One of the best-known Irish playwrights, John Millington Synge premiered The Playboy of the Western World in 1907. It immediately provoked controversy, eventually resulting in the infamous ‘Playboy’ riots. It has been recorded and adapted many times, but this timeless recording stars the Irish actors who made it a classic, including Siobhan McKenna and Cyril Cusack.

Brought to you by Penguin.Driven away from his parish by a censorious bishop, Monsignor Quixote sets off across Spain accompanied by a deposed renegade mayor as his own Sancho Panza, and his noble steed Rocinante – a faithful but antiquated SEAT 600. Like Cervantes’s classic, this comic, picaresque fable offers enduring insights into our life and times.NB: This recording was produced in 1989 and therefore the sound quality may vary....

A collection of some of William Trevor’s most acclaimed works, as heard on BBC RadioWilliam Trevor was an Irish literary legend. In a 40-year career, he published a multiplicity of novels, plays, and short stories, and received numerous awards and honours. He was often compared to Chekhov for his extraordinary insight into the human condition, and in these eleven tales, he delves into the inner lives of ordinary people, with all their passions, secrets, fears and d...

It might be said of his words such are Legends born. As Shakespeare is to England and Burns to Scotland then WB Yeats is to the Emerald Isle. In this audiobook we not only bring you some of his greatest works read by Cyril Cusack, Siobahn McKenna but also some by the great man himself. He speaks as he would his work to be heard.Words. The building blocks of literature. The ammunition to wrench emotion from brain to lip to life. All languages of the world have a unique capacity to c...

Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" ("A Moorish Captain") by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565.Othello revolves around four central characters: Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army; his wife Desdemona; his lieutenant, Cassio; and his trusted ensign Lago. Because of its varied and current themes of racism, love, ...

Two of J M Synge’s remarkable plays and an exploration of the man, his work and his life on the Aran IslandsJ M Synge was one of the giants of Irish theatre, and a leading dramatist of the Irish Literary Renaissance. Together with W B Yeats and others, he co-founded Dublin’s famous Abbey Theatre in 1904, and was a director there until his death in 1909. He is best known for his comic masterpiece The Playboy of the Western World, which appears here alongsid...

Zum 150.Geburtstag von W.B. Yeats am 13. JuniNobelpreisträger William Butler Yeats schrieb berührende Liebeslyrik, er beschwor die keltische Dämmerung und ein mythisches Byzanz. Seine stilistische Vielfalt – vom Volkslied bis zum formstreng komponierten Liebesgedicht – spiegelt sich in den unterschiedlichen Lesungen wider: in den kraftvollen Rezitationen des Autors und Dylan Thomas' sowie den legendären englischsprachigen Lesungen aus den Fünfzigerjahren. Hanns Zisc...

Cyril Cusack and Siobhan Mckenna read from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake.

Cyril Cusack reads a selection from Joyce's semi-autobiographical novel