Showing results by narrator "Arthur Smith" in All Categories

A boy in the Midwestern United States celebrates an anticipated rite of passage with his grandfather.

The way we communicate has changed. Today many of our interactions are digital, but until recently writing letters was the norm. Drawing from over 100 miles of records held at the UK's official government archive, The National Archives at Kew, this collection of letters, postcards and telegrams will shine a spotlight on a range of significant historical moments and occurrences, recapturing a lost world in which correspondence was king.

The Potter's Daughter really is a special story of a woman's relationships with her father, her past, and the new man in her life. Abby Bellen, the estranged daughter of an aging ceramic artist, feels obligated to return to her home on Willow Lake to put her father's life in order on account of a promise made to her dying mother. Years have passed since Abby fled the home of her youth and a past she would rather forget.

Much loved broadcaster, comedian and Grumpy Old Man Arthur Smith sets the world to rights in this hilarious recording of his one-man show. From the little annoyances to the slightly larger ones and everything inbetween, this is the perfect comedy audio for anyone who has ever been grumpy - or knows someone who is.

For years they thought it was just them. Irritated and tormented by everything around them from call centres to nose studs, from speed bumps to ring tones. Then along came the BBC2 series Grumpy Old Men, and the subsequent best-selling book, and they knew they were not alone.

Arthur Smith is best known as a comedian, a broadcaster and an opening bat for Grumpy Old Men. But he has also been a West End playwright (his plays include An Evening with Gary Lineker), an English teacher, a failed rock star, a busker, a road sweeper and a bombsite boy in post-war Bermondsey. Smith was one of the 'alternative comedians' who shook up light entertainment in the eighties and remains a legend at the Edinburgh Festival fringe where he has been fêted and arrested.

To everything there is a season. A time to be born, a time to die, and a time to get a few things off your chest. Yes, it's a daily chronicle of life for the terminally irritable; an almanac of angst. If you know, live with, tolerate or, God forbid, ARE, a Grumpy Old Man, this is essential reading.

The narrator boasts of his well-known kindness and compassion towards animals, which was mirrored by his wife. His favorite pet of theirs was a large black cat named Pluto. As the years passed, the narrator became more besotted by drink and consumed by his own cruelty and perverseness. He abused his wife and the animals. Pluto, who was his favorite, bore the brunt of his rage. One day, the narrator cut out one of the cat’s eyes, and not long after that, he hanged the cat from the branch of his tree.

Room 101 is the anti-Desert Island Discs. Instead of picking the tracks, books and luxuries they love, guests are invited to banish their least favourite things to Orwell's eponymous chamber of horrors. Twenty-seven episodes of the show were broadcast on Radio 5 between 1992 and 1994, and it went on to run for 18 hit series on BBC TV before relaunching on Radio 4 in 2023. This specially curated collection contains 16 of the very best editions of the original radio series.