Audio Books

Wuthering Heights is the story of love turning on itself and of the violence and misery that result from thwarted passion. A book of immense power, it is filled with the raw beauty of the moors and a deep compassion for the conflicting destinies of men and women. Emily Bronte lived out her life in the wilderness of the moors and died a year after her extraordinary novel was published.

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A chance discovery of a bronze commemoration plaque to Eighteenth century lifeboat pioneer Lionel Lukin alongside a village pond in Dunmow, Essex, aroused author John Glasscocks interest.

For how was it that someone living in Dumnow in the heart of the Essex countryside and miles from the sea came to have a vital part to play in the invention and development of the Lifeboat as we know it today?

As John Glascock reveals in this drama-documentary, there were three main rivals after the claim of inventor of the lifeboat, and the building of the first lifeboats had come about only after an eighteenth century tale of dubious dealing and heavy political skullduggery in smoke filled rooms.

Narration by Angela Neville and Pat O’Gorman
Along with the help and assistance of
The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI)
Robin Sharp, formerly of the RNLI
Stuart Jones of the Port of Lowestoft Research Society
South Tyneside Central Library
Tyne & Wear Museums
And Members of the Essex Hospital Radio Players
With Production and Audio Realisation by Dennis Rookard

Written and Produced by John Glasscock.

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A womans’s discovery of a haunted wedding dress leads to a tragic end.

Performers:
Kirk Diedrich,
Sandy J. Hotchkiss,
Lissa Lia,
Heather Wood,
K. Anderson Yancy

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A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation features a star cast including Leo McKern, Simon Russell Beale, Emily Mortimer and Nicola Pagett and over two hours of specially composed music.

Leo Tolstoy’s epic War and Peace chronicles one of the most turbulent eras in Russian history, encompassing the drama and intensity of life during and after the Napoleonic Wars.
This unique, full-cast dramatisation contains over two hours of specially composed music and captures the full atmosphere of Tolstoy’s masterpiece.

A star cast of thirty-five includes Leo McKern as General Kutuzov, Emily Mortimer as Natasha Rostov, Simon Russell Beale as Pierre Bezuhov, Jonathan Firth as Nikolai Rostov, Nicola Pagett as Nathalie Rostov and Amanda Redman as Helens Kuragin.

This recording also features extra behind-the-scenes material: episode synopses, character listings. The Making of War and Peace and War and Peace Today by former BBC Moscow Correspondent Angus Roxburgh .

Tolstoy’s insights into human nature and reflections on the concepts of history and war give the novel a breadth and scope that are brought vividly to life in this major Radio 4 Classic Serial which was recorded on location.

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Full Cast Recording. A Mark Markheim Miniscule Mystery. Produced by One Act Audio Theatre in conjunction with Audio-Playwrights. Written by Hal Glatzer. Recorded at Lindner Sound, San Francisco. Produced & Directed by Glenn Carlson. Cast: Mark Markheim - John True; Sheila Shelby - Blanca Florido; Viveca Vickery - Marilynn Fowler; Ollie Owens - Glenn Carlson; Caspar Cooper - John Parsons

DONT MISS THE FIRST CASE IN THIS SERIES: “A DEAD BODY’S A DEAL BREAKER”.

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A classic BBC Radio full-cast drama of Dylan Thomas’ poetic play for voices starring Richard Burton

‘To begin at the beginning: It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black. ‘

From their dreamy dreams to their work-day gossip, Dylan Thomas’ lyrical masterpiece traces the lives of a group of villagers in a tiny Welsh seaport.

Blind Captain Cat sits in the window of Schooner House, listening as the boys and girls, the postman, the gossips, dressmaker, preacher and publican all pass by.

With words good enough to eat, Thomas portrays their innermost thoughts — from fantasy dreamworld to waking lives, full of a riotous mix of prudery and bawdiness.

This BBC radio drama of Under Milk Wood is the full version broadcast in 1963, which includes several passages omitted from the first recording in 1954. With his incomparable rich Welsh voice, Richard Burton reads the role that Thomas himself was originally to have played.

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Published in 1852, Uncle Tom’s Cabin brought the abolitionists’ message to the public conscience - no woman before or since has so moved America to take action against an injustice. Indeed, Abraham Lincoln greeted Stowe in 1863 as "the little lady who made this big war."

Eliza Harris, a slave whose child is to be sold, escapes her beloved home on the Shelby plantation in Kentucky and heads North, eluding the hired slave catchers. Aided by the underground railroad, Quakers, and others opposed to the Fugitive Slave Act, Eliza, her son, and her husband George run toward Canada.

As the Harrises flee to freedom, another slave, Uncle Tom, is sent "down the river" for sale. Too loyal to abuse his master’s trust, too Christian to rebel, Tom wrenches himself from his family. Befriending a white child, Evangeline St. Clare, Tom is purchased by her father and taken to their home in New Orleans. Although Evangeline’s father finally resolves to free his slaves, his sudden death places him in the ranks of those who mean well by their slaves but never take action. Tom is sent farther downriver to Simon Legree’s plantation, and the whips of Legree’s overseers.

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In early February 1922, from a small ex-army hut in a field just outside the Essex village of Writtle near Chelmsford. A small team or pioneering wireless engineers working for the Marconi company established Britain’s first regular radio broadcasting station. In it’s short year long history, the station using the call sign of 2MT, or as it soon became known to its many fans - Two Emma Toch, became a broadcasting legend. For led by Captain P.P.Eckersley, its engineers became it’s on-air staff who in that short year on air, developed and establsihed most of the ground rules for broadcasting as we know it today. It’s small wonder that apart from one engineer who stayed with Marconi, The others all went on to join and help establish the early BBC, which came on the air, almost a year later.

By Tim Wander & Dennis Rookard

Cast List:
Peter Eckersley… John Glasscock
Noel Ashbridge… Steve Hales
Hatty Kirke… Tony Hine
Rolls T.B. Wynn… Keith Flack
Basil Maclarty… Andy Morton
Edward Trump… Maik Hogge
Elizabeth Beeson… Angela Neville
Narrator… David Schacat
Other parts played by Ben Williamson & Edmund Hine
Production, Direction and Audio Realisation by Dennis Rookard

The theme music is taken in part from the work, Fisher’s Boarding House by Percy Grainger and performed by the BBC Philharmonic and available on Chandos CD CHAN 9493

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Introducing the TNIV Audio Bible, multi-voice edition—an audio Bible for today’s generation, from Zondervan, publisher of the 2002 Audie Award®-winning NIV Audio Bible Dramatized.

Featuring a fresh, new translation in today’s language, dramatic readings from the some of the world’s best voice talent, original music, and engaging book intros, the TNIV Audio Bible sets a new standard.

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Theatre Royal

In this episode from the series, Sir John Gielgud stars in a fully dramatised adaptation of the famous The Happy Hypocrite classic by Max Beerbohn.

First broadcast as an half-hour radio programme in the 1950’s, this performance captures the marvellous theatrical style of post-war radio before the advent of television and offers the experience of vintage radio at its best.

The Happy Hypocrite:

An episode from the fine series of recordings, made in the early 1950’s, and featuring the leading artists of the day in adaptations of many of the classics.

Lord George Hell, a heartless and wicked rake, falls deeply in love with a singer, Jennie Meer, whose voice is as beautiful as her face…

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