Performance audiobooks

Even More Pretty Good Jokes

By: Garrison Keillor

Length: 1 hour 52 minutes

Abridged: No

Even more of a good thing: the latest collection of knee-slappers, toe-tappers, and groaners from A Prairie Home Companion Joke Shows.

Did you hear the one about the paranoid dyslexic? He always thought he was following someone. . . . Why did ancient Romans close down the Coliseum? The lions were eating up the prophets. . . .

Jokes are made for... Read more

NPR Road Trips: Roadside Attractions

By: NPR

Length: 1 hour 3 minutes

Abridged: No

Prairie Dog Town in western Kansas. The Elvis Is Alive Museum in Wright City, Missouri. The Velvet Museum (“Velveteria”) in Portland, Oregon. A 13-foot Styrofoam scale model of Stonehenge. The Largest Ball of Twine in Cawker City, Kansas . . . or is it in Darwin, Minnesota?

Roadside attractions are the staples of the American road trip. Many are... Read more

NPR Road Trips: Postcards from Around the Globe

By: NPR

Length: 1 hour 13 minutes

Abridged: No

Meet Colin Angus and Julie Wafael, who spent two years circumnavigating the globe using their hands and feet. Turn on the radio in Katmandu and hear music from the 70s. Learn how robot jockeys are solving a human rights problem in Dubai. (It has to do with camel races.) Get ready for carnival in Rio. And walk through old Beijing before it’s... Read more

NPR Road Trips: National Park Adventures

By: NPR

Length: 1 hour 7 minutes

Abridged: No

Grand Canyon National Park is one of the planet’s Seven Natural Wonders, with 4.4 million visitors each year. Who keeps them safe, fed, and happy? When the wind blows at White Sands National Monument, legend says the centuries-old ghost of a Mexican maiden appears in the shifting sands. In Yosemite National Park, there’s a guy who tracks road... Read more

The Dybbuk - Abridged

By: S. Ansky & Yuri Rasovsky

Narrated by: a full cast

Length: 1 hour 35 minutes

Abridged: Yes

In the folklore of Eastern European Jewry, a dybbuk is a wandering soul that comes to rest in the body of a living person. In this case, the dybbuk is an impoverished student that possesses a young bride on her wedding day. She is taken to a great Chassidic rabbi for exorcism. But before he can expel the spirit, the sage must discover who the... Read more

The Picture of Dorian Gray

By: Oscar Wilde

Narrated by: Pauline Brailsford, Thomas Carroll, Colleen Cri...

Length: 1 hour 36 minutes

Abridged: No

A full cast dramatization of one of the great classics of contemporary Western literature. Dorian Gray, an effete young gentleman, is the subject of a striking portrait by the artist Basil Hallward. Gray’s narcissism is awakened, and he embraces a lifestyle of hedonism and casual cruelties. Increasingly consumed by his own vanity, he is forced... Read more

Willo The Wisp (Vintage Beeb)

By: Various

Narrated by: Kenneth Williams

Length: 50 minutes

Abridged: No

12 stories from the BBC TV series, narrated by Kenneth Williams. Featuring Mavis Cruet, the Fat Fairy; Arthur, the Cockney Caterpillar; Evil Edna, the Wicked Witch; Carwash, the Prissy Pussy; and The Moog, the Droopy Dog. Of course, we mustn’t forget ‘the Beast’, who is really Prince Humbert the Handsome, changed into various shapes and sizes... Read more

Witness

By: Nick Warburton

Narrated by: Tom Goodman-Hill, Paul Hilton, Peter Firth & Pe...

Length: 4 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

Five new plays from the gospel of Luke, by award-winning writer Nick Warburton.

This work presents the Gospel story as you've never heard it before.

Everyone knows the story of Jesus' life, as told in the Gospels – and, perhaps because it is so familiar, we have forgotten what an extraordinary life it was. Through these five plays, the story is... Read more

Weekending With Maggie

By: BBC

Narrated by: Full Cast

Length: 2 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

A loyal tribute to 10 glorious years from BBC Radio 4's Week Ending team. From the archives of the legendary satirical radio comedy series Week Ending comes this compilation of satirical and sardonic sketches based on Margaret Thatcher's first 10 years as prime minister.First released on cassette as Ten Years With Maggie, this has now been... Read more

Veronika Decides to Die

By: Paulo Coelho

Narrated by: Fran Tunno

Length: 5 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

Twenty-four-year-old Veronika seems to have everything—youth and beauty, boyfriends and a loving family, a fulfilling job. But something is missing in her life. So, one cold November morning, she takes a handful of sleeping pills expecting never to wake up. But she does—at a mental hospital where she is told that she has only days to... Read more

Laura Solon Talking And Not Talking - Series 2

By: Laura Solon

Narrated by: Laura Solon

Length: 2 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

The complete second BBC Radio 4 series by Perrier Award winner Laura Solon. Laura Solon won the Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival in 2005 with her sensational debut show. She now returns to Radio 4 with a new series of her bittersweet comedy show packed with characters, monologues and sketches from this extraordinary writer and performer.... Read more

The Clitheroe Kid

By: James Casey & Frank Roscoe

Narrated by: Jimmy Clitheroe

Length: 1 hour 47 minutes

Abridged: No

Four vintage instalments of the classic radio comedy starring Jimmy Clitheroe in 'The Clitheroe Kid'. James Robinson Clitheroe was enormously popular with the public as Jimmy in 'The Clitheroe Kid'. At the height of his popularity, the diminutive Lancastrian comic had regular audiences of over 10 million people and was a radio institution from... Read more

A Christmas Carol

By: Charles Dickens

Narrated by: Miriam Margolyes

Length: 3 hours 15 minutes

Abridged: No

Here's Dicken's Christmas classic of Ebenezer Scrooge and his encounter with the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. Originally published in 1843,A Christmas Carol has continued to be one of the most popular and enduring Christmas stories of all time.
Click here to see all the titles in our Charles Dickens collection.
Public Domain... Read more

Boats on a River

By: Julie Marie Myatt

Narrated by: Samantha Abrigo, John Cabrera, Gregory Itzin, J...

Length: 1 hour 50 minutes

Abridged: No

American expatriate Sidney Webb and Sister Margaret, his British colleague, work tirelessly to rehabilitate Cambodian children from the nightmare of prostitution. After a surprise raid on a brothel, an eager young U.S. lawyer places three liberated orphans under Sidney and the Sister’s care. The girls begin the inspirational process of... Read more

Modern Inspiration in Shakespeare

By: PBS NewsHour

Narrated by: PBS NewsHour

Length: 7 minutes

Abridged: No

In the second of a series of reports on the Arabesque arts festival at the Kennedy Center, Jeffrey Brown talks to Kuwaiti writer and theater director Sulayman al-Bassam, whose company is presenting a Shakespeare play with a twist, Richard III: An Arab Tragedy. Read more

Speech and Debate

By: Stephen Karam

Narrated by: Andrea Bowen, Reed Diamond, Nora Dunn, Gideon G...

Length: 1 hour 29 minutes

Abridged: No

A fiercely funny and surprisingly timely new play by new playwright Stephen Karam. They may go to the same school, but misfits Solomon, Diwata and Howie have never met and their teachers and peers just don’t take them seriously – until a sex scandal involving one of their teachers brings them together. Soon they realize that three voices are... Read more

Shakespeare's Greatest Hits

By: William Shakespeare

Narrated by: Peter Aylward, Johnny Lee Davenport, Henry Godi...

Length: 1 hour 16 minutes

Abridged: No

Shakespeare's Greatest Hits contains some of the most memorable scenes from 13 of the Bard’s greatest plays, including Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello and many more. Intertwined with the greatest hits of music, this highly engaging introduction to William Shakespeare is performed by the famous Chicago Shakespeare Theater.

An L.A. Theatre Works... Read more

The Rivalry

By: Norman Corwin

Narrated by: Paul Giamatti, James Gleason, Lily Rabe, David ...

Length: 1 hour 43 minutes

Abridged: No

Academy Award-nominees Paul Giamatti and David Strathairn star in Norman Corwin's electrifying dramatization of the history-making Lincoln-Douglas debates. This fierce rivalry between rising legislator Abraham Lincoln and incumbent Senator Stephen A. Douglas tackled some of the day's most passionate and controversial issues - above all those of... Read more

The Rivals

By: Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Narrated by: Edith Evans

Length: 2 hours

Abridged: No

A comedy of manners in five acts, The Rivals was Sheridan's second commercially produced play. The play is set in Bath in the 18th century, a town legendary for conspicuous consumption and fashion at the time. Wealthy, fashionable people went there to "take the waters", which were believed to have healing properties. Bath was much less exclusive... Read more

Everyman - Abridged

By: Anonymous

Narrated by: Burgess Meredith

Length: 57 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Everyman is a late 15th-century English morality play. "Here begins a treatise (tale) of how the high Father of Heaven sends Death to summon every creature to come and give account of their lives in this world, told in the form of a morality play". Nothing is known of the author but it is performed here by Burgess Meredith. Read more

The Tempest

By: William Shakespeare

Narrated by: The Marlowe Society

Length: 2 hours 5 minutes

Abridged: No

One of Shakespeare's late romances, The Tempest centres on the banished sorcerer Prospero, rightful Duke of Milan, who initially uses his magical powers to punish his enemies when he raises a tempest that drives them ashore. The entire play takes place on an island under his control whose native inhabitants, Ariel and Caliban, respectively aid... Read more

Romeo and Juliet

By: William Shakespeare

Narrated by: The Marlowe Society

Length: 2 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

The Marlowe Society perform an unabridged version of Shakespeare's tradegy featuring Romeo and Juliet, whose untimely deaths unite their feuding families. Read more

The Ages of Man - Abridged

By: William Shakespeare

Narrated by: John Gielgud

Length: 44 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Ages of Man is a one-man play performed by John Gielgud of a collection of speeches from Shakespeare's plays. The speeches show the journey of life from birth to death. Gielgud gave the first experimental performance of Ages of Man in a house in St. James Square in London. It premiered at the Freemason's Hall at the 1957 Edinburgh Festival to a... Read more

A Streetcar Named Desire - Abridged

By: Tennessee Williams

Narrated by: Theater Lincoln Center

Length: 2 hours 15 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Caedmon is proud to release this archival full-cast recording of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire on cd for the first time! Blanche DuBois arrives at her sister Stella's New Orleans apartment seeking refuge from a troubled past—but her ethereal spirit irks Stella's husband, the loutish Stanley Kowalski. Crudely, relentlessly, he... Read more