Showing results by narrator "Elaine Claxton" in All Categories

In the 1920s, three young girls enter a strict, cheerless convent school in a quiet London suburb. Six years later they leave, to change the world … Maureen was the movie star, whose role as Tarzan’s Jane helped rewrite the rules of cinema censorship. Sonia was the aspiring writer who became George Orwell’s wife and the guardian of his literary legacy. And Vivien was the actress as iconic as the roles she played, from Cleopatra to Scarlett O’Hara. Together their careers encompassed glamour and tragedy, triumph and scandal.

England, 1459: Cecily, duchess of York, is embroiled in a plot to topple the weak-minded King Henry VI from the throne. But when the Yorkists are defeated at the Battle of Ludford Bridge, Cecily’s family flee and abandon her to face a marauding Lancastrian army on her own. Cecily can only watch as her lands are torn apart and divided up by the ruthless Queen Marguerite.

With nothing but time on her hands, retired nurse Rose Lanyon finds herself drawn to the garden that had once been her husband’s pride and joy.

It may have started as a means of honouring her husband’s memory, but her little Cornish garden soon becomes so much more – a place where the lost and lonely can find solace, the forgotten can be remembered, and second chances take bloom. Because, as long as new life is growing, there will always be hope and new memories to make.

When cousins Cora, Isabelle and Lei discover magical hoof prints in the ground, they're whisked away to an amazing land where they're no longer girls … they're unicorns! But the animals in Blossom Wood don't believe in unicorns! Can the three cousins change their minds – with the help of a little magic?

Immaculate Forms examines all the ways in which medicine and religion have played a gatekeeping role over women's organs. It explores how the womb was seen as both the most miraculous organ in the body and as a sewer; uncovers breasts' legacies as maternal or sexual organs - or both; probes the mystery of the disappearing hymen, and asks, did the clitoris need to be discovered at all?

Rachel Saunders knows gossip is the price you pay for a rural lifestyle and outstanding schools. The latest town scandal is her divorce - and the fact that her new girlfriend has moved into the family home. Laura Spence lives in a poky bedsit on the wrong side of town. She and her son, Max, don’t really belong, and his violent tantrums are threatening to expose the very thing she’s trying to hide. When the local school introduces a new inclusive curriculum, Rachel and Laura find themselves on opposite sides of a fearsome debate.

For many people, Beethoven is the greatest composer who ever lived. In this portrait-in-sound, actors’ readings combine with his music to reveal a titanic personality, both vulnerable and belligerent, comic and tragic, and above all heroic, as he comes to grips with perhaps the greatest disability a musician can suffer. No man’s music is more universal; few men’s lives are more inspiring. In every sense but one - his modest height - he was a giant. The great bonus of this audio-biography is that the development of Beethoven’s music can be heard in the context of his life.

2002, Australia. When Melissa discovers a postcard addressed to 'Desmond' among her recently deceased father's effects, she is determined to discover this person's identity and his relationship to her father. She soon embarks on a journey that will take her across oceans and into the past...

1075 and Dowager Queen Edith has died. Her niece Gunnhild longs to leave Wilton Abbey, but is her suitor, Breton knight Count Alain of Richmond, interested in her inheritance as the daughter of King Harold and Edith Swan-Neck, or does he love her for herself? Is her own love for Count Alain an enduring love, or has she made a terrible mistake? The Swan Daughter is woven around a true 11th-century tale of elopement, love and courage.

Faith Lavender's funeral and the arrival of a stranger upsets the balance of Haverstock. Undercurrents of fierce emotion reach the surface while the tensions rise and the ladies of Haverstock find their actions motivated by mutual suspicion and fear.

At the heart of this history is the female body. The century-span between the crinoline and the bikini witnessed more mutations in the ideal western woman's body shape than at any other period. In this richly detailed account, Virginia Nicholson takes us to the Frontline of Beauty to reveal the power, the pain and the pleasure involved in adorning the female body. Encompassing two world wars and a revolution in women's rights, All the Rage tells the story of western female beauty from 1860 to 1960.

Brahms is one of the best loved yet most controversial of all the Romantics. Almost uniquely, his works have never suffered the slightest period of eclipse. Profoundly emotional yet governed by an iron discipline, the music, like the man, is a fascinating, entertaining, often deeply moving blend of opposites. He had a gift for friendship and a capacity for love far beyond the ordinary, yet no man could be ruder or more hurtful.

Sophie is only a quarter Italian. But that quarter is her charismatic grandfather Cesare, and he has instilled in her a great love of her Italian heritage. So when a journalist starts to investigate Cesare's war record, Sophie is reluctant to question just how proud she should really be. She embarks upon a journey into the past which takes her from 19th-century Naples to London's Italian quarter and one of the Second World War's forgotten tragedies. And along the way she also learns something very important about herself....

With the possible exception of Mozart, Verdi is the most popular opera composer who ever lived. Quite early in his career his tunes were being cranked out by barrel organs throughout Europe and were well known to many who may never even have heard his name. But the complex man behind them remains elusive and puzzling. In this portrait-in-sound, Jeremy Siepmann and a group of distinguished actors take an in-depth look behind the popular image of a man who was, and perhaps remains, the most enduring national hero in Italian history and a colossus in the history of music itself.

It is September 1068. Thea, also known as Gytha, the elder daughter of King Harold II, travels with her brothers and grandmother into exile carrying revenge in her heart. She is soon betrothed to a prince of Kiev. Will her betrothal and marriage bring her happiness, as she confronts enemies from inside and outside Russian territories? Will she prove herself the courageous princess she surely is, win her princely husband's respect and establish her independence in a society protective towards its women?

The life of Franz Liszt was as daring and spectacular as his music. Famed throughout Europe as the greatest pianist of the nineteenth century, he was one of the most original and prophetic composers who ever lived. Beautiful in youth, glowering in age, his high-profile love affairs were the talk of the town wherever he went and his generosity to young musicians was legendary. In this account of his epic life, actors’ readings combine with plentiful musical excerpts to paint a living portrait of a highly complex man.

Loulou the squirrel is organizing a talent show in Blossom Wood, and Cora, Lei and Isabelle can't wait. From tightrope-walking bears and a breakdancing beaver to hula-hooping bunnies and caterpillar jugglers, the woodlanders are busy practising. But why isn't Loulou performing anything herself? Can the Unicorns of Blossom Wood find out the real problem, and make Loulou truly happy?

Isabelle, Lei and Cora are back in Blossom Wood – just in time for a magical festival. All of the animals are there, except for one. Lizzie the bunny is lost in Echo Mountains! Can the Unicorns of Blossom Wood use their magic to find her?

Little Grey Rabbit is returning to the little house on the edge of a wood with Hare and Squirrel's Christmas present: a beautiful scarlet sledge. With great excitement they all take it to their favourite hill. But later that night careless, adventurous Hare takes the sledge for a moonlight ride and loses it... until Rat comes to the rescue!

Lei's fed up – she still hasn't found out what her unicorn magic is. But when Lei, Cora and Isabelle arrive back in Blossom Wood, there's a bigger problem. A summer storm is pouring down and everywhere is being flooded! Will it ever stop raining – and will Lei find out her magical power?