Showing results by narrator "Tim Smith" in All Categories

Deviant. Depraved. Dangerous. Denounced for their transgressive themes and inflammatory ideas, these 20th-century classics have all been considered so seditious that they had to be suppressed. Find out what made these iconic works so threatening to governments worldwide in these superlative dramatisations, featuring stellar casts and specially composed music.

This collection includes ten plays by Arthur Miller. In The Crucible, Stacy Keach and Richard Dreyfuss lead an all-star cast in Miller’s searing play about witchcraft that famously mirrors the anti-Communist hysteria that held the United States in its grip. Death of a Salesman follows Willy Loman, the iconic traveling salesman whose family is torn apart by his desperate obsession with greatness. In Incident at Vichy, in Nazi-occupied France, nine men are detained under a shadowy pretext and face a terrifying fate.

Anthony Trollope was one of Victorian England’s most popular and prolific authors. He worked for the Post Office while establishing himself as a writer, and is credited with introducing the pillar box to Britain. Best known for his ‘Barsetshire’ and ‘Palliser’ novels, he wrote over 50 works in total, including short stories, travel books, biographies and a posthumously published autobiography. Collected here are a selection of superb adaptations of his much-loved novels, as well as a fascinating documentary and an original radio play by Patricia Cumper.

They call him Jig Dragonslayer - and who is he to deny a legend. After all, common sense - something in very short supply among goblins - has a lot to do with Jig's continued existence. Though he's been captured by adventures and dragged unwillingly along on their foolish quest, he's survived both the Necromancer and the Dragon. If people want to insist he's a hero, he isn't going to fight about it. But the trouble with being labeled a hero is that everyone expects you to keep doing heroic things.

Pulled from a frozen sea, pierced by arrows and close to death, Knot has no memory of who he was. But his dreams are dark, filled with violence and unknown faces. Winter, a tiellan woman whose people have long been oppressed by humans, is married to and abandoned by Knot on the same day. In her search for him, she will discover her control of magic but risk losing herself utterly. And Cinzia, priestess and true believer, returns home to discover her family at the heart of a heretical rebellion. A rebellion that only the Inquisition can crush....

A group of mountain climbers, caught in the dark, fight to survive their descent; in the British countryside, hundreds of magpies ascend into the sky, higher and higher, until they seem to vanish into the heavens; a professor and his student track a zombie horde in order to research zombie behavior; an all-girl riding school has sinister secrets; a town rails in vain against a curse inflicted upon it by its founders; and much more.

Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard was made to look a fool in the Sherlock Holmes stories. Now he gets his own back, introducing 16 tales of detectives whose abilities rival that of the great Sherlock Holmes.

There is a sword, forged by the master swordsmith Goffanon the Dwarf, imbued with powerfully magical properties. But this magic can be wielded by only one man. And there is a stallion - a fierce animal that allows only those pure of heart to ride it. The only man worthy of taking up this sword and climbing into this saddle is Prince Corum - the Eternal Champion. The struggle for dominion between the races of good and evil is reaching an epic crescendo. Corum’s most desperate quest yet will see treachery, betrayal, wizards, dragons, and brutal battle.

In the ancient Castle Erorn, Corum of the Scarlet Robe dwells in isolation and sorrow. He has outlived his great love, Rhalina, and is tormented by voices in his dreams - a crowd of shadowy figures chanting his name. Unable to ignore their calls for help any longer, he will travel through eons of time to an age of tragedy, where the people of Tuha-na-Cremm Croich, descendants of Rhalina, are persecuted by the giant gods of the Cold Folk. A great black bull has the power needed to defeat the monsters of a new age.

Winston Smith works for the Ministry of Truth in London, chief city of Airstrip One. Big Brother stares out from every poster and the Thought Police uncover each act of betrayal. When Winston finds love with Julia, he discovers that life does not have to be dull and deadening and awakens to new...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky is a titanic among the world's great authors, and The Brothers Karamazov is often hailed as his finest novel. A masterpiece on many levels, it transcends the boundaries of a gripping murder mystery to become a moving account of the battle between love and hate, faith and despair, compassion and cruelty, good and evil.

Tanner Bland leaves his Virginia home on foot to fight for Dixie and rides back on a fine horse. Most folks would call that a profit - until they consider his loss. Thinking him dead, his intended marries his brother shortly before Tanner returns home. With no desire to remain in Virginia, Tanner heads west to join an old army pal. The two friends are destined for a world of trouble in the form of the Leach brothers in the untamed Montana Territory.

The RMS Titanic sailed from Southampton en route for New York on her maiden voyage with 2228 passengers and crew on board. On the 14th April at twenty minutes before midnight, sailing at almost full speed, she struck an iceberg and sank in just two and a half hours. Over 1500 lives were lost...

In the bush country of South Texas, Captain Richard King built a sprawling ranch called Santa Gertrudis. But at the end of the Civil War, while King was in Mexico, his ranch was raided by Union troops led by a sadistic killer who burned Santa Gertrudis to the ground - and slaughtered everyone on it. Thirty years later, King's land is about to run with blood once more. Former Union Captain Jack Brant has gotten out of prison and is raring to pick up his rampage where he left off.

The train grinds to a halt somewhere in the Indian Nations, and the bandits get onboard. They take everything on the train worth stealing and gun down a guard to make their escape — just another notch on the belt for Ben Trout and Zack Larsen, two of the most savage killers in the west. US Deputy Marshal Ed Pine follows them to Muskogee. There the trail runs cold, and Ed Pine disappears.

For renegades and pioneers, there is no place like Texas - as long as you have a gun and the guts to use it. Now, the Civil War is over. Carpetbaggers and scalawags rule Austin. Soldiers return to pillaged homes. Longhorns roam the wilds and the state is in chaos. Especially in a town called Hangtree. Sam Heller and Johnny Cross are Hangtree’s newest citizens: Heller is a former Yankee soldier, a deadly shot, and a believer in right from wrong.

India, 1857 - the year of the Great Mutiny, when Muslim soldiers turned in bloody rebellion on their British overlords. This time of convulsion is the subject of The Siege of Krishnapur, widely considered to the one of the finest British novels of the last 50 years. A witty and individual take on the many traditions and follies of Empire, it is also a gripping account of survival under siege, illuminating how extreme conditions can influence and affect people's behaviour and the human spirit.

H. E. Bates is probably best known for his comic novel The Darling Buds of May, which introduced the lovable Larkins to the world and sparked three hugely popular TV adaptations. In his 68 years, Bates wrote over 20 further novels, more than 300 short stories, children’s books, poems, plays and non-fiction. This collection brings together three full-cast BBC Radio dramatisations and fourteen excellent readings, rounding off with extracts from H. E. Bates autobiographies.

A magical collection of 17 original stories by an amazing list of contributors—including a Dune story by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson!

When Smoke Jensen sees a gang of outlaws holding up a stagecoach, his gunfighter instincts take over and he storms in with guns blazing. He kills one of the gunmen, the rest scatter like the rats they are. Another notch on the sharpshooter's weathered grip. But the dead man is the brother of the notorious outlaw Gabe Briggs, and Briggs will want revenge....