Showing results by narrator "Frances Barber" in All Categories

When the self-effacing 10-year-old Fanny Price is sent to live with her wealthy relations at Mansfield Park she seems shy and withdrawn beside her witty and vivacious cousins. Growing up in the Bertram household, she is always treated as an inferior, only finding an ally in her cousin Edmund. But Fanny's steadfast and purposeful character eventually makes her an indispensable part of the household. During the absence of Fanny's uncle, the others become entangled in a maze of flirtation and intrigue upon the arrival of Mary Crawford and her brother Henry.

Padua holds many suitors for the hand of fair Bianca, but Bianca may not be married until her spinster sister, Kate, is wed. Could any man be rash enough to take on Kate? The witty adventurer Petruchio undertakes the task. While he sets about transforming Kate from foul-tempered termagant to loving wife, young Lucentio and his clever servant, Tranio, plot to win Bianca.

Challenged to retrieve a fallen star, Tristran Thorn leaves the sleepy English village of Wall and crosses into the land of Faerie and the realm of Stormhold. Locating the star, he discovers it is no meteorite but a young woman, Yvaine. When Yvaine evades him and escapes, Tristran discovers he is not the only one in pursuit of the star: there are dark forces in this magical land, and he must find Yvaine before she falls into their clutches.

Waking in the small hours, Marcel Proust embarks on a retrospective journey, endeavouring to capture the elusive moments that shaped his life. A sip of tea and the taste of a madeleine prompt further recollections, and the floodgates of memory open, pouring forth a torrent of vivid reminiscences.

Katie Carr is a good person. She recycles. She's against racism. She's a good doctor, a good mom, a good wife...well, maybe not that last one, considering she's having an affair and has just requested a divorce via cell phone. But who could blame her? For years her husband's been selfish, sarcastic, and underemployed, writing the "Angriest Man in Holloway" column for their local paper.

Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, known as Colette, was a French author and woman of letters. She was also a mime, actress, and journalist. Colette is best known in the English-speaking world for her 1944 novella Gigi, which was the basis for the 1958 film and the 1973 stage production of the same name. Gigi became a celebrated stage musical and film; the stage production made a star of Audrey Hepburn, who was personally chosen by Colette for the role, and a dramatized adaptation is the centrepiece of this collection.

London,1953. Josephine Daunt and Susan Dervish both worked for the Ministry of Defence during the Second World War, doing top-secret, highly dangerous espionage work. But in peacetime, they find themselves without a job and feeling useless. Determined to put their talents to good use, they decide to set up a detective agency, with the help of former private eye Bill Mackie. From their Covent Garden office, they handle a steady flow of business.

A collection of BBC Radio 3's iconic Shakespeare productions: three Roman plays with all-star casts including Gerard Murphy, Nicholas Farrell, Susannah York, Samuel West, Frances Barber and David Harewood. The plays included in this collection are: Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra.

Three BBC radio productions of major works by James Joyce - plus Gordon Bowker’s fascinating biographical account of his life.

A brand-new dramatised retelling of Milton’s epic poem about the fall of man, with Milton as the narrator, adapted by one of the leading poets and thinkers of our generation: Michael Symmons Roberts. Paradise Lost was first published in 1667 and tells the story of Satan’s plot to bring about the fall of man by tempting Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. This brand-new adaptation begins in the midst of the action and follows the exploits of a hero (or antihero) taking in warfare and the supernatural and expressing the ideals and traditions of a people. Milton himself is the blind narrator, grieving the loss of his wife, whose eyesight worsens as the drama develops.

England's 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688 and the reign of new monarchs William and Mary signified a turning point for Restoration comedy with laws being passed to restrict playwrights' freedoms. The latter years are marked by a shift towards more moral storylines, mixing humour with social and political issues, alongside the lighthearted 'comedy of manners'. The works in this collection bring together these complementary styles, full of humour while also focusing on hard hitting themes.

Antony and Cleopatra is an intense love story, exploring the constant conflict between duty and emotion with characters so charismatic they continue to fascinate after 2,000 years. Shakespeare achieved some of his most beautiful poetry in this play, and the richness of the language makes it perfect for audio. Frances Barber stars as Cleopatra and David Harewood as Antony in this towering tale of great love, political intrigue and tragedy.

Sir Lenny Henry has had a long and successful career as a comedian, impressionist, actor and presenter. Having starred in several plays in the West End and on radio, he was inspired to complete an MA in screenwriting and in 2011 penned his first radio drama, Corrinne Come Back and Gone, which opens this collection. He continued his writing career with three more Radio 4 plays and nine episodes of his comic monologue series Lenny Henry’s Rogues Gallery. Collected here for the first time, listen to these poignant and humorous original dramas.

In early 20th Century England Hamilton James Macaulay relates the tale of how he found himself in a Scarborough Bric-a-brac shop. The owner of the shop has 13 long playing records that each contain a hidden track at the end, that tell strange tales of future times. These 13 tales of terror will change Hamilton James Macaulay's life forever and he will leave the shop a murderer. Thirteen is a portmantaeu audio anthology, harking back to the classic horror albums of the 1970s.

Modern technology is terrifying. The average smartphone carries out 3.36 billion instructions per second. The average person can carry out only one instruction in that time. Stop and think about that for a second. Sorry, that's two instructions; you won't be able to do that. But what if modern technology was... literally terrifying? What if there really was a ghost in the machine? Prepare to travel through the bad gateway as acclaimed actor, writer and comedian Tom Neenan (The Mash Report) finds out what horrors may be lurking in our apps and gadgets.

1889, Paris. When Charles Zidler's extravagant pleasure palace, the Moulin Rouge, opens in bohemian Montmartre, he commissions local artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec to create a series of posters to promote it. The striking lithographs Henri produces will make his name—and launch the careers of the performers he portrayed. This sparkling collection of plays introduces us to eight of those legendary artistes, whose lives were as vivid as Lautrec's paint.

Christmas is the season of good cheer and harmony among men, but things are not working out quite that way in the Bunker household. As a motley collection of friends and relatives fill the house with their own wishes, dreams and attitudes, the stage is set for seasonal disharmony and romantic intrigue. It’s Christmas Eve and while Belinda is rushing around decorating the tree and seeing to all the guests and their needs, Eddie and Pattie are having a serious bust-up.

A sparkling collection of comic monologues written by Jenny Éclair about women facing pivotal moments in their lives. These tales introduce women seeking revenge, security and adventure: a grandmother visits an upmarket supermarket to buy her grandchildren a meal they won't forget; a lonely woman takes a peek into other people's properties and lives when their houses are put up for sale; and a cleaner who discovers some secrets behind the Farrow and Ball doors of the middle class homes she visits.

Doctor Elehri Mussurana has spent a lifetime on her work. She's guarded her pet project close to her chest, letting only one person share her secret - her husband and lab partner Ernst Wharner. As their experiment reaches its final, glorious fruition, they watch in awe as sparks fly in a sealed chamber and specks of sapphire light begin to join together into a shining haze. A wormhole in time and space is being created.... But then something unexpected appears inside the swirling vortex: a tall blue box with the words "Police Public Call Box" on the side.

The obituaries for Gerald Candless were respectful. He had been, after all, an admired and popular writer, and his sudden death at his home in Devon was a loss to literature as well as to his family and friends. The trouble was, as his daughter Sarah soon discovered, that it seemed that her father had taken on a different identity that he wasn't Gerald Candless at all. But if he wasn't Gerald Candless, who was he?