Showing results by narrator "Juliette Stevenson" in All Categories

A collection of BBC Radio 3's iconic Shakespeare productions: six tragedies with all star casts including Michael Sheen, Juliet Stevenson, Kenneth Cranham, Corin Redgrave, Ken Stott, Geraldine James, Bill Wallis, Siân Phillips and Sophie Dahl.

Voices of History celebrates the great speeches of world history and cultural life. In this exuberant collection, Simon Sebag Montefiore takes us on a journey from ancient times to the 21st century: some speeches are heroic and inspiring; some diabolical and atrocious; some are exquisite and poignant; others cruel and chilling. The speakers themselves vary from empresses and conquerors to rock stars, novelists and sportsmen, dreamers and killers, from Churchill and Elizabeth I to Stalin and Genghis Khan, and from Michelle Obama and Cleopatra to Bob Dylan, Nehru and Muhammad Ali.

Unlike the other residents of Middleton Hall, Stella is elegant, smart and in control. Only Jenny, her care assistant, knows that she harbours a painful secret, and only she can prevent Stella from carrying it to the grave. As the women talk, Jenny pieces together the answers to many questions that arise: Why has she kept possession of a house that her family don’t know about? What happened there that holds the key to a distant tragedy?

On the day of his daughter's wedding, Agamemnon orders her sacrifice. His daughter is led to her death, and Agamemnon leads his army into battle, where he is rewarded with glorious victory. Three years later he returns home, and his murderous action has set the entire family - mother, brother, sister - on a path of intimate violence as they enter a world of hushed commands and soundless journeys through the palace's dungeons and bedchambers.

Amory's first memory is of her father doing a handstand. She has memories of him returning on leave during the First World War. But his absences, both actual and emotional, are what she chiefly remembers. It is her photographer, uncle Greville, who supplies the emotional bond she needs, and,when he gives her a camera and some rudimentary lessons in photography, unleashes a passion that will irrevocably shape her future.

It is a June day in London in 1923, and the lovely Clarissa Dalloway is having a party. Whom will she see? Her friend Peter, back from India, who has never really stopped loving her? What about Sally, with whom Clarissa had her life’s happiest moment? Meanwhile, the shell-shocked Septimus Smith is struggling with his life on the same London day.

Christopher Lee's highly acclaimed and award-winning BBC Radio 4 history of the British Empire.

The young Monica Madden cries for two days before her marriage to Edmund Widdowson; the ensuing claustrophobia, which opens the door for the more desirable Bevis, contrasts with Rhoda's independence - yet Rhoda's own principles are tested when she falls in love rather by accident.... The Odd Women is a remarkable book, ultimately optimistic in its hope for a societal shift that will benefit both men and women alike.

Letters of Note, the book based on the beloved website of the same name, became an instant classic on publication in 2013, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. This new edition sees the collection of the world's most entertaining, inspiring and unusual letters updated with 14 riveting new missives and a new introduction from curator Shaun Usher.

Things I Don't Want to Know is the first in Deborah Levy's essential three-part 'Living Autobiography' on writing and womanhood. Taking George Orwell's famous essay 'Why I Write' as a jumping-off point, Deborah Levy offers her own indispensable reflections of the writing life.

A Room of One's Own, based on a lecture given at Girton College Cambridge, is one of the great feminist polemics. Woolf's blazing polemic on female creativity, the role of the writer, and the silent fate of Shakespeare's imaginary sister remains a powerful reminder of a woman's need for financial independence and intellectual freedom.

Bright, attractive and well-connected, in any other family the Churchill sisters - Diana, Sarah, Marigold and Mary - would have shone. But they were not in any other family; they were Churchills, and neither they nor anyone else could ever forget it. From their father - ‘the greatest Englishman’ - to their brother, golden boy Randolph, to their eccentric and exciting cousins, the Mitford Girls, they were surrounded by a clan of larger-than-life characters which often saw them overlooked.

A weekly dinner party. Ten amateur sleuths. The Tuesday Night Club murders. On a quiet Tuesday in St Mary Mead, a group of friends gather for dinner. A policeman, a clergyman, a solicitor, an author, an artist, and an unassuming lady with a shrewd gaze – Miss Jane Marple. Conversation naturally turns to crime. Each recounts a seemingly unsolvable mystery. Each thinks they know the answer. But it’s the one they least expect who understands the true nature of each wicked act.

Published in 1928, Orlando is a fictional biography that spans several centuries and follows the protagonist, Orlando, an Elizabethan nobleman who undergoes a mysterious gender transformation. The novel explores themes of gender identity, fluidity and the constraints imposed by societal norms. It challenges traditional notions of gender roles and raises questions about the nature of identity and the passage of time.

Young, wealthy Arabella is obsessed with French romances: brought up by a reclusive widowed father in an isolated castle, she has educated herself through their pages, and been led to believe that their dramas and absurdities are reality. She blindly adheres to their example and interprets her everyday life through their lens, thinking that life consists of uncontrollable passions and murderous violence, and that any man would die for her. Thus she embarks on a series of hilarious misadventures, insistent on the reality of her imaginary world, like Don Quixote before her.

From Roald Dahl, the master of the sting in the tail, a newly collected audiobook of his darkest stories, read by Richard Griffiths, Andrew Scott, Derick Jacobi, Mark Heap, Juliet Stevenson and Stephen Mangan. Why do we lie? Why do we deceive those we love most? What do we fear revealing? In these 10 tales of deception, master storyteller Roald Dahl explores our tireless efforts to hide the truth about ourselves.

Agatha Christie is recognized throughout the world as the writer of remarkable country house mysteries and ingenious murders set in faraway countries. Yet many of her books and stories were set in the city she new best and for many years called home: London. From Poirot's flat in Whitehaven Mansions to Scotland Yard, the Old Bailey to Harley Street, Lyons Tea Rooms to the Savoy, Paddington Station to the London Underground, Agatha Christie knew and loved London, and mined it for its rich seam of storytelling opportunities.

Set in medieval Britain, Learwife gives voice to one of the most famous female characters ever written out of literary history. Lear's queen has been exiled in an abbey for 15 years, since the birth of her youngest daughter, for an unknown offence. After hearing the devastating news of the deaths of her husband and daughters, the queen enters into a spiral of grief. To occupy her troubled mind, she encourages the women of the abbey into a competition for her approval, a contest that quickly devolves into savagery.

As the Second World War raged across Europe, and the Nazi regime tightened its reign of horror and oppression, nine women, some still in their teens, joined the French and Dutch Resistance. Caught out in heroic acts against the brutal occupiers, they were each tortured and sent east into Greater Germany to a concentration camp, where they formed a powerful friendship. In 1945, as the war turned against Hitler, they were forced on a Death March, facing starvation and almost certain death.

Published in 1897, The Spoils of Poynton is one of the quintessential works of James's middle period. The "spoils" of the book's title refer to furniture and other objets d'art that the widow Adela Gereth moves to her cottage so that they are kept away from the clutches of her coarse future daughter-in-law, Mona Brigstock. However, events take an unexpected turn when her married son Owen is attracted to her friend, Fleda Vetch.