Showing results by narrator "Celia Imrie" in All Categories

One of our best-loved actresses, Celia Imrie would rather have been a dancer. As a child she planned to join the Royal Ballet and marry Rudolf Nureyev. Now she has become one of our finest and funniest performers, on stage, TV and screen - adored for her roles in 'Acorn Antiques' and 'dinnerladies', as well as films including 'Calendar Girls' and 'Nanny McPhee'. In her hugely entertaining autobiography, Celia Imrie recounts a life hurtling (not always intentionally) into adventures both on stage and off.

Somewhere on the French Riviera, tucked between glitzy Monte Carlo and Cannes' red carpets, lies the sleepy town of Bellevue-Sur-Mer. Sheltered from the glittering melee, it is home to many an expat - although it hasn't proved as peaceful as expected. Now an enterprising band of retirees has resolved to show it's never too late to start afresh and open a restaurant.

GUARDIAN AUDIOBOOK OF THE WEEK 'remarkable and haunting testimony' 'Shocking... a damning portrait of a man who, in the name of psychiatric progress, left a trail of broken lives in his wake' Telegraph, five stars 'Compelling' Sunday Times and chosen as one of the best 80 books to take on...

Meet Me at Rainbow Corner follows the lives of Dot, Lilly and their friends, as they dance the nights away, fall in and out of love, and navigate the horrors of war. Lilly goes on a secret mission with her Colonel to France, and Dot becomes pregnant and returns to Liverpool. When the war is over, they are reunited, having travelled by boat to the US with countless other war brides to meet their repatriated fiancés again. Along the way, they uncover a case of inside espionage and learn the true meaning of love.

Celia Imrie and Toby Jones star in this BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Gerald Durrell's much-loved comic gem. My Family and Other Animals is the classic tale of naturalist Gerald Durrell's magical 1930s childhood on pre-war Corfu. His descriptions of his eccentric family and his encounters with...

Based on Nigel Fairs' 'murder mystery serial' that has been running for over 21 years (new episodes performed every month in country houses, steam trains, jailhouses, castles and restaurants throughout the UK), Shilling & Sixpence Investigate takes place in a sometimes quirky, sometimes dark world where nobody is quite whom they seem.

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tennessee Williams is one of the three most important American dramatists of the 20th century, alongside Arthur Miller and Eugene O'Neill. Acclaimed for their lyrical language, dark themes and vivid portrayal of the American South, his works have spawned several Oscar-winning films and been translated and performed worldwide. Collected here are some of the best, beginning with the play that launched Williams' career: The Glass Menagerie.

David Edgar is among the UK’s leading contemporary dramatists, well known for his powerful plays chronicling Britain's changing political landscape over the past 50 years. More than 60 of his original plays, adaptations and translations have been performed around the world, and in 2023 he was honoured with a Writers’ Guild Outstanding Contribution award for his service to British playwriting. This radio anthology contains some of his most notable work.

A stellar line up of stars, including Celia Imrie (The Crown), Joan Sims (Carry On), Alex Jennings (The Lady in the Van), Geoffrey Palmer (As Time Goes By) and Lynda Bellingham (Loose Women), play a cast of moving and memorable characters in this brilliant six-part comedy drama. Let these sensory delights take you into the classic five senses we know… plus the other one.

BBC Radio dramatisations of some of Muriel Spark’s best works, plus bonus episode of The Essay: All Miss Brodie’s Girls Muriel Spark was one of Scotland’s brightest and most original literary talents. In a career spanning over 60 years, she published over 20 novels, as well as essays...

Nice, France, 1911: After three years of marriage, Marcella Navratil has finally had enough. Her husband, Michael, an ambitious tailor, may have charmed her during their courtship, but their few years of marriage have revealed a cruel and controlling streak. The 21-year-old mother of two is determined to get a divorce. But while awaiting the Judges’ decision on the custody of their children, Michael receives news that changes everything. Meanwhile, fun-loving New York socialite Margaret Hays is touring Europe with some friends.

An established actress across stage, screen and radio, Celia Imrie is most well known for her collaborations with Victoria Wood, including the spoof Acorn Antiques. With notable film appearances including Bridget Jones’s Diary, Calendar Girls and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Imrie has now narrated and published her latest audiobook, Sail Away. Celia Imrie talks to us about her new book, what we can expect from it and her successful and varied career as an actress.

Dr. William Sargant ran a lucrative private practice and published multiple books on psychiatry, and he was awarded the Starkey medal and prize by the Royal Society of Health for his work on psychiatric medicine. But what he was best known for was the apogee of his career: the Sleep Room in Ward Five. This was a dark gallery where patients selected by Sargant were subjected to deep narcosis, sleeping for more than twenty-one hours per day for weeks at a time, and roused only for sessions of electroconvulsive therapy.

This is a neglected history. Not a sweeping, definitive, exhaustive history of the world but something quieter, more intimate and particular. A single journey, picked out in 101 objects, through the fascinating, too-often-overlooked, manifold histories of women. Through the variety and nuance in all these objects, Annabelle Hirsch has created a new history – teeming, unexpected, witty and always illuminating.