Showing results by author "BBC Audiobooks" in All Categories

Here are four of the best episodes of the comedy news show, including appearances by the late Linda Smith, as well as Simon Hoggart's final edition as chairman. Since 1977, BBC Radio 4's funniest and quirkiest game show has been answering questions and offering wit and wisdom on global happenings, national news, and, quite frankly, pathetic parochial events. Now you can enjoy the highlights of last year's news, distilled by the very best and wittiest panellists.

"There's something alien about that Tower." It's 1966, and London's brand new Post Office Tower looms over the Doctor and Dodo as they step from the TARDIS. When the Doctor meets Professor Brett, creator of a new, super-intelligent computer called WOTAN, he is intrigued to hear of a plan to link all the major computers around the world.

Twenty-four favourite festive songs and carols for children and the whole family to enjoy - and join in with!

The TARDIS lands in the Wild West in this classic BBC TV soundtrack starring William Hartnell, with linking narration by Peter Purves. It's 1881 and, in the Wild West settlement of Tombstone, there are three strangers in town: "Doctor Caligari", "Steven Regret", and "Miss Dodo Dupont". They've arrived in a 20th Century blue police box, and they're about to wander into a whole heap of trouble.

Here are two stories of love, lust, happiness, and heartache from Britain's longest-running and best-loved radio serial. Pub landlord Sid Perks is led astray when his keep-fit regime at the local gym leads to a steamy affair with Jolene Rogers, a country-and-western singer....For Emma Carter, choosing a husband is not so straightforward. She finds herself torn between loyal, devoted Will Grundy and his dangerous bad-boy brother Ed.

No game generates more passion, or stirs the emotions, like Rugby Union. No game enjoys itself more when the final whistle blows. And none has produced quite such a line of good talkers, on or off the subject. Here, from the BBC's unique Sound Archives, are memories of great teams, matches and tries, the wit and wisdom of some of the legendary characters to have graced the game and a few of its celebrated followers.

Featured in this collection are Mavis Cruet, the Fat Fairy; Arthur, the Cockney Caterpillar; Evil Edna, the Wicked Witch; Carwash, the Prissy Pussy; and The Moog, the Droopy Dog. Of course, we mustn't forget 'the Beast', who is really Prince Humbert the Handsome, changed into various shapes and sizes by Evil Edna's spells. They all just happen to be in Doyley Woods when Willo the Wisp is flitting about so he can tell us all the adventures and mishaps that befall them.

The TARDIS arrives on a vast spaceship in the distant future, and the Doctor, Steven, and Dodo meet the only survivors from the planet Earth. They are on a 700 year voyage to the planet Refusis II, in the company of their mute, one-eyed servants the Monoids. Dodo unwittingly spreads her cold amongst the Monoids, and it proves deadly to them. The Doctor provides a cure, and they leave, but the TARDIS jumps forward in time, taking its occupants to the Ark's future.

In this remarkable collection of BBC recordings, we hear what the people of the Home Front listened to as they lived, loved, laughed and worked through the dark days of World War Two; from the stirring speeches and air-raid sirens, to the humour and music that helped to keep them smiling through.

The TARDIS travellers discover that the crew of an Earth spaceship have been hijacked by the Sensorites, and they in turn are transported to the aliens' planet. Humans and Sensorites alike are stricken by a deadly illness, for which the Doctor struggles to find a cure.

Hamish and Dougal, two elderly Scotsmen played by Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden, have for many years been a popular feature of the hit BBC Radio 4 comedy show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. Now they've got their own series. Regular characters appearing with Hamish and Dougal include Mrs Naughtie, a cleaning lady-cum-housekeeper played by Alison Steadman, and a local laird played by Jeremy Hardy.

Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett star in highlights from their BBC TV series. Includes the sketches: 'The Strange Case of Mrs. Mace', 'Plain Speaking', 'Grublian', 'Dr. Spooner Re-Visited', 'A Doctor’s Life', and 'About a Bout'. There’s also 'Doctors Anonymous', 'Jolly Rhymes', 'The Complete Rook', 'Ronnie Corbett’s Chat-Spot', and 'A Doctor’s Life'. Vintage Beeb: classic albums first available as BBC LPs, now reissued and available to download.

A special compilation of highlights from cuddly Ken’s television and radio shows.

Kenny Everett was one of radio’s great innovators, the funniest DJ of our time and a one-off whose madcap comedy burst the boundaries of broadcasting. Introduced and presented by Barry Cryer, this recording features the definitive Kenny Everett: the jokes, the jingles and the high-jinks, the interviews, the comic characters – and some naughty bits.

Bath-based BBC Audiobooks hosted a sell-out event for the Bath Literature Festival. Reading Between the Lines: From Page to Production featured Rula Lenska, Lynne Truss, Sir Derek Jacobi, and Lorelei King in an entertaining and lively discussion about the art of the audiobook. They were joined by Sunday Times audio critic Karen Robinson, BBC Audiobooks' Publishing Director Jan Paterson, and Senior Producer Kate Thomas.

Wonderful highlights of Kenneth Williams’ career in this classic compilation. For more than 30 years, Kenneth Williams kept the nation in stitches with his outrageous gallery of comic creations and an effortlessly brilliant barrage of repartee and innuendo on radio and television. In Beyond Our Ken and Round the Horne, Kenneth Williams brought us the popular characters of Rambling Syd Rumpo, J. Peasemold Gruntfuttock, and Sandy (of Julian & Sandy).

Stephen Fry presents a special tribute to Humphrey Lyttelton, the sublime host of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, through the eyes of his close pals on the show and distinguished admirers, from Dame Judi Dench to Radiohead. The programme features many highlights taken from his thirty-six years at the helm of Radio 4's perennial antidote to panel games.

Comic icon Spike Milligan recollects highlights from his stellar career. The comic genius of Spike Milligan changed the face of radio comedy through The Goon Show. Here Milligan chooses and introduces classic clips from an astonishing career: readings from his books Puckoon and Adolf Hitler, My Part in his Downfall, poems, songs, sketches, extracts from Q6 and In the Psychiatrist’s Chair. He reminisces about India and Bexhill and reads his favourite poems, including 'Fred Fernakerpan'.

Polar bears, brown bears, honey bears and grizzly bears: here are a host of irresistible bears of all sorts and sizes—from Arabella Squeezenik's very unusual teddybear to Goldilocks and the Three Bears and The Bear and the Goblin. Presented by Anne Rosenfeld and Andrew Branch, and with playful music and sound effects, this delightful collection makes ideal listening at bedtime, story time or in the car.

Humphrey Lyttleton - Bandleader, cartoonist, writer, chairman of BBC Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, president of the Society for Italic Handwriting and doyen of jazz trumpeters. In conversation with June Knox-Mawer, Humphrey Lyttleton reflects on his extraordinary life; from schooldays at Eton and playing out Roll Out the Barrel outside Buckingham Palace on VE Day to the formation of this band in 1948 and his emergence as 'the godfather of British jazz'.

John Arlott was BBC's Voice of Cricket for more than 30 summers and reported on all the key cricket matches from the 1940s to his final commentary in 1980 at Lords. The imagery and wit of an incomparable broadcaster is captured here in a unique collection of historic moments.