Showing results by narrator "David Timson" in All Categories

The Iberian Peninsula, 1809. French troops led by one of Napoleon's best generals are amassing on the border. Wellington's outnumbered force and his unreliable Spanish allies need to pick off the smaller French units if they are to stand their ground. For that they need information: accurate intelligence on numbers, arms, and whereabouts. That's where Captain Keane and his company of reformed scouting officers are invaluable tools--despite being unpopular with the regular soldiers.

Welcome to James Keane – card sharp and ladies’ man – and one of the finest soldiers of Wellington’s army. Keane – hot-tempered, a maverick, never quite accepted by his fellow officers – is in trouble for killing his man in a duel: An activity forbidden by Wellington. To avoid court martial, he takes on an unwelcome assignment: to form an ill-assorted bunch of reprobates into an elite unit capable of operating behind the lines. A nineteenth-century Dirty Dozen.

In this version of London, there is a small, private clinic. Behind its layers of security, procedures are taking place on poor, robust teenagers from northern estates in exchange for thousands of pounds - procedures that will bring the wealthy dead back to life in these young, supple bodies for 14 days. It's an opportunity for wrongs to be righted, for fathers to meet grandsons, for scientists to see their work completed. Old wine in new bottles. But at what cost?

London, 1813: Bow Street Runner Matthew Hawkwood is summoned to a burial ground and finds the corpse of a young woman murdered and cast into an open grave. At first the death is deemed to be of little consequence. But when Chief Magistrate James Read receives a direct order from the Home Office to abandon the case, Hawkwood's interest is piqued. His hunt for the killer will lead him from London's backstreets into the heart of a government determined to protect its secrets at all costs.

Why do bookshops matter? How do they filter our ideas and literature? In this inventive and highly entertaining extended essay, Jorge Carrion takes his listeners on a journey around the world via its bookshops. His travels take him to Shakespeare & Co in Paris, Wells in Winchester, Green Apple Books in San Francisco, Librairie des Colonnes in Tangier, the Strand Book Store in New York and provoke encounters with thinkers, poets, dreamers, revolutionaries and readers.

This is a story from The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, Volume I collection. These six cases are among the last undertaken by Sherlock Holmes before he retired to the Sussex downs. However, the problems facing the sleuth are as diverse and challenging as ever.

The rich life Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) is featured here: His work as a doctor, his novels and journalistic writings, his support of Spiritualism and his defense of fairies. This is a unique set for the 150th anniversary of his birth. After his early years in medicine, the writing talents of Arthur Conan Doyle took over. Sherlock Holmes and Professor Challenger were among his successes.

Puccini’s swansong has a claim to being the last great popular opera. Its melodies have enchanted audiences since its posthumous premiere in 1926, two years after Puccini’s death. It involves a chilling story of love and cruelty, an intriguing cast of characters against the exotic backdrop of Imperial China, magnificent choruses and ensembles, and dazzling orchestration in an exotic score that comprises a string of remarkable arias - among which the great tenor aria "Nessun dorma" is the jewel. It is more than Puccini’s last opera: It is the last word, in every sense, on Italian opera.

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam, in the famous translation by Edward Fitzgerald, remains one of the most popular poems. Here, it forms the main work on the first half of this program, along with other shorter poems by other leading Persian and Indian figures, including Rumi, Sa'di, and Rabindranath Tagore.

Out of the dust-heaps and dirty streets of mid-Victorian London, Dickens creates a classic murder-mystery tale. A dead man is fished out of the Thames by a scavenger and his daughter. Who is he, and how did he get there? The man's death affects members of all levels of a society permeated with greed. Dickens presents an array of characters both touching and humorous, from Mr. Boffin, the "Golden" Dustman, to Jenny Wren, the lame doll-dressmaker. It is a story enriched by disguise and intrigue.

The Flying Dutchman is the perfect opera with which to approach the operatic mountain that is Richard Wagner. It is short, has a great story (the legend of the Dutch captain doomed to sail forever unless redeemed through love), and the striking score has many pre-echoes of Wagner's later great music dramas. It contains wonderful tunes in its arias, ensembles, and big choruses, and the orchestral writing - from the gale that blows out of the Overture to the final theme of "Redemption through Love" - will "blow you away".

Così Fan Tutte contains some of Mozart’s most sublime music. On one level, the opera is purely a social anecdote about young people falling in and out of love; but Mozart was a supreme sensualist and a great humanist, and invested the tale with all his understanding of humanity and young love. In this title, David Timson refutes the charge that Mozart squandered his genius on a work full of trivial nonsense and proves this "miraculous yet problematic" opera to be a great work of theatre. To listen to this thought-provoking examination of the characters and the music is both thoroughly enriching and great fun.

In "The Final Problem", perhaps the greatest of the short stories of Sherlock Holmes, the English detective encounters his most formidable rival, Professor Moriarty. 'The Napoleon of Crime' is how Holmes describes his adversary to his faithful companion, Dr Watson, as they move to the ultimate confrontation at the Reichenbach Falls.

No case is too slight for the mental powers of the Great Detective, in this second selection from The Return of Sherlock Holmes.

Further adventures by the master of observation and deduction, as faithfully recounted by his companion and greatest admirer, Dr Watson. The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans, The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax and The Adventure of the Dying Detective are among the stories. David Timson's award-winning performances continue with this series.

Travelling across the daemon world of Eidolon in search of the stolen Blade Encarmine, Blood Angels Captain Leonatos and his battle-brothers encounter survivors from the 409th Kadmeian Janissaries regiment of the Imperial Guard.

Charles Dickens was a major contributor to the romantic revival of Christmas traditions that occurred in the Victorian era. With their heart, humor and good morals, Dickens' Christmas stories have made the author's name synonymous with the season. Here we present four charming novellas to complete his series that began with "A Christmas Carol", with echoes of sleigh bells throughout. The stories include "The Chimes", "The Cricket on the Hearth", "The Battle of Life", and "The Haunted Man" - the perfect companion for the yearly celebrations.

Rigoletto is simply wonderful entertainment with superb music. It is also much more - a daring (for its time) attack on aristocratic privilege, a tender love story, and an impassioned appeal on behalf of the disadvantaged, all set to music of such wealth and beauty that, with its sister operas La traviata and Il trovatore, it has defined Italian opera for 150 years. Overcoming initial trouble with the censors, Verdi's Rigoletto was a smash hit at its premiere and has not been out of the repertoire since. It’s not hard to see why.

Towards the end of the 18th century, two brilliant young Germans set out to measure the world. The naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt travels down the Orinoco, climbs the highest mountain then known to man, counts head lice on the heads of the natives, and explores every hole in the ground. The mathematician and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauss does not even need to leave his home in Göttingen to know that space is curved.

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is the classic working-class novel. It was written in 1906 by an impoverished house painter, Robert Tressell, and within its framework contains a manifesto for socialism. It tells of the appalling working conditions of a group of painters and decorators and their struggle to survive at the most basic level. It is moving, grimly humorous and tragic. It has sold over six million copies worldwide since it was published, and it has the power to change lives.