Showing results by narrator "Patricia Hodge" in All Categories

Mary Queen of Scots passed her childhood in France and married the Dauphin to become Queen of France at the age of sixteen. Widowed less than two years later, she returned to Scotland as Queen after an absence of thirteen years. Her life then entered its best known phase: the early struggles...

Miranda is an unconventional woman. She’s six feet tall, self-conscious and posh. And is frequently mistaken for a man. She’s also invested her inheritance in a joke shop that she runs with her friend Stevie while trying to deal with her outrageously embarrassing mother. Though surrounded by chocolate willies, Miranda is determined to suss out what it takes to be a girly girl and to not look a complete idiot every time she meets the gorgeous Gary. 

What makes a man marry six times? Was Henry VIII a voracious philanderer? On the contrary, says Dr David Starkey, the King was seeking happiness – as well as hoping for a son. The first of his wives was Catherine of Aragon, the pious Catholic princess who suffered years of miscarriages and...

BBC Audio presents Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen's beloved novel following the five Bennett sisters as they try to find their way in the world. Gentle, beautiful Jane Bennett, strong-willed Elizabeth and their younger sisters have all been raised by a mother with one goal: to find wealthy...

From Queen of Tarts to the nation's heart, Mary Berry shares her Recipe for Life. 'In the words of my father, my birth caused no end of trouble...' From the moment she came into the world - two weeks early, throwing her parents' lives into disarray - Mary has gracefully but firmly done things...

Patricia Hodge stars as Cruella de Vil in this full-cast dramatisation of the much-loved story. Pongo lives happily with his human pets Mr. and Mrs. Dearly in a large house in Regent's Park. When his wife Missis produces a litter of 15 beautiful pups, life seems wonderfully complete. But the...

A brilliant and compelling account of the apprentice years of Elizabeth I. An abused child, yet confident of her destiny to reign, a woman in a man’s world, passionately sexual yet – she said – a virgin, Elizabeth I was to be famed as England’s most successful ruler. This absorbing new...

This audiobook centres around the Sun King and his relationship with numerous and fascinating women. Naturally dividing into five parts, it concentrates on the King's mother, Anne of Austria; his first important mistress, Louise de la Valliere; Athenais Marquise de Montespan, who acted as unofficial Queen of Versailles; Marie Therese, his wife, of course; and Madame de Maintenon, governess to the illegitimate royal children.

When we think of great events in the history of the world, we tend to think of war, revolution, political upheaval or natural catastrophe. But throughout history there have been moments of vital importance that have taken place not on the battlefield, or in the palaces of power, or even in the...

‘In another life I may have been a gardener’ Well-known and loved as a cookery writer and presenter, this is Mary Berry’s deeply personal account of the second great love of her life, gardening. She shares her love of growing plants, visiting gardens, and getting hands-on in her own plot...

A BBC Radio collection of dramatisations and readings of Maeve Binchy’s sparkling stories Irish writer Maeve Binchy was one the best-loved and most successful authors of her time. Her bestselling books sold over 40 million copies worldwide, and were translated into 37 languages. This...

Maeve Binchy is one of Britain’s most popular storytellers, and these four tales demonstrate the warmth and compassion that have made her many novels bestsellers. In 'Homecoming', read by Sean Campion, the Brennans run Quentin’s restaurant in Dublin for the owner, who lives abroad. But...

E Nesbit is widely regarded as the first modern children's writer. Her ground-breaking novels have influenced authors from Oscar Wilde to Jacqueline Wilson, and over 100 years after their first publication, they remain perennially popular. This wide-ranging collection comprises some of her very best children's fiction, commencing with her timeless tale The Railway Children. 

‘Intriguing, comforting and endearingly familiar’ Katie Fforde ‘The BBC’s most downloaded radio show’ The Guardian ‘Incredible legacy’ ?The BBC ‘Longest running drama in the world’ The i News It's 1941 and the war rumbles on. Nowhere is immune to the effects of war, not even...

A novel about the perfect pair – or are they? Annette and Spicer make a perfect pair: he thirty-nine, wide-shouldered, square-jawed, and often likened to Harrison Ford; she slight, fair, delicately featured, and sometimes likened to Meryl Streep. He with a son (Jason, eleven) from a previous...

The fantasy of the wronged woman made real: wild funny and true. "The fun grows steadily blacker and wilder." The Guardian When Ruth Pratchett discovers her husband is having a passionate affair with the lovely romantic novelist Mary Fisher, she is so seized by envy she becomes truly diabolic...

BBC Radio dramatisations of some of Muriel Spark’s best works, plus bonus episode of The Essay: All Miss Brodie’s Girls Muriel Spark was one of Scotland’s brightest and most original literary talents. In a career spanning over 60 years, she published over 20 novels, as well as essays...

Once it had been the great forest of Lythe - a vast and impenetrable thicket of green.And here, in the beginning, lived the Fairfaxes, grandly, at Fairfax Manor, visited once by the great Gloriana herself. But over the centuries the forest had been destroyed, replaced by Streets of Trees.The...

An astonishing novel that probes into the strange world of genetic engineering. Joanna May thought herself unique, indivisible – until one day, to her hideous shock, she discovered herself to be five: though childless she was a mother; though an only child she was surrounded by sisters young...

How many women can you fit into one body? A novel of split personalities. A marriage, its breakdown, and a perforated heroine: one woman, many faces, many personalities, and more emerging: a crumbling house, and the rooms of that house (which in our dreams are aspects of the self). Any more...