Showing results by narrator "Alex Jennings" in All Categories

By Peter Souter. Hugh and Bella, are running to the same timetable, the timetable you're on if someone you love has just died, and they keep running into each other. They visit the same undertakers at the same time; Hugh's Mum is cremated immediately after Bella's husband; and they even end up in the same bereavement-counselling group. But Hugh and Bella are dealing with very different types of grief.

Penguin Classics presents the audiobook adaptation of Charles Dicken's timeless tale, Oliver Twist, read by the actor Alex Jennings.The story of the orphan Oliver, who runs away from the workhouse only to be taken in by a den of thieves, shocked readers when it was first published.

What if you couldn't remember a single minute of the ten years you'd spent with the love of your life? Joe can remember everything about Ally; Ally remembers nothing about Joe.

In 1944, P.G. Wodehouse, the creator of 'Jeeves and Wooster', was questioned by MI5 after broadcasting to America from a German internment camp. One of the interrogators was an up-and-coming journalist called Malcolm Muggeridge. The other was Major E.J.P. Cussen, who later became a high court judge. The stakes were high: one of Britain's best loved authors was facing the possibility of the death penalty.

This is the story of an ancient religious icon pilfered at the end of WWII and its consequences for a family and a nation. Theft of the Master aims to appeal to the listener seeking more from a novel than a good listen. It weaves an intricate web, speckled with an assortment of finely described characters spanning different historical periods and continents. Theft of the Master has all the ingredients of a top-class thriller.

When a Hag, an orphan boy, and a troll called Ulf get sent to rescue a princess from an ogre, they expect it to be a fairly standard magical mission. But the ogre is depressed, the princess doesn’t want to be rescued – and the ogre’s dead wife is turning in her grave. The Norns who rule their fates decide to take things in hand – will the Ogre meet a bloody end, or will he get a happy ending?

A Radio 4 Book Club Selection.
Newspaper columnist Hilary gets thousands for telling it like it is; Henry's turning hospitals into carparks; Roddy's selling art in return for sex; down on the farm Dorothy's squeezing every last pound from her livestock; Thomas is making a killing on the stock exchange; and Mark is selling arms to dictators.

Sam and Juliet are to divorce. We join them as they meet to divide up their possessions in the house they've shared ever since they married. As they discuss what belongs to whom we learn all we need to know about their characters, what drew them together and what has driven them apart. We'll also learn if there is still some hope for them, even on the eve of their separation. The early signs are not good. They seem to have drifted apart and to have very little in common. Their differences, once endearing, are now overwhelming....

Charles Dickens' classic novel of mystery, read by Alex Jennings. A body is found in the River Thames and is identified as John Harmon. He was due to inherit a great fortune on the condition that he marry a young woman called Bella Wilfer. And so the story begins and unravels and we are introduced to the mysterious John Rokesmith, Our Mutual Friend.

The first volume of David Timson's series retelling of the stories from Shakespeare's plays was widely praised by newspaper and educators alike. Here is volume 2, with more key plays. Including Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, and Henry IV, all texts which regularly appear on the exam syllabus. As before, the stories are illustrated by numerous examples from the plays themselves. They are read by two leading Shakespearean actors, Juliet Stevenson and Alex Jennings.

“If music be the food of love, play on" was one of Shakespeare’s finest lines. If music is food then poetry is the wine. In this volume of classic love poetry the flavoured capture of words and rhythms makes us think more carefully of words and their value to us. They also surprise us with their structure and meaning, layering in thoughts and emotions that we might otherwise shy away from. Poems are wonderful ways to express what we feel for a very special someone.

In 1972, Robert Beech, First World War veteran and prominent figure in the arms industry, is killed by a car bomb. The event cuts short the career of his son Harry, a news photographer, and comes close to destroying his granddaughter Sophie. Ten years later, Harry, now working in aerial photography, and Sophie, visiting an analyst in New York, remain scarred and divided by the event. Around their broken relationship and Harry’s memories of his truncated career and his father, the novel builds a story that is acutely private, yet sweepingly public.

Bill Unwin, an academic of dubious status, has never recovered from the death of his famous actress wife and is now convalescing from a recent brush with his own mortality. He has two tales to tell. One, spanning postwar Paris, 1950s Soho and contemporary sexual and scholarly entanglements, surveys the muddle of his own life. The other, drawn from the notebooks of a Victorian ancestor, is the very different story of Matthew Pearce, a serious-minded man whose happiness is destroyed by his compulsive search for truth.

On a cold but dazzling November morning, George Webb, a former policeman turned private detective, prepares to visit Sarah, a prisoner and the woman he loves. As he goes about the business of the day he relives the catastrophic events of two years ago that have both bound them together and kept them apart. Making atmospheric use of its suburban setting and shot through with a plain man’s unwitting poetry and rueful humour, The Light of Day is a powerful and moving tale of murder, redemption and the discovery, for better or worse, of the hidden forces inside us.

On an autumn day in 2006, on the Isle of Wight, Jack Luxton—former Devon farmer, now proprietor of a seaside caravan park—receives the news that his brother, Tom, not seen for years, has been killed in Iraq. For Jack and his wife Ellie, this will have a potentially catastrophic impact and compel Jack to make a crucial journey: to receive his brother’s remains, but also to return to the land of his past and confront his most secret, troubling memories.

It’s 1985 and the Stage Left Theatre Collective is founded by a group of friends with a shared vision: Emma, the artistic manager and Robert the literary manager, director Saul, playwright Alan, and finance manager, Frank. This funny, moving and pin sharp drama follows the fate of the company and its members over the course of four decades. We catch up with the characters as they negotiate changing cultural and economic climates.

We follow in the footsteps of the intrepid British traveller as they explore the world both at home and abroad, told entirely in the words of those who were there. In two volumes: The Traveller at Home Gazette and The Traveller Abroad Gazette. Performed by an outstanding company of award-winning actors including Dame Eileen Atkins, Cheryl Campbell, Nigel Davenport, Alex Jennings, Richard Johnson OBE, Hugh Laurie CBE, Michael Maloney, Geoffrey Palmer OBE, Michael Pennington, Prunella Scales CBE, Samuel West, John Wood CBE and full supporting cast.

A rousing gallop through the British sporting calendar as we eavesdrop on some of the most memorable events in the colourful history of British sport, told entirely in the words of those who were there. In two volumes: The Sports Gazette and The Sporting Pastimes Gazette.

A fascinating foray into British military history in two volumes, told entirely in the words of those who were there: The Army Gazette and The Navy Gazette.

We follow in the footsteps of the intrepid British traveller as they explore the far-flung shores of the world in the company of some of the world’s finest chroniclers, including Charles Darwin, Kenneth Williams, James Boswell, Freya Stark, Sir Ernest Shackleton, Fanny Trollope, Mungo Park, Nancy Mitford, Wilfred Thesiger, Horace Walpole, Evelyn Waugh and many others, in this entertaining collection of travellers’ tales.