Performance audiobooks

The Merchant Of Venice

By: William Shakespeare

Narrated by: David Morrissey, Full Cast, Juliet Aubrey, Mart...

Length: 2 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

In this BBC full-cast production of The Merchant of Venice, love, bigotry, greed, and justice are entwined.

Shakespeare's classic play explores the eternal themes of love and hate, mercy and justice, with parallel stories centred on the moneylender, Shylock, and the lovers, Portia and Bassanio. Shylock's angry insistence on the repayment of his... Read more

Romeo And Juliet

By: William Shakespeare

Narrated by: Andrew Scott, Douglas Henshall, Full Cast, Iwan...

Length: 2 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

In this BBC full-cast production of Romeo And Juliet, the two star-crossed lovers fight for each other until their dying breath. Can their two feuding families reconcile?

With the intimacy of radio, the full beauty and meaning of some of the most lyrical lines ever written can be truly heard: tenderness and passion, betrayal and bigotry are... Read more

Antony And Cleopatra

By: William Shakespeare

Narrated by: Colin Tierney, David Harewood, Frances Barber, ...

Length: 2 hours 55 minutes

Abridged: No

In this BBC full-cast production of Antony and Cleopatra, the soldier and noble prince Mark Antony's enthralment with the Egyptian queen Cleopatra is proving controversial. Will the tumultuous relationship ultimately end in tragedy?

Antony and Cleopatra is an intense love story, exploring the constant conflict between duty and emotion with... Read more

The Smoking Room

By: BBC

Narrated by: Debbie Chazen & Jeremy Swift

Length: 3 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

In the world of work, there is one place where seniority means nothing, where shoptalk is banned, and where the persecuted minority gather regularly to discuss every subject under the sun: the smoking room.Set entirely in the smoking room of a large company, this eight-part comedy series explores the personal foibles and suppressed longings of... Read more

Ross Noble Goes Global

By: Ross Noble

Narrated by: Ross Noble

Length: 1 hour 51 minutes

Abridged: No

A brilliant new BBC Radio 4 series of comedy travelogues presented by award-winning stand-up and ‘Just a Minute’ regular, Ross Noble. Perrier Award nominee Ross Noble has received huge critical acclaim and become known as an exciting and original talent in the UK. Now he takes his show worldwide, to destinations as diverse as Shanghai, South... Read more

The Mel And Sue Thing

By: BBC

Narrated by: Sue Perkins & Mel Giedroyc

Length: 1 hour 50 minutes

Abridged: No

Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins offer you more than your fair share of laughs, songs, and silliness in their imaginatively titled BBC Radio 4 series. Mel and Sue are extremely well established performers on the comedy circuit. They are also familiar as the hosts of Channel 4's Late Lunch and as the stars of a number of TV commercials. Sue Perkins... Read more

Grumpy Old Men The Official Handbook

By: Stuart Prebble

Narrated by: Arthur Smith

Length: 2 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

Do you know someone who is incensed by compulsory tipping? Who is infuriated if kept on hold for more than a minute? Who is positively apoplectic if someone answers their phone during dinner? If so, you've probably encountered the phenomenon of the grumpy old man. Following their first massively successful BBC1 series, this autumn will see the... Read more

Life Laundry, The How To De-Junk Your Life

By: Dawna Walters

Narrated by: Dawna Walter & Full Cast

Length: 1 hour 9 minutes

Abridged: No

An inspirational guide to fighting clutter and sorting out your space, based on the bestselling BBC book and TV series. Clutter can be a huge problem for many of us. We yearn to live in a perfectly-ordered home, but more often than not we find ourselves drowning in a sea of 'stuff'. Not only is it depressing to live in a mess, but accumulating... Read more

Richard II

By: William Shakespeare

Narrated by: Full Cast, Joss Ackland, Samuel West, Damian Le...

Length: 2 hours 57 minutes

Abridged: No

In this BBC full-cast production of Richard II, the male ego and narcissism of monarchs are hung out to dry...

Written entirely in verse, the rhythms of the language in this epic tragedy encompass its themes of dignity and kingship with fitting grandeur and pathos, as the capricious and narcissistic Richard is brought to his own... Read more

Much Ado About Nothing

By: William Shakespeare

Narrated by: Samantha Spiro, Emilia Fox, Maxine Peake, Chiwe...

Length: 2 hours 14 minutes

Abridged: No

In this BBC full-cast production of Much Ado About Nothing, some handsome soldiers return from battle. Yet one soldier finds himself locked in a merry war of his own...

In Shakespeare's comedy of wit, love and miscommunication, Beatrice and Benedick and Hero and Claudio are pushed into and pulled out of love, their friends playing cupid with... Read more

Macbeth

By: William Shakespeare

Narrated by: Full Cast, Ken Stott, Liam Brennan, Phyllis Log...

Length: 1 hour 49 minutes

Abridged: No

In this BBC full-cast production, a trio of witches predicts Macbeth's early demise.

In a tale of fate, fulfilment and ego, Macbeth and his wife desire the Scottish kingship. Macbeth's temptation and descent into evil, his wife's ruthlessness and subsequent madness and the overarching presence of the supernatural charge this gripping production.... Read more

King Lear

By: William Shakespeare

Narrated by: Corin Redgrave, David Troughton, Full Cast, Ger...

Length: 2 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

In this BBC full-cast production, King Lear tests his three daughters' love, with disastrous consequences.

Some of the most stirring scenes Shakespeare ever wrote resonate powerfully in this dramatic radio production. Tortured madness, pure evil, and the fatal struggle for power grip the listener until the final, shockingly tragic... Read more

Julius Caesar

By: William Shakespeare

Narrated by: Stella Gonet, Nicholas Farrell, Full Cast, Gera...

Length: 2 hours 20 minutes

Abridged: No

In this BBC full-cast production, Julius Caesar is triumphant after his victory over the sons of Pompey. But as bad omens and weather plague Rome, even his most loyal friends are starting to see the signs...

Political intrigue and fierce battle rage in this tense and dynamic production in which a country is torn apart under the legacy of Julius... Read more

Coriolanus

By: William Shakespeare

Narrated by: Adrian Dunbar, Full Cast, Kenneth Cranham, Samu...

Length: 2 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

In this BBC full-cast production of Coriolanus, allies and enemies become blurred just as Rome is in sight...

Coriolanus tells of a proud Roman general who captures the town Corioli but subsequently falls from favour with the Roman people. He allies himself with the Volscians and leads an attack on Rome, but allegiances are won and lost before... Read more

Woman's Hour A Celebration Of Mothers

By: BBC

Narrated by: Jenni Murray

Length: 1 hour 13 minutes

Abridged: No

Woman's Hour: A Celebration of Mothers is an audiobook that looks at the changing role of mothers over the last fifty years; the relationships that they have enjoyed with their children, how they have juggled the work life balance and how they have challenged the stereotypes and tested the boundaries of what being a mother means. For example the... Read more

Ustinov At Eighty

By: Peter Ustinov

Narrated by: John Bird

Length: 1 hour 11 minutes

Abridged: No

In this much-praised interview, octogenarian Peter Ustinov talks to John Bird. The man of many talents has an astonishing range of accomplishments behind him as an Oscar-winning film and theatre actor, author of novels, plays and screenplays. He is also a raconteur, graphic artist, photographer, stage director and designer and the recipient of... Read more

Edward R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism

By: Bob Edwards

Narrated by: Bob Edwards

Length: 4 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

"Most Americans living today never heard Ed Murrow in a live broadcast. This book is for them. I want them to know that broadcast journalism was established by someone with the highest standards. Tabloid crime stories, so much a part of the lust for ratings by today's news broadcasters, held no interest for Murrow. He did like Hollywood... Read more

Lost and Found Sound and Beyond

By: The Kitchen Sisters & Jay Allison

Length: 2 hours 31 minutes

Abridged: No

The second volume of the LOST & FOUND SOUND collection explores how recorded sound has shaped and captured the history of the last 100 years. Drawing from the archives and attics of the nation, this historic and intimate collection of radio documentaries presents a compelling array of sonic pioneers and legends, eccentric collectors, and... Read more

Plenty of Pretty Good Jokes

By: Garrison Keillor

Length: 4 hours 34 minutes

Abridged: No

Includes the complete Pretty Good Jokes, Few More Pretty Good Jokes, and New and Not Bad Pretty Good Jokes. Read more

Chavez Ravine

By: Culture Clash

Narrated by: Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas, Herbert Siguenza ...

Length: 1 hour 22 minutes

Abridged: No

The controversial history of Chavez Ravine, the immigrant community that once existed on the site that is now Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, is explored with humor, brutal honesty, and pulse-racing music by the nation's premier Chicano/Latino theatre troupe, Culture Clash.

An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Culture Clash: ... Read more

Car Talk: The Hatchback of Notre Dame

By: Tom Magliozzi & Ray Magliozzi

Length: 1 hour 3 minutes

Abridged: No

The Hatchback of Notre Dame includes many memorable Car Talk classics, including Morley Safer of CBS's Sixty Minutes, displaying a downright embarrassing obsession with his Peugeot, and space shuttle astronaut John Grunsfeld, who calls from Hawaii. (Well, 700 miles over Hawaii, actually). And, there's one of Click and Clack's all-time favorite... Read more

Commercial Radio

By: Garrison Keillor

Length: 1 hour 4 minutes

Abridged: No

A word or thirty from the sponsors of public radio’s enduring Saturday-evening staple, Commercial Radio features the best bits (and questionable marketing strategies) of many Lake Wobegon establishments. In addition to missives from longtime supporters such as the Catchup Advisory Board and the American Duct Tape Council, special messages from... Read more

An Immaculate Misconception

By: Carl Djerassi

Narrated by: Philip Casnoff, Kevin Kilner, Kendall Schmidt &...

Length: 1 hour 53 minutes

Abridged: No

Dr. Melanie Laidlaw is a scientist developing the first use of ICSI, short for intracytoplasmic sperm injection. Her collaborator, Dr. Felix Frankenthaler, turns out to have his own ideas about how to implement their new procedure. The wild card is Melanie’s new lover, Menachem Dvir, a fellow scientist. This darkly comic menage-a-trois plays out... Read more

This Little Piggy

By: BBC

Narrated by: Nigel Williams & Bronwyn Baud

Length: 41 minutes

Abridged: No

A collection of classic nursery rhymes and songs brought to you by the BBC.

Join in with over 40 minutes of fun with familiar favourite rhymes including This Little Piggy, Incy Wincy Spider and Baa Baa Black Sheep. Pre-schoolers will love to sing, dance and learn with this traditional compilation of 30 cheerful songs. Head down to the farm with... Read more