A comedy drama about an all-female theatre company touring Britain during the darkest days of World War Two, written by the well-known actress and premiered in the West End.While the men are fighting Hitler and the bombs are falling on London, a 'girls only' theatre company sets out in a battered 1920s Rolls-Royce to bring Shakespeare to a culture-starved Britain.Imogen Stubbs' play We Happy Few was inspired by the real-life Osiris Players, whose travelling product...

The Chronicle: BOOK ONE (January to March)This is history at its best and most entertaining! One moment Liselotte, the Duchess of Orleans (1678) is observing the Prince of Orange consummating his marriage in thick woollen drawers… and the next, Harold Nicolson (1936) is at the Savoy Grill dining with the Prince of Wales and Mrs Simpson who is, "bejewelled, eyebrow-plucked, virtuous and wise". There's the young medical student watching his ...

A bold and timely novel from #1 bestselling author Joanne Harris that explores how women can feel invisible as they grow older - and what happens when they decide to take back control...Have you ever felt invisible?Bernie Moon has given her life to other people: her husband, her son, her friends (who are these days, mostly online). At nineteen she was full of dreams and ambitions; now almost fifty, and going through the menopause, she's fading, fast. Hear...

A BBC Radio six-part dramatisation of Marcel Proust’s groundbreaking series of novels, tracing the extraordinary story of the author’s own life. Starring James Wilby and Jonathan Firth, and with a distinguished cast including Harriet Walter, Imogen Stubbs and Corin Redgrave, this rich, multi-layered adaptation brings out all the variety and subtlety of Proust’s magnificent masterpiece. Featuring a fictional version of himself - ‘Marcel’ - and a host of friends, acquaintances and lovers, 'I...

Escape to beautiful Provence with the dazzlingly romantic new novel from Sunday Times bestselling author Veronica Henry!'Gorgeously romantic, sweet as French pastries and the perfect read!' MILLY JOHNSON'A delight from start to finish, being swept away to Provence, like sipping wine on lazy summer days, a perfect summer read' CAROL KIRKWOOD'Utterly enchanting! I was spellbound from the very first p...

The Chronicle - BOOK TWO (April to June)Are you ready for an unforgettable adventure into the past? Then climb aboard and join Oscar Wilde in America amused at the sight of local gun slingers looting the house where outlaw Jesse James had been killed a few days earlier. Meet John Betjeman as he implores the BBC to engage the impoverished Dylan Thomas while Jane Austen demands the return of her unpublished novel. Austen Chamberlain rages at Hitler f...

The Chronicle – Book Three (July to September)This is history... but not as you know it! At Waterloo, women are stripping the corpses of their valuable shoes and stockings yet the Highlanders are left in mass graves with their coarse tartan socks still on. Roy Strong attending a private dinner with the Prime Minister notes that Margaret Thatcher in floaty chiffon is "the apotheosis of the boss's wife, with the appeal of cosmeticised putty."

Behold The Chronicle: an epic journey through history.Join us for an exhilarating and immersive adventure through 500 years of history, told entirely in the words of those who were there. With their artless prose and their polished & witty gossip, these are the men and women who have shaped our past. Brought to life by an award-winning all-star cast of 30 celebrated actors, including Charles Dance, Harriet Walter, David Suchet, Maureen Lipman, Timothy West, Jenny A...

**Brought to you by Penguin.From the author of The Power, winner of the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2017**IT BEGINS AND ENDS WITH A SACRIFICE...It was a time of brutal tyranny and occupation. Young men and women took to the streets to protest. Dictators put them down with iron force. Rumours spread. Rebels attacked the greatest empire the world had ever known. The empire gathered its forces to make those rebels pay.And in the midst of all of t...

Voices from the Past with David Suchet as Lord Nelson writing to his beloved Emma on the eve of Trafalgar, hoping in God that he will live to finish his letter after the Battle, while Harriet Walter as Virginia Woolf hangs about the House of Commons mourning the passing of Edward VIII and the coming of King Albert I. Winston Churchill is captured and imprisoned by the Boers and Jane Austen sells 'Pride & Prejudice' for £110. Howard Carter discovers the tomb of Tutankhamen,...

“Letters and journals always make lively intimate listening.” The IndependentUnveil history’s hidden gems with the Classic Letters & Journals Box Set, as we bring their intimate letters and journals masterfully to life.The Letters of Jane Austen portrayed by the incomparable Fiona Shaw. Austen's candid and occasionally scandalous correspondence offers a mesmerizing glimpse into the life of England's beloved wordsmith....

The Letters of JANE AUSTEN performed by Fiona Shaw“Frequently indiscreet and occasionally acerbic or heartless, Jane Austen’s letters are always engaging. Fiona Shaw gives a sensitive reading” (Daily Telegraph)Born in 1775, Jane Austen was the youngest of seven children. It is to her elder sister Cassandra that most of her surviving letters are written. Candid and wickedly indiscreet, they provide a fascinating insight into the life of one of England’s great novelists.