Showing results by narrator "Toby Stephens" in All Categories

A brand new BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of a classic Raymond Chandler mystery featuring private eye, Philip Marlowe. Los Angeles PI Philip Marlowe is working for the Sternwood family. Old man Sternwood, crippled and wheelchair-bound, is being given the squeeze by a blackmailer and he wants Marlowe to make the problem go away.

Philip Marlowe’s on a case: his client, a dried-up husk of a woman, wants him to recover a rare gold coin called a Brasher Doubloon, missing from her late husband’s collection. That’s the simple part. It becomes more complicated when Marlowe finds that everyone who handles the coin suffers a run of very bad luck: they always end up dead.

Andrew Rissik's powerful, uncompromising reimaginings of classic tales from Roman and Greek history were hailed as masterpieces when they first aired on BBC radio. Told in contemporary speech, they revitalised the ancient myths, making them fresh, relevant and accessible to a modern-day audience. This collection brings them together on audio for the first time, with stellar casts including Michael Sheen, Paul Scofield, Lindsay Duncan, David Harewood, Eleanor Bron, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Diana Rigg, Roger Allam, Toby Stephens, Anton Lesser and Robert Hardy.

Fresh from Afghanistan, James Bond has been recruited to a new agency. It operates independent of Five, Six and the MoD, with its very existence deniable. Its aim: to protect the Realm, by any means necessary. The Night Action alert calls Bond from dinner with a beautiful woman. GCHQ has decrypted an electronic whisper about an attack scheduled for later in the week. And 007 has been given carte blanche to do whatever it takes to fulfil his mission.

In this moving collection, Shaun Usher gathers together some of the most powerful letters about love ever written. Whether inspired by love’s first blush or the recriminations at its ending, the regrets of unrequited feelings and the joys of passions known, Letters of Note: Love is essential listening for anyone with a heart.

The unabridged, digital audiobook edition of Gods and Warriors, the first in Michelle Paver’s breath-taking new adventure series set in the Greek Bronze Age. Read by the actor Toby Stephens. From a time of myths and ancient magic will come the legend of the lost city of Atlantis, tales of gods and warriors - and the rise of a hero? His sister is missing. His dog has been killed. High in the Greek mountains, Hylas is running for his life. The mysterious black warriors want Hylas dead.

Virgil's Aeneid, one of the greatest classical poems, tells the story of Aeneas, son of Priam, after the fall of Troy. His quest is to find the site "in the west" where he will found a new town prophesied to be the seat of a world empire: Rome.

In Letters of Note: Music, Shaun Usher brings together a riveting collection of letters by and about some of the musicians and music that enrich our lives. Wonderfully wide-ranging and illuminating, it will delight music lovers of all stripes. A star-studded cast of readers brings the letters to life, with contributions from Sanjeev Bhaskar, Louise Brealey, Simon Callow, Nick Cave, Crystal Clarke, Benedict Cumberbatch, Adrian Edmondson, Stephen Fry, Danny Huston, Toby Jones, Jude Law, Stephen Mangan, Miriam Margolyes, Clarke Peters, Juliet Stevenson and Mark Strong.

Like his actor namesake, Ronald Coleman is a suave, well-spoken English gentleman. But although he's a movie buff, Coleman is no film star - he's a copper, and a Detective Inspector to boot. Together with his down-to-earth Scottish partner, DS Fred Astor, he sets about solving cases on two very different patches - rural Kirkcaldy and inner-city Southampton.

In Letters of Note: Art, Shaun Usher celebrates extraordinary correspondence about art, from missives on the agony of being overlooked, the ecstasy of producing work that excites, to surprising sources of inspiration and rousing manifestos. A star-studded cast of readers brings the letters to life, with contributions from Sanjeev Bhaskar, Louise Brealey, Simon Callow, Crystal Clarke, Benedict Cumberbatch, Stephen Fry, Neil Gaiman, Toby Jones, Ferdinand Kingsley, Jude Law, Helen McCrory, Stephen Mangan, Clarke Peters, Juliet Stevenson, Mark Strong and Meera Syal.

Toby Stephens stars in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Raymond Chandler’s second Philip Marlowe mystery.Fast-talking, trouble-seeking private eye Philip Marlowe is a different kind of detective: a moral man in an amoral world. California in the ’40s and ’50s is as beautiful as a ripe fruit and rotten to the core, and Marlowe must struggle to retain his integrity amidst the corruption he encounters daily.In ‘Farewell My Lovely’, Marlowe has a chance encounter with a not-so-gentle giant outside Florian’s nightclub.

A brand-new collection from the internationally best-selling author of Letters of Note.

Ambitious. Ruthless. Unprincipled. With their blurred morals and relatable imperfections, it’s no wonder we find anti-heroes so appealing and fascinating. Featuring a mixture of male and female anti-heroes across England, Scotland, France and New York, these fantastic adaptations of five of the best-known and best-loved classics of literature follow some of these flawed, nuanced characters as they steal the spotlight and make their presence known.

In this latest exciting adventure, Jet Morgan and his crew receive a distress call from an abandoned space freighter. But when they board the ship, Jet and Doc discover a digitised personality locked inside the ship's computer - one with a deadly intent. The crew must find a way to defeat the vastly superior Host: for if they fail, they will not only all perish, but mankind will become a dispensable stepping stone to a new chapter in evolution...

In Letters of Note: Fathers, Shaun Usher collects letters celebrating weird and wonderful dads.

When called up to fight in yet another World War, Drum Major Jackson promised his beloved wife, Mabel, that he would return to lead his band and play for her once more. In May 1940, he was captured at Dunkirk and interned in several German forced labour camps throughout Poland. Two years later, he was transferred to Auschwitz IV. When his captors appointed Jackson their ‘Kapellmeister’ (man in charge of music), he seized the opportunity to provide entertainment for his fellow prisoners at rehearsals and cover for escapees during concerts.

Where has scientist George Cameron disappeared to? What deadly formula has he discovered? Why is his daughter Lucy in such terrible danger? And why was the meek chemist Tibbs so ruthlessly killed? The fate of the country lies in the hands of one man - Dick Barton - Special Agent! An abridged reading of a classic Dick Barton adventure, written by Mike Dorrell and read by Toby Stephens.

Unlike his friends in the Savage Kings MC, Abel Giovanni has no plans to get hitched. He enjoys his bachelor lifestyle, even if the string of one-night stands doesn’t fill the void inside of him. What he wants he knows he can’t have, so why waste time thinking about it, right? Cory Collins isn’t trustworthy. He’s the reason an innocent man spent two years in prison. And if Cory doesn’t learn how to stop running his mouth soon, Abel’s going to send him back to college black and blue - before he has a chance to try and make amends for the past.

Broadcast live from the Club Akimbo, Bletchley, this is Britain's first public access cable radio show, presented by a group of Buckinghamshire district councillors who really should know better. Chairman of the Ways and Means committee Mr Dutton is our host as he introduces us to the items on the agenda, which include sparkling sketches, surreal escapades and musical interludes from Chilean charmer Enrico Valdez and his Orchestra with Mickey Binelli.

Anna Karenina enjoys a privileged and aristrocratic lifestyle as the wife of influential government official Alexy Karenin. Yet their ten-year marriage is devoid of tenderness, and when Anna falls in love with the handsome Count Vronsky they embark upon a deep and passionate affair. Reflecting the social conditions of the era in which it was written, Tolstoy's masterpiece sets a doomed love story against a harsh and unforgiving backdrop.