Showing results by narrator "Adam Godley" in All Categories

Renowned novelist and poet Thomas Hardy is best known for his fatalistic, often tragic novels set in the 'realistic dream-country' of Wessex, in south and south-west England. Drawing on his own life, he created some of the most memorable characters and stories in Victorian literature—many of which are included here. In five dramas taken from Radio 4's 'Hardy's Women' season, we meet a few of Thomas Hardy's most compelling female protagonists.

Daphne du Maurier was one of the 20th century’s most popular writers. Extraordinarily prolific, she produced a string of bestsellers, many of which were adapted as award-winning films. From romance and adventure yarns to psychological thrillers and supernatural tales, the breadth and imaginative variety of her storytelling continues to thrill us today. This bumper collection features her most famous works and some lesser-known gems, beginning with full-cast adaptations of seven of her much-loved novels.

In 1920s Leicester, Lewis Eliot must escape the drudgery of a council clerk's office and his provincial lower class background to begin his decades-long rise to power. As the years pass, and Lewis progresses to successful London lawyer, to Cambridge don, to wartime service in Whitehall, to senior civil servant and finally retirement, he faces in his own life and the lives of those around him collapsing marriages, terrible illness, the politics of academia, Nazism, nuclear weapons, the price of power and the ever-present realities of war.

Chart Throb: the ultimate pop quest, with 95,000 hopefuls, three judges, and just one winner. And that's Colin Simms, the genius behind the show. Colin always wins, because Colin writes the rules. But this year, as he sits smugly in judgement upon the mingers, clingers, and blingers he has pre-selected in his carefully scripted "search" for a star, he has no idea that the rules are changing.

It’s March 1918, and World War I is raging in Europe. In the trenches in northern France, a group of British officers, led by the war-weary Captain Stanhope, ready themselves for a major German attack while facing their worst fears. R.C. Sherriff drew on his own experiences in World War One to create the play, which premiered in 1928 and is now considered one of the preeminent works about the horrors of war.

In 17th-century Sicily, a clever valet named Mascarille tries to help his boss, Lélie, win the girl of his dreams – only to find that Lélie is a monumental dunce who ruins every one of his intricate schemes. Undaunted, Mascarille invents progressively wilder plots, only to see his best-laid plans go very awry in Molière’s The Bungler, translated by Richard Wilbur.

Starring James Marsters, this classic comedy of manners from 1773 is still widely performed and studied. Love, lies, and dysfunctional families. Sound like your last family gathering? Try this one on for laughs. Two randy young gents, Charles and George, set out to woo the alluring and upper-crust Kate and Constance. But inexperienced Charles is shy and clumsy around upper-class ladies, so it’s the barmaid who catches his eye. But is she really who she seems?

All 16 episodes of the BBC radio comedy about the dysfunctional Burbage siblings: Brothers Nigel and Michael share everything - home, work and acute neuroses. Several years ago, they gave up respectable careers to set up a website design company in Nigel's living room. That was their first mistake....

A bold new dramatisation of Thomas Hardy’s classic, giving his story a 21st-century resonance. Tess Durbeyfield is driven by poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urberville family. But meeting her cousin Alec proves to be her downfall. This classic criticism of social convention is given a new treatment in this full-cast adaptation which blows away the shepherd's pipe and heritage stereotype, foregrounding Hardy's social and sexual radicalism.

John Durbeyfield (Keith Barron) learns that he is descended from the aristocratic Norman family of d'Urbervilles. He encourages his daughter, Tess (Claire Rushbrook), to befriend the family of Stoke d'Urbervilles where she meets Alec d'Urberville (Adam Godley). Tess is ultimately seduced by Alec and the effects of their affair creates dramatic ripples in Tess's life. In an attempt to make a fresh start, Tess begins work in Wessex at the Talbothay's farm where she encounters Angel Clare (James D'Arcy), the younger son of a parson, who asks her to marry him.