You're not to disturb, annoy or offend. They're walking on a knife edge out there, anything could tilt the balance.' Missing: one junior diplomat and 43 of the British Embassy's most confidential files. The timing is alarmingly significant: with neo-Nazi riots and radical student demonstrations, the threat to Germany's security is all too apparent....

Dublin, 1997. When Joe Finnerty marries into Dublin's political aristocracy his fortune appears to be made. Lucrative government contracts and the ready patronage of his heavy hitting father-in-law ensure that Joe soon becomes a man to be reckoned with. His own career in politics seems pre-ordained, until a disgruntled Party apparatchik leaks infor...

There's Rosemary, that's for remembrance.' Published in 1945, Sparkling Cyanide is all about remembrance. It begins with six characters recalling the horrific death of Rosemary Barton, a beautiful but shallow young heiress poisoned by a cyanide-spiked glass of champagne whilst celebrating her birthday at a smart London restaurant. Rosemary haunts a...

By Peter Souter. Hugh and Bella, are running to the same timetable, the timetable you're on if someone you love has just died, and they keep running into each other. They visit the same undertakers at the same time; Hugh's Mum is cremated immediately after Bella's husband; and they even end up in the same bereavement-counselling group. But Hugh and...

The RMS Titanic sailed from Southampton en route for New York on her maiden voyage with 2228 passengers and crew on board. On the 14th April at twenty minutes before midnight, sailing at almost full speed, she struck an iceberg and sank in just two and a half hours. Over 1500 lives were lost. This is the story of a great tragedy described by the su...

Soundtrack highlights from the original much-loved BBC TV series starring Penelope Keith and Peter Bowles. This collection was first published on LP in the 1980s. When Audrey fforbes-Hamilton s husband dies, and she is forced to leave Grantleigh Manor, she takes up residence at the nearby Lodge from where she can keep a watchful eye on the Manor s...

In Top of the Class, John Wilson meets leading figures in their fields and takes them back to the places and people they left behind. This third series sees him accompanying novelist Andrea Levy as she goes back to her adult education writing class, and taking Michael Portillo back to his old grammar school to meet his former teacher.

Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett star in highlights from their BBC TV series. Includes such sketches as Mispronounciation; Night, Night; Cheers; Cricket Commentators; Train of Events; and, not forgetting, the News according to The Two Ronnies. There s also All in a Day s Wonk; Sex Equality; Pam Ayres; The Castaway; and You re Welcome, Milord. Taken...

DCI Marion Bettany, played by Helen Baxendale, continues her investigation into Colin Arnott's murder, but the residents of Shilwick are curiously reluctant to help. Colin's plans to turn a deconsecrated chapel into a performing arts centre had ruffled feathers throughout the village, and Bettany wants to know if that's a strong enough motive for m...

As Chief Executive of her local council, Robyn has just days to stop recycling being wiped from her ambitious environmental plans. But the credit crunch continues to put pressure on other priorities. Meanwhile, her daughter Afrah provides a safe house for a fiercely committed environmentalist from Eastern Europe.

Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Lenny Henry, Griff Rhys Jones and Dawn French, and host Clive Anderson, star in the improvisation radio show that spawned the TV phenomenon. Based on comedy suggestions from the studio audience, this is ad-libbed comedy at its best. Regulars Stephen Fry and John Sessions are joined by Lenny Henry, Dawn French, Hugh Laurie,...

Roy Smiles' play about Spike Milligan's last days with the Goons and his complex and often fractious relationship with Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe. During the 1950s, 'The Goon Show' had England laughing week after week, greatly influencing Monty Python and the Beatles, among others - and paved the way for sketch comedy as we know it today.

Born the son of a Billingsgate market porter at the height of the Second World War, David Jason spent his early life dodging bombs and bullies, both with impish good timing. Giving up on an unloved career as an electrician, he turned his attention to acting and soon, through a natural talent for making people laugh, found himself working with the l...

Everyone knows the real Silvia, don't they? Silvia Shute lies in hospital in a coma. Family and friends gather at her bedside, each thinking they know the real Silvia. But do they? For Silvia hides a secret. One she can never tell. And as her visitors congregate so the truth about Silvia is slowly revealed. Again, and again and again . . .

Jennifer Saunders' comic creations have brought joy to millions. From Comic Strip to Comic Relief, from Bolly-swilling Edina in Ab Fab to her takes on Madonna or Mamma Mia, her characters are household names. But it's Jennifer herself who has a place in all our hearts. This is her funny, moving and frankly bonkers memoir, filled with laughter, frie...

We may think we know about it, but what was life really like for the British people during the First World War? The well-known images - the pointing finger of Lord Kitchener; a Tommy buried in the mud of the Western Front; the memorial poppies of remembrance day - all reinforce the idea that it was a pointless waste of life. So why did the British...

Born in 1935, in the city of Bath, Mary's childhood was a curious mix of idyllic picnics and ramblings, and alarming air raids; of a spirited and outdoorsy home life and a dreaded school existence. All nearly cut horribly short by an almost fatal bout of polio when she was thirteen, which isolated Mary in hospital, away from beloved family and frie...

January 1895. On a freezing morning in the heart of Paris, an army officer, Georges Picquart, witnesses a convicted spy, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, being publicly humiliated in front of twenty thousand spectators baying 'Death to the Jew! The officer is rewarded with promotion: Picquart is made the French army's youngest colonel and put in command of...

Bertie Wooster, recently returned from a very pleasurable soujourn in Cannes, finds himself at the stately home of Sir Henry Hackwood in Dorset. Bertie is more than familiar with the country house set-up: he is a veteran of the cocktail hour and, thanks to Jeeves, his gentleman's personal gentleman, is never less than immaculately dressed. On this...

Things are not looking good for Zoe. Her stepmother Sheila is so lazy she gets Zoe to pick her nose for her. The school bully Tina Trotts makes her life a misery - mainly by flobbing on her head. And now the evil Burt from Burt's Burgers is after her pet rat! And guess what he wants to do with it? The clue is in the title.

Lindsay Boxer's beautiful baby is born! But after only a week at home with her new daughter, Lindsay is forced to return to work to face two of the biggest cases of her career.A rising star football player for the San Francisco 49ers is the prime suspect in a grisly murder. At the same time, Lindsay is confronted with the strangest story she's ever...