Showing results by narrator "Eleanor Bron" in All Categories

An acclaimed novelist, short story writer and critic, Leslie Poles Hartley is best known for his 1953 novel The Go-Between, which won the W. H. Heinemann Award and was adapted as a BAFTA-winning film starring Julie Christie and Alan Bates. Included here is a radio dramatisation of that classic tale, alongside adaptations of three further novels and five short stories.

Germany, 1589: the townspeople of Cologne pronounce a sentence of death on a mass murderer who has stalked the countryside in the guise of a ferocious wolf. Russia, 1812: retreating from Napoleon's invading forces, a merchant's daughter is rescued from bandits by a handsome partisan with a ravenous appetite. Brazil, 2080: the Doctor and Turlough arrive for the Rio de Janeiro carnival. Is wealthy heiress Ileana de Santos all that she seems? What sinister ailment afflicts her invalid son, tended by the mysterious Dr Hayashi?

Shortlisted for the British Book Awards, Book of the Year, 2007.
In 1941, Irène Némirovsky sat down to write a book that would convey the magnitude of what she was living through, not in terms of battles and politicians, but by evoking the domestic lives and personal trials of the ordinary citizens of France. She did not live to see her ambition fulfilled, or to know that 65 years later, Suite Française would be published for the first time, and hailed as a masterpiece.

Pierre and Agnès marry for love against the wishes of his parents and the family patriarch, the tyrannical industrialist Julien Hardelot, provoking a family feud which cascades down the generations. This is Balzac or The Forsyte Saga on a smaller, more intimate scale, the bourgeoisie observed close-up with Némirovsky's characteristically sly humour and clear-eyed compassion.

Join us for an exhilarating and immersive adventure through 500 years of history, told entirely in the words of those who were there. With their artless prose and their polished & witty gossip, these are the men and women who have shaped our past. Brought to life by an award-winning all-star cast of 30 celebrated actors, including Charles Dance, Harriet Walter, David Suchet, Maureen Lipman, Timothy West, Jenny Agutter and many more.

George Eliot’s last, most controversial novel opens as the spoiled Gwendolen Harleth, poised at a roulette table about to throw away a small fortune, captivates Daniel Deronda. As their lives become intertwined, they are also transformed by suffering, misfortune, revelations and Daniel’s fascination with the Jewish singer Mirah. Daniel Deronda shocked Victorian readers with its portrayal of the Jewish experience in British society, and remains a moving and epic portrayal of human passions.

Before Jane Austen, there was Fanny Burney. In the 1780s, she was England’s most celebrated female author, having achieved extraordinary success with two hit novels. She went on to become a royal servant, marry an exile from the French Revolution and undergo a gruelling mastectomy without the aid of anaesthetic – all events chronicled in her diaries, which were published posthumously to great acclaim. Contained here are dramatisations of her first and most famous novel, and her remarkable journals and letters.

Three 'witness' insights into history. In 'That Door' by Elizabeth Kuti (read by Eleanor Bron), it is Wittenberg, 1517 and Brother Martin meets the indomitable Frau Sprenger. In 'Nothing but Blue Skies' by Dominic Power (read by Elizabeth Mastrantonio), Katherine Rudd, now 97, recalls events on the night of the Roswell incident in New Mexico, 1947. In 'Permanent Wave' by Ian Sansom (read by Maggie Stead), what might Margaret Thatcher's hairdresser have witnessed in the lead up to her exit from Downing Street?

Then climb aboard and join Oscar Wilde in America amused at the sight of local gun slingers looting the house where outlaw Jesse James had been killed a few days earlier. Meet John Betjeman as he implores the BBC to engage the impoverished Dylan Thomas while Jane Austen demands the return of her unpublished novel. Austen Chamberlain rages at Hitler for sending a wreath emblazoned with the Swastika to be placed at the foot of the Cenotaph.

One moment Liselotte, the Duchess of Orleans is observing the Prince of Orange consummating his marriage in thick woollen drawers and the next, Harold Nicolson is at the Savoy Grill dining with the Prince of Wales and Mrs Simpson who is, 'bejewelled, eyebrow-plucked, virtuous and wise'. There's a young medical student watching his friend bowing to the crowd as he is hanged on the roof of Horsemonger Lane Gaol.

When brilliant but penniless pianist Alexei is hired to tutor the 10-year-old daughter of Russian oligarch Mikhail, he is drawn into a world of chance, obsession and violence. Hopelessly infatuated with Mikhail's beautiful stepdaughter, Polina, he vows to do anything to win her love: and so begins his involvement in a dangerous, high-stakes game.

At Waterloo, women are stripping the corpses of their valuable shoes and stockings yet the Highlanders are left in mass graves with their coarse tartan socks still on. Roy Strong attending a private dinner with the Prime Minister notes that Margaret Thatcher in floaty chiffon is 'the apotheosis of the boss's wife, with the appeal of cosmeticised putty.' Even at the coronation of George IV, Queen Caroline, who is denied entry to the Abbey, is observed looking like 'a blowsy landlady'.