This audiobook is an anthology of poems by WH Auden, TS Eliot, Philip Larkin, Emily Dickinson, Marianne Moore, Rudyard Kipling, Sylvia Plath and W B Yeats, introduced by Josephine Hart and read by a cast of famous actors: Ralph Fiennes, Edward Fox, Ian McDiarmid, Helen McCrory, Sir Roger Moore, Harold Pinter, Elizabeth McGovern...
Sir John Betjeman's unique relationship with the BBC left a lasting legacy of poetry, readings and performances. "A First Class Collection" features a selection of some of his most memorable and best-loved poetry.
While playing an erratic round of golf, Bobby Jones slices his ball over the edge of a cliff. His ball is lost, but on the rocks below he finds the crumpled body of a dying man. With his final breath the man opens his eyes and says, 'Why didn't they ask Evans?' Haunted by these words, Bobby and his vivacious...
Adam Deveril, the new Viscount Lynton and a hero at Salamanca, returns from the Peninsula War to find his family on the brink of ruin and the broad acres of his ancestral home mortgaged to the hilt. It is Lord Oversley, father of Adam's first love, who tactfully introduces him to Mr Jonathan Chaleigh, a City man of...
"Strange as it may seem, the idea of 'God' developed in a market economy in a spirit of aggressive capitalism," Karen Armstrong asserts in her fascinating work A History of God. Armstrong considers herself a "historian of ideas," and with this broad view she gives a compelling account of the correspondences...
A Genius Performance by Philip Franks! Campion returns from three years work for the War Office in Europe to find that Lugg, his manservant, has brought him an unusual gift: the black silk nightdress-clad body of a dead woman, an apparent suicide. Wanting only to get away to a well-deserved rest, Campion...
It was not unusual to find the beautiful bronzed body of the sun-loving Arlena Stuart stretched out on a beach, face down. Only, on this occasion, there was no sun...she had been strangled. Ever since Arlena's arrival at the resort, Hercule Poirot had detected sexual tension in the seaside air. But could ...
This disk features the soundtrack from 2 TV programmes - Mrs Richards featuring Joan Sanderson - The second episode is The Hotel Inspectors featuring Bernard Cribbins.
Morse had solved so many mysteries in his life. Was he now, he wondered, beginning to glimpse the solution to the greatest mystery of them all? How can the discovery of a short story by a beautiful Oxford graduate lead Chief Inspector Morse to her murderer? What awaits Morse and Lewis in Room 231 of the...
William Shakespeare
His Poetry and Plays!
After last year's 400 years celebration of the death of Shakespeare the world of Shakespeare recordings has continued to go the way of many other great audio productions. Audible/Amazon have, slowly, removed many of the greatest audio productions we at Brainfood Audiobooks have ever heard.
In recent years we have been asked many times, we can only apologize for our laggardly response. For all those who have asked about this we can only say - You are the reason for the current update on this subject and also the reason for the current 20% discount available on all of our Shakespeare stock. Thank you!
We have struggled with how to present our thoughts on the great performances we have to offer. Re-listening to most of the recordings we currently have in stock over the last few months we have distilled all these experiences in to one overpowering thought....
PASSION
Let's be clear, all of the performances you will find for sale on Brainfood Audiobooks will be competent. We have to say we have, over the years, consigned to the Charity Shop box all of the performances that appear to have been made with little passion to recommend them. What we have left is the greatest performances that have ever been made, and recorded/sold, of the dramatic works of William Shakespeare.
The muse of fire lives in these works and has inspired some of the greatest thespians ever to have walked the stage to perhaps their greatest heights.
The plays we have concentrated have been selected on the greatness of the performances.
From that point of view we will now begin with, without doubt the greatest performance of a Shakespeare play we have ever heard. To make this clear - this recording is played at least once a month for the last 20 years and continues to be eagerly anticipated!
Due to the nature of this play we can honestly say that Robert Stephen's performance as Richard Duke of Gloucester is the single best performance we have ever heard. We do stock several performances of Richard III, a much under-rated play by the cognoscenti, but they all fail, some more than others, to achieve Robert Stephen's heights. There is real magic in this work. The irony of the image used on the cover of this recording, being a outline drawing of Lawrence Olivier's iconic performance in this role, foreshadows the extraordinary quality of the this performance. When we include the brilliant work of Peggy Ashcroft, Ian Holm, Jeremy Brett and Cyril Cusak this work always finds itself in the Brainfood Audiobooks Stamp of Genius.
What We Have to Offer
Many hundreds of books have been written about Shakespeare so I will reflect, briefly, on only the 100 recordings we have to offer.
Non-Fiction on Audio CD
Shakespeare Non-Fiction
Almost all of the Non-Fiction recordings available have been published in the last 20 years and so are easily available on Audio CD.
Poetry on Cassette
Plays on Cassette
Poetry on Audio CD
Plays on Audio CD
Shakespeare Poetry and Plays
The same can not be said of the poetry and plays. Many of these recordings are over 50 years old and are found mainly on Cassette. So the first major decision required when looking at the works of the Bard is -
Is it worth digging out the cassette player?
The answer is an undoubted YES!
One of our core principles is to offer an opportunity to find old recordings of works, which in many cases never made it to CD. So the next question is -
Are the recordings of some of the best Actors and Actresses of the 50's, 60's and 70's still worth listening to?
If you haven't heard these recordings then you haven't heard the recordings that inspired the current crop of actors who perform these works.If you haven't heard these recordings then the beautiful tones and wonderful audio flexibility developed by these actors over many years of work in Rep, something that has all but died out in the last 20 years, still awaits you.
Patricia Routledge and Prunella Scales star in Ladies of Letters and Ladies of More Letters, the two popular BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour series. Patricia Routledge is Vera Small and Prunella Scales is her friend (or maybe enemy), Irene Spencer. The two pass their time in regular correspondence and not an event goes by that is left unrecorded by the ladies of letters. Firstly there are the usual family problems to...
In the winter of 1873, a small band of prospectors lost their way in the frozen wilderness of the Colorado Rockies. Months later, when the snow finally melted, only one of them emerged. His name was Alfred G. Packer, though he would soon become infamous throughout the country under a different name: 'the Man-Eater.' After the butchered remains of his five traveling companions were discovered in a secluded...
From Snuff: 'Vimes looked at the cover. The title was The World of Poo. When his wife was out of eyeshot he carefully leafed through it. Well, okay, you had to accept that the world had moved on and these days fairy stories were probably not going to be about twinkly little things with wings. As he turned page after page, it dawned on him that whoever had written this book, they certainly knew what would make kids...
It is August in Edinburgh and the Festival is in full swing. A brutally tortured body is discovered in one of the city's ancient subterranean streets and marks on the corpse cause Rebus to suspect the involvement of sectarian activists. The prospect of a terrorist atrocity in a city heaving with tourists is almost unthinkable. When the victim turns out to...
Winner of the Booker Prize, 1982. During the Holocaust at the German concentration camp near Plaszow, thousands of Jews lost their lives at the hands of the Nazis. More than a thousand others were spared thanks to a womanizing, heavy-drinking, German-Catholic industrialist and Nazi Party member named Oskar Schindler. One of the most remarkable narratives of the Holocaust, Schindler's List masterfully...
Read by the inimitable Christopher Lee, this audio-book contains four short stories from the great detective’s case book. Four demanding, even life-threatening, adventures for the much-loved amateur detective, who, with the faithful Watson by his side, has earned his place in our national life and social history. This collection of short stories, taken from The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes, sees Baker Street’s most...
The Battle of Britain paints a stirring picture of an extraordinary summer when the fate of the world hung by a thread. Historian James Holland has now written the definitive account of those months based on extensive new research from around the world, including thousands of new interviews with people on both sides of the battle.If Britain's defenses collapsed, Hitler would have dominated all of Europe.
When Jules Bright hears a knock on the door, the last person she expects to find is a detective bringing her the news she's feared for the last three years. Amelia Quentin is being released from prison. Jules' life is very different now from the one she'd known before Amelia shattered it completely. Knowing the girl is coming back, she needs to decide what to do. Friends and family gather round, fearing for Jules' safety.
In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behind his success there always lurk the shameful secret of his past and a personality prone to self-destructive pride and temper.
Shipwrecked on a remote island in the Dutch East Indies, Captain Aubrey, surgeon and secret intelligence agent Stephen Maturin, and the crew of the Diane fashion a schooner from the wreck. A vicious attack by Malay pirates is repulsed, but the makeshift vessel burns, and they are truly marooned. Their escape from this predicament is one that only the whimsy and ingenuity of Patrick O Brian or Stephen Maturin...
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