Showing results by narrator "Bill Wallis" in All Categories

Naples, 1913. Sun-baked, blue-skied, and with its amazing bay it is one of the most beautiful spots in Italy. But it’s also one of the most corrupt. A new arrival here is a junior British official, Scampion, who has already been banished from Florence. Scampion, however, brings with him a new craze that is sweeping Italy: bicycling. But one day as he walks home after a bicycle race, he is stabbed to death. That happens all the time in Naples, but remarkably his wallet was not taken.

In this series we look at some of our leading classic authors across two genres: the short story and the poem. In this modern world there is an insatiable need to categorise and pigeon-hole everyone and everything. But ideas, these grains and saplings of the brain, need to roam, to explore and find their perfect literary use vehicle. Our authors are masters of many literary forms, perhaps known for one but themselves favouring another.

Here are 12 specially selected favourite love poems, read by acclaimed actors Bill Wallis and Jenny Agutter. This literary bouquet of blooms includes Andrew Marvell's classic "To His Coy Mistress"; a beautiful extract from "The Song of Solomon"; Christina Rossetti's joyful "A Birthday"; and Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love".

Shakespeare's most famous sonnet, in which he tries, and fails, to find an apt comparison in nature, read by Bill Wallis.

Having delivered a particularly stirring speech at his recently deceased colleague's funeral, Monsieur Pamplemousse is more than a little disturbed when the coffin explodes during the ceremony. Luckily, his faithful hound Pommes Frites gave out a warning cry just in time, so there were no casualties. But, who exactly is behind this explosion? And was the same person responsible for his late co-worker's demise?

Shakespeare's sonnet about the comfort brought by dwelling on the one he loves, read by Bill Wallis.

Fed up with questions about what he was going to do when he retired, Edward decided to get on his bicycle and ride from Le Havre to the Mediterranean. He struggled in Normandy to get directions from old men tipsy on Calvados by 9 am, passed by prairies of corn and acres of sunflowers, and hit his stride on the towpath of the Burgundy canal. He explored the mystery of what an ouvrier eats for lunch, and was barred from a swimming pool because his trunks were too decent.

Andrew Marvell's classic plea to his mistress to show her love for him while they are both still young and passionate, read by Bill Wallis.

Christopher Marlowe turns government spy in these four comedy crime dramas. Murder and intrigue are all in a day's work for Kit Marlowe, England's leading playwright and undercover agent in Her Majesty's Secret Service. Amid the squalor and splendour of Elizabethan London, he probes a series of baffling mysteries, aided by his trusty underworld accomplice Bartholomew Ratsbane.

When the middle-class Empsons move from London to picturesque Winterleaf Gunner, they find themselves totally unprepared for country life - and utterly reliant on Winston. Handyman, village poacher, scholar, gentleman romantic and out-and-out rogue, Winston transforms their lives, fixing up their dilapidated house, introducing them to the works of Kingsley Amis - and giving Nancy a lesson in love.

This collection of short stories contains several gothic tales to bear macabre and chilling witness to writers as diverse as Rudyard Kipling, Guy De Maupassant, Edgar Allan Poe, Arnold Bennett, Daniel Defoe, Edith Nesbit and M.R. James. These tales are designed to unsettle you, just a little, while you sit back, and take in their words as they lead you on a walk to places you’d perhaps rather not visit on your own. Our stories include "My Own True Ghost Story" by Rudyard Kipling, "The Horla" by Guy De Maupassant, and more.

As the clouds of World War I threaten to engulf Egypt, Gareth Owen, the Mamur Zapt, head of the Secret Police, confronts a series of personal and professional challenges, from the pitfalls of his marriage, to a riot in Cairo's Camel Market.

Cairo of 1908 lives by and in its cafes. Now, suddenly, Cairo's cafe culture is threatened by gangs in the protection business. The task falls to Gareth Owen, the Mamur Zapt and head of the secret police, to find out who is behind this threat to Cairo.

John Donne's famous poem about two lovers surprised by the astonishingly rapid arrival of sunrise, read by Bill Wallis.

The Anniversary is John Donne's poem about the all-embracing power of love, read by Bill Wallis.

Edgar Allan Poe is considered the greatest of all writers of macabre stories, was born in Boston, Massachesetts, in 1809. His father, an Irish-American actor, died the following year, and his mother, an English actress, the year after, in Richmond, Virginia. John Allan, a wealthy Richmond merchant, adopted him. When he was 7, the Allans moved to England, sending him to school at Stoke Newington, at age 12 they moved back to Richmond.

This collection of short stories contains several gothic tales to bear macabre and chilling witness to writers as diverse as Charles Dickens, HP Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe and Jerome K Jerome. These tales are designed to unsettle you, just a little, as you sit back, and take in their words as they lead you on a walk to places you’d perhaps rather not visit on your own.

"The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" is Christopher Marlowe's emotional appeal to his lady to run away with him and live a romantic rural idyll, read by Bill Wallis.

Robert Harper is going back to school, and it is the first railway journey he has ever made alone. And it is not a very usual sort of railway journey. The train stops at the tunnel’s mouth and in order to help whileaway the time, a strange woman dressed in white tells Robert stories. But these are not the kind of stories normally told to a child. Soon Robert is both entranced and terrified by the strange woman and her macabre stories.... Eleven more spine-chilling tales for older children from bestselling author Chris Priestley.

'Rumpole and the Christmas Party' sees Rumpole celebrating with his Chambers colleagues and their wives and partners. There is plenty of claret, paper streamers and mistletoe, but where is She Who Must Be Obeyed? Bill Wallis reads this special seasonal story starring Horace Rumpole, scourge of all QCs and friend of the criminal classes.