Showing results by narrator "Bill Wallis" in All Categories

Having delivered a particularly stirring speech at his recently deceased colleague's funeral, Monsieur Pamplemousse is more than a little disturbed when the coffin explodes during the ceremony. Luckily, his faithful hound Pommes Frites gave out a warning cry just in time, so there were no casualties. But, who exactly is behind this explosion? And was the same person responsible for his late co-worker's demise?

Four classic tales of the undead, read by Bill Wallis, Anthony Head, John Telfer and Cornelius Garrett.

The Old Inn clings precariously to a cliff top above a storm-lashed ocean. Ethan and Cathy are sick. Their father has left them to fetch a doctor... but they are not alone for long. A visitor comes begging for shelter, and so the children, who have an unnatural appetite for stories of a macabre persuasion, sit out the throes of the storm in the company of a sailor with more than enough grisly tales to satisfy them.

The irrepressible, audacious defence barrister Horace Rumpole continues to juggle the vagaries of the law, the ambiguities of crime, and the contradictions of the human heart. The much loved stories were adapted from his scripts for the hugely popular TV series of the same name.

Christopher Marlowe turns government spy in these four comedy crime dramas. Murder and intrigue are all in a day's work for Kit Marlowe, England's leading playwright and undercover agent in Her Majesty's Secret Service. Amid the squalor and splendour of Elizabethan London, he probes a series of baffling mysteries, aided by his trusty underworld accomplice Bartholomew Ratsbane.

Shakespeare's sonnet about the comfort brought by dwelling on the one he loves, read by Bill Wallis.

'Rumpole and the Christmas Break' sees the irrepressible barrister defending a young Muslim man who has been charged with murder. As the case adjourns for the holiday, the cards are stacked against him and the judge is hostile. Stuck in a country house hotel over Christmas, can Rumpole use the break to clear his client's name? Bill Wallis reads this special seasonal story starring Horace Rumpole, scourge of all QCs and friend of the criminal classes.

A BBC Radio 3 full-cast dramatisation of Shakespeare’s classic ‘Cymbeline’, starring Bill Wallis. Originally broadcast in December 2006 as part of the ‘Drama on 3’ collection.Shakespeare's play, set during the Roman invasion of Britain, centres around the banishment of the man who has incurred the wrath of the king by secretly marrying his daughter. Confusion follows in an intricate plot in which nobody is quite who they seem to be.

Is the Greek alphabet all Greek to you? Is geometry your Achilles heel and does your knowledge of Homer have more to do with The Simpsons than the Sirens? From engineering and architecture to drama and democracy, the world around us is founded on the principles and discoveries of the Ancient World, yet our understanding of it is episodic at best.

Cairo of 1908 lives by and in its cafes. Now, suddenly, Cairo's cafe culture is threatened by gangs in the protection business. The task falls to Gareth Owen, the Mamur Zapt and head of the secret police, to find out who is behind this threat to Cairo.

"I see murder in this unhappy hand...." When Mrs. Robinson, palmist to the Prince of Wales, reads Oscar Wilde's hand she cannot know what she has predicted. Nor can Oscar know what he has set in motion when, that same evening, he proposes a game of "Murder" in which each of his Sunday Supper Club guests must write down those whom they would like to kill. For the fourteen "victims" begin to die mysteriously, one by one, and in the order in which their names were drawn from the bag....

'Rumpole and the Christmas Party' sees Rumpole celebrating with his Chambers colleagues and their wives and partners. There is plenty of claret, paper streamers and mistletoe, but where is She Who Must Be Obeyed? Bill Wallis reads this special seasonal story starring Horace Rumpole, scourge of all QCs and friend of the criminal classes.

Following the best-selling Summer of a Dormouse, Sir John Mortimer - playwright, novelist, octogenarian, and erstwhile QC - offers up more lessons in living and growing old disgracefully. What would we like to leave to our descendants? Not a third-rate painting or our PEPS, according to Sir John, but a love of Shakespeare, a taste for alcohol, the ability to defeat boredom, the importance of never locking the lavatory door, and so on.

Robert Burns' well-known poem celebrating the enduring power of true love, read by Bill Wallis.

i>Le Guide, France’s top gastronomic guide, is failing to whet the appetite of its audience in America. Bribed by the director with offers of some time off, Monsieur Pamplemousse agrees to flex his literary muscles in a bid to address the problem by writing a play. The result is the ex-detective’s directorial debut, complete with walk-on part for faithful bloodhound Pommes Frites. But disaster strikes on opening night....

From the author who brought the world Paddington Bear, comes the new book in the delightful Parisian mystery-series featuring Monsieur Pamplemousse and his canine partner, Pomme Frites. In this latest adventure, they must get to the bottom of a mystery surrounding the tarnishing of the integrity of Le Guide - France's premier hotel and restaurant guide. What they couldn't anticipate was that the case would involve a nun who is in the habit of joining the Mile High Club...

During his time as an inspector with the Paris Sûreté, Monsieur Pamplemousse had been 'in at the death' on more than one occasion, but even he had to admit that the phrase took on an entirely new meaning when he was present at the spectacular ending to Cuisine de Chavignol, France's premier television cookery programme.

One of the 21st century's most celebrated authors, Hilary Mantel won the Booker Prize twice: for 2009's Wolf Hall, the first in her phenomenally successful Thomas Cromwell trilogy, and its 2012 sequel Bring Up the Bodies. The third novel in the series, 2020's The Mirror and the Light, won the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. This collection includes three of her best works of contemporary fiction, ranging from the Gothic to the blackly comic.

Naples, 1913. Sun-baked, blue-skied, and with its amazing bay it is one of the most beautiful spots in Italy. But it’s also one of the most corrupt. A new arrival here is a junior British official, Scampion, who has already been banished from Florence. Scampion, however, brings with him a new craze that is sweeping Italy: bicycling. But one day as he walks home after a bicycle race, he is stabbed to death. That happens all the time in Naples, but remarkably his wallet was not taken.

London, 1889. Oscar Wilde, celebrated poet, wit, playwright, and raconteur is the literary sensation of his age. All Europe lies at his feet. Yet when he chances across the naked corpse of sixteen-year-old Billy Wood, posed by candlelight in a dark stifling attic room, he cannot ignore the brutal murder. With the help of fellow author Arthur Conan Doyle he sets out to solve the crime - but it is Wilde's unparalleled access to all degrees of late Victorian life, from society drawing rooms to the underclass, that will prove the decisive factor in their investigation....