Showing results by narrator "Frances Barber" in All Categories

23 November, 1963. It is the day after John F. Kennedy's assassination - and the faces of the dead are everywhere. PC Reg Cranfield sees his late father in the mists along Totter's Lane. Reporter Mae Callon sees her grandmother in a coffee stain on her desk. FBI Special Agent Warren Skeet finds his long-dead partner staring back at him from raindrops on a window pane. Then the faces begin to talk, and scream... and push through into our world.

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.

A BBC Radio 3 production from the 'Drama on 3' series exploring the idea of a fascism of the mind. Nigel is bored. But then he meets the glamorous Liv and Tony and becomes part of their beautiful world; a beauty that hides a disturbing secret… David Eldridge's The Secret Grief stars Paul Chequer as Nigel, Frances Barber as Liv, and David Schofield as Tony. Also featured amongst the cast are Struan Rodger, Alex Tregear, Stuart McLoughlin and Nyasha Hatendi.

Lucy White ends up in Farewell Square after a messy divorce. The other residents are anything but quiet, and they're as intrigued by Lucy as she is by them. As she's drawn into their midst, she realises that life can be kind as well as cruel.

Fifteen years old…brutalised…dumped in a park…throat slashed…. Schoolgirl prostitute Michelle Lucas died in agony and terror, utterly alone. The sight breaks the heart of Sergeant Bev Morriss of West Midlands Police. She thought she was hardened, but gazing at Michelle’s pale, broken body she is consumed by a cold fury. She knows this case is different - this is the one that will push her to the edge. Plunging herself into the seedy heart of Birmingham’s vice-land she struggles to infiltrate the deadly jungle of hookers, evil pimps and violent johns.

Abandoned at birth, little Mercy Hanley shows a fierce determination few others can match. Her inner fire burns brightly, even in the harsh conditions of turn of the century Birmingham. For behind Mercy's pale and haunting face, there is a mind of steel, as her harsh foster mother, Mrs Gaskin, soon discovers. Beatings, threats, and poverty cannot halt Mercy's efforts to improve herself, or to create a new life for Susan, Mrs Gaskin's crippled daughter.

Doug Lucie's satirical sequel to Hitched revisits the bride and groom, Emma and Richard, two years after their big day. The honeymoon is well and truly over and wedded bliss hasn't turned out to be, well, blissful. With their relationship at crisis point, Emma returns from America with her young daughter to discover her life isn't the only one that has changed. But just what has happened between Emma and Richard, and why has she returned home without him?

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.

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.

When newly widowed Jessica decides to rent a room to recently divorced Rex, she's a little apprehensive. She's never had a lodger before, and he's not used to being a tenant. Neither are quite sure how their relationship works—and to make things trickier, they're wildly different people. But unbeknownst to either of them, they share a secret—they both keep a diary. Taking turns to read from their respective journals, they relate their thoughts, hopes, dreams and first impressions of each other, which are somewhat less than flattering.