Showing results by narrator "John Rowe" in All Categories

Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett (1884-1969) was an English novelist who was a bestseller in the mid-20th century. She published eighteen highly acclaimed works of fiction in her lifetime, inspired by her own tragic experiences of family life. Her works consist mainly of dialogue and focus on family life among the late Victorian or Edwardian upper middle class. They deal with money, power, status, incest, adultery, murder, homosexuality – about which she was years ahead of her time – and all the passions and stresses of family life, described with brilliant wit and perception.

Two boys out sledging in their local park find the body of an old woman in the snow. Who is she? How did she come to be there? Over 10 episodes, we meet people she has encountered, members of her family and her friends, all of whom give us clues about what has led the woman to this place. On our journey to understanding the woman's story, we encounter a series of relationships which combine to form a moving account of modern life and loves.

Vampires are real. That fact has Erin Hamilton thinking she’s headed for crazy town. Still, she can’t deny the intense emotion she experiences when Dante Gabriel sinks his teeth into her neck to take her blood. She’s in love, and her body responds to his bite in a way she never could have imagined. Once Dante tastes Erin’s blood, he’s addicted forever and cannot live without it. He’s heartbroken when she demands that he leave and never return. But neither can live without the other now, which puts them both at risk.

This is the story of the battle between appeasers and anti-appeasers in the period before - and just after - the start of the Second World War, and the formation of the 1940 coalition government which, like the election of 2010, abruptly ruptured all previous political alignments. Based on real events, this is a fascinating and little known tale of idealism, blackmail, and political skulduggery.

John Fletcher’s BBC Radio 3 full-cast play explores the dramatic clash between three key historical figures: a warlord, a historian and a poet. Originally broadcast in Radio 3’s ‘Drama on 3’ slot on 16 November 2008. As war swirls around them, three of the most important figures in the...

Erin Hamilton follows Dante Gabriel back into hell - the underground compound where he was held for a decade - to confront the woman who held him captive. Finally unmasked, she seems to hold Dante under her influence. Erin has faith in Dante’s strength and determination, though, especially when the mysterious Vampyre Texts reveal their first secret. Dante struggles to regain his control, even as he grows stronger and the darkness rises within him.

It’s 2025, and advances in gene therapy have led to the eradication of many once-common diseases. But the ability to engineer and re-engineer the brain has provoked fear – for it means that a truly artificial consciousness is within reach. The idea that humans may no longer be the only sentient species is so unthinkable that legislation is hastily passed, rigorously controlling genetic experiments. But there are certain people who seek to circumvent the law...

Acclaimed author JG Farrell came to fame with his Empire Trilogy, exploring the collapse of British colonialism and its repercussions in three different countries. The first book in the series, Troubles, won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and the Lost Man Booker Prize, while the second, The Siege of Krishnapur, was awarded the Booker Prize for Fiction. Included here are three BBC Radio adaptations of the trilogy, plus an edition of Witness History exploring Farrell's tragic accidental death.

This is a story from the Canterbury Tales II: Modern Verse Translation collection.

Full-cast adaptations of four works by Nathaniel Hawthorne Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts. A descendant of judge John Hathorne, who oversaw the 1692 Salem Witch Trials, he wrote several works inspired by Puritan New England, with themes of guilt, sin and retribution...

BBC Radio adaptations of Nick Payne's finest works, brought together on audio for the first time—plus bonus features. Nick Payne is a world-renowned playwright and screenwriter. He won the George Devine Award for his first major play If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet, and Constellations won the Evening Standard Award for Best Play. This collection contains Constellations and Elegy, his two acclaimed plays exploring science, time and love, with new introductions by Nick Payne himself. Also included are three dramas specially written for BBC Radio.

After getting canned from her dream job this morning and played in spectacular fashion by her boyfriend this afternoon, Savannah “Savvy” Valentine is having a truly awful day. Which is why she’s currently drowning her sorrows in whiskey and self-pity in a shabby bar along the route to Las Vegas. In light of today’s double whammy, Savvy isn’t sure why she’s still heading in the direction of her five-year high school reunion.

Dante Gabriel is starving. What he craves is red gold - human blood. After being held captive as a blood slave to a female vampire for years, he has finally escaped. Unchained at last, he follows his nose to the nearest blood bank to sate his hunger. ER nurse Erin Hamilton expects just another busy night shift...until she finds a gorgeous stranger vandalizing the hospital blood bank. Though her logic tells her to turn him in, she’s pulled by stronger and unfamiliar emotions to protect the man who seems oddly infatuated with her scent.

Breaking into a cemetery isn’t anything Dante Gabriel ever thought he’d do, but he has no choice. He must recover his father’s body so he can claim his estate. Help arrives from two unexpected sources, but their plan is interrupted. Erin Hamilton’s best friend is a wolf shifter. The man she loves is a vampire. His father is a ghost. She can deal with all of that, but new worries have surfaced. The missing doctor has returned to the hospital, and his strange actions are disturbing...but not as disturbing as the odd dreams that begin to plague her.

Vampires can’t levitate. At least that’s what Dante Gabriel always thought, until he finds himself floating above his bed along with his lover, Erin Hamilton. As he continues to exhibit unusual powers, more memories from his time in captivity surface, leaving him fearing what he might have done while imprisoned. When a new and unexpected temptation arises, he finds himself unable to resist. Erin aches for Dante and wants more than anything for him to find peace.

Dante Gabriel is angry. Someone has violated the woman whose scent has left him emotionally paralyzed, and he’s become unhinged. He vows to protect Erin Hamilton - mostly from himself. Erin has other ideas. She’s determined to figure out the strange man who keeps leaving her aroused and unsatisfied. When she pushes Dante for answers, he goes looking for them himself. What he uncovers could put Erin in mortal danger, with him as her only salvation.

Darkness tempts Dante Gabriel at every corner, and he struggles to maintain the control he was never taught when he came of age. His ghost father, his cousin, and the voodoo priestess under Claiborne Bridge continue to help, even as he descends further toward madness. Erin Hamilton is more in love than ever. She doesn’t fear Dante, even when he’s not himself, and she’s willing to do anything to put an end to his suffering and to find her best friend and the others. An unexpected visitor who arrives with a valuable gift could be the key.

In 'This be the Verse', the poet Philip Larkin famously bemoans the impact parents have on their children. In ‘Philip and Sydney’, playwright, translator and screenwriter Alan Pollock uncovers some of the reasons why Larkin may have had such a profound sense of anguish. In 1937, Philip...

Erin Hamilton follows Dante Gabriel back into hell - the underground compound where he was held for a decade - to confront the woman who held him captive. Finally unmasked, she seems to hold Dante under her influence. Erin has faith in Dante’s strength and determination, though, especially when the mysterious Vampyre Texts reveal their first secret. Dante struggles to regain his control, even as he grows stronger and the darkness rises within him. He’ll let his captor think she commands him as long as it serves his purpose....

One of a series of plays by British screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce looking at the punk generation three decades on, with each play telling a different, but connected, story. In Parallel Lines, Julie is a singer in an ageing Blondie tribute band. An invitation to the reunion of the audience at an Adverts gig in 1977 brings some skeletons dancing from the cupboard. Starring Doon Mackichan as Julie, with Sian Reeves, Rosie Cavaliero, Ivan Kaye, Paul Viragh, Joseph Tremain, Sarah Bedi, John Rowe and Ben Crowe.