Showing results by narrator "Peter Bills" in All Categories

For Commander Vimes, Head of Ankh-Morpork City Watch, life consists of troubling times, linked together by...well, more troubling times. Right now, it's the latter. There's a werewolf with pre-lunar tension in the city and a dwarf with attitude and a golem who's begun to think for itself, but that's just ordinary trouble. The real problem is more puzzling - people are being murdered, but there's no trace of anything alive having been at the crime scene.

Death comes to us all. When he came to Mort, he offered him a job. Death is the Grim Reaper of the Discworld, a black-robed skeleton with a scythe who ushers souls into the next world. He is also fond of cats and endlessly baffled by humanity. Soon Death is yearning to experience what humanity really has to offer, but to do that, he'll need to hire some help. It's an offer Mort can't refuse. As Death's apprentice he'll have free board, use of the company horse—and being dead isn't compulsory. It's a dream job—until Mort falls in love with Death's daughter, Ysabell.

This is the worst thing you can wish on a citizen of Discworld. Especially for the magically challenged Rincewind, who has already had far too much excitement in his life. Unfortunately, the unlucky wizard always seems to end up in the middle of, well, absolutely everything. So when a request for a 'Great Wizzard' arrives from the faraway Counterweight Continent, it's obviously Rincewind who's sent. For one thing, he's the only one who spells wizard that way.

Everybody knows there's no such thing as a female wizard. So when the wizard Drum Billet accidentally passes on his staff of power to an eighth daughter of an eighth son, a girl called Eskarina (Esk, for short), the misogynistic world of wizardry wants nothing to do with her.

Vampires have come to Lancre, but they're not what you'd expect. Sure, they drink blood and view humans as dinner, but they're modern and sophisticated. They've got style and fancy waistcoats. And they're not a bit afraid of garlic. The Magpyr family are out of the casket and want a bite of the future. But they haven't met the neighbours yet. Between them and Lancre stand a coven of four - Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Magrat and young Agnes - and they don't take kindly to murderous intruders....

Eric is the Discworld's only demonology hacker. Pity he's not very good at it. All he wants is his three wishes granted. Nothing fancy—to be immortal, rule the world, have the most beautiful woman in the world fall madly in love with him, the usual stuff. But instead of a tractable demon, he calls up Rincewind, probably the most incompetent wizard in the universe, and the extremely intractable and hostile form of travel accessory known as the Luggage.

Insurrection is in the air in the city of Ankh-Morpork. The Haves and Have-Nots are about to fall out all over again. Captain Sam Vimes of the city's ramshackle Night Watch is used to this. It's enough to drive a man to drink. Well, to drink more. But this time, something is different - the Have-Nots have found the key to a dormant, lethal weapon that even they don't fully understand and they're about to unleash a campaign of terror on the city. Time for Captain Vimes to sober up.

Bill Nighy, Barbara Shelley and Peter Sallis are among the cast in six classic BBC Radio dramatisations of stories by one of Britain's most popular science fiction authors. 'The Day of the Triffids', first broadcast in 1968, is set in a world in which most people have been left blind after a meteor shower, and lethal carnivorous triffids are roaming the land. 'The Kraken Wakes', dramatised for radio in 1998, is a gripping story of monsters from the deep, alien invasion and ecological disaster.

Time is a resource. Everyone knows it has to be managed. You mess with it at your peril. You can let it move fast or slowly, but what you mustn't do is allow it to stop. The Monks of History have the glamorous job of time management in the Discworld. They store it and pump it from the places where it's wasted (like underwater—how much time does a codfish need?) to places like cities, where there's never enough time. But the construction of the world's first truly accurate clock starts a race against, well, time for Lu Tze and his apprentice Lobsang Ludd.

The stockings are hanging ready, the sherry and pies are waiting by the fireplace - but where is the jolly fat man with his sack? It's not right to find Death creeping down chimneys and trying to say 'Ho ho ho'—but someone's got to bring the little kiddies their presents. Or else they might stop believing. Belief is important in Discworld, particularly on the last night of the year when the time is turning. If the real man in the red suit isn't found by morning, there won't be a morning. Ever again....

Cameras roll, for the first time, on the Discworld when alchemists discover the excitement of the silver screen. But what is the dark secret of Holy Wood hill? As the clichés of Tinsel Town pour into the world, it's up to the Disc's first film stars to find out. Join Victor Tugelbend and Theda Withel as they battle the forces of evil and cinema advertising. They're about to discover that the magic of the silver screen might be powerful enough to put an end to, well, everything.

Being 16 is always difficult, even more so when there's a Death in the family. After all, it's hard to grow up normally when Grandfather rides a white horse and wields a scythe. Especially if he decides to take a well-earned moment to uncover the meaning of life and discover himself in the process, so that you have to take over the family business, and everyone mistakes you for the Tooth Fairy.

Kermit the Frog is back, and he’s revised and updated his bestselling memoir with life advice and inspiration for a whole new generation of fans! In Before You Leap, the world's most famous frog shares his own story in a funny, heartfelt manner about his life and yours. After telling the tale of his humble swamp beginnings, remarkable career in show business, and about all the amazing people and pigs he's met along the way, Kermit shares his advice on many of life's milestones.

As they blunder towards doom, Warlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson find themselves inconvenienced by a variety of eldritch beings. Christmas brings a goose that doesn't let being cooked slow it down; they meet an electricity demon, discover why being a redhead is even trickier than one might imagine, and Holmes attempts an Irish accent. And, naturally, Moriarty is hanging around...in some form or other.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the New York Times bestselling author of The American Story and How to Lead and host of PBS’s History with David Rubenstein—David Rubenstein interviews living American presidents and top historians and journalists who reflect on the US presidency, including...

The classic 1970s sitcom about a lively gang of labourers working on the motorways In 1971, Radio 2’s Comedy Parade – a showcase for new comedy – aired two pilots that would go on to become the highly popular series Parsley Sidings and The Motorway Men. Though the latter ran for just one...

From French rugby's origins in Le Havre, (as an English export in the late nineteenth century), to the Catalan coast, acclaimed rugby writer Peter Bills travels the length and breadth of this vast country, visiting not only the big cities but those regional heartlands of the game such as Toulouse, Bordeaux and Clermont, as well as clubs in the Basque country, to reveal a country whose deep love of rugby has created a culture and playing style like no other.

The first ever publication of a long-lost episode of Hancock's Half Hour, featuring Peter Sellers - plus bonus material. Legendary sitcom Hancock's Half Hour ran for 102 episodes on BBC Radio between 1954 and 1959. Over 20 shows were subsequently lost - but now one of the funniest and most sought-after, 'The Marriage Bureau', has been rediscovered. The penultimate episode of Series 1, it features a unique appearance from Peter Sellers, standing in for Kenneth Williams. Available for the first time since its original broadcast in 1955, it sees Hancock looking for a job - and a wife...

In late 2024 Ireland, a nation of just 7 million people, stood at the top of rugby union's world rankings. Ireland's rise to such an exalted position has been the great triumph of rugby's professional era. For a nation that fought tooth and nail to keep the game amateur, their progress since 2000 has been extraordinary. The trophies, once so rare in Irish rugby hands, have become almost commonplace. Grand Slams, Six Nations Championships, Triple Crowns have all stood in the IRFU offices in Dublin.

Christopher Marlowe turns government spy in these four comedy crime dramas. Murder and intrigue are all in a day's work for Kit Marlowe, England's leading playwright and undercover agent in Her Majesty's Secret Service. Amid the squalor and splendour of Elizabethan London, he probes a series of baffling mysteries, aided by his trusty underworld accomplice Bartholomew Ratsbane.