Showing results by narrator "Penelope Wilton" in All Categories

Dramatisations and a reading of selected novels by Barbara Pym - plus bonus material Barbara Pym is one of the 20th Century's wittiest, and most underrated, novelists. Her perceptive comedies of manners, centred around the domestic lives and loves of unassuming middle-class Englishwomen, won her...

Penelope Wilton narrates BBC Radio 4’s epic dramatisation of the treasured family saga Elizabeth Jane Howard’s five book chronicle of the upper-middle class. Cazalet family begins in 1938, as siblings Hugh, Edward, Rupert and Rachel join together for another family holiday at Home Place, their house in the Sussex countryside. During the course of The Light Years, Marking Time, Confusion, Casting Off and All Change, the progress of their lives, and those of their children, will be charted.

“A touching tale about heartbreak and healing . . . If you loved The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fryand The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, make time to read this finale to the trilogy.”—Good Housekeeping Ten years ago, Harold Fry set off on a six-hundred-mile walk to save a...

Here are four of Hans Christian Andersen’s best-loved short stories, specially adapted for young children and read by some of Britain’s most well-known actors. The Emperor’s New Clothes: An emperor is promised a special suit of clothes by a pair of tailors. The Little Mermaid: A beautiful mermaid falls in love with a prince. The Fir Tree: A little fir tree is desperate to grow up and be like the other trees in the forest.

Six classic farces from the renowned comedy writer, with casts including Judi Dench, Michael Williams, Joan Hickson, Alex Jennings and Penelope Wilton In the 1920s and ’30s, Ben Travers proved himself a master of comic confusion with his hugely successful Aldwych farces. Featuring battle-axe...

Original plays and dramatisations from the award-winning novelist and playwright, plus bonus documentary Viewing the Century: Michael Frayn A renowned playwright, novelist, journalist, memoirist and translator, Michael Frayn has had a varied and prolific literary career spannning over seven...

Inspired by the novels of D.H. Lawrence, particularly The Rainbow and Women in Love, this ambitious quartet from Booker Prize-winning novelist A.S. Byatt charts the lives of the Potter family between 1953 and 1970. Set against the changing social and political landscape of England in the '50s and '60s, it follows the heroine, Frederica, from precocious teenager to TV talk-show host and from her Yorkshire home to the heart of swinging London.

Penguin Classics presents Elizabeth Gaskell, adapted for audio and available as a digital download as part of the Penguin English Library series. Read by Penelope Wilton. "Eh, miss, but that be a rare young lady! She do have such pretty coaxing ways ..." Seventeen-year-old Molly Gibson worships...

Katherine Mansfield is remembered as one of the great modernist short-story writers, who managed to pack a huge amount of creative work into her 34 years before she died of TB in 1923. This impressive collection includes brand-new full-cast BBC dramatisations of 'Bliss', 'Something Childish but Very Natural', 'Marriage a la Mode', 'Daughters of the Late Colonel', 'The Garden Party', 'Life of Ma Parker and Her First Ball', plus many more readings brought to life by a wealth of narrators.

As featured on BBC Radio 4 Open Book As the old world begins to fade from view and a new dawn emerges, All Change marks the fifth and final volume in Elizabeth Jane Howard's bestselling The Cazalet Chronicles. 'She helps us to do the necessary thing – open our eyes and our hearts' – Hilary...

Clever, funny and poignant, Alan Bennett’s masterful plays are rightly regarded as modern classics. Kafka’s Dick is Bennett’s brilliantly clever comedy drama that examines the relationship between life and art, and asks what was Kafka’s embarrassing little problem... Alison Steadman...

Penguin presents A Life of My Own by Claire Tomalin, read by Dame Penelope Wilton. As one of the best biographers of her generation, Claire Tomalin has written about great novelists and poets to huge success: now, she turns to look at her own life. This enthralling memoir follows her through...

Sylvia Townsend Warner was a prolific author of novels, short stories and poetry, who also wrote a biography of T. H. White, translated Proust and was an authority on Tudor church music. A sharp, insightful storyteller, she was one of the 20th Century's most acute observers of English mores, and her work is infused with subversive themes reflecting her feminist and Marxist views. This comprehensive anthology includes dramatisations of her two best-known novels.

All three series of the BBC radio bittersweet comedy, narrated by Sheila Hancock, following the adventures of the residents of a small town in Northamptonshire—plus special episode 'Full Stop'. Relationships have come and gone but life continues in Wadenbrook, where Sheila Hancock takes us behind closed doors to reveal the inhabitants' heartbreak and happiness.

Here are four of Hans Christian Andersen's best-loved short stories, specially adapted for young children and read by some of Britain's most well-known actors. In 'The Brave Tin Soldier', read by David Tennant, a one-legged toy soldier falls in love with a paper ballerina. In 'Thumbelina'...

Five new plays from the gospel of Luke, by award-winning writer Nick Warburton. This work presents the Gospel story as you've never heard it before. Everyone knows the story of Jesus' life, as told in the Gospels – and, perhaps because it is so familiar, we have forgotten what an extraordinary...

Jane begins life penniless and plain: an unlikely romantic heroine. But she is as indomitable in spirit as she is frail in appearance. Taking a position as a governess at Thornfield Hall, her relationship with her employer, the enigmatic Mr Rochester intensifies, until she is forced to choose...

Three BBC radio adaptations of famous novels by the prolific 19th-century author Mrs Oliphant - plus an episode of Reading Aloud, with extracts from her autobiography. Sometimes called ‘the feminist Trollope’, Margaret Oliphant wrote more than 100 works of fiction in a wide variety of genres, ranging from novels of small-town life to historical tales and supernatural stories. Included here are three of her best-loved works, brimming with dry wit, perceptive irony and flawed but fascinating heroines.

The classic tale of an Australian girl who marries into the English aristocracy at a time of great change to the traditional order November 1910, and seventeen-year-old Lucinda is looking forward to being making her debut in Melbourne society. Beautiful and wealthy, she is set to make a...