Showing results by narrator "Andrew Sachs" in All Categories

Beginning with A Study in Scarlet and concluding with The Hound of the Baskervilles, this epic project took over 8 years to complete - and this landmark collection contains the extraordinary result. Here is the world's first ever fully dramatised Sherlock Holmes canon: 56 short stories and 4 novels, all made by the same team of directors, producers, dramatists and leading actors, and packed with the high production qualities of a film or TV drama that set it apart.

For 15 years the weaver Silas Marner has plied his loom near the village of Raveloe, alone and unjustly in exile, cut off from faith and human love, he cares only for his hoard of golden guineas. But two events occur that will change his life forever; his gold disappears and a golden-haired baby girl appears. But where did she come from and who really stole the gold? This moving tale sees Silas eventually redeemed and restored to life by the unlikely means of his love for the orphan child Eppie.

Welcome to Fawlty Towers, where attentive hotelier Basil Fawlty and his charming wife Sybil will attend to your every need - in your worst nightmare. With hapless waiter Manuel and long-suffering waitress Polly on hand to help, anything could happen during your stay - and probably will. John Cleese’s special introductions to each episode are included in this collection of all 12 TV soundtrack episodes.

Corduroy Mansions is the affectionate nickname given to a genteelly crumbling mansion block in London's vibrant Pimlico. This is the home patch of - among others - a lovelorn literary agent, possibly the first ever nasty Liberal Democrat MP and Freddie de la Hay, an urbane terrier trained to be vegetarian and respectful of feline rights.

With his black hat, huge umbrella, unworldly simplicity and 'beaming but breathless geniality', Father Brown is one of fiction's best-loved amateur detectives. Short and tatty, but with the wisdom and insight to unravel the most wayward of criminal minds, he has entertained generations. In this collection of 13 full-cast dramatisations, the high priest of detection becomes involved in seven intriguing cases that will tax even his mental powers to the limit.

In a poor Mexican state in the 1930s, the Red Shirts have viciously persecuted the clergy and murdered many priests. Yet one remains - the ‘whisky priest’ who believes he's lost his soul. On the run and with the police closing in, his routes of escape are being shut off, his chances getting fewer. But compassion and humanity force him along the road to his destiny…Andrew Sachs reads Graham Greene’s powerful novel about a worldly Roman Catholic priest and his quest for penitence and dignity.

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.

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 22 days and 14 hours in HMP Belmarsh, a double A-Category high-security prison in South London, which houses some of Britain's most violent criminals. This is the author's daily record of the time he spent there.

It is a story like no other: an epic of endurance against destruction, of creativity in oppression, joy amidst grief, the affirmation of life against the steepest of odds. It spans the millennia and the continents - from India to Andalusia and from the bazaars of Cairo to the streets of Oxford. It takes you to unimagined places: to a Jewish kingdom in the mountains of southern Arabia; a Syrian synagogue glowing with radiant wall paintings; the palm groves of the Jewish dead in the Roman catacombs.

Jerusalem lies at the centre of the world, the capital of three faiths, the prize of many conquerors, the jewel of many empires, and the eye of the storm of today's battle of civilisations. But the city lacks a biography. It lacks a secret history.

Here is the best-selling and controversial history of the British Isles, including Ireland, from the author of Europe: A History. Emphasizing long-standing European connections and positing a possible break-up of the United Kingdom, this agenda-setting work is destined to become a classic.

Alexander McCall Smith is a storyteller par excellence and the master of the serial novel form. Not content with the runaway success of the 44 Scotland Street novels he has established a second series, Corduroy Mansions, of which The Dog Who Came in from the Cold is the second volume. McCall Smith treats his characters as old friends, dropping in for a chat with them and to see what they’re up to.

A gripping collection of 15 BBC Radio full-cast dramas written by Bert Coules, inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories. In the 56 short stories and four novels Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about his great detective, how many times did Dr John Watson tantalise us with references to cases which were never written about in full? These original adventures flesh out those unrecorded cases to wonderful effect. Clive Merrison plays the great sleuth himself, with Andrew Sachs in the role of Doctor Watson.

A novel about human relationships, focusing, unusually for Brookner, on two male characters. Hartmann and Fibich met at school and 40 years later they can no more think of living apart than of divorcing their wives. This book deals with their gradual coming to terms with the emotional gaps in their lives.

Dirk Gently has an unshakeable belief in the interconnectedness of all things, but his Holistic Detective Agency mainly succeeds in tracking down missing cats for old ladies. Then Dirk stumbles upon an old friend behaving bizarrely - and he's drawn into a four-billion-year-old mystery that must be solved if the human race is to avoid immediate extinction.

Lawrence Durrell's evocative memoir of living in Cyprus, just before the Greek/Turkish partition. This is a touching and atmospheric account of a place, now changed, where the two races lived side by side.

Andrew Sachs reads Jonathan Swift's humorous and unforgettable tale of a strange man in some very strange lands. Gulliver had always wanted to see the world. But whenever he steps on board a ship, bad luck always seems near at hand. He is shipwrecked, abandoned, marooned and mutinied against - and each time lands in a strange and curious place.

Having saved the city cats from a fate worse than death, Varjak Paw finds himself the elected and popular leader of a new gang - a gang that supports freedom and kindness for all. But will the pressure take its toll on this brave yet sometimes naive cat? Soon the city erupts in an all-out gang war as the evil Sally Bones attempts to control the lives of all cats. Horrified and outnumbered, Varjak and the others must fight for their freedom or die trying; can Jalal's Way really be the best way?

As Venice experiences a debilitating heatwave, Commissario Brunetti prepares to escape the city and spend time with his family in the mountains. However, the weather is the last thing on Ispettore Vianello’s mind; it seems 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 unofficially trail her, which leads to the flat of Stefano Gorini. But who is this man?

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 22 days and 14 hours in HMP Belmarsh, a double A-Category high-security prison in South London, which houses some of Britain's most violent criminals. This is the author's daily record of the time he spent there.