Showing results by narrator "Annette Crosbie" in All Categories

Barbara Pym is one of the 20th-century's wittiest, and most underrated, novelists. Her perceptive comedies of manners, centred around the domestic lives and loves of unassuming middle-class Englishwomen, won her many devoted readers and saw her hailed as a modern-day Jane Austen. Yet she spent 15 years out of print in the 1960s and '70s, until Philip Larkin championed her work in the Times Literary Supplement. Her seventh novel was subsequently shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and writers from Jilly Cooper to Alexander McCall Smith continue to laud her talent today. 

It's not easy being Satan. There are the long hours (that stretch into eternity), and Hell seems to have more admissions than it can cope with. One of the new arrivals is Edith, a historian, athlete, and humanitarian. And she's trouble: she refuses to believe she's dead, she knows Thomas, and she's not afraid of Satan. But will the Grand Tour, which includes the Pit of Musicians, the Lake of Fire, and the Pit of Health and Safety Inspectors, finally make her realise where she's ended up?

Jean Paul Sartre said, 'Hell is other people'. But, as Satan will tell you, Hell is actually a fiery, unendingly cruel domain where Oliver Reed can never quite catch the barman's eye and Yves St Laurent is forced to wear a donkey jacket. But Hell is about to become more hellish for Satan himself (Andy Hamilton). Not only is the historian Edith Barrington (Annette Crosbie) taking for ever to write his biography, An Angel Misunderstood, but everything is thrown into confusion when a dog turns up.

Andy Hamilton's fiendishly funny BBC Radio 4 sitcom set in Hell returns for a two-part festive special. Satan embarks on an epic quest and encounters Queen Victoria, Harpo Marx, a highly intelligent bluebottle, Death, Davina McCall, and St Peter and his rottweilers.

Crabby, crusty, and curmudgeonly he may be, but Victor Meldrew, played brilliantly by Richard Wilson, voices the exasperation of the once silent majority. Accompanied by his long-suffering wife Margaret (Annette Crosbie), Victor's howlingly funny battles against what he perceives as modern-day ills have turned him into one of the great comic creations of our time. 

Twenty tales of terror and suspense, brought to you by sinister storyteller Vincent Price. Horror legend Vincent Price presents an anthology of eerie, unsettling tales with a devilish twist - some purportedly based on his own adventures, others narrated by him in his own inimitable style.

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Henry Fielding's rollicking comic masterpiece. Found one evening in the bed of the rich and benevolent Mr Allworthy, baby Tom grows up in the guardianship of the kindly squire. He develops into a good-hearted fellow who is nonetheless resented by Allworthy's mean-natured heir and nephew, Blifil. Tom's naive inability to resist a pretty face lands him in hot water when the gamekeeper's daughter declares herself pregnant.

This is Stephen Wyatt's adaptation of Henry Fielding's classic comic adventure. Episode 1: The wealthy Squire Allworthy steps into bed and finds an infant wrapped between his sheets. Episode 2: Tom is banished from the home in which he has spent his entire life. Episode 3: Tom follows his true love Sophia to London and receives an invitation to a masked ball.

Jane Austen's acclaimed comedy of manners contains a truly memorable cast of characters, including the snobbish Mrs Ferrers, impetuous Marianne, selfish John Dashwood, and his awful, grasping wife. Annette Crosbie captures all the wit and charm of the romance in this BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour reading.