Art audiobooks

The People's Post

By: Dominic Sandbrook

Narrated by: Dominic Sandbrook

Length: 3 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: No

A 15-part BBC Radio 4 series exploring the origins of the Post Office, how it became a cherished national institution, and how it adapted to globalisation and commercialisation. It's called Royal Mail but it should be known as the People's Post. Launched in 1516 by Henry VIII, it was intended to support royal communications and bolster... Read more

Charles Paris: An Amateur Corpse

By: Simon Brett & Jeremy Front

Narrated by: Bill Nighy, Full Cast, Geraldine McEwan & Suzan...

Length: 1 hour 52 minutes

Abridged: No

Charles is out of work again, and to make matters worse his mother has come to stay and he's no way of escaping her. So when he's offered some voiceover work by old friend, Hugo, he's delighted to get out of the house. But Hugo's marriage is in trouble: his much younger wife, Ellie, spends all her time at her Amateur Dramatic Group, and Hugo... Read more

Best Interests

By: Sasha Hails

Narrated by: Alex Tregear, Elaine Caxton, Gerard McDermott, ...

Length: 43 minutes

Abridged: No

Two new dramas which get inside the emotional realities of dealing with ethical dilemmas. When a confused young man with no I.D. and a Doctor Who fixation is brought into hospital, the staff have clear rules about how decisions can be made on his behalf. But when he starts to make his own wishes clear, are they right to listen? Starring... Read more

Positive

By: Tina Pepler

Narrated by: Chris Yapp, Deirdre Mullins, Gerard Cooke, Jack...

Length: 42 minutes

Abridged: No

A pregnant fourteen year-old and her angry mother present the ante-natal team with some difficult decisions in a gripping medical ethics drama written by Tina Pepler. When Rosie is admitted to A&E with stomach pains, she's shocked to find out that she's pregnant. Her mother is even more horrified, and the ante-natal team must decide if... Read more

How Dolly Got Rotherham Reading

By: Sarfraz Manzoor

Narrated by: Sarfraz Manzoor

Length: 27 minutes

Abridged: No

Dolly Parton grew up in poverty in rural East Tennessee, where children only attended school if there was no work to be done on the farm. She came to regard literacy skills as a passport to a better life and in 1995 she launched the 'Imagination Library'. All local children were sent a book a month, from birth to age 5. In 2007, she brought the... Read more

Playing With Fire (The Saturday Play)

By: David Edgar

Narrated by: David Troughton, Emma Fielding & Full Cast

Length: 1 hour 26 minutes

Abridged: No

Originally produced at the National Theatre in 2005, David Edgar's play is set against the background of a riot in the fictional northern town of Wyverdale, in the early part of the 21st century. In a revised version for radio, Edgar offers a powerful combination of political and personal drama. Starring Emma Fielding, David Troughton, Geoffrey... Read more

A9

By: Helen Cooper

Narrated by: David Warner, Deborah Findlay, Ewart James Walt...

Length: 43 minutes

Abridged: No

Article 9 of the Tokyo Judgement at the end of WWII withdrew from the Japanese constitution the state's right of belligerency. Traumatised and guilt ridden for having killed enemy soldiers in war, Bernard has to attempt to coerce his children to continue his life's work, and makes their awaiting inheritance dependent on their abandoning their... Read more

Welcome To The Wasteland

By: DJ Britton

Narrated by: Anamaria Marinca, Benjamin Askew, Lesley Sharp,...

Length: 43 minutes

Abridged: No

As Chief Executive of her local council, Robyn has just days to stop recycling being wiped from her ambitious environmental plans. But the credit crunch continues to put pressure on other priorities. Meanwhile, her daughter Afrah provides a safe house for a fiercely committed environmentalist from Eastern Europe. Written by D. J. Britton and... Read more

Delorean

By: Glenn Patterson

Narrated by: Anton Lesser, Michelle Fairley, Patrick Fitzsym...

Length: 43 minutes

Abridged: No

Northern Ireland was a very dark place in the 1980s. A hunger strike was looming, street violence and tit for tat murders were an everyday occurrence, but in a small corner of West Belfast something extraordinary was happening. In a factory in Dunmurry a unique new sports car was being built, a DMC 12, a style icon for the late 20th century. For... Read more

The Last Project: El Utimo Proyecto

By: Michael Butt

Narrated by: Bryan Dick, William Marquez & Yolanda Vasquez

Length: 43 minutes

Abridged: No

El Ultimo Proyecto - The Last Project by Michael Butt, a play in two languages- Spanish and English. A romantic thriller set in the hills of Andalucia. A British former soldier, Travis, has a love affair with the wife of a famous Spanish film director. Story telling and reality collide when the director insists Travis helps with his latest... Read more

The Meaning Of Love

By: Anna Symon

Narrated by: Aurelie Ambland, Jane Wittenshaw, Jonathan Forb...

Length: 44 minutes

Abridged: No

When Ed finds himself sleeping in the spare room he realises he might have to rediscover exactly what love is. But coming up with the correct definition proves harder than he first imagines. Starring Paul Ritter, Tessa Peake-Jones, Aurelie Ambland, Jonathan Forbes, Peter Polycarpou, and Jane Whittenshaw. Directed by Sally Avens. Read more

Stream, River, Sea

By: Peter Souter

Narrated by: Alex Jennings, Juliet Stevenson & Lizzy Watts

Length: 43 minutes

Abridged: No

By Peter Souter. Hugh and Bella, are running to the same timetable, the timetable you're on if someone you love has just died, and they keep running into each other. They visit the same undertakers at the same time; Hugh's Mum is cremated immediately after Bella's husband; and they even end up in the same bereavement-counselling group. But... Read more

The American Senator

By: Anthony Trollope

Narrated by: Anna Maxwell-Martin, Full Cast, Joanna David & ...

Length: 2 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

The American Senator By Anthony Trollope. Dramatised by Martyn Wade.
Part One:
Arabella is determined to keep her engagement to John Morton a secret. Perhaps, there is a more exciting and wealthy husband she might be able to catch.
Part Two:
Lord Rufford has kissed Arabella twice but she realises that much more needs to be done to win him and his... Read more

Keynes V Hayek

By: Paul Mason

Narrated by: Paul Mason & Various

Length: 42 minutes

Abridged: No

What caused the financial mess we're in? And how do we get out of it? Two of the great economic thinkers of the 20th century had sharply contrasting views. John Maynard Keynes believed that government spending could create employment and longer term growth. His contemporary and rival Friedrich Hayek believed that investments have to be based on... Read more

My Name Is Stephen Luckwell

By: Nick Wood

Narrated by: Full Cast & James Rastall

Length: 43 minutes

Abridged: No

Stephen Luckwell is an autistic teenager with an enquiring mind. His teacher, Claire, helps him through the daily activities which present him with enormous challenges, from deciphering phrases such as 'I was miles away' or 'I wouldn't want to be in your shoes', to understanding private jokes and other people's expressions. It's the day of the... Read more

Do You Like Banana, Comrades?

By: Csaba Szekely

Narrated by: Brian Bowles, Daniel Rabin, Freddy White, Jane ...

Length: 43 minutes

Abridged: No

It's difficult being young and in love when your Dad is a high ranking official in Ceausescu's communist machine, your mother weeps all the time and your brother is trying to kill you. This wild and sideways look at life behind the Iron Curtain during Ceausescu's regime is a first play by a young Hungarian writer living in Romania and was... Read more

Occupation

By: Andy Macdonald

Narrated by: Alexander Morton, Brian Ferguson, Sally Reid & ...

Length: 42 minutes

Abridged: No

A tense and powerful drama exploring the timely issues of unemployment, ethics and international conflict. A fifty year old factory employee finds his own way to make a stand. With orders still on the books, Kenny Gall refuses to leave the factory he has worked in for more than thirty years. This will have serious implications for the company,... Read more

Vasily Grossman From The Front Line

By: Vasily Grossman

Narrated by: Elliot Levey

Length: 40 minutes

Abridged: No

Vasily Grossman, author of Life and Fate, was transformed by his experiences as a war correspondent. Following the shock invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Grossman volunteered for front line duty. Declared unfit for active service he was assigned to Red Star newspaper as a special correspondent. In these BBC Radio programmes, Elliot... Read more

Pandemic

By: John Dryden

Narrated by: Ben Daniels, Emily Beecham, Full Cast & Michael...

Length: 2 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: No

A three-part thriller by John Dryden. In Part 1, 'The Present', Dr Jan Roldano, microbiologist and WHO advisor on infectious diseases, arrives in Bangkok to give a keynote lecture at a medical conference. But when a virulent strain of bird flu emerges, he finds himself trapped in Thailand. In Part 2, 'The Future', it is five years after a... Read more

The Bid

By: Matthew Solon

Narrated by: John Sessions

Length: 56 minutes

Abridged: No

After five years of planning and an 18-month campaign costing more than £15m, England's bid to host the 2018 World Cup ended in humiliation in front of millions of TV viewers around the world. This thrilling drama tells the behind-the-scenes story of what happened in Zurich in the days leading up to the momentous announcement on 2nd December... Read more

The Art Of Monarchy

By: Will Gompertz

Narrated by: Will Gompertz

Length: 3 hours 41 minutes

Abridged: No

The Royal Collection is one of the most wide-ranging collections of art and artefacts in the world and provides an intriguing insight into the minds of the monarchs who have assembled it. In this series, BBC Arts Editor Will Gompertz examines dozens of these unique objects, in a quest to 'use the Collection as a prism through which to better... Read more

Legacy Blood On The Mountains (Woman's Hour Drama)

By: Cath Staincliffe

Narrated by: Claire Keelan, Full Cast & William Ash

Length: 1 hour 8 minutes

Abridged: No

In this drama by Cath Staincliffe, probate researchers Dan and Rachel search backwards through the family line to find the true heir and get a slice of the fortune. But their quest leads them to uncover a broken family with a terrible secret. Henry Gaunt has died leaving a sizeable estate but no will. His step-sister can't inherit and there are... Read more

Whenever I Get Blown Up I Think of You

By: Molly Naylor

Narrated by: Bryan Dick, James Lailey, Jonathan Forbes, Sam ...

Length: 43 minutes

Abridged: No

How does it feel to have your world blown apart? Molly moves to London full of naive dreams, high hopes and on a quest to make her life just like the movies. Then on 7/7/2005 she finds herself on a tube train blown up by terrorists and her life is forced to take a different direction. Funny, frank and poetic; this is the true story of what... Read more

But If You Try Sometimes

By: Sarah Daniels

Narrated by: Alex Tregear, Amy Golden, Jelena Budimir & Lesl...

Length: 44 minutes

Abridged: No

Chloe has cerebral palsy and is certain she will lose her adored carer Rose, when Rose falls for an apparently perfect man. First broadcast in BBC Radio 4's Afternoon Drama slot. Starring Lesley Manville as Rose, Amy Golden as Chloe, Alex Tregear as Chloe's voice and Jelena Budimir as Alex. Written by Sarah Daniels. Director: Sally Avens. Read more