learning from reference books, with help from Irish comedian Maeve Higgins. Originally broadcast 4 March 2009 and repeated on 30 December 2010. In Obscure Animal Facts...

Alice, Hanging in There is the second of three comic tales from BBC Radio 4's The Greengrocer's Apostrophe, inspired by those hand-written signs offering "Apple's and Banana's" which can be found in every town in Britain. Originally broadcast in the Afternoon Reading slot on 29 September 2010. When Alice's high-flying career stalls, she finds a nov...

BBC Radio 4 sitcom written by and starring Sanjeev Kohli and Donald McLeary, set in a Glasgow corner shop. In Series One, which was first broadcast in 2007, the nettle of the ugly spectre of racism was grasped, a religious festival was invented and an impacted cola bottle (sour) was removed from one of Ramesh's premolars. We were also introduced to...