Showing results by narrator "NICHOLAS BOULTON" in All Categories

Like his actor namesake, Ronald Coleman is a suave, well-spoken English gentleman. But although he's a movie buff, Coleman is no film star - he's a copper, and a Detective Inspector to boot. Together with his down-to-earth Scottish partner, DS Fred Astor, he sets about solving cases on two very different patches - rural Kirkcaldy and inner-city Southampton.

The Bayreuth Festspielhaus stands today as a testament to Richard Wagner’s ambition and self-importance—a theatre designed and built solely for the performances of his immersive ‘music dramas’. From the influence of Beethoven to the transcendental properties of his greatest music, Wagner’s work became a cornerstone of European musical culture, but what kind of journey took him towards this remarkable achievement?

The music of Bohemian composer Antonín Dvořák is suffused with natural nobility, fluency and freshness, and embodies the spirit of his native land. This revealing biography portrays Dvořák as a complex and wide-ranging composer, and explores the creation and performance of his music as well as its reception on both sides of the Atlantic, tracing his art in all its richness and variety.

In a fragile time of peace, a covert team monitors a suspect vehicle, ensuring the safety of a recovering community. Families relax, children play, and a cash-strapped Sam Ireland seeks work abroad. But the tranquility shatters when the operatives witness, in vivid technicolor, the car exploding in real-time.

Evie, a phenomenally bright but socially marginalised fifteen year-old, has had it with Western Civilization. Self-educated in the ideas of the Luddites, Mao and T.E. Lawrence, she wants to launch a mission against technology and the damage she believes it has wrought on the human race. She's taken a look at human history and decided it's time things changed. For good. But can she get her mobile-addicted classmates to join with her? Written by Philip de Gouveia.

Is there any music more instantly recognizable and beautifully scored than Tchaikovsky’s wildly popular ballet Swan Lake? These and other works have become enduring classics, yet they were not uncontroversial in Tchaikovsky’s day, and there are those that still wonder if his style is fundamentally European or ardently Russian. Find out more about Tchaikovsky’s childhood obsession with music, his turbulent relationships with friends and colleagues, and how he overcame the deepest of personal crises to transcend all with an ambition that has left us with some of the greatest music ever written.

Written by Matthew Solon. This play tells the story of the tense negotiation that followed the 2010 general election, which led to the country's first post-war coalition. Based on interviews with those who were at the meetings, political journalists and on published material - and using actors to play all the key characters - this is a compelling account of those five momentous days in May.

The Great Gate of Kiev resounds to the tumultuous bell rings that end Pictures an an Exhibition, one of the most magnificent and virtuosic of all piano pieces. However, to some of his contemporaries, Modest Mussorgsky was ‘insane’ and ‘a perfect idiot’. Born into a wealthy land-owning family, what drove this tormented man and why did he suffer psychological breakdowns and alcoholism? How did he achieve his command of the realist idiom in his stage works? d, of course, Pictures at an Exhibition.

Published in 1896, A Child of the Jago is a gritty and realistic portrayal of life in the slums of London’s East End during the late 19th century. The novel is set in an area known as the Old Jago (based on a real-life slum called the Old Nichol) and vividly describes the poverty, crime and squalor that characterised the impoverished neighbourhood.

In the Name of the Family - as Blood and Beauty did before - holds up a mirror to a turbulent moment of history, sweeping aside the myths to bring alive the real Borgia family; complicated, brutal, passionate and glorious. Here is a thrilling exploration of the House of Borgia's doomed years, in the company of a young diplomat named Niccolo Machiavelli.

The Definitive Detective Collection brings together the finest deductive minds in fiction. Join Edgar Allan Poe's Auguste Dupin as he invents the detective genre in the mid-1800s, and follow the logical clues to the most famous detective ever committed to paper, Sherlock Holmes, in Victorian London. Along the way you'll also meet Josephine Tey's formiddable Inspector Alan Grant, as-well as G. K. Chesterton's beloved Father Brown, as they solve crimes in wondorously inventive and ingenious ways.

A BBC Radio 4 bittersweet romantic drama by award-winning writer Lou Ramsden, starring Kathryn Hunt and Nicholas Boulton, originally broadcast as the 'Afternoon Play' on 15 April 2011. Hazel (Kathryn Hunt) spends her life describing plays for visually impaired people. But when she starts to describe the real world to her new friend Davy (Nicholas Boulton), is she giving an accurate picture of the world around her?

One of the greatest love stories ever written, Jane Eyre is the tale of a young woman entangled with the powerful Mr. Rochester. What lurks in the attic at Thornfield, the ancestral home of the surly Mr. Rochester? Will the governess Jane Eyre discover his secret–and having discovered it, live to regret that knowledge? Battling inside Jane are passion and prudence; she struggles to survive the turmoil they cause.

The Complete G.K. Chesterton Collection brings together all of Chesterton's major works, including all five volumes of the beloved Father Brown stories, ten other novels or short story collections, 7 works of non-fiction, including his famous writings on politics, religion, and philosophy, and a selection of his best poetry (including The Ballad of the White Horse).

The Sherlock Holmes & Father Brown Collection, read by Jonathan Keeble (as Sherlock) and Nicholas Boulton (as Father Brown), includes unabridged recordings of the complete short stories featuring two of the most iconic amateur detectives in literature - Father Brown and Sherlock Holmes.

The G.K. Chesterton Fiction Collection brings together thirteen of Chesterton's major novels and short story collections, including the complete compendium of his beloved Father Brown stories. This collection takes you from his first published novel, The Napoleon of Notting Hill (often cited as inspiration for 1984) to stories of his monocled amateur sleuth, Father Brown, and all the way through to his final novel, the high satire The Return of Don Quixote.

Dickens weaves a tale of mystery, betrayal, and social unrest, centered around the simple, good-hearted Barnaby Rudge, a man with a mysterious past and a deep connection to the chaos brewing in London. As Barnaby’s journey unfolds, he is caught in the whirlwind of political and social upheaval, facing dark secrets, unexpected twists, and a society teetering on the brink of violence.

Sam Ireland wants to raise his daughter in peace, but when he saves a woman and child from drowning, he's drawn into a dangerous web of human trafficking. Joining forces with Waleed, an Egyptian intelligence chief, Sam pursues the mastermind, Habid, who has been sending Gaddafi loyalists to their deaths. As innocent lives hang in the balance, Sam navigates treacherous waters to stop Habid and confront the evil lurking beneath the surface.

Tim, Meredith and Harry are three sassy, 30 something traders who, tired of making money for someone else, combine to launch a new hedge fund. But it doesn't take long before they get seriously above themselves, losing a small fortune and making some pretty heavy enemies in the City markets.

Moving from the heart of the city to the Sussex countryside is a big undertaking for born townies, Ollie Harcourt, his wife, Caro, and their twelve-year-old daughter, Jade. But when they view Cold Hill House – a huge, dilapidated, Georgian mansion – they are filled with excitement. Despite the financial strain of the move, Ollie sees Cold Hill House as a paradise for his animal-loving daughter, a base for his web-design business and a terrific long-term investment.