A full-cast three-part adaptation of the Medieval Mystery Plays, introduced by David BuckDuring medieval religious holidays in certain English towns and cities, members of the various guilds would gather in the streets to re-enact Bible stories, from the Creation to the Last Judgment. Often staged from dawn to dusk on a single day, they were performed on a procession of pageant wagons, and the actors created all the music and effects themselves. In The Image of...

A thrilling collection of dramatisations from the classic Scottish master of talesRobert Louis Stevenson was a novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer, and created some of the most famous and influential characters in modern literature. From Long John Silver and David Balfour to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, his figures swiftly became the shorthand for piracy, monstrous medicine, and the slave trade in America. A master of atmosphere and an enthusiast ...

Full-cast BBC adaptations of Oliver Goldsmith’s two most famous worksAnglo-Irish author Oliver Goldsmith was one of the most accomplished writers of the 18th century. A novelist, playwright, poet and essayist, he came to fame with his novel The Vicar of Wakefield and comic play She Stoops to Conquer. Both those classics are included here, with star casts including Julia McKenzie, Amanda Root, Peter Jeffrey and Sunny Ormond...

A collection of cosy crime dramas adapted from Colin Watson's 'Flaxborough Chronicles', set in a small Lincolnshire market town in the 1960s and '70sInspector Purbright is a thoroughly English policeman: affable, polite, dogged and decent. Created by award-winning crime writer Colin Watson, he appeared in 12 Flaxborough mysteries, four of which were adapted for BBC TV under the title Murder Most English. These five radio dramatisations star Peter J...

Hamlet, which dates from 1600-1601, is the first in Shakespeare’s great series of four tragedies, the others being Othello (1603), King Lear (1605) and Macbeth (1606). In writing this extraordinary play Shakespeare effectively reinvented tragedy after an interval of roughly two thousand years we have to go back to the Greek dramatists of fifth-century Athens to find anything of comparable depth and maturity.

Full-cast dramatisations of three of Jack Higgins’ best-known novelsJack Higgins (the pen name of Henry Patterson) was the internationally bestselling author of 85 novels. He shot to fame with The Eagle Has Landed, which sold 50 million copies worldwide and became a hit film. Adapted for radio, it is included here, together with its gripping sequel The Eagle Has Flown and the sensational Falklands War thriller Exocet.T...

The final five volumes from the landmark BBC radio series This Sceptred Isle.Christopher Lee's epic history tells the story of Britain from the Romans to the death of Victoria. This collection includes the original volumes 6-10:1702-1760: The First British EmpireThe reign of George I; Britain's first Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, and the first rendition of Rule Britannia.1760-1792: The Age of Revolution The Industrial Revolution begins; America declares i...

Adaptations of Kingley Amis’s great novels and acclaimed short storiesNovelist, poet and critic Kingsley Amis was one of Britain’s greatest post-war writers. A master of comic fiction, he came to fame in 1954, and won the 1986 Booker Prize for The Old Devils. Included in this collection are dramatisations of seven of his short stories and two novels, all imbued with his characteristic wit and social satire.We begin with ‘To See the Sun’

'Paul’s Letters to The Corinthians 1 & 2': Peter Jeffrey reads the second and third of Paul’s Letters, in which he writes to the Christian community in Corinth, Greece. Specially composed music is included. The readings were part of BBC Radio 4's series of 341 daily episodes of the Bible, broadcast in 1991 and 1992. Abridged by Elizabeth Bradbury. 'The New Testament': These abridged readings of the New Testament are taken from the 1989 Revised English Bible, which was translated directly f...

The first five volumes from the landmark BBC radio series This Sceptred Isle. Christopher Lee's epic history tells the story of Britain from the Romans to the death of Victoria. This collection includes the original first five volumes:55BC-1087: Julius Caesar to William the Conqueror From Britannia under the Romans to the Dark Ages and the invasions of Angles, Saxons, Danes, and Norwegians.1087-1327: The Making of the Nation The Crusades, Welsh and Scottish rebellions and t...

What might the grey, part tumbled Cyclopean stones of Mycenae, a city said once to be rich in gold, tell us of her past if they could speak? The great wall surrounding the city, standing proud to keep out her enemies some three and a half thousand years ago, today proclaims in silence the depredations of men and of time. Through her famed Lion Gate, above which the rampant beasts of carved stone remain standing, once passed worthies, emissaries and traders from the Peloponnese and much of ...

Three BBC radio adaptations of famous novels by the prolific 19th-century author Mrs Oliphant – plus an episode of Reading Aloud, with extracts from her autobiographySometimes called ‘the feminist Trollope’, Margaret Oliphant wrote over 100 works of fiction in a wide variety of genres, ranging from novels of small-town life to historical tales and supernatural stories. Included here are three of her best-loved works, brimming with dry wit, perceptive irony...