Showing results by narrator "Hattie Morahan" in All Categories

London, 1754. Six years after leaving her illegitimate daughter Clara at London's Foundling Hospital, Bess Bright returns to reclaim the child she has never known. Dreading the worst, that Clara has died in care, she is astonished when she is told she has already claimed her. Her life is turned upside down as she tries to find out who has taken her little girl - and why.

David Edgar is among the UK’s leading contemporary dramatists, well known for his powerful plays chronicling Britain's changing political landscape over the past 50 years. More than 60 of his original plays, adaptations and translations have been performed around the world, and in 2023 he was honoured with a Writers’ Guild Outstanding Contribution award for his service to British playwriting. This radio anthology contains some of his most notable work.

Abandoned at the gates of a London park one winter's night in 1850, baby Lily Mortimer is saved by a young police constable and taken to the London Foundling Hospital. Lily is fostered by an affectionate farming family in rural Suffolk, enjoying a brief childhood idyll before she is returned to the hospital, where she is punished for her rebellious spirit. Released into the harsh world of Victorian London, Lily becomes a favoured employee at Belle Prettywood's Wig Emporium, but all the while she is hiding a dreadful secret.

Daniel Ballantyne: monster and angel, thief and conman, genius - and murderer? Newly released from Wormwood Scrubs, and dying of cancer, notorious art forger Daniel Ballantyne agrees to help art critic Jessica Brown write his biography. But as Jessica digs deeper into his life, she realises that nearly everything he's told her is a lie, and behind his charming persona is a man capable of almost anything. Trapped in a cat-and-mouse game with a master manipulator, Jessica finds herself putting her reputation - and her life - on the line.

Eleven compelling BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramas telling the stories of the Russian tsars. Broadcast to mark the centenary of the Russian Revolution, this extraordinary drama cycle by Mike Walker comprises 11 ambitious plays spanning over 400 years, exploring the lives of Russia’s key rulers from Ivan the Terrible to Vladimir Putin.

The Barbary Coast, 1621. A mysterious vessel floats silently on the water. It is known only as the Ghost Ship. For months it has hunted pirates to liberate those enslaved by corsairs, manned by a courageous crew of mariners from Italy and France, Holland and the Canary Islands. But the bravest among them are not who they seem. The stakes could not be higher. If arrested, they will be hanged for their crimes. Can they survive the journey and escape their fate?

Mary Elizabeth Braddon was one of the most important and influential female novelists of the 19th Century, and the founder (alongside Wilkie Collins) of the popular 'sensation fiction' genre. This collection features her best-known novel, Lady Audley's Secret, a thrilling tale of bigamy, murder and arson that outraged Victorian society on its first release—and was an instant bestseller. Also included are two atmospheric short stories and an edition of Sensational Women exploring her life and work.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Stranger by Kate Riordan. When you're the outsider, who do you trust? Cornwall, 1940. For decades, Penhallow Hall has stood frozen in time, protecting the secrets of its isolated inhabitants. But the far corners of England are no shelter from the war, and Penhallow must finally open its doors to strangers. Three newcomers arrive, each looking to escape their past. They adjust easily to the routine - nightly blackouts, the threat of invasion - but tensions mount, and secrets are forced into the open.

A tower block collapses in London. Hundreds are killed. Except a man standing alone on the roof, who walks out of the rubble unscathed. And things are about to get stranger, because Dr Helen Ash is pregnant. But she hasn’t had sex since her husband died 18 months ago. What connects her unexplained pregnancy, a mysterious phone message from a woman who died in the building collapse, and the man on the roof of the high-rise?

Miss Mackenzie by Trollope was the runner-up in Radio 4's 'Neglected Classics' vote. Margaret Mackenzie is a single woman in her mid-thirties who receives a large inheritance when her brother dies. She must then deal with what comes with the fortune, including several suitors, who may, or, may not, simply be after her money.

Alone in the world, Sophie dreams of being someone special. But she could never have imagined this.... On a school trip to Russia, Sophie and her two friends find themselves abandoned on a train. They are rescued by the glamorous Princess Anna Volkonskaya, who takes them to her winter palace and mesmerises them with stories of lost diamonds and a tragic past. But as night falls and wolves prowl, Sophie discovers more than dreams in the crumbling palace of secrets....

When Alice steps through the looking-glass, she enters a very strange world of chess pieces and nursery rhyme characters such as Humpty Dumpty, Tweedledum and Tweedledee and the angry Red Queen. Nothing is what it seems and, in fact, through the looking-glass, everything is distorted.

An intriguing murder mystery exploring the desire of the artist to remain elusive and anonymous behind work which is heavily codified and seemingly impenetrable. When a brilliant young art historian flies in the face of the received wisdom regarding the work of the reclusive Anderson Perrine, the artist feels a distinct invasion of his privacy. He sets about laying a series of false trails but her pursuit of him is unrelenting and he is obliged to take radically evasive action.

Peepolykus (pronounced 'people-like-us') has toured its irreverent brand of comic theatre in more than 100 towns across four continents. Now the group has taken to the airwaves, hijacking the great works of fiction to hilarious effect. Assuming the roles of minor characters in major works, they derail the plots through their own hapless buffoonery, and from Madame Bovary to Macbeth, familiar stories take an unexpected turn.

Cunning. Corrupt. Charismatic. The degenerate characters in this collection shun conventional morality, and will stop at nothing to get what they want... These five sensational dramas, set in locations ranging from 16th century Venice to Victorian England, revolve around their unscrupulous actions – and the devastating consequences of the choices they make.