Showing results by narrator "Paul McGann" in All Categories

On 30th January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed the German chancellor of a coalition government by President Hindenburg. Within a few months he had installed a dictatorship, jailing and killing his left-wing opponents, terrorising the rest of the population and driving Jews out of public life. In The Hitler Years, Frank McDonough charts the rise and fall of the Third Reich under Hitler's hand.

First published between 1870 and 1893, Émile Zola’s 20-book cycle chronicling four generations of the Rougon-Macquarts was a shocking exposé of the decadence, degradation and moral decay of 19th-century France. It included some of his greatest novels, among them his masterpiece, Germinal. These innovative, ambitious dramas, first broadcast on Radio 4 over 24 hours in 2015-16, are a radical reimagining of Zola’s classic series, introducing us to 104-year-old matriarch, Dide, imprisoned in an asylum in southern France. 

Professor Frank McDonough is one of the leading scholars and most popular writers on the history of Nazi Germany. His work has been described as 'modern history writing at its very best...Ground-breaking, fascinating, occasionally deeply revisionist' by renowned historian Andrew Roberts. Drawing on a detailed examination of previously unpublished Gestapo case files this audiobook relates the fascinating, vivid and disturbing accounts of a cross-section of ordinary and extraordinary people who opposed the Nazi regime.

Hallowe'en 1938. A year after a mysterious meteorite lit up the skies of New York State, Martian invaders laid waste to the nation. At least, according to soon-to-be infamous Orson Welles they did. But what if some of the panicked listeners to the legendary War of the Worlds broadcast weren't just imagining things? Attempting to deliver Charley to her rendezvous in Singapore in 1930, the Doctor overshoots a little, arriving in Manhattan just in time to find a dead private detective.

The Doctor and Charley decide to take a well-deserved break from the monotony of being chased, shot at and generally suffering antisocial behaviour at the hands of others. And so they end up in Venice, well into Charley's future, as the great city prepares to sink beneath the water for the last time...which would be a momentous, if rather dispiriting, event to witness in itself.

There are no monsters this time...are there? Aunty Pat is in her prime. She's snagged herself an ex-rock star at the Kendal Folk Festival, and now, in the brave new world of the early 1980s, they manage together a snazzy hotel on the poetic and shingly shore of Lake Grasmere. However, still waters run deep, and friends from the past are returning, intent on milking the old cash cow....

Here's to crime, Doctor! The Doctor and Lucie visit 19th-century Sweden and become embroiled in an attempt to steal the infamous Black Diamond of Claudia Tardelli. But they are not the only would-be thieves attempting the heist of the century; the Headhunter is back and this time she's brought a friend! The Stone, however, is guarded by forces not of this world....

India, 1803. It is four years since Richard Sharpe earned his sergeant's stripes at the siege of Seringapatam, and four years in which Sharpe seems to have discovered the easiest billet in the British army. But that comfort is rudely shattered when he witnesses a murderous act of treachery by an English officer who has defected from the East India Company to join the mercenary army of the Mahratta Confederation commanded by the flamboyant Hanoverian, Anthony Pohlmann.

The Tardis lands on Phobos, moon of Mars, where extreme sports nuts of the future indulge their passion for gravity boarding and wormhole jumping. But there's something lurking in the shadows - something infinitely old and infinitely dangerous. It's not for nothing that phobos is the ancient word for 'fear'....

On New Year's Eve, 1930, the Doctor lets Charley keep her appointment at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore. But his unease at what he's done to time by saving her life soon turns into fear. Sebastian Grayle: immortal, obsessed, ruthless, has come to the city to meet the Time Lord. To the Doctor, he's a complete stranger, but to Grayle, the Doctor is an old enemy. An enemy that, many years ago, he finally succeeded in killing. And this is his only chance to gloat.

The Doctor has always admired the work of William Shakespeare. So he is a little surprised that Charley doesn't hold the galaxy's greatest playwright in the same esteem. In fact she's never heard of him. Which the Doctor thinks is quite improbable. General Mariah Learman, ruling Britain after the Eurowars, is one of Shakespeare's greatest admirers, and is convinced her time machine will enable her to see the plays' original performances. Which the Doctor believes is extremely unlikely.

The 21st century has just begun, and Malebolgia is enjoying its status as the newest state in America. After his successful involvement with Scotland's devolution, Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart has been invited over to Malebolgia to offer some of his experiences and expertise. There he encounters the charismatic Brigham Elisha Dashwood III, an evangelical statesman running for Governor who may not be quite as clean-cut and wholesome as he makes out.

It's like The Village That Time Forgot! The inhabitants of the quiet seaside town of Thorington in Suffolk are living the same day over and over again. What's so special about the first of September 1991? Why haven't the villagers noticed that the same song has been number one for years? And just where on Earth has the sea disappeared to? The Doctor and Lucie must solve the mystery before the 'visitors' return....

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house not a creature was stirring.... But something must be stirring. Something hidden in the shadows. Something which kills the servants of an old Edwardian mansion in the most brutal and macabre manner possible. Exactly on the chiming of the hour, every hour, as the grandfather clock ticks on towards midnight. Trapped and afraid, the Doctor and Charley are forced to play detective to murders with no motive, where even the victims don't stay dead.

It is 1803, and closing on the retreating Mahrattas in western India is Sir Arthur Wellesley's army and with it Ensign Richard Sharpe, newly commissioned but wishing he had stayed a sergeant. Spurned by his new regiment, he is sent to the army's baggage train and there finds corruption, romance, treason, and enemies old and new, including the murderous Sergeant Hakeswill who has powerful friends, while Sharpe's only ally is an orphaned Arab boy.

It is 1807 and Sharpe, back from India and Trafalgar, has joined the newly formed Greenjackets, but his career is in ruins, and his future in the army apparently hopeless.

The '90s was the decade when British culture reclaimed its position at the artistic centre of the world. Not since the 'Swinging Sixties' had art, comedy, fashion, film, football, literature and music interwoven into a blooming of national self-confidence. It was the decade of Lad Culture and Girl Power, of Blur vs Oasis. When fashion runways shone with British talent, Young British Artists became household names, football was 'coming home' and British film went worldwide.

It is 1805 and Ensign Richard Sharpe, having secured a reputation as a fighting soldier in India, is on his way home to join the newly formed Green Jackets. The voyage should be a period of rest but his ship is riven with treachery and threatened by a formidable French warship, the Revenant, which is terrorizing British shipping in the Indian ocean. An old opponent of Sharpe's is aboard his ship, and the voyage is further disturbed by the Lady Grace Hale, apparently as unreachable as she is beautiful.

The universe is in grave danger. The very fabric of time and space is being altered. The Doctor and Lucie must race against time to prevent the destruction of everything they hold dear. They may have to sacrifice everything to save the universe. Even themselves....

Business as usual? Not at Hulbert Logistics, where staff are facing a menace far worse than the prospect of the office Christmas party. Lucie’s made some new friends and the Doctor’s met some old enemies. But just who will become the Headhunter’s new apprentice? Welcome to the job interview from hell. Note: This adventure continues from Doctor Who: Human Resources Part 1