British Art

Being British isn’t easy. Especially if you live abroad, where your countrymen aren’t exactly famous for, well, blending in. As his beloved homeland goes Brexit bananas, best-selling humourist Paul Hawkins takes on Britishness - how it looks from the outside, how to be British abroad and what you only learn about home once you leave it. In this self-deprecating audiobook, he reveals the awkward secrets, cultural blind-spots and private oddness of the people with whom he once shared an island.

When Coraline moves with her parents to a new house she is fascinated by the fact that their 'house' is infact only half of the house! Divided in to flats years before there is a brick wall behind a door where once there was a corridor and one day it is corridor again down which the intrepid Coraline wanders. And so a nightmare-ish mystery begins that takes Coraline in to the arms of counterfeit parents and a life that isn't quite right. Can Coraline get out? Can she find her real parents? Will life ever be the same again?

The architecture of Britain is an art gallery all around us. From our streets to squares, through our cities, suburbs and villages, we are surrounded by magnificent buildings of eclectic styles. A Short History of British Architecture is the gripping and untold story of why Britain looks the way it does, from prehistoric Stonehenge to the lofty towers of today.

The complete second series of BBC Radio 4's award-winning sketch show - winner of the Chortle Radio Award of the Year. In these six episodes, which make up the complete second series, you'll hear some moth-based lunacy, an awkward celestial relationship, a heart-warming tale of the days before health and safety, and how The Archers sounds to people who don't listen to The Archers - plus many other sketches featuring acute observations and wonderful wordplay.

Gary Barlow is one of the most successful British musicians and songwriters of all time, but 15 years ago, as he himself admits, he hit rock bottom - he was out of shape, out of work, depressed. Food for him had become an addiction, a means not only of comfort but almost of self-medication as he grappled with the cruel twists of fate of musical stardom. In 2003, as he struggled with the disappointment of an underperforming solo career alongside the tireless media taunts; Gary turned to food.

Farewell Yellow Brick Road is a celebration of Elton John's record-breaking, globe-spanning farewell tour—from Allentown to Auckland, from Sydney to San Francisco. Featured concerts include Elton’s dazzling performances at Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium in November 2022, the finale of which streamed live on Disney+. Fans will be treated to a behind-the-scenes glimpse into every aspect of these spectacular shows, including Elton’s legendary touring wardrobe by Gucci, the set design, official photography, and more.

When the leaders of the French Revolution executed Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in 1793, they sent a chilling message to the hereditary ruling orders in Europe. Believing that monarchy anywhere presented a threat to democratic rule in France, the leaders of the revolution declared war on European aristocracies, including those of Great Britain. For more than 20 years thereafter, France and England waged a protracted war that ended in British victory.

In the first series, Armando Iannucci and his guests pull apart the news with a heady mix of topical comedy, messed-about archive, chat and outrageous fibs, recorded in front of a live studio audience. Across the complete six episodes, they start a new religion and update some Cockney rhyming slang, and as the strike by BBC workers starts to bite and the army steps in, we hear a debate on breastfeeding from 'Woman's Hour' hosted by Gunner-Sergeant Harry Donaldson of the 5th Norfolk Fusiliers.

Maximum Volume offers a glimpse into the mind, the music, and the man behind the sound of the Beatles. George Martin's working-class childhood and musical influences profoundly shaped his early career in the BBC's Classical Music department and as head of the EMI Group's Parlophone Records. Out of them flowed the genius behind his seven years producing the Beatles' incredible body of work, including such albums as Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Abbey Road.

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore were two of the brightest stars ever to light up the world of comedy. They set standards that will probably never be surpassed. Cambridge graduates who met in Beyond the Fringe, their chemistry produced some of the funniest, most inventive and downright brilliant comedy ever recorded.They came to wider fame with the tv series Not Only… But Also. The writing and performances were superb....

The voice, the dressing-down, the cigarette in its holder, remain unmistakable. There is rarely a week when one of Private Lives, Hay Fever, and Blithe Spirit is not in production somewhere in the world. Phrases from Noël Coward's songs - "Mad About The Boy", "Mad Dogs and Englishman" - are forever lodged in the public consciousness. He was at one point the most highly paid author in the world. Yet some of his most striking and daring writing remains unfamiliar.

Mock the Week regularly produces the sharpest and funniest comedy on TV. With Dara O Briain, Hugh Dennis, Frankie Boyle, and Andy Parsons, it's no surprise. Here is the material that didn't make it to our screens!

Ben Edge is a rising star of both the art world and the current folk renaissance. This first trade book of Edge's art, featuring over 200 artworks, is a unique insight into his creative process as well as the first mainstream book to explore the amazing and wildly popular folk customs of the British ritual year. Ben Edge has travelled the length and breadth of Britain recording the weird and wonderful folk customs alive in communities all over the country.

Founded in 1916, British Vogue has forged its own path from the very start. From the trauma and austerity of two world wars through to the freedom of the swinging Sixties, the rise of the supermodel to the groundbreaking editorial direction of Edward Enninful: the magazine's chameleonic ability to move with the times has ensured its perennial status at the vanguard of British cool. The book draws on hitherto unseen archives and behind-the-scenes interviews with Vogue insiders including stylist Grace Coddington, editor Alexandra Shulman and fashion editor Lucinda Chambers.

Jenni Fagan was property of the state before birth. She drew her first breath in care and by the age of seven, she had lived in fourteen different homes and had changed name multiple times. Twenty years after her first attempt to write this powerful memoir, Jenni is finally ready to share her account. Ootlin is a journey through the broken UK care system - it is one of displacement and exclusion, but also of the power of storytelling. It is about the very human act of making meaning from adversity.

Before The Beatles landed on American shores in February 1964, only two British acts had topped the Billboard singles chart. In the first quarter of 1964, however, the Beatles alone accounted for 60% of all recorded music sold in the United States; in 1964 and 1965 British acts occupied the number one position for 52 of the 104 weeks; and from 1964 through to 1970, the Rolling Stones, Herman's Hermits, the Dave Clark Five, the Animals, and more placed more than 130 songs on the American Top Forty.

Read by Juliet Stevenson and Simon Callow, A Literary Christmas is a seasonal anthology that collects together poems, short stories, and prose extracts by some of the greatest poets and writers in the English language. Like Charles Dickens’ ghosts of Christmas Past and Present, they are representative of times old and new - from John Donne’s Elizabethan hymn over the baby Jesus to Rudyard Kipling’s "Christmas in India", from Thomas Tusser counting the cost of a Tudor feast to Laurie Lee’s "Cider with Rosie".

John le Carré led a life entirely constructed of secrets—not just in his first career, as a British spy and agent runner during the height of the Cold War or in his second, as a world-renowned writer of espionage fiction, but also in his personal involvements. He guarded his private life with fierce determination, fending off all would-be biographers until his ninth decade, when he finally relented and permitted his life story to be written. But there was still one element that he insisted be excluded, even then: the women.

Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers star in 10 rare episodes of The Goon Show, plus a plethora of bonus features.

The team from I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue present their own unique take on Lewis Carroll's most famous work, casting their reluctant chairman - the late Humphrey Lyttelton - in the title role, with support from Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Barry Cryer, Sandi Toksvig, Tony Hawks, Andy Hamilton, Rob Brydon, Jeremy Hardy and Jacke Dee, with Colin Sell at the piano.