Showing results by narrator "Ruth Jones" in All Categories

In 1896, in a pilgrim church in the Alps, an abandoned baby girl is found by a cook and a housemaid. They take her home, and Annika grows up in the servants' quarters of a house belonging to three eccentric Viennese professors. She is happy there but dreams of the day when her real mother will come to find her. One day a glamorous stranger arrives at the door.

A BBC Radio collection bringing together much-loved works by Alexandre Dumas and Alexandre Dumas fils, starring Timothy Spall, Anton Lesser, Iain Glen, Ruth Wilson and Dan Stevens. Alexandre Dumas père and fils are among the most popular and widely read authors in French literature, whose works have been adapted numerous times for stage, screen and radio. This BBC radio collection brings together three of their most famous tales of chivalry, heroism and romance.

Throughout the centuries, death has been something to be terrified about. The fear comes from the lack of knowing what it is like to experience the last breaths of life. For sure, no one knows exactly what it is like. What is certain is that death leaves a strong impression on us all, not so much as participants, but as witnesses.

In the mountains of Transylvania there stands a castle. It is the home of Count Dracula – a dark, lonely place, and at night the wolves howl around the walls. In the year 1875 Jonathan Harker comes from England to do business with the Count. But Jonathan does not feel comfortable at Castle Dracula. Strange things happen at night, and very soon, he begins to feel afraid. And he is right to be afraid, because Count Dracula is one of the Un-Dead – a vampire that drinks the blood of living people.

This collection of poetry, memoirs, and stories of short fiction presents to the listener such themes as depression, suicide, hopelessness, grief, loss, love, mental illness, and abuse both emotional and physical experienced by the writers or someone close to them. This collection serves to demonstrate that hiding behind shame or fear rather than sharing emotional pain as the authors in these works do is tantamount to putting on a mask; wearing a person suit.