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Audiobooks Narrated by Andrew Sachs
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After seven years of marriage, the beautiful Lady Brenda Last has grown bored with life at Hetton Abbey, the Gothic mansion that is the pride and joy of her husband, Tony. She drifts into an affair with the shallow socialite John Beaver and forsakes Tony for the Belgravia set. In a novel that combines tragedy, comedy, and savage irony, Evelyn Waugh indelibly captures the irresponsible mood of the "crazy and sterile generation" between the wars.
The sun is shining through the bars of my window on what must be a glorious summer day. I've been incarcerated in a cell five paces by three for twelve and a half hours, and will not be let out again until midday; eighteen and a half hours of solitary confinement. There is a child of seventeen in the cell below me who has been charged with shoplifting - his first offence, not even convicted - and he is being locked up for eighteen and a half hours, unable to speak to anyone. This is Great Britain in the twenty-first century, not Turkey, not Nigeria, not Kosovo, but Britain.
On Thursday 19 July 2001, after a perjury trial lasting seven weeks, Jeffrey Archer was sentenced to four years in jail. He was to spend the first twenty-two days and fourteen hours in HMP Belmarsh, a double A-Category high-security prison in South London, which houses some of Britain's most violent criminals.
Hell, the first volume in Archer's The Prison Diaries, is the author's daily record of the time he spent there.
As Venice experiences a debilitating heatwave, Commissario Brunetti escapes the city to spend time with his family. For Ispettore Vianello, however, the weather is the last thing on his mind. It appears his aunt has become obsessed with horoscopes and has been withdrawing large amounts of money from the family business. Not knowing what to do, he consults Brunetti and asks permission to trail her.
Meanwhile, Brunetti receives a visit from a friend who works at the Commune. It seems that discrepancies have been occurring at the Courthouse involving a judge and an usher with a flawless track record. Intrigued, Brunetti asks Signorina Elettra to find out what she can while he's away.
When news reaches Brunetti that the usher from the Courthouse has been viciously murdered, he returns to investigate. But why would someone want a good man dead, and what might his death have to do with the Courthouse discrepancies?
At a dinner party given by his parents-in-law, Commissario Brunetti meets Franca Marinello, the wife of a prosperous Venetian businessman. He's charmed - perhaps too charmed, suggests his wife Paola - by her love of Virgil and Cicero, but shocked by her appearance.
A few days later, Brunetti is visited by Carabinieri Maggior Filippo Guarino from the nearby city of Marghera. As part of a wider investigation into Mafia takeovers of businesses in the region, Guarino wants information about the owner of a trucking company who was found murdered in his office. He believes the man's death is connected to the illegal transportation of refuse - and more sinister material - in his company's trucks. No stranger to mutual suspicion and competition between rival Italian police departments, Brunetti is nevertheless puzzled by the younger man's behaviour.
Eventually Guarino agrees to email a photo of his suspect, but by the time the photograph arrives, he himself is dead. Was he killed because he got too close? And how is it that Franca Marinello is involved?
Twelve classic Christie short stories are given a modern spin in these BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisations.Agatha Christie is the acknowledged 'Queen of Crime', and these twelve short stories showcase her skilful plotting and talent for producing compelling mysteries. First broadcast in the early 2000s, the stories were adapted and brought up-to-date for a contemporary audience.Among the star cast are Tom Hollander, Emilia Fox, Patricia Routledge, Julia McKenzie, Neil Dudgeon, Richard Griffiths, Rebecca Front and Andrew Sachs.Unconventional detective Parker Pyne features in two of the stories, all twelve of which are infused with Agatha Christie's trademark tension and suspense. These tantalising tales of revenge, jealousy, love and death will thrill her many fans.The stories are:Philomel Cottage Swan Song Magnolia Blossom Witness for the Prosecution The Gates of Baghdad The Hound of Death In a Glass Darkly The Dressmaker's Doll The Case of the Perfect Carer The £199 Adventure The Gypsy The Last SéanceDuration: approx 5 hours 30 minutes
To this day Phileas Fogg's epic race against the calendar retains its power to thrill, despite the ease of long distance travel provided by modern transport. The novel succeeds because it has all the elements of a great adventure story: Fogg experiences the risks and privations of the journey, undertakes dangerous rescue missions, suffers a case of mistaken identity and falls in love - all the result of a spur of the moment bet.
When Phileas Fogg accepts a bet to travel round the globe in 80 days, he cannot guess what excitements and dangers await him. Accompanied by his faithful valet, Passepartout, and hounded by the dogged, if unperceptive, Detective Fix, this imperturbable adventurer lets nothing stand in his way.
A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Jack Rosenthal's award-winning television play, starring Hugo Raine. At the tender age of thirteen Eliot Green is about to become a man - in the Jewish religion at least. In synagogue, in front of the whole congregation, he will read and sing in Hebrew from the Torah (the Hebrew scrolls) - this after a year of intensive tuition. Later he will enjoy receiving gifts from relatives and friends as he celebrates with them at his Bar Mitzvah party. All eyes are on Eliot as he is called up in synagogue for his big moment This play along with many others established the late Jack Rosenthal as one of Britain's best loved television writers. A master at creating characters that you could recognise and empathise with, his plays were always sharp and finely tuned with a rich helping of humour. With a star cast including Tracy-Ann Oberman, David Horovitch, Andrew Sachs and Susannah Wise, this new version of Bar Mitzvah Boy is specially adapted for radio by Jack Rosenthal's daughter, the playwright Amy Rosenthal, and is produced by David Ian Neville.
When Billy Pickles' dad leaves home to live in New York, he gives Billy a moneybox. Billy's not sure where to put in the money, and not sure why his dad has left.
Then Billy goes to New York to visit his father and his Italian grandmother, and discovers the secret of his magic moneybox. In a wonderful adventure, he takes Mighty Mamma on a helicopter ride, cracks open a safe, solves a kidnap mystery - and gets to know his dad again.
Read by Andrew Sachs
(P)2004 Orion Publishing Group.Ltd
A French satire first published in 1759 by Voltaire, tells the story of a young man, Candide, having grown up in the sheltered surroundings of a magnificent castle and being indoctrinated by his optimistic mentor, Pangloss, and his susequent experiences of great hardship in the world.
Ian Fleming, best known for his James Bond novels, wrote only one children’s book—and it is a classic! Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is the name of the flying, floating, driving-by-itself automobile that takes the Pott family on a riotous series of adventures as they try to capture a notorious gang of robbers. This is a story filled with humor, adventure, and gadgetry that only a genius like Fleming could create.
Penguin Classics presents the audiobook adaptation of Dombey and Son, Charles Dickens' classic tale of family and power. Read by Andrew Sachs.
Dombey and Son is both a firm and a family and the ambiguous connection between public and private life lies at the heart of Dickens' novel. Paul Dombey is a man who runs his domestic affairs as he runs his business: calculatingly, callously, coldly and commercially. Through his dysfunctional relationships with his son, his two wives, and his neglected daughter Florence, Dickens paints a vivid picture of the limitations of a society dominated by commercial values and the drive for profit and explores the possibility of moral and emotional redemption through familial love.
Part of a series of abridged, vintage recordings taken from the Penguin Archives.
Affordable, collectable, quality productions - perfect for on-the-go listening.
