Showing results by narrator "Derek Smith" in All Categories

Raunchy, risqué and rebellious, early Restoration comedies were a breath of fresh air for 17th century theatregoers. With Charles II restored to the throne in 1660, Oliver Cromwell's ban on stage performances was rescinded, and for the first time, women were invited to tread the boards as actresses. Playwrights developed a new style of social comedy, packed with amorous escapades, bawdy humour, wicked wit and sexual innuendo. This scintillating anthology showcases six leading lights of early Restoration drama.

In the title story of Walk Between the Raindrops, a woman sits down next to a man at a bar and claims she has ESP. In “Thirteen Days,” passengers on a cruise line are quarantined, to horrifying and hilarious effect. And “Hyena” begins simply: “That was the day the hyena came for him, and never mind that there were no hyenas in the South of France, and especially not in Pont-Saint-Esprit—it was there and it came for him.”

England is burning. And the cause . . . men are too afraid to utter in nothing but a whisper. The Northmen. My father is King Eanred. And me? I am Princess Emeline. My father wants to protect our kingdom against the ruthless Vikings who continue to raid England, so he has betrothed me to Aethelwulf, the son of King Egbert of Wessex—the most powerful realm in all of England. Without this union, Northumbria will fall, which is why I must submit. I must do this for my people.

Full-cast adaptations of three of Winifred Holtby’s best-known novels, plus short stories and bonus programmes about the author: Winifred Holtby was an acclaimed novelist, journalist, feminist and social reformer. Her work encompasses six novels, two short story collections, a play and the first critical study of Virginia Woolf, but she is best known for her posthumously published masterpiece South Riding, which won the James Tait Black Memorial Award. She died in 1935, aged just 37.

England is bleeding. And there isn't a thing I can do about it. I am once again a prisoner to Wessex, captured by King Egbert because holding me hostage will bring them to him—my two Vikings who will risk heaven and earth to save me. But I don't need saving. I am Princess Emeline, and I was taught by the best, and his name . . . Skarth the Godless. The man whom I love more than anything in this world. But things begin to blur when Ulf the Bloody reminds me of the promise I made, and that promise is that I belong to him.