Showing results by narrator "Gerard McDermott" in All Categories

Jack loves his childhood toy Dur Pig. DP has always been there for him, through good and bad. Until one Christmas Eve something terrible happens - DP is lost. But Christmas Eve is a night for miracles and lost causes, a night when all things can come to life...even toys. And Jack’s newest toy - the Christmas Pig (DP’s annoying replacement) - has a daring plan: Together they’ll embark on a magical journey to seek something lost and to save the best friend Jack has ever known....

Actor, writer and director Mahesh Dattani is the first playwright in English to be awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award by India’s National Academy of Letters. Included here are all three of his plays featuring Uma Rao – PhD student, daughter-in-law of Bangalore's deputy commissioner of police, and wife of the superintendent. Priyanga Burford (neé Elan), stars as the intrepid sleuth, with full casts including Shiv Grewal, Saeed Jaffrey, Ajay Chhabra, Amerjit Deu and Nitin Chandra Ganatra.

Brendan Behan is widely remembered as a hard-drinking, wise-cracking writer who turned up roaring drunk for interviews and cared little for authority. But he was more than just a hell-raising celebrity. His wit, expressive use of language and understanding of human nature made his writing famous around the world, and his masterpieces The Quare Fellow, Borstal Boy and The Hostage rank among the greatest works of 20th century Irish literature. Dramatisations of all three appear here, alongside a short interview with Behan himself and a fascinating biographical programme celebrating his genius.

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...

Meet Lady Toad, Mistress Badger, Miss Water Rat and Mrs Mole as they go about their adventures, messing around on the river, gallivanting in Lady Toad’s shiny new toy and fighting valiantly to save Toad Hall from unruly squatters. In this retelling by Dina Gregory, The Wind in the Willows becomes a story about a group of female animals to be admired for their close sisterhood and fierce independence. Featuring original music and songs by Rosabella Gregory and sound effects captured on location, put your headphones on, sit back and lose yourself in the British countryside.

Looking for a sign from God, nun Martina leaves her convent and becomes a temporary chef – only to walk straight into a catering crisis of epic proportions. Valentine’s Viennese Patisserie supplies classy Austrian snacks for corporate events, but now their pastry cook has left, no-one knows how to make any of the delicacies they’re offering. And that’s not their only problem – they’re also being chased by clients, up to their necks in bills and cancellations, and stuck with a clapped-out delivery van that keeps breaking down.

A brand new BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of a classic Raymond Chandler mystery featuring private eye, Philip Marlowe. Marlowe is now married, living in the resort town of Poodle Springs. Once again, he sets himself up as an investigator and soon finds himself in the middle of blackmail and murder....

Philip Marlowe’s on a case: his client, a dried-up husk of a woman, wants him to recover a rare gold coin called a Brasher Doubloon, missing from her late husband’s collection. That’s the simple part. It becomes more complicated when Marlowe finds that everyone who handles the coin suffers a run of very bad luck: they always end up dead.

University dropout and would-be novelist Johnny Street and his worker-of-the-world mate Arthur Lane are the odd-couple partners in a one-horse, two-man family building firm (slogan: ‘Up Your Street, Down Your Lane’). Together, they travel the Yorkshire suburbs in their white van, tackling tricky household repairs with their unique combination of art and craft.

Gleaned from the author's experiences over many years of yoga and Zen training, as well as from conversations with teachers, folk stories and temple magazines, this is a fascinating and enlightening compendium of tales from the yoga and Zen traditions.

Stories such as these are used in many spiritual schools' teaching - they're the flint or steel that makes the spark which, when nurtured daily, fires the imagination, heralding enlightenment and insight.

Collected by the author, these stories from the yoga and Zen traditions are the flint and steel that strike a spark that lights up the mind with insights that one should ponder to bring to light ever deeper meaning. They may be similar in intent to Zen koans - but they are rather different in content. In many Zen koans, someone says or does something extraordinarily inappropriate, which catches your attention just because it's extraordinary - but afterwards the light from them has to be applied to daily life.

It’s 1985 and the Stage Left Theatre Collective is founded by a group of friends with a shared vision: Emma, the artistic manager and Robert the literary manager, director Saul, playwright Alan, and finance manager, Frank. This funny, moving and pin sharp drama follows the fate of the company and its members over the course of four decades. We catch up with the characters as they negotiate changing cultural and economic climates.

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.

Two new dramas which get inside the emotional realities of dealing with ethical dilemmas. When a confused young man with no I.D. and a Doctor Who fixation is brought into hospital, the staff have clear rules about how decisions can be made on his behalf. But when he starts to make his own wishes clear, are they right to listen? Starring Gunnar Cauthery, Clare Perkins, Simon Bubb, and Carl Prekopp.

In One Flat Summer, newly redundant clothing salesman Ken Warburton finds himself adrift and drawn into the serious world of gambling after a good win at Newmarket. He has big plans, but what of the cost at home? In the sequel, Sharing Fatman, Margaret disapproves of her husband Ken's gambling on horses and takes the reins to find an absorbing new hobby to fill their retirement. But she ends up throwing caution to the wind when they make a connection with Mr Fatman at the horse sales.

The last in a short series of stories that each take us to a different part of the UK. He hasn't told anyone, but today is Charles' last early shift, sweeping the streets of the North Laine in Brighton. This afternoon he's leaving. Forever. All he wants to do is get to the Pavilion Gardens for dawn, to say goodbye properly. But it's not going to be that simple. Directed by Abigail le Fleming. Ed Harris is a young Brighton-based playwright and poet. His plays include Mongrel Island (Soho Theatre), The Cow Play and Never Ever After (shortlisted for the 2008 Meyer-Whitworth Award).