Showing results by narrator "Eleanor Bron"

Princess Margaret aroused passion and indignation in equal measures. To her friends, she was witty and regal. To her enemies, she was rude and demanding. In her 1950s heyday, she was seen as one of the most glamorous and desirable women in the world. By the time of her death in 2002, she had come to personify disappointment. One friend said he had never known an unhappier woman. The tale of Princess Margaret is Cinderella in reverse: hope dashed, happiness mislaid, life mishandled.

The story follows the life of Tina, a young woman caught between the mother who adopted her - the beautiful, upstanding Delia - and her true mother, her plain, unmarried ‘aunt’ Charlotte, who gave Tina up to provide her with a socially acceptable life. The three women live quietly together until Tina’s wedding day, when Delia’s and Charlotte’s hidden jealousies rush to the surface.

Beautiful, sophisticated and endlessly ambitious Lily Bart endeavours to climb the social ladder of New York's elite by securing a good match and living beyond her means. Now nearing 30 years of age and having rejected several proposals, forever in the hope of finding someone better, her future prospects are threatened. A damning commentary of 20th-century social order, Edith Wharton's tale established her as one of the greatest British novelists of the 1900s.

It began in a women's club in London on a February afternoon. A discreet advertisement in The Times, addressed to "Those who Appreciate Wistaria and Sunshine..." lures four very different women away from the dismal British weather to San Salvatore, a castle high above a bay on the sunny Italian Riviera. There, the Mediterranean spirit stirs the souls of Mrs Arbuthnot, Mrs Wilkins, Lady Caroline Dester, and Mrs Fisher, and remarkable changes occur.

Simon Russell Beale stars in this BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of John le Carré's first novel, which introduced his most famous character, George Smiley. This dramatisation, set in London in the late 1950s, finds Smiley engaged in the humdrum job of security vetting. But when a Foreign Office civil servant commits suicide after an apparently unproblematic interview, Smiley is baffled. Refusing to believe that Fennan shot himself, Smiley decides to investigate.

A BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Virgil's sweeping epic, starring Ralph Fiennes as Aeneas and Derek Jacobi as the Narrator. One of the classics of all time, The Aeneid was Virgil's last and greatest work. In it, he recounts in vivid imagery the legendary origin of the Roman Empire. The story begins after the Greeks have destroyed the city of Troy. The Trojan Prince Aeneas, defeated and depressed, leads his remaining citizens to a new land and a new destiny foretold by the Gods.

From our funniest writer, a portrait of our most talked-about royal. She made John Lennon blush and Marlon Brando clam up. She cold-shouldered Princess Diana and humiliated Elizabeth Taylor. Andy Warhol photographed her. Jack Nicholson offered her cocaine. Gore Vidal revered her. John Fowles hoped to keep her as his sex slave. Dudley Moore propositioned her. Francis Bacon heckled her. Peter Sellers was in love with her. For Pablo Picasso, she was the object of sexual fantasy.

A new BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of the novel by Agatha Christie, first published in 1961.Mark Easterbrook learns of a mysterious organisation called the Pale Horse, and in the village of Much Deeping he is told of the organisation's supernatural connections. A piece of paper with a list of names seems to foretell the deaths of several people, and Mark must discover what connects them all, and who is behind the strange powers of the Pale Horse.

May's second marriage to Colonel Herbert Brown-Lacey is turning out to be a terrible mistake. Her children find the Colonel's presence oppressive.

Joseph and Harriet Blackstone emigrate from Norfolk to New Zealand in search of new beginnings and prosperity. But the harsh land near Christchurch where they settle threatens to destroy them almost before they begin. When Joseph finds gold in the creek he is seized by a rapturous obsession with the voluptuous riches awaiting him deep in the earth.

Inspired by an old photograph album to investigate the life of a lost relative, a man finds himself on a journey that traverses the 20th century, leading him from an American asylum to the shores of the Dead Sea. Adapted by Edward Kemp from W G Sebald's acclaimed novel about the experiences of Jewish emigrants.

Her name is Dinah. In the Bible her fate is merely hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the verses of the Book of Genesis that recount the life of Jacob and his dozen sons. The Red Tent is an extraordinary and engrossing tale of ancient womanhood and family honour. Told in Dinah's voice, it opens with the story of her mothers, the four wives of Jacob, each of whom embodies unique feminine traits, and concludes with Dinah's own unforgettable story of betrayal, grief and love.

Beatrice considers herself to be delicate and sensitive, idle and confused. Forced into early retirement, she has an unashamed and romantic desire to be rescued by the ideal man. But Beatrice's only family is her orderly sister, Miriam.

Three 'witness' insights into history. In 'That Door' by Elizabeth Kuti (read by Eleanor Bron), it is Wittenberg, 1517 and Brother Martin meets the indomitable Frau Sprenger. In 'Nothing but Blue Skies' by Dominic Power (read by Elizabeth Mastrantonio), Katherine Rudd, now 97, recalls events on the night of the Roswell incident in New Mexico, 1947. In 'Permanent Wave' by Ian Sansom (read by Maggie Stead), what might Margaret Thatcher's hairdresser have witnessed in the lead up to her exit from Downing Street?

Eugenia, an American expatriate brought up in Europe, arrives in rural New England with her charming brother Felix, hoping to find a wealthy second husband after the collapse of her marriage to a German prince. Their exotic, sophisticated airs cause quite a stir with their affluent, God-fearing American cousins, the Wentworth's - and provoke the disapproval of their uncle, suspicious of foreign influences.

Eugenia, an American expatriate brought up in Europe, arrives in New England with her brother Felix, hoping to find a second husband. Their sophisticated airs cause quite a stir with their affluent, God-fearing American cousins, the Wentworths - and provoke the disapproval of their uncle. Eugenia wins the attentions of Robert Acton, the most appropriate suitor in the area, while also seducing her younger cousin, Clifford. Felix's luxurious romantic ways find acceptance with the American women - particularly Gertrude Wentworth.

gentle romance begins innocently enough in the stalls of a London theatre where Catherine is enjoying her ninth and Christopher his thirty-sixth visit to the same play. He is a magnificent young man with flame-coloured hair. She is the sweetest little thing in a hat. There is just one complication: Christopher is 25, while Catherine is just a little bit older. Flattered by the passionate attentions of youth, Catherine, with marriage and motherhood behind her, is at first circumspect, but finally succumbs to her lover's charms.

Lifelong friends, now in their sixties, James, a teacher, and Hugh, a TV personality, both live with attractive women 25 years their junior. But the age difference is a time bomb, ticking away at the heart of both relationships. Kate's hunger for a life more in keeping with her own age threatens to bring her eight years with James to an end. And how is Julia to cope when her own career begins to blossom while Hugh's is withering before their eyes? The arrival of Miss Beatrice Bachelor, a razor-sharp Oxford spinster, fuels the discontent in both girls.

Elizabeth Jane Howard (1923-2014) wrote brilliant novels about what love can do to people, but in her own life the lasting relationship she sought so ardently always eluded her. She grew up yearning to be an actress, but when that ambition was thwarted by marriage and the war, she turned to fiction. Her first novel, The Beautiful Visit, won the John Llewellyn Rhys prize - she went on to write 14 more, of which the best-loved were the five volumes of The Cazalet Chronicle.

Four spine-tingling short stories from masters of the genre, read by Michael Maloney, Eleanor Bron and Andrew Sachs: 'The Phantom Coach' by Amelia B. Edwards; 'The Judge’s House' by Bram Stoker; 'The Tapestried Chamber' by Sir Walter Scott; 'The Man of Science' by Jerome K. Jerome.