Showing results by author "BBC Audiobooks Ltd" in All Categories

No game generates more passion, or stirs the emotions, like Rugby Union. No game enjoys itself more when the final whistle blows. And none has produced quite such a line of good talkers, on or off the subject. Here, from the BBC's unique Sound Archives, are memories of great teams, matches and tries, the wit and wisdom of some of the legendary characters to have graced the game and a few of its celebrated followers.

Often imitated but never bettered, I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue is the only authentic antidote to panel games. This collection finds unflappable chairman Humphrey Lyttelton giving silly things to do to regular panelists Tim Brooke-Taylor, Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden, as well as special guests Stephen Fry and Rob Brydon. Highlights include old favourites such as One Song to the Tune of Another, 84 Chicken Cross Road, Sound Charades, New Definitions and of course the brilliantly baffling, fiendishly funny Mornington Crescent.

This six-part comedy series was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1988. Hosted by Stephen Fry, accompanied each week by Hugh Laurie, Jim Broadbent, Emma Thompson, and a selection of guests including Phyllida Law, Robert Bathurst, Julia Hills, and Alison Steadman, the show takes the form of a roundtable discussion, interspersed with sketches that veer tangentially from the sublime to the ridiculous.

BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew introduces a new collection of anecdotes and reflections from some of the best-loved characters of international cricket: Jack Russell, Derek Pringle, Graham Gooche, Ian Botham, Derek Underwood, Geoff Lawson and many more.

Wonderful highlights of Kenneth Williams’ career in this classic compilation. For more than 30 years, Kenneth Williams kept the nation in stitches with his outrageous gallery of comic creations and an effortlessly brilliant barrage of repartee and innuendo on radio and television. In Beyond Our Ken and Round the Horne, Kenneth Williams brought us the popular characters of Rambling Syd Rumpo, J. Peasemold Gruntfuttock, and Sandy (of Julian & Sandy).

Robert Webb and Olivia Colman co-star in the first series of the BBC Radio 4 sketch show. Welcome to the surreal, silly and ingenious comedy sketch show that features one half of Mitchell & Webb and Olivia Colman from Peep Show, with Sally Hawkins, Steven Kynman and Chris Pavlo. Highlights include Narnia being vandalised by two kids from Peckham, Mr Punch's parole board, Thomas Hardy's agent, temping for NASA, Batman's schedule and the theft of Hitler's jewels.

Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett star in highlights from their BBC TV series. Includes the sketches: 'The Strange Case of Mrs. Mace', 'Plain Speaking', 'Grublian', 'Dr. Spooner Re-Visited', 'A Doctor’s Life', and 'About a Bout'. There’s also 'Doctors Anonymous', 'Jolly Rhymes', 'The Complete Rook', 'Ronnie Corbett’s Chat-Spot', and 'A Doctor’s Life'. Vintage Beeb: classic albums first available as BBC LPs, now reissued and available to download.

Comic icon Spike Milligan recollects highlights from his stellar career. The comic genius of Spike Milligan changed the face of radio comedy through The Goon Show. Here Milligan chooses and introduces classic clips from an astonishing career: readings from his books Puckoon and Adolf Hitler, My Part in his Downfall, poems, songs, sketches, extracts from Q6 and In the Psychiatrist’s Chair. He reminisces about India and Bexhill and reads his favourite poems, including 'Fred Fernakerpan'.

A special compilation of highlights from cuddly Ken’s television and radio shows.

Kenny Everett was one of radio’s great innovators, the funniest DJ of our time and a one-off whose madcap comedy burst the boundaries of broadcasting. Introduced and presented by Barry Cryer, this recording features the definitive Kenny Everett: the jokes, the jingles and the high-jinks, the interviews, the comic characters – and some naughty bits.

BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew introduces a new collection of anecdotes and reflections from some of the best-loved characters of Ashes cricket. Merv Hughes, Derek Randall, Ian Botham, Gladstone Small, Darren Gough and many more

Here are four of the best episodes of the comedy news show, including appearances by the late Linda Smith, as well as Simon Hoggart's final edition as chairman. Since 1977, BBC Radio 4's funniest and quirkiest game show has been answering questions and offering wit and wisdom on global happenings, national news, and, quite frankly, pathetic parochial events. Now you can enjoy the highlights of last year's news, distilled by the very best and wittiest panellists.

Enter the delightful world of Bill and Ben the flowerpot men, and all their friends in this wonderful new version of a children's classic. Narrated by John Thomson, the stories are filled with humour and fun as they follow the antics of Bill and Ben and introduce us to all their friends in the garden.

Humphrey Lyttleton - Bandleader, cartoonist, writer, chairman of BBC Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, president of the Society for Italic Handwriting and doyen of jazz trumpeters. In conversation with June Knox-Mawer, Humphrey Lyttleton reflects on his extraordinary life; from schooldays at Eton and playing out Roll Out the Barrel outside Buckingham Palace on VE Day to the formation of this band in 1948 and his emergence as 'the godfather of British jazz'.

Career highlights from one of this country’s funniest satirists and comedy men.

Willie Rushton’s career spanned decades, from the cutting edge satire of television’s That Was the Week That Was to the razor-sharp punnery and verbal wizardry of radio’s I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue.

John Arlott was BBC's Voice of Cricket for more than 30 summers and reported on all the key cricket matches from the 1940s to his final commentary in 1980 at Lords. The imagery and wit of an incomparable broadcaster is captured here in a unique collection of historic moments.

Featured in this collection are Mavis Cruet, the Fat Fairy; Arthur, the Cockney Caterpillar; Evil Edna, the Wicked Witch; Carwash, the Prissy Pussy; and The Moog, the Droopy Dog. Of course, we mustn't forget 'the Beast', who is really Prince Humbert the Handsome, changed into various shapes and sizes by Evil Edna's spells. They all just happen to be in Doyley Woods when Willo the Wisp is flitting about so he can tell us all the adventures and mishaps that befall them.

An all-new volume of interviews and behind-the-scenes features from the worlds of Doctor Who, presented by Elisabeth Sladen. In 2005, after sixteen years off-air, Doctor Who returned to BBC Television - and soon became more popular than ever before. In this special anthology of clips and interviews, featuring newly-released material, Elisabeth Sladen journeys back to the recent past to delve into the show’s dazzling success.

Four specially selected episodes of Radio 4's much-loved panel game, hosted by Nicholas Parsons. Among the subjects hilariously tackled are tomboys, 'my secret vice', charisma, hot air, Speakers' Corner, cat lovers, agony aunts, and bugs. First broadcast in 1968, Just a Minute is one of the longest-running radio comedy shows. A national institution, it is also loved and listened to all around the world.