Showing results by narrator "Simon Russell" in All Categories

Stella Rode has twice disturbed the ancient cloisters of Carne School: firstly by being the wrong sort, with her doilies and china ducks, and secondly by being murdered. George Smiley, who has his own connection with the school, is asked by an old Service friend to investigate. Smiley knows that Stella feared her husband would murder her, but as he probes further beneath Carne's respectable veneer, he uncovers far more than a simple crime of passion.

Simon Russell Beale stars in this BBC Radio full-cast dramatisation of John le Carré’s last Smiley novel.George Smiley is one of the most brilliantly realised characters in British fiction. Bespectacled, tubby, eternally middle-aged and deceptively ordinary, he has a mind like a steel trap and is said to possess ‘the cunning of Satan and the conscience of a virgin'.

A dark secret is emerging from Bloor's Academy. A boy was once lost in the attics and never seen again. Charlie Bone is intrigued, but he has problems of his own. Uncle Paton has disappeared.

The Romanovs were the most successful dynasty of modern times, ruling a sixth of the world's surface. How did one family turn a war-ruined principality into the world's greatest empire? And how did they lose it all? This is the intimate story of 20 tsars and tsarinas, some touched by genius, some by madness, but all inspired by holy autocracy and imperial ambition.

George Smiley has become acting chief of the Circus, but the credibility of the British Secret Service has been shattered. Smiley's adversary is Karla, the Soviet officer who masterminded the Circus's ruin. His battleground is Hong Kong and his choice of weapons is the Honourable Gerald Westerby. A brand new Radio 4 full cast dramatisation of the classic George Smiley novel by John le Carre, starring Simon Russell Beale. This is the sixth in the major new series of all eight George Smiley spy thrillers on radio.

Benedict Cumberbatch, Greta Scacchi and Simon Russell Beale star in Michael Frayn's award-winning play about the controversial 1941 meeting between physicists Bohr and Heisenberg. Copenhagen, Autumn 1941. The two presiding geniuses of quantum physics, Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg meet for the first time since the breakout of war.

The Decameron is one of the greatest literary works of the Middle Ages. Ten young people have fled the terrible effects of the Black Death in Florence and, in an idyllic setting, tell a series of brilliant stories, by turns humorous, bawdy, tragic and provocative. This celebration of physical and sexual vitality is Boccaccio's answer to the sublime other-worldliness of Dante's Divine Comedy.

Each track of this unique collection contains an extract, which might be a famous poem, quote or scene, matched to the date, performed by leading actors such as Sir Simon Russell Beale, Helen McCrory, and Damian Lewis. Allie Esiri's introductions give her listeners a new window into the work, time and life of the greatest writer in the English language. Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year is perfect for listening or sharing and brings you Shakespeare’s best-known and best-loved classics alongside lesser known extracts read by a range of award-winning Shakespearean actors.

After a routine security check by George Smiley, civil servant Samuel Fennan apparently kills himself. When Smiley finds Circus head Maston is trying to blame him for the death, he begins his own investigation, meeting Fennan's widow to find out what led him to such desperation. On the very day Smiley is ordered off the enquiry he receives an urgent letter from the dead man. Do the East Germans - and their agents - know more about this man's death than the Circus previously imagined?

Craiglockhart War Hospital, Scotland, 1917, and army psychiatrist William Rivers is treating shell-shocked soldiers. Under his care are the poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, as well as mute Billy Prior, who is only able to communicate by means of pencil and paper. Rivers' job is to make the men in his charge healthy enough to fight. Yet the closer he gets to mending his patients' minds, the harder becomes every decision to send them back to the horrors of the front.

Louise North doesn't care what the neighbors think. She lets her lover leave his car just outside her house in broad daylight, telling everyone he is a central heating salesman. Still, it's a shock when she's found shot dead, covered by the equally dead body of the "salesman." It was his third visit to the gloomy house on Orchard Drive. Each time, he parked in the same place. Each time, he carried a briefcase. And each time, Louise North greeted him at the door.

A sparkling collection of the major works of the ever-adored Oscar Wilde, with incredible casts including Judi Dench, Martin Clunes, Michael Sheen, Miriam Margolyes, Ian McDiarmid, Joely Richardson, Penelope Keith, Martin Jarvis, Diana Rigg, Simon Russell Beale, Sheila Hancock, Ian McKellen and Stephen Fry.

In early 1940, Chaim Herzsman was locked in to the Lódz Ghetto in Poland. Hungry, fearless and determined, he goes on scavenging missions outside the wire limits, until he is forced to kill a Nazi guard. That moment changes the course of his life and sets him on an unbelievable adventure across enemy lines.

One of the greatest novelists of all time, Leo Tolstoy is famed worldwide for his masterpieces of realist fiction, War and Peace and Anna Karenina. This comprehensive collection contains both those iconic works, as well as his final novel, Resurrection, his autobiographical essay 'A Confession', Stephen Wakelam's dramatic account of his tempestuous marriage, Mrs Tolstoy, and In Our Time: Tolstoy.

Simon Russell Beale is one of Britain's most recognisable and well-loved actors. He has played many roles on stage, film, television and radio - ranging from Winston Churchill to Stalin, George Smiley to King Arthur. But ever since his appearance at school as a glamorous Desdemona, complete with false eyelashes that rendered him half-blind, he has been captivated by Shakespeare.

London, 1918. Billy Prior is working for Intelligence in the Ministry of Munitions. But his private encounters with women and men - pacifists, objectors, homosexuals - conflict with his duties as a soldier, and it is not long before his sense of himself fragments and breaks down. Forced to consult the man who helped him before - army psychiatrist William Rivers - Prior must confront his inability to be the dutiful soldier his superiors wish him to be.

Jean-Baptiste Pocquelin, better known by his pen-name Molière, was France's greatest satirical dramatist. Such was his influence on the French language that it is often referred to as 'the language of Molière', and he has been dubbed 'the French Shakespeare'. A leading 17th Century comic actor and director, his genius encompassed all aspects of stage comedy, and his plays continue to appeal to audiences today. Included here are six of his masterpieces, as heard on BBC Radio.

Paterson Joseph, John Hurt, Lesley Manville and Harriet Walter are among the cast of BBC Radio 4's epic full-cast dramatisation. Adapted for radio by Timberlake Wertenbaker, Leo Tolstoy's epic story follows the fortunes of three Russian aristocratic families during the Napoleonic War. First broadcast on New Year's Day 2015, the drama also features Alun Armstrong, Natasha Little, David Calder, Phoebe Fox, Sam Reid and Joanna David. Duration: 10 hours approx.

Simon Mayo hosts a comedic battle between three teams to find out which is the funniest generation. Will the Up and Comers, the Current Crop or the Old Guard be crowned as the Golden Age of Comedy?

A wonderfully atmospheric collection of stories from one of our most captivating writers, inspired by ghost stories, traditional folk tales and country legends from England and France. These tales are richly populated by spirits and ghosts seeking revenge; by grief-stricken women and haunted men coming to terms with their destiny - all rooted deep in the elemental landscapes of Sussex, Brittany and the Languedoc.