Showing results by narrator "John Moffatt"

Can you imagine writing to Father Christmas and actually getting a reply? Every year, the children of J.R.R. Tolkien would write to Father Christmas, and the letters they received told wonderful stories of his adventures at the North Pole. These humorous tales are brought to life by Derek Jacobi as Father Christmas, John Moffatt as Polar Bear, and Christian Rodska as Ilbereth the Elf, complete with specially composed music.

Sir Claud Amory's formula for a powerful new explosive has been stolen, presumably by a member of his large household. Sir Claud assembles his suspects in the library and locks the door, instructing them that the when the lights go out, the formula must be replaced on the table - and no questions will be asked. But when the lights come on, Sir Claud is dead. Now Hercule Poirot, assisted by Captain Hastings and Inspector Japp, must unravel a tangle of family feuds, old flames, and suspicious foreigners to find the killer and prevent a global catastrophe.

John Moffatt stars as the great Belgian detective in a BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation. Famous crime novelist Ariadne Oliver, visiting her friend Judith Butler in the little town of Woodleigh Common, is invited to a Hallowe'en Party put on by society hostess Mrs Rowena Drake for the local teenagers. During her preparations for the party, the conversation turns to Ariadne's grisly novels....

As Hercule Poirot sifts through his post one particular morning, he alights upon a letter from an elderly and (as it transpires), exceedingly rich spinster - Miss Emily Arundell. She is clearly in great distress and seeking his help, but doesn’t say why. Her only specific mention is ‘the incident of the dog’s ball’. However, what intrigues Poirot is the date of the communication - it was written two months ago. He persuades Captain Hastings that they must visit the lady with all haste.

Poirot has always hated visiting the dentist, but this time his check-up is painless and soon over. As he leaves Mr Morley's surgery, he observes a woman wearing patent leather shoes with large buckles. She catches one of the buckles on the taxi door and wrenches it off, and as Poirot hands it back, he is reminded of the children's rhyme 'One, two, buckle my shoe'. Back home, Poirot is astonished to receive a call from Chief Inspector Japp, informing him that Mr Morley has shot himself.

An international cast of suspects, all passengers on the crowded train, are speeding through the snowy European landscape when a bizarre and terrible murder brings them to an abrupt halt. One of their glittering number lies dead in his cabin, stabbed a mysterious twelve times. There is no lack of clues for Poirot - but which clue is real and which is a clever plant?

John Moffatt stars as the famous Belgian detective in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of one of Christie's most popular novels. Linnet Ridgeway has led a charmed life. Blessed with beauty, enormous wealth, and a devoted husband, she has everything anyone could wish for. But as the happy couple set out on an idyllic honeymoon cruise on the Nile, storm clouds are gathering. Linnet's former friend, Jacqueline de Bellefort, follows her and Simon wherever they go and Linnet senses she is in danger.

Among the towering red cliffs of Petra, like some monstrous swollen Buddha, sat the corpse of Mrs Boynton. A tiny puncture mark on her wrist was the only sign of the fatal injection that had killed her. With only 24 hours available to solve the mystery, Hercule Poirot recalled a chance remark he'd overheard back in Jerusalem: 'You see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?' Mrs Boynton was, indeed, the most detestable woman he'd ever met.

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation starring John Moffatt as Hercule Poirot with Stephanie Cole and Donald Sinden. Hercule Poirot, along with three other luminaries from the world of crime detection, is invited to dinner by the renowned London socialite Dr Shaitana. Also on the guest list are four members of what Shaitana calls his Black Museum - a collection of murderers who have each succeeded in 'getting away with it'. After midnight, when the guests prepare to leave, they make a terrible discovery.

Crime sleuth Hercule Poirot returns in a thrilling BBC Radio 4 dramatisation. Amy Leatheran has never felt the lure of the mysterious East, but when she travels to an ancient site deep in the Iraqi desert to nurse the wife of a celebrated archaeologist; events prove stranger than she could ever have imagined. Her patient’s bizzarre visions and nervous terror seem unfounded, but as the oppressive tension in the air thickens, events come to a terrible climax - in murder...

This remarkable poem, dedicated to Queen Elizabeth I, was Spenser's finest achievement: the first epic poem in modern English. The Faerie Queene combines dramatic narratives of chivalrous adventure with exquisite and picturesque episodes of pageantry. At the same time, Spenser is expounding a deeply-felt allegory of the eternal struggle between Truth and Error.

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation starring John Moffatt as Hercule Poirot. Mrs Farrars is found dead of an apparent overdose one year after the death of her husband. The villagers of King's Abbot are suspicious. The rumour is that she poisoned her husband and was in love with Roger Ackroyd. When he is found murdered the following day, there is little to go on. Luckily one of the newest residents who has retired to this normally quiet village is none other than Monsieur Hercule Poirot.

Enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life; indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his decadence. The novel was a succès de scandale and the book was later used as evidence against Wilde at the Old Bailey in 1895. It has lost none of its power to fascinate and disturb.

Gordon Cloade is killed in a London air raid, and his vast fortune passes to his young wife Rosaleen. Five of his relatives are desperate to get their hands on Cloade's money, and Rosaleen begins to fear for her life. The prospects for the Cloades improve when they discover that Rosaleen had a previous husband who perished mysteriously in Africa. Then a mysterious stranger appears in the village, saying that he has something to communicate to her, but the following morning he is found dead.

A blizzard has hit England. In the tiny village of Sittaford, on the fringes of Dartmoor, a party of six is gathered in Sittaford House, home of Captain Trevelyan. He has rented the house out for the winter and is staying in a nearby village. As evening draws in, a seance is proposed. But it reveals more than they had anticipated - TREVELYAN DEAD, spells out the board. Slowly the table begins to rock again, spelling out the word M-U-R-D-E-R. Is it true? And who would kill a man who doesn’t have an enemy in the world?

The gruesome death of Mrs McGinty provokes Superintendent Spence to seek the help of his old ally Hercule Poirot. The victim’s young lodger has been found guilty and is due to hang. But Spence is not convinced by the circumstantial evidence which influenced the verdict. So, at considerable personal discomfort, Poirot goes down to the sleepy village where the old lady lived and where, by chance, his good friend Ariadne Oliver is also staying.

Maggie Smith and Jonathan Pryce star in William Wycherley’s raunchy Restoration comedy. Considered too obscene to be staged in its original form for nearly 200 years, William Wycherley’s bawdy comedy tells the tale of Mr Horner, a notorious rake who spreads the false rumour that he is impotent in order to gain free access to other men’s wives. When he meets the young, innocent Margery Pinchwife, the ‘country wife’ of the title, the scene is set for scandal.

This is the very first Poirot/Hastings story. Set in 1916, we meet Captain Hastings as he is invalided out of the Great War and goes to convalesce at Styles Court, the family home of his great friend, John Cavendish. By an extraordinary coincidence, billeted in the village is a brilliant little retired detective with an egg-shaped head, who made a considerable impression on the Captain when he was in Belgium. Styles is not a happy household and in the blistering summer heat, tensions mount.

Following an otherwise-enjoyable literary luncheon, the celebrated crime novelist Ariadne Oliver is accosted by a particularly formidable woman who engages her in conversation about one of her many god-daughters, whom Ariadne hasn’t seen since she was a child. She lands a bombshell with the question ‘What I want to know is this: did her mother kill her father, or was it the father who killed the mother?’

A full-cast BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of an Agatha Christie story. On a flight from Le Bourget to Croydon, on which Hercule Poirot is an apprehensive passenger, a woman is found dead. A doctor on board is inclined to put it down to a wasp-sting, but Poirot suspects that a poisoned dart is the real cause - and, perhaps rather too conveniently, a blow pipe is discovered stuffed down the back of his seat. Clearly the murder can only have been committed by one of the passengers or crew on the plane.