Showing results by narrator "Annette Crosbie" in All Categories

Barbara Pym is one of the 20th-century's wittiest, and most underrated, novelists. Her perceptive comedies of manners, centred around the domestic lives and loves of unassuming middle-class Englishwomen, won her many devoted readers and saw her hailed as a modern-day Jane Austen. Yet she spent 15 years out of print in the 1960s and '70s, until Philip Larkin championed her work in the Times Literary Supplement. Her seventh novel was subsequently shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and writers from Jilly Cooper to Alexander McCall Smith continue to laud her talent today.

Crabby, crusty, and curmudgeonly he may be, but Victor Meldrew, played brilliantly by Richard Wilson, voices the exasperation of the once silent majority. Accompanied by his long-suffering wife Margaret (Annette Crosbie), Victor's howlingly funny battles against what he perceives as modern-day ills have turned him into one of the great comic creations of our time.

Welcome to Hell—where nobody can ever quite catch the barman's eye. In this collection, which contains all seven series of Old Harry's Game, get ready for some wicked one-liners and scorching satire. Satan is fed up after a millennia in charge of Hell, especially given the prospect of an eternity still running the damned place. Although he does enjoy playing pranks on the world of the living and devising wry torments for the souls in his keeping, he often wistfully recalls his past as an archangel.

Twenty tales of terror and suspense, brought to you by sinister storyteller Vincent Price. Horror legend Vincent Price presents an anthology of eerie, unsettling tales with a devilish twist - some purportedly based on his own adventures, others narrated by him in his own inimitable style.

Ted Willis began his creative life in amateur theatre and journalism before moving into writing for films, TV and radio, and was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's most prolific writer for television. His best-known creation was the hit police procedural Dixon of Dock Green which he based on the stories told to him by a policeman friend. This radio anthology includes five of his best-loved crime tales from the 1960s, '70s and '80s.

It’s the 1980s: business is big, the shoulder pads are bigger and Jimmy Bright is a tycoon on a mission… He’s got big dreams and the only thing standing between him and a millionaire lifestyle is accountant, Russell Farrow, whose attention to financial detail is unsurpassed. The two must rub along if Jimmy’s business, BrightCo, is to succeed but they seem to have very different views on what success looks like.

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Henry Fielding's rollicking comic masterpiece. Found one evening in the bed of the rich and benevolent Mr Allworthy, baby Tom grows up in the guardianship of the kindly squire. He develops into a good-hearted fellow who is nonetheless resented by Allworthy's mean-natured heir and nephew, Blifil. Tom's naive inability to resist a pretty face lands him in hot water when the gamekeeper's daughter declares herself pregnant.

This is Stephen Wyatt's adaptation of Henry Fielding's classic comic adventure. Episode 1: The wealthy Squire Allworthy steps into bed and finds an infant wrapped between his sheets. Episode 2: Tom is banished from the home in which he has spent his entire life. Episode 3: Tom follows his true love Sophia to London and receives an invitation to a masked ball.

Weary of governing, the half-crazed Emperor Tiberius retreats to Capri, leaving his loathsome stepson, Prince Gaius, in charge of an increasingly corrupt Rome. Few dare speak out against him – so when young tribune Marcellus Gallio insults him at a banquet, he is sent away on a punishment posting to a remote hill-fort in Palestine. On arrival, he is invited to take a detachment of legionaries to Jerusalem, to help keep order during Passover. But once in the city, he finds himself officiating at the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth.

Jane Austen's acclaimed comedy of manners contains a truly memorable cast of characters, including the snobbish Mrs Ferrers, impetuous Marianne, selfish John Dashwood, and his awful, grasping wife. Annette Crosbie captures all the wit and charm of the romance in this BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour reading.