Showing results by narrator "Tim Pigott-Smith" in All Categories

You'll be awe-inspired by the heroic efforts of the crew of the Endurance, a ship that battled its way for six weeks through thousands of miles of pack ice while ironically only a day's sail from its destination.

An exploration of the British monarchy from the retreat of the Romans up until the modern day. The monarchy is one of Britain’s longest surviving institutions – as well as one of its most tumultuous and revered. In this masterful book, David Starkey looks at the monarchy as a whole, charting...

Anthony Trollope was one of Victorian England’s most popular and prolific authors. He worked for the Post Office while establishing himself as a writer, and is credited with introducing the pillar box to Britain. Best known for his ‘Barsetshire’ and ‘Palliser’ novels, he wrote over 50 works in total, including short stories, travel books, biographies and a posthumously published autobiography. Collected here are a selection of superb adaptations of his much-loved novels, as well as a fascinating documentary and an original radio play by Patricia Cumper.

Max Skinner, man about town and successful City slicker, finds himself suddenly redundant and instead of rejoining the rat race he has an opportunity to start a new life when he finds he has inherited an 18th century vineyard in Provence. It sounds ideal but life has a habit of surprising even...

Anthony Trollope's series of witty, gently satirical stories of provincial life are set in the fictional town of Barchester and the surrounding county of Barsetshire. With a focus on the lives, loves and tribulations of the local clergy and rural gentry, the canvas is broad and colourful, with a set of iconic characters in whose lives we become intimately involved as they grow up, grow old, and fall in or out of love and friendship across the years.

Henry Pulling, a retired bank manager, meets his septuagenarian Aunt Augusta for the first time in over fifty years at what he supposes to be his mother's funeral. Soon after, she persuades Henry to abandon Southwood, his dahlias and the Major next door to travel her way, Brighton, Paris, Istanbul, Paraguay. Through Aunt Augusta, a veteran of Europe's hotel bedrooms, Henry joins a shiftless, twilight society: mixing with hippies, war criminals, CIA men; smoking pot, breaking all the currency regulations and eventually coming alive after a dull suburban life.

Nine classic works by the Russian literary giant, adapted for BBC Radio Ivan Turgenev stands alongside Tolstoy and Dostoevsky as one of the three great Russian novelists of the 19th century. He was also a consummate short story writer, poet and playwright, and the first Russian author to become...

Fyodor Dostoyevsky is a titanic among the world's great authors, and The Brothers Karamazov is often hailed as his finest novel. A masterpiece on many levels, it transcends the boundaries of a gripping murder mystery to become a moving account of the battle between love and hate, faith and despair, compassion and cruelty, good and evil.

Brought to you by Penguin. A gripping tragicomedy of a bungled kidnapping in a provincial Argentinean town, considered to be one of Greene's finest novels. In a provincial Argentinian community, Charley Fortnum - a British consul with dubious authority and a notorious fondness for drink - is...

Brought to you by Penguin. In a small continental country civil war is raging. Once a lecturer in medieval French, now a government agent, D is a scarred stranger in England, sent on a mission to buy coal at any price. Initially, this seems to be a matter of straightforward negotiation, but soon...

Three classic radio productions from the BBC archives starring Hannah Gordon, Tim Pigott-Smith, Paul Scofield and a host of celebrated acting talent. These three legendary plays, performed by some of the best-known theatrical actors of the 20th century, are the perfect way to commemorate England's greatest dramatist.

Five classic novelisations of TV adventures set in Earth’s history. In Doctor Who: The Aztecs the First Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan materialise in Mexico during the bloodthirsty Aztec civilisation. In Doctor Who and the Crusaders the First Doctor and his friends are embroiled in the 12th...

The RMS Titanic sailed from Southampton en route for New York on her maiden voyage with 2228 passengers and crew on board. On the 14th April at twenty minutes before midnight, sailing at almost full speed, she struck an iceberg and sank in just two and a half hours. Over 1500 lives were lost...

In the summer of 1716, a Cornish cabin boy named Thomas Pellow and 52 of his comrades were captured at sea by the Barbary corsairs. Their captors, fanatical Islamic slave traders, had declared war on the whole of Christendom. Thousands of Europeans had been snatched from their homes and taken in chains to the great slave markets of Algiers, Tunis and Sale in Morocco to be sold to the highest bidder.

In 1616, an English adventurer, Nathaniel Courthope, stepped ashore on a remote island in the East Indies on a secret mission: to persuade the islanders of Run to grant a monopoly to England over their nutmeg, a fabulously valuable spice in Europe. This infuriated the Dutch, who were determined to control the world's nutmeg supply.

Eyewitness accounts from the BBC Archive are at the heart of this unique history of the first half of the 20th Century, narrated by Tim Pigott-Smith. The events of 1900-1949 are described by the people who saw them happen, from the death of Queen Victoria and accession of Edward VII through the...

Tim Piggot-Smith reads J. Meade Falkner's exciting tale of a boy who gets caught up in a dangerous adventure with smugglers and treasure. Orphaned John Trenchard is just 15 when his adventures begin... Growing up by the sea in the village of Moonfleet, John is captivated by the local legend of the ghostly Blackbeard, who rises on winter nights to search for his lost treasure.

The thrilling launch of David Starkey's new mammoth venture – MONARCHY: three books linked to 18 hours of television on the Kings and Queens of England. Volume 1 The Early Kings covers the retreat of the Romans from Britain in 410 to the fall of the House of Lancaster in the middle of the 15th...

Anthony Stevens argues that Jung's visionary powers and profound spirituality have helped many to find an alternative set of values to the arid materialism prevailing Western society.

On 1 July 1916, Dauglas Haig's army launched the 'Big Push' that was supposed finally to bring the end to the stalemate on the Western Front. What happened next was a human catastrophe: scrambling over the top into the face of the German machine guns and artillery fire, almost 20,000 British and...