These are dark days. The world is seething with imbeciles and poltroons. Everywhere the careless and thoughtless are charging about the place in hulking 4x4s, or inviting Channel 4 to come around rather than clean their own homes. So comedian Chris Addison has written CAUTIONARY TALES FOR GROWN-UPS - poems to illustrate the dangers of modern behaviour.The tales include:* The Gloucestershire Horse Club, Who posed Naked for a Charity Calendar.* Phillip, who talked only...

Award-winning comedian Chris Addison explores the funny side of human evolution and Western civilisation in two BBC Radio 4 spoof lecture seriesChris Addison – the thinking idiot's pretend anthropologist – takes us on a comic journey through the vast and rich subject of human history in these eight hilarious comedy lectures. Aided by Professor Austin Herring (aka Geoffrey McGivern), Dan Tetsell and Jo Enright, who ...

Look around you. The world is going to hell. Standards have fallen, values have been pawned, young people think 'innit' is a word and decent, honest citizens can't walk down the street without being set upon by an exploding terrorist or globally-warmed to death. We need to pick ourselves up. We need to rebuild this Once Great Nation. But, most of all, we need to be sure it's all somebody else's fault.

Instant New York Times bestseller * A New York Times Notable Book of 2025 * Named a Best Book of 2025 by NPR, Kirkus Reviews, The Economist, and The Financial Times"We think we know everything, but author Ian Leslie proves otherwise. His new book, 'John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs,' is, astonishingly, one of the few to offer a detailed narrative of John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s partnership. And it’s a revela...

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Doctor Who: The Twelve Doctors of Christmas, read by Sophie Aldred, Adjoa Andoh, Rachael Stirling and Chris Addison.A new collection Christmas adventures, starring twelve incarnations of the Doctor plus many of his friends and enemies.Inside this festive book of Doctor Who stories, you'll find timey-wimey mysteries, travels in the TARDIS, monster-chasing excitement and plenty of Christmas magic. Fi...

Revisit your favourite moments from the cult political comedy with this audio collection of the complete TV soundtracksDescribed as ‘the 21st century’s answer to Yes Minister’, this scabrous satire set in the corridors of the British government ran for four series between 2005 and 2012. It won numerous awards, including five BAFTAs, and is frequently ranked among the greatest TV shows of all time.Following the relationships between successive gover...

A comedy pick’n’mix of unheard & exclusive BBC Radio panel shows, sitcoms, sketches and satire – featuring some of comedy’s top names, including Armando Iannucci, John Oliver, Nicola Coughlan, Jimmy Carr, and more.First up is the unaired 2005 pilot for Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive (titled 'What Happened There'), starring Jimmy Carr, Lucy Porter, Dan Gaster, and John Oliver.Weird and wonderful sketches come from our second sho...

The hilarious BBC Radio comedy show where every sketch has been written by the publicThe complete series of the ground-breaking comedy series, which called for submissions from members of the public. With over 12,000 sketches sent in from 1,500 different people, The Show What You Wrote spans such diverse comedy topics as Crime & Thriller, Kitchen Sink, Body & Soul, and Geography, and features sketches about heaven's unexpectedly strict dress code, the Shop...

It's 1994 and the former Yugoslavia is being torn apart. In England, a gang of good-hearted young people are about to set off in a Ford Transit van armed with several sacks of rice and a half-written play. A play which will light a beacon of peace across the Balkans and, very probably, stop the war.Andrew would love to stop the war. He has one of the most comprehensively developed personal foreign policies of anyone working on a building site in the Greater Manchester area. He feel...

The BBC Radio 4 stand-up show featuring the biggest names on the comedy circuitIn these series, Rhod Gilbert and Chris Addison introduce a line-up of the best and brightest stand-ups, inviting fresh faces and old hands onstage to display their comic talents.Each programme features three different stars – a newcomer who performs the opening act; an established comedian or double act offering up sketches, musical numbers or character pieces; and a final headl...

Clive Anderson and guests poke fun at the past in this panel show with a yesteryear twistOriginally broadcast on Radio 4 in 2003-4, We’ve Been Here Before is the topical, satirical, historical panel game that aims to show beyond all doubt that there’s nothing new in the news. Hosted by award-winning comedian, broadcaster and Whose Line Is It Anyway? star Clive Anderson, it takes a wry, witty look at long-gone days through a present-day lens, as th...

Brought to you by Penguin.Twelve stunning Doctor Who stories for the long winter nightsChristmas can mean anything . . .For Missy, it's solving Murders in 1909For a little girl in Dublin, it's Plasmavores knocking at the door.For Davros, it's a summons from the Doctor, who needs the mad inventor's help.The perfect collection for the bleakest - and sometimes brightest - time of the ye...