King Leontes of Sicilia is seized by sudden and terrible jealousy of his wife Hermione, whom he accuses of adultery. He believes the child Hermione is bearing was fathered by his friend Polixenes, and when the baby girl is born he orders her to be taken to some wild place and left to die. Though Hermione's child escapes death, Leontes' cruelty has terrible consequences. Loss paves the way for reunion, and life and hope are born out of desolation and despair.One of the late romances...

Mark Antony, one of the three rulers of the Roman world, has become the thrall of the fascinating Cleopatra.Affairs of state call Mark Antony to Rome, but the attractions of the queen of Egypt prove impossible to resist. From one of history’s greatest love stories Shakespeare builds this magnificent tragedy of the clash between love and duty.Cleopatra is played by Estelle Kohler, Mark Antony by Ciaran Hinds, Ian Hughes is Octavius Caesar, and David Burke is...

At college in 1980s, Robbie Goulding, an Irish-born teenager, meets Fran Mulvey, a Vietnamese refugee. Together they form a band. Joined by cellist Sarah-Thérèse Sherlock and her brother Seán on drums, they set out to chase fame. Spanning 25 years, we fast-forward through an evocative soundtrack of struggle and laughter. Infused with blues, New Wave and punk, the tale stretches from the Glastonbury Festival to Long Island, culminating in July 2012, a night that changes everything.

A selection of the renowned French philosophers Sartre’s plays.This collection features several dramatisations of Jean-Paul Sartre's works, including The Roads to Freedom, No Way Out (or "Huis Clos"), Assassins and Nekrassov. These productions showcase Sartre's exploration of existentialism, freedom, and political themes. Notable cast members include David Haig, James Fle...

The renowned masterpiece from one of the most influential writers in history, MachiavelliThe Prince, written during the Italian Renaissance by author Niccolò Machiavelli, is an internationally renowned masterpiece about power, greed and strategy in government. Regarded by some as a manual for would-be tyrants on how they should seize and maintain power and by others as a simple reflection of political reality, listen now to this full-cast dramatisa...

42 letters written by Titanic passengers and crew, plus two documentaries relating survivors' stories and bringing the tragedy to life through the voices of the wireless operatorsThe largest, most luxurious liner in the world, the RMS Titanic captured the public's imagination. But four days into her maiden voyage, on 14 April 1912, she hit an iceberg and sank, taking the lives of over 1500 people.This commemorative anthology opens with the...

Brought to you by Penguin.From cultural icon Margaret Atwood comes a brilliant collection of essays -- funny, erudite, endlessly curious, uncannily prescient -- which seek answers to Burning Questions such as:Why do people everywhere, in all cultures, tell stories?How much of yourself can you give away without evaporating?How can we live on our planet?Is it true? And is it fair?What do zombies have to do with aut...

Dubliners - James Joyce's stories of his native homeland - performed by a cast of 15 different actors originating from Ireland. Unabridged.The fifteen stories that make up this brilliant audio roam over a human landscape that stretches from the bleakest of despair to the most blinding of epiphanies. First published in 1914, the stories are as lucid and accessible as they are memorable poignant.As you listen to the cast of internationally famous stage and screen actors perfo...

Read by Ciaran Hinds, winner of the Gold Award for Audio Performer of the Year at the Audio Production Awards 2020.The judges said, 'A beautiful and charming performance, magically transporting the listener into another world. Emotionally enthralling from the start.'Sometimes, with a little electricity, or luck, or even magic, an imaginary friend might appear when you need one. An imaginary friend like Fred…Fred floated like a feather in the wind until a lonely litt...

SUNDAY TIMES MUSIC BOOK OF THE YEARROUGH TRADE BOOK OF THE YEARMOJO BOOK OF THE YEARIn 1975, Viv Albertine was obsessed with music but it never occurred to her she could be in a band as she couldn't play an instrument and she'd never seen a girl play electric guitar.A year later, she was the guitarist in the hugely influential all-girl band the Slits, who fearlessly took on the male-dominated music scene and became part of a ...

I was only sixteen when I bought an electric guitar and joined a band. A year later, I formed an all-girl band called the Marine Girls and played gigs, and signed to an indie label, and started releasing records.Then, for eighteen years, between 1982 and 2000, I was one half of the group Everything But the Girl. In that time, we released nine albums and sold nine million records. We went on countless tours, had hit singles and flop singles, were reviewed and interviewed to within a...

In the early Seventies a glamorous couple known as Evie/Stevie appear out of nowhere on the isolated concrete campus of a new university. To a group of teenagers experimenting with radical ideas they seem blown back from the future, unsettling everything and uncovering covert desires. But the flamboyant self-expression hides deep anxieties. For Adele, with the most to conceal, Evie/Stevie become a lifelong obsession.