Showing results by narrator "Jonathan Cecil" in All Categories

Written when he was 25, Love Among the Chickens launched P.G. Wodehouse's career as a novelist and introduced the world to Ukridge, one of his most extraordinary inventions. Robert McCrum's introduction shows how this fascinating early book holds within it so many of the themes which Wodehouse was to make his own. This edition uses Wodehouse's 1920 revised edition of the 1906 original.

Most of the big money belongs to Torquil Paterson Frisby, the dyspeptic American millionaire – but that doesn’t stop him wanting more out of it. His niece, the beautiful Ann Moon, is engaged to ‘Biscuit’, Lord Biskerton, who doesn’t have very much of the stuff and so he has to escape to Valley Fields to hide from his creditors. Meanwhile, his old schoolfriend Berry Conway, who is working for Frisby, himself falls for Ann – just as Biscuit falls for her friend Kitchie Valentine.

Barbara Jefford is the hilariously outrageous Lucia in this BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of the novel by E.F. Benson. Lucia is the uncrowned queen of 1920s provincial society, the Everest of social climbers and the most delicious of snobs. In the pastoral serenity of the village of Riseholme, Lucia and her unforgettable cronies face up to an Indian guru, spiritualism, and a cultural usurper.

What do fast-talking New York octogenarians Abe and Mabel do when their lifelong grocery store, Pepperstein Produce, is driven out of business by Wonder Food? They embark on the ultimate road trip with a 19-year-old stoner, Wisdom, to Los Angeles to become actors.

Three twins? It does sound rather odd, doesn't it? But this is another of Emil Tischbein's adventures with his old friends, the Professor, Gustav and Little Tuesday. This time they are by the sea, but of course their seaside holiday won't be ordinary. And when they become entangled with the mystery of the three acrobat twins and the wicked Herr Anders, it looks as if they are in for an extraordinary adventure.