Showing results by author "Mr Punch" in All Categories

Hollywood Playhouse - The Oscar's Collection is a unique compilation of 12 Oscar winning films specially adapted for the radio and performed by many of the original film stars in front of a live studio audience. Originally broadcast on the radio, they were to become as popular with the public as the movies themselves.

Mr Punch Presents: It’s a Wonderful Life, the irresistibly heart-warming story of George Bailey, who is prevented from committing suicide by the elderly angel Clarence, who takes him on a journey back through his life to show him how the town of Bedford Falls would have been had he never lived. Originally directed by the celebrated Frank Capra, it is performed here for radio with James Stewart, Victor Moore and Donna Reed recreating their original roles.

Succeeding William IV in 1837, Victoria reigned for nearly 64 years and was always a keen chronicler of life around her, through both her paintings and the detailed diary she kept from the age of 13. Queen Victoria’s Highland Journals cover the period from 1848 to 1882 and provide a fascinating insight into those long 'never-to-be-forgotten days' she spent with her family in her much beloved Scottish Highlands.

In The Eyes of Max Carrados, our blind hero, who can read a newspaper headline with the touch of his fingers and shoot a villain by aiming at the sound of his beating heart, discovers a story of murder, suicide and a desperate daughter’s quest to clear her father’s name. As the First World War rapidly approaches, we arrive in a sleepy south coast town where Max Carrados, the celebrated blind detective, is soon investigating the sudden death of the local museum curator. All is not as it seems, as our blind hero finds himself on the cliff top in a duel to the death.

Born at Steventon in 1775, the daughter of a Hampshire clergyman, Jane Austen was the youngest of seven children. She lived a quiet life, moving to Bath, Southampton, Chawton and eventually to Winchester where she died unmarried in 1817 at the age of 42. It is to her elder sister Cassandra that most of her surviving letters are written, and through them, we discover the intimate world of the English gentry.

A fascinating glimpse into some of the most notorious crimes and trials of the last 100 years. Using the original trial transcripts, eyewitness accounts and contemporary newspaper reports, we witness the actual events that made each trial a cause célèbre of its day.

Hollywood Playhouse - The Humphrey Bogart Collection is a unique compilation of four Oscar-winning films specially adapted for the radio and performed by many of the original film stars in front of a live studio audience. Originally broadcast on the radio, they were to become as popular with the public as the movies themselves.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4, this epic three-part serial tells the true story of Fletcher Christian’s dramatic mutiny against his tyrannical Captain and how Lieutenant Bligh when cast adrift in an open rowing boat with 18 loyal men makes an incredible voyage across 3,600 miles of hostile and uncharted seas to the Dutch East Indies, while Fletcher Christian and his fellow mutineers fight for survival on the battered and wind-swept island of Pitcairn.

Viscount Horatio Nelson (1758-1805), known as ‘The Hero’ during his own lifetime was both an inspiring commander and an innovative tactician, becoming a rear admiral after defeating the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Cape St Vincent. He was also responsible for the great victories of the Nile (1798) and Copenhagen (1801). Revered by his officers and men, he was renowned for both his arrogance and his scandalous love affair with the beautiful Emma Hamilton.

Mr Punch Presents: Rebecca, based upon the best-selling novel by Daphne du Maurier. Laurence Olivier plays Maxim de Winter, and Vivien Leigh is the shy and naïve ladies companion that he meets while holidaying in Monte Carlo. They fall in love, get married and return to Maxim's beloved Manderley in Cornwall, where the second Mrs de Winter now meets the mysterious Mrs Danvers and finds that Rebecca is not forgotten. The film was to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

The brief and tragic life of Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855) is told through the beautiful and passionate letters written by Charlotte to her best friend Ellen Nussey. Born and brought up in the bleak Haworth parsonage with only her sisters and brother for company, she soon obtains employment as a Governess. Having travelled abroad to study languages in Brussels, she returns to the Yorkshire moors to join her family where she writes her most successful novel, Jane Eyre.

Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), the cynical owner of Rick’s Café Americain helps his former lover Ilse Lund (Ingrid Bergman) and her underground leader husband escape from the Nazis in this powerful love story, featuring the classic song "As Time Goes By". The Maltese Falcon, stars Humphrey Bogart as the private detective Sam Spade. In this compelling thriller, Sam Spade is entrusted with the safe-keeping of the much-coveted black falcon statuette as he becomes involved in a classic tale of greed and illusion.

A seven-volume collection containing some of the most fascinating journals and letters to have been written in the last two hundred and fifty years, all performed in a dramatised setting.

Mr Punch Presents: Sunset Boulevard, nominated for 11 Academy Awards, Billy Wilder’s brilliant 1950 film is about the flamboyant silent-movie star Norma Desmond played by Gloria Swanson and her pitiful attempt to stage a comeback to the silver screen through her friendship with a young, opportunistic screenwriter, played by William Holden. Re-created for the radio with the original stars in this special radio production.

Mr Punch Presents: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, following the fortunes of three ill-matched gold diggers, who are searching for treasure in Mexico. As they hunt for their elusive prize, the three prospectors become progressively more corrupt and greedy and fall foul of each other’s all-consuming greed, in this exciting adventure story. With Humphrey Bogart recapturing his role as the wicked Fred C. Dobbs and Walter Huston as the grizzled old-timer Howard, the role for which he received the Oscar as best supporting actor.

In this exciting adaptation of the novel by H.G. Wells set in 1900, we join the eccentric professor Cavor and the rakish free loading Charles Bedford on their extraordinary journey to the moon in a huge metal sphere resplendent with drape curtains, gentleman’s arm chairs and brass fittings. Once upon the moon’s surface they discover more than they bargained for—within the centre of the moon there is life! Taken prisoner by the calculating Selenites, our heroes and their crew are soon subjected to mind experiments and terror.

George Gordon Byron was born in 1788, the son of the profligate 'Mad Jack' Byron, and succeeded to the title in 1798 moving to the family seat of Newstead Abbey. He attended Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he proved to be a poor scholar, preferring boxing, the low life and poetry, publishing his first volume of poems in 1806. In 1809, at 21, he embarked on a grand tour of Europe and on his return to England he married the humourless Annabella Milbanke, who gave birth to his daughter Augusta in 1815.

Set during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, we meet Max Carrados, the celebrated blind detective who can read a newspaper headline with the touch of his fingers and shoot a villain by aiming at the sound of his beating heart...and Norman Conquest, the fast talking, hard hitting adventurer with a nose for trouble and a hell-rake disregard for danger, who keeps up good cheer while he biffs the baddies...and not forgetting Ben, the chivalrous and perky non-descript little man, whose thumbs itch just before ‘something ‘orrible ‘appens’.

Following the success of the popular BBC Drama series, Norman Conquest is back! Set during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, where every story promises a 'Thousand Thrills!', with ingenious plots, full of twists and surprises, driven along with exciting action and tongue in cheek humour, our fast-talking, hard-hitting adventurer with a nose for trouble keeps up good cheer while he biffs the baddies in four action packed adventures.

In Killer Conquest, the dashing hero with a nose for trouble and rake-hell disregard for danger returns in a breathless crime-smashing adventure. With his trademark ‘1066’ and his resourceful partner Pixie, he keeps up good cheer and marches on while he biffs the baddies.