Showing results by narrator "Indira Varma" in All Categories

Mehar, a young bride in rural 1929 Punjab, is trying to discover the identity of her new husband. Married to three brothers in a single ceremony, she and her now-sisters spend their days hard at work in the family’s “china room”, sequestered from contact with the men - except when their domineering mother-in-law, Mai, summons them to a darkened chamber at night. Curious and strong willed, Mehar tries to piece together what Mai doesn’t want her to know.

When Elizabeth Bennet first meets eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, she thinks him arrogant and conceited; he is indifferent to her good looks and lively mind. When she later discovers that Darcy has involved himself in the troubled relationship between his friend Bingley and her beloved sister Jane, she is determined to dislike him more than ever. In the sparkling comedy of manners that follows, Jane Austen shows the folly of judging by first impressions and superbly evokes the friendships, gossip and snobberies of provincial middle-class life.

Down market lanes crammed with too many people, dogs, and rickshaws lies a jumble of tin-roofed homes where nine-year-old Jai lives with his family. Jai drools outside sweet shops, watches too many reality police shows, and considers himself to be smarter than his friends, Pari and Faiz. When a classmate goes missing, Jai decides to use the crime-solving skills he has picked up from TV to find him. He asks Pari and Faiz to be his assistants, and together they draw up lists of people to interview and places to visit.

Living on the island of Cyprus, Nisha is far from her native Sri Lanka. Though she longs to return home, she knows that working as a nanny and maid for a wealthy widow is the only way to earn enough to support her daughter, left behind to be raised by relatives. Yiannis is a poacher, trapping the tiny protected songbirds that stop in Cyprus as they migrate each year from Africa to Europe and selling them on the illegal market. He dreams of finding a new way of life, and of marrying Nisha.

It's New Year's Eve, 1972, when a boat pulls up to the Maiden Rock lighthouse with relief for the keepers. But no one greets them. When the entrance door, locked from the inside, is battered down, rescuers find an empty tower. A table is laid for a meal not eaten. The Principal Keeper's weather log describes a storm raging round the tower, but the skies have been clear. And the clocks have all stopped at 8:45. 

Inspired by the novels of D.H. Lawrence, particularly The Rainbow and Women in Love, this ambitious quartet from Booker Prize-winning novelist A.S. Byatt charts the lives of the Potter family between 1953 and 1970. Set against the changing social and political landscape of England in the '50s and '60s, it follows the heroine, Frederica, from precocious teenager to TV talk-show host and from her Yorkshire home to the heart of swinging London.

After losing her parents, young Mary Lennox is sent from India to live in her uncle's gloomy mansion on the wild English moors. She is lonely and has no-one to play with, but one day she learns of a secret garden somewhere in the grounds that no one is allowed to enter. Then Mary uncovers an old key in a flowerbed - and a gust of magic leads her to the hidden door. Slowly she turns the key and enters a world she could never have imagined.

Daniel Ballantyne: monster and angel, thief and conman, genius - and murderer? Newly released from Wormwood Scrubs, and dying of cancer, notorious art forger Daniel Ballantyne agrees to help art critic Jessica Brown write his biography. But as Jessica digs deeper into his life, she realises that nearly everything he's told her is a lie, and behind his charming persona is a man capable of almost anything. Trapped in a cat-and-mouse game with a master manipulator, Jessica finds herself putting her reputation - and her life - on the line.

A multigenerational novel of love, oppression, trauma and the pursuit of freedom, inspired in part by the author's own family history, China Room twines together the stories of a woman and a man separated by more than half a century but united by blood.

Nisha has crossed oceans to give her child a future. By day she cares for Petra's daughter; at night she mothers her own little girl by the light of a phone. Nisha's lover, Yiannis, is a poacher, hunting the tiny songbirds on their way to Africa each winter. His dreams of a new life, and of marrying Nisha, are shattered when she vanishes. No one cares about the disappearance of a domestic worker, except Petra and Yiannis. As they set out to search for her, they realise how little they know about Nisha. What they uncover will change them all.

Cornwall, 1972. Three lighthouse keepers vanish from a remote rock, miles from the shore. The entrance door is locked from the inside. The clocks have stopped. The principal keeper's weather log describes a mighty storm, but the skies have been clear all week. What happened to those three men, out on the tower? The heavy sea whispers their names. Black rocks roll beneath the swell, drowning ghosts. Can their secrets ever be recovered from the waves?

This diverse, eclectic collection of plays explores an array of social, political and historical events from a female point of view. In these captivating dramas, we see the world through their eyes, giving us a fresh perspective on a female history that is too often unrecorded, misrepresented or misunderstood.

Imagine a world in which classes are divided not by wealth or religion but by how much each group can remember. Monos, the majority, have only one day's worth of memory; elite Duos have two. In this stratified society, where Monos are excluded from holding high office and demanding jobs, Claire and Mark are a rare mixed marriage. Clare is a conscientious Mono housewife, Mark a novelist-turned-politician Duo on the rise. They are a shining example of a new vision of tolerance and equality - until...

The way we communicate has changed. Today many of our interactions are digital, but until recently writing letters was the norm. Drawing from over 100 miles of records held at the UK's official government archive, The National Archives at Kew, this collection of letters, postcards and telegrams will shine a spotlight on a range of significant historical moments and occurrences, recapturing a lost world in which correspondence was king.

Late 21st century and Earth has been reduced to an uninhabited wasteland. What was left of humanity was evacuated into overpopulated space stations, or 'Habitats'. A hotbed for crime and strange new religious sects, the Habitat Security Division has no shortage of work. No-nonsense Investigator Bridget Kurtis soon finds herself embroiled in a life or death struggle with a sinister cult, and what she uncovers has disturbing implications for the future of the human race.... 

Katherine Mansfield is remembered as one of the great modernist short-story writers, who managed to pack a huge amount of creative work into her 34 years before she died of TB in 1923. This impressive collection includes brand-new full-cast BBC dramatisations of 'Bliss', 'Something Childish but Very Natural', 'Marriage a la Mode', 'Daughters of the Late Colonel', 'The Garden Party', 'Life of Ma Parker and Her First Ball', plus many more readings brought to life by a wealth of narrators.

Often described as ‘the father of realism’, Henrik Ibsen was a pioneer of modernist drama. He influenced playwrights as diverse as George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde, and is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare. Included in this collection are adaptations of his tragicomic masterpiece The Wild Duck, his complex and compelling play Rosmersholm, the epic drama Brand and the tragedy John Gabriel Borkman.

When a boy at school goes missing, Jai decides to use the crime-solving skills he has picked up from episodes of Police Patrol to find him. With Pari and Faiz by his side, Jai ventures into some of the most dangerous parts of the sprawling Indian city, the bazaar at night, and even the railway station at the end of the Purple Line. But kids continue to vanish, and the trio must confront terrified parents, an indifferent police force and soul-snatching djinns in order to uncover the truth.

Cardiff Bay. The government has ordered the excavation of the wreckage of a secret underground base. DCI Tom Cutler is watching from a distance, fascinated by the process. There are people in his dreams. People he feels he should know. The disbanded Torchwood Institute spent a century accumulating non-terrestrial artefacts and catching aliens. Who knows what - or who - might still be intact down there. But by the time they find the first body, Suzie Costello is long gone. Based on the hit series created by Russell T. Davies, Long Time Dead is a prequel....

The 5 shortlisted titles for the BBC National Short Story Award 2011 administered in partnership with Booktrust, containing: Rag Love by M. J. Hyland, read by Mike Sengelow; The Heart of Denis Noble by Alison MacLeod, read by Tim Pigott-Smith; Wires by Jon McGregor, read by Lydia Wilson; The Human Circadian Pacemaker by K. J. Orr, read by Indira Varma; The Dead Roads by D. W. Wilson, read by Trevor White.