Showing results by narrator "Alex Jennings" in All Categories

When a Hag, an orphan boy, and a troll called Ulf get sent to rescue a princess from an ogre, they expect it to be a fairly standard magical mission. But the ogre is depressed, the princess doesn’t want to be rescued – and the ogre’s dead wife is turning in her grave. The Norns who rule their fates decide to take things in hand – will the Ogre meet a bloody end, or will he get a happy ending?

Sam and Juliet are to divorce. We join them as they meet to divide up their possessions in the house they've shared ever since they married. As they discuss what belongs to whom we learn all we need to know about their characters, what drew them together and what has driven them apart. We'll also learn if there is still some hope for them, even on the eve of their separation. The early signs are not good. They seem to have drifted apart and to have very little in common. Their differences, once endearing, are now overwhelming....

“If music be the food of love, play on" was one of Shakespeare’s finest lines. If music is food then poetry is the wine. In this volume of classic love poetry the flavoured capture of words and rhythms makes us think more carefully of words and their value to us. They also surprise us with their structure and meaning, layering in thoughts and emotions that we might otherwise shy away from. Poems are wonderful ways to express what we feel for a very special someone.

Bill Unwin, an academic of dubious status, has never recovered from the death of his famous actress wife and is now convalescing from a recent brush with his own mortality. He has two tales to tell. One, spanning postwar Paris, 1950s Soho and contemporary sexual and scholarly entanglements, surveys the muddle of his own life. The other, drawn from the notebooks of a Victorian ancestor, is the very different story of Matthew Pearce, a serious-minded man whose happiness is destroyed by his compulsive search for truth.

On a cold but dazzling November morning, George Webb, a former policeman turned private detective, prepares to visit Sarah, a prisoner and the woman he loves. As he goes about the business of the day he relives the catastrophic events of two years ago that have both bound them together and kept them apart. Making atmospheric use of its suburban setting and shot through with a plain man’s unwitting poetry and rueful humour, The Light of Day is a powerful and moving tale of murder, redemption and the discovery, for better or worse, of the hidden forces inside us.

On an autumn day in 2006, on the Isle of Wight, Jack Luxton—former Devon farmer, now proprietor of a seaside caravan park—receives the news that his brother, Tom, not seen for years, has been killed in Iraq. For Jack and his wife Ellie, this will have a potentially catastrophic impact and compel Jack to make a crucial journey: to receive his brother’s remains, but also to return to the land of his past and confront his most secret, troubling memories.

Silence is rare in Nature. When we really listen, Nature is conducting symphonies of sound as her world goes about the day and night. Her invisible heartbeat is everywhere, for everyone. Our eyes are constantly bathed in the wonder of her ways, the soft drizzle of rain from soft grey clouds, the bleached harsh desert sand of a noon day, a wave caressing the shore, to the ravenous colours of a departing sunset. Indeed, whenever we look and listen to the vastness of our world Nature’s beauty is always there for us..

It’s 1985 and the Stage Left Theatre Collective is founded by a group of friends with a shared vision: Emma, the artistic manager and Robert the literary manager, director Saul, playwright Alan, and finance manager, Frank. This funny, moving and pin sharp drama follows the fate of the company and its members over the course of four decades. We catch up with the characters as they negotiate changing cultural and economic climates.