Showing results by narrator "Tim Pigott-Smith" in All Categories

You'll be awe-inspired by the heroic efforts of the crew of the Endurance, a ship that battled its way for six weeks through thousands of miles of pack ice while ironically only a day's sail from its destination.

Anthony Trollope was one of Victorian England’s most popular and prolific authors. He worked for the Post Office while establishing himself as a writer, and is credited with introducing the pillar box to Britain. Best known for his ‘Barsetshire’ and ‘Palliser’ novels, he wrote over 50 works in total, including short stories, travel books, biographies and a posthumously published autobiography. Collected here are a selection of superb adaptations of his much-loved novels, as well as a fascinating documentary and an original radio play by Patricia Cumper.

On 1 July 1916, Douglas Haig's army launched the "Big Push" that was supposed finally to bring an end to the stalemate on the Western Front. What happened next was a human catastrophe: scrambling over the top into the face of the German machine guns and artillery fire, 19,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers were killed, the greatest loss in a single day ever sustained by the British Army. The battle did not stop there, however.

In 1616, an English adventurer, Nathaniel Courthope, stepped ashore on a remote island in the East Indies on a secret mission: to persuade the islanders of Run to grant a monopoly to England over their nutmeg, a fabulously valuable spice in Europe. This infuriated the Dutch, who were determined to control the world's nutmeg supply.

When his village is sacked by French raiders, Thomas escapes from his father’s ambition to become a wild youth who delights in the opportunities which war offers - for fighting, for revenge and for friendship. But Thomas is hounded by his conscience. He has made a promise to God to retrieve a relic stolen in the raid from Hookton’s church. The search for the relic leads him into a world where lovers become enemies; enemies become friends; and always, somewhere beyond the horizon, a terrible enemy awaits him.

Brunetti's investigations take him into unfamiliar areas of Venetian life, drug abuse and loan-sharking, while the deaths of two young drug addicts and the arrest, and subsequent release, of a suspected drug-dealer reveal, once again, what a difference it makes in Venice to have friends in high places.

Henry Pulling, a retired bank manager, meets his septuagenarian Aunt Augusta for the first time in over fifty years at what he supposes to be his mother's funeral. Soon after, she persuades Henry to abandon Southwood, his dahlias and the Major next door to travel her way, Brighton, Paris, Istanbul, Paraguay. Through Aunt Augusta, a veteran of Europe's hotel bedrooms, Henry joins a shiftless, twilight society: mixing with hippies, war criminals, CIA men; smoking pot, breaking all the currency regulations and eventually coming alive after a dull suburban life.

The monarchy is one of Britain’s longest surviving institutions – as well as one of its most tumultuous and revered. In this masterful book, David Starkey looks at the monarchy as a whole, charting its history from Roman times, to the Wars of the Roses, the chaos of the Civil War, the fall of Charles I and Cromwell's emergence as Lord Protector – all the way up until the Victorian era when Britain’s monarchs came face-to-face with modernity.

Max Skinner is a man at the heart of London's financial universe until his employers embark on a little asset-stripping of their own. Himself. Amid the grey London drizzle, there is one potential ray of sunshine: Max's Uncle Harry has left him his estate in his will, an eighteenth-century chateau and vineyard an hour's drive from Avignon.

A leak is traced to a small sub-section of the secret service, sparking off the inevitable security checks, tensions and suspicions. The sort of atmosphere, perhaps, where mistakes could be made? For Maurice Castle, it is the end of the line anyway, and time for him to retire to live peacefully with his wife and child. But no-one escapes so easily from the lonely, isolated, neurotic world of the SIS.

Anthony Stevens argues that Jung's visionary powers and profound spirituality have helped many to find an alternative set of values to the arid materialism prevailing Western society.

In the summer of 1716, a Cornish cabin boy named Thomas Pellow and 52 of his comrades were captured at sea by the Barbary corsairs. Their captors, fanatical Islamic slave traders, had declared war on the whole of Christendom. Thousands of Europeans had been snatched from their homes and taken in chains to the great slave markets of Algiers, Tunis and Sale in Morocco to be sold to the highest bidder.

An epic literary adventure considered a classic around the world. The story centers around Edmond Dantes, a young sailor who finds himself arrested, accused of treason, and relegated to the bowls of the island fortress of Chateau d'If, all on his wedding day. The ensuing drama of his escape, revenge, and quest for the treasure of Monte Cristo is one reread by thousands every year.

In Harlequin, Thomas of Hookton travelled to France as an archer and there discovered a shadowy destiny, which linked him to a family of heretical French lords who sought Christendom's greatest relic. Vagabond continues the story of a search that Thomas is reluctant to pursue. He doubts the grail's existence, and he has other promises to keep, promises that take him back to Brittany where a vicious civil war is about to reach its climax.

Visionary author and journalist George Orwell was the man behind two of the best-loved and most influential novels of the 20th century: Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm. This collection celebrating his life and work features dramatisations of both these classic books, with stellar casts including Christopher Eccleston, Pippa Nixon, Tim Pigott-Smith, Tamsin Greig and Nicky Henson.

Ivan Turgenev stands alongside Tolstoy and Dostoevsky as one of the three great Russian novelists of the 19th century. He was also a consummate short story writer, poet and playwright, and the first Russian author to become popular in the West. This specially curated collection showcases his key works, from the most celebrated to the undeservedly underrated.

Imagine a nation banishing the outside world for two centuries, crushing all vestiges of Christianity, forbidding its subjects to leave its shores on pain of death, and harbouring a deep mistrust of European ideas. The narrow window onto this nation-fortress is a walled, artificial island attached to the mainland port and manned by a handful of traders. Locked as the land-gate may be, however, it cannot prevent the meeting of minds – or hearts.

Uther, the High King of Britain, has died, leaving the infant Mordred as his only heir. His uncle, the loyal and gifted warlord Arthur, now rules as caretaker for a country that has fallen into chaos - threats emerge from within the British kingdoms while vicious Saxon armies stand ready to invade. As he struggles to unite Britain and hold back the Saxon enemy, Arthur is embroiled in a doomed romance with beautiful Guinevere.

Alfred Lord Tennyson is one of Britain’s greatest and most popular poets. Even during his lifetime, he was considered a national institution: Queen Victoria appointed him Poet Laureate in 1850, a position he held for 42 years, and in 1884 he became the first writer to be granted a baronetcy. In a long and fruitful career, he penned numerous classic works, and this BBC Radio collection showcases some of the very best. We begin with two of his masterpieces, dramatised by award-winning poet Michael Symmons Roberts.

Five classic novelisations of TV adventures set in Earth’s history. In Doctor Who: The Aztecs, the First Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan materialise in Mexico during the bloodthirsty Aztec civilisation. In Doctor Who and the Crusaders the First Doctor and his friends are embroiled in the 12th-century conflict between Richard the Lionheart and the Sultan Saladin. In Doctor Who: The Myth Makers, the First Doctor, Steven and Vicki arrive on the plains of Ursa Minor, in the middle of the Greek and Trojan battlefields.