Showing results by narrator "Fenella Woolgar" in All Categories

It’s the perfect time to curl up in front of a crackling fire with these wintry whodunits from the legendary Agatha Christie. But beware of deadly snowdrifts and dangerous gifts, poisoned meals and mysterious guests. This chilling compendium of short stories - some featuring beloved detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple - is an essential omnibus for Christie fans.

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath. During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale. What if there were second chances? And third chances? In fact an infinite number of chances to live your life? Would you eventually be able to save the world from its own inevitable destiny? And would you even want to?

The Complete Brontë Sisters and Jane Austen Collection brings together four of the most influential female authors of the 19th century. The collection includes Austen's 7 novels, selected short fiction, and a selection of her letters; alongside all 7 of the Brontë sisters' completed novels, as-well as a selection of the poetry which all three sisters published.

1932. After the Great War took both her beloved brother and her fiancé, Violet Speedwell has become a "surplus woman," one of a generation doomed to a life of spinsterhood after the war killed so many young men. Yet Violet cannot reconcile herself to a life spent caring for her grieving, embittered mother. After countless meals of boiled eggs and dry toast, she saves enough to move out of her mother's place and into the town of Winchester, home to one of England's grandest cathedrals.

When the new deputy librarian, Juliet Lansdown, finds that Bethnal Green Library isn’t the bustling hub she is expecting, she becomes determined to breathe life back into it. But can she show the men in charge that a woman is up to the task of running the library, especially when a confrontation with her past threatens to derail her?

Cherry, Maggie and Rose are mother, daughter and granddaughter, each with their own hopes, dreams and even sorrows. They have always been close, so when, in a moment of impulse, Cherry buys a gorgeous but run-down pub in the village she grew up in, it soon becomes a family affair. All three women uproot themselves and move to Rushbrook, deep in the heart of Somerset, to take over The Swan and restore it to its former glory. Cherry is at the helm, Maggie is in charge of the kitchen, and Rose tends the picturesque garden that leads down to the river.

The Complete Jane Austen Collection includes Austen's 7 novels, selected short fiction, and a selection of her letters. Read by an incredible cast including Joanne Froggatt and Fenella Woolgar, this collection is the perfect opportunity to listen beyond your favourite novel and discover Jane Austen's complete writings.

For lovers of the supernatural and the macabre comes this collection of ghostly and chilling stories from legendary mystery writer Agatha Christie. Fantastic psychic visions, specters looming in the shadows, encounters with deities, a man who switches bodies with a cat - be sure to keep the light on whilst listening to these tales. The Last Séance gathers 20 stories, some featuring Christie’s beloved detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, in one haunting compendium that explores all things occult and paranormal, and is an essential omnibus for Christie fans.

In 1940, 18-year-old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers, she discovers the work to be by turns tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past forever. Ten years later, now a radio producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat.

First published between 1870 and 1893, Émile Zola’s 20-book cycle chronicling four generations of the Rougon-Macquarts was a shocking exposé of the decadence, degradation and moral decay of 19th-century France. It included some of his greatest novels, among them his masterpiece, Germinal. These innovative, ambitious dramas, first broadcast on Radio 4 over 24 hours in 2015-16, are a radical reimagining of Zola’s classic series, introducing us to 104-year-old matriarch, Dide, imprisoned in an asylum in southern France.

M. R. James was the master of the uncanny. His classic supernatural stories have haunted readers and listeners for over a century and been adapted countless times for radio, TV and film. This collection features dramatisations of 12 of his most popular stories: The Mezzotint, Casting the Runes, The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral, A Warning to the Curious, Rats, Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come To You, My Lad, The Tractate Middoth, Lost Hearts, The Rose Garden, Number 13, Martin’s Close and Count Magnus.

In Britain's darkest hour, an extraordinary community of women strives to protect the Home Front.

Three separate women, living in different locations and eras, are linked by their passion for Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway. As they each live through a Tuesday in June, their thoughts and experiences mirror each other and become interwoven. In Richmond in 1923, Virginia Woolf struggles to write a novel whose protagonist is Mrs Dalloway. In Los Angeles in 1949, Laura ignores her chores and small son to sit in bed reading Mrs Dalloway. In 1990s New York, Clarissa goes to buy flowers for a party, mirroring the start of the fictional Mrs Dalloway’s day.

The collected BBC dramatisations of the fiction of Virginia Woolf, with star casts including Kristin Scott-Thomas, Vanessa Redgrave, Juliet Stevenson, Laura Fraser, Robert Glenister and Fenella Woolgar....

A collection of BBC dramatisations and readings of William Boyd's award-winning novels and short stories. One of Britain's foremost contemporary writers, William Boyd is renowned worldwide for his bestselling novels, which have been translated into over 30 languages. He has won numerous awards, including the Somerset Maugham Award (for A Good Man in Africa), the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (for An Ice-Cream War) and the Costa Book Award (for Restless).

Pat Simms is reeling from her own role in her abusive husband's death, and the new freedom before her is daunting. Sarah Collingborne is struggling with the absence of her husband, who is stranded in a POW camp abroad, and trying her best to fill his treasured place in the village. Meanwhile, Teresa Lucas is anxious about her future as a parent, and her friend Alison Scotlock is on the verge of starting a new relationship. And Miriam Brindsley's good luck might be about to change.

Written as a "report into the circumstances surrounding the decision to introduce salmon into the Yemen", this is a novel that is made up of e-mails, letters, diary extracts, records of the prime minister's Question Time, interviews, and chapters from the memoirs of a fantastically weaselly Peter Mandelson-type figure.

Dot's had quite enough of making tea in the Cabinet War Rooms. When she finds a cryptic message in the newspaper she enlists the help of her gals - will this be the big break Dot's been waiting for? Follow Dot as she gets squiffy over Agent Bertie Whiff-Whaff, concocts stirring yet pithy slogans for the war effort and goes on a mission to St Horribly Vulture’s School for Boys to enlist a teacher for...'shhhh...Bletchley Park!'

Upon inheriting the Moonstone, a huge and priceless diamond, Rachel Verinder's delight turns to dismay when the gem suddenly disappears. But this is no ordinary theft. Sergeant Cuff of Scotland Yard is called in and immediately suspects an intricate plot. However, not even his powers of detection can penetrate fully the mysteries surrounding the diamond.

In 1922 Agatha Christie set sail on a 10-month voyage around the British Empire with her husband as part of a trade mission to promote the forthcoming British Empire Exhibition. Leaving her two-year-old daughter behind with her sister, Agatha set sail at the end of January and did not return until December, but she kept up a detailed weekly correspondence with her mother, describing in detail the exotic places and people she encountered as the mission travelled through South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and Canada.