Showing results by narrator "Al Murray" in All Categories

Surely You Can’t Be Serious is the first-ever oral history of the making of Airplane! by the creators, and of the beginnings of the ZAZ trio (Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker) – charting the rise of their comedy troupe Kentucky Fried Theater in Madison, Wisconsin all the way to premiere night. The directors explain what drew them to filmmaking and in particular, comedy.

It should have been an easy victory. After the triumph in Tunisia, the sweeping success of Sicily, and with Italy finally knocked out of the war, the Allies were quietly confident that Rome would be theirs before Christmas 1943. And yet it didn't happen. Hitler decided not to give ground, and the stage was set for one of the grimmest and most attritional phases of the war. Even though they were short of supplies and support, German forces, even in retreat, made the Allies fight for every bitter yard.

Following victory in Sicily, while the central command planned the spring 1944 invasion of France, Allied troops crossed into Southern Italy in September 1943, expecting to drive Axis forces north and liberate Rome by Christmas. Italy quickly surrendered but German divisions fiercely resisted, and the hoped-for quick victory descended into one of the most challenging and protracted battles of the entire war. James Holland’s The Savage Storm chronicles the dramatic opening months of the Italian Campaign in unflinching and insightful detail.

'If Hitler fails to invade or destroy Britain, he has lost the war,' Churchill said in the summer of 1940. He was right. The Battle of Britain was a crucial turning point in the history of the Second World War. Had Britain's defences collapsed, Hitler would have dominated all of Europe and been able to turn his full attention east to the Soviet Union. The German invasion of France and the Low Countries in May 1940 was unlike any the world had ever seen. It hit with a force and aggression that no-one could counter and in just a few short weeks, all in their way crumbled.

On July 10, 1943, the largest amphibious invasion ever mounted took place, larger even than the Normandy invasion 11 months later: 160,000 American, British, and Canadian troops came ashore or were parachuted onto Sicily, signaling the start of the campaign to defeat Nazi Germany on European soil. Operation HUSKY, as it was known, was enormously complex, involving dramatic battles on land, in the air, and at sea. Yet, despite its paramount importance to ultimate Allied victory, and its drama, very little has been written about the 38-day Battle for Sicily.

Irascible phonetics professor Henry Higgins makes a bet with his friend Colonel Pickering that he can train Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle to talk ‘like a lady’ and pass as a duchess at the Ambassador’s Ball. As the day of reckoning approaches, can Eliza convince the assembled aristocrats that she’s one of them? And what will become of her afterwards? This effervescent radio version of Shaw’s classic comedy features a stellar cast, including award-winning comedians Alistair McGowan as Henry Higgins, Morgana Robinson as Eliza Doolittle and Al Murray as Alfred Doolittle.

One of the last cavalry units to ride horses into battle, the Sherwood Rangers were transformed into a “mechanized cavalry” of tanks in 1942. After winning acclaim in the North African campaign, they spearheaded one of the D-Day landings in Normandy and became the first British troops to cross into Germany. Their courage, skill, and tenacity contributed mightily to the surrender of Germany in 1945. 

Sci-fi comedy about the bizarre city of Undone - a weird parallel version of London. Edna Turner has moved to London to start a new job at entertainment magazine Get Out! When she arrives, she meets the strange Tankerton Slopes, who claims to come from a parallel version of London known as 'Undone'. Undone is 'where the weirdness comes from': where you can find pet tricks shows, medication designed to make you paranoid and the Undone delicacy ‘troubled eggs’. Weird things flow into London, and mundane things flow into Undone, making them the peculiar places they are. 

Al Murray's passion for military history and the Second World War in particular has always been a duel passion with his comedy and was brought to the fore with several acclaimed and award winning television shows and the recent huge success of his podcast We Have Ways of Making You Talk, which he hosts fellow best-selling military author James Holland. Command showcases Al Murray's passion for this pivotal period in the 20th century, as he writes an engaging, entertaining and sharp analysis of the key allied military leaders in the conflict.

In February 1944, a rag-tag collection of clerks, drivers, doctors, muleteers and other base troops, stiffened by a few dogged Yorkshiremen and a handful of tank crews, managed to hold out against some of the finest infantry in the Japanese Army and then defeat them in what was one of the most astonishing battles of the Second World War. What became known as the Defence of the Admin Box, fought amongst the paddy fields and jungle of Northern Arakan over a 15-day period, turned the battle for Burma.

A dialogue between Socrates and Meno probes the subject of ethics. Can goodness be taught? If it can, then we should be able to find teachers capable of instructing others about what is good and bad, right and wrong, or just and unjust. Socrates and Meno are unable to identify teachers of ethics, and we are left wondering how such knowledge could be acquired. To answer that puzzle, Socrates questions one of Meno’s servants in an attempt to show that we know fundamental ideas by recollecting them.

Cairo, 1942: If you had asked a British officer who Colonel Clarke was, they would have been able to point him out: always ready with a drink and a story, he was a well-known figure in the local bars. If you then asked what he did, you would have less success. Clarke thought of himself as developing a new kind of weapon. Its components? Rumour, stagecraft, a sense of fun. Its target? The mind of Erwin Rommel, Hitler's greatest general. Throughout history, military commanders have sought to mislead their opponents. Dudley Clarke set out to do it on a scale no one had imagined before.

Jenny Eclair is one of Britain’s most-loved stand-up comedians, and the first woman to win the Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Fringe. She has written several acclaimed books, including the Sunday Times bestseller Older and Wider: A Survivor's Guide to the Menopause, and appeared on numerous TV and radio shows including Grumpy Old Women and Just a Minute. Collected here are some of her finest and funniest radio comedies, centred around women who are at a turning point in their lives.

Have you ever watched a film with someone who, at the most dramatic scene, argues that the plane on screen hasn't been invented yet? Or that the tank rumbling towards the hero at the end of the film is the wrong tank altogether? Al Murray is that someone. Try as he might, he can’t help himself. Growing up in the 1970s, Al, with the help of his dad, became fascinated with the history of World War Two.

Code-named Operation HUSKY, the Allied assault on Sicily on 10 July 1943 remains the largest amphibious invasion ever mounted in world history, landing more men in a single day than at any other time. That day, more than 160,000 British, American and Canadian troops were dropped from the sky or came ashore, more than on D-Day just under a year later. It was also preceded by an air campaign that marked a new direction and dominance of the skies by Allies. The subsequent 38-day Battle for Sicily was one of the most dramatic of the entire Second World War.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Let's Re-Great Britain, by Al Murray, read by Al Murray. Al Murray grabbed the headlines when he announced his intention to stand in the UK General Election as his most famous creation, the 'Pub Landlord', for the newly-formed Free United Kingdom Party. He will be contesting the seat of South Thanet against UKIP leader Nigel Farage, in a battle that is sure to see comedy and clashes from now until polling day.

The Sherwood Rangers were one of the great tank regiments. They had learned their trade the hard way, under the burning sun of North Africa, on the battlefields of El Alamein and Alam el Halfa. By the time they landed on Gold Beach on D-Day, they were toughened by experience and ready for combat. From that moment on, the Sherwood Rangers were in the thick of the action til the war's end. They and their Sherman tanks covered thousands of miles and endured some of the fiercest fighting in Western Europe.

Al Murray's Book of British Common Sense helped Great Britain get back on her feet by providing an injection of common sense to counteract all the balls and waffle we've been subjected to in this once great nation of ours. Now he's back, and he's turning his attention to You. The Pub Landlord knows that you, like so many others in Broken Britain, need help to Help Yourselves.

Future Shocks comes straight from the legendary Nerve Centre of the Galaxy's Greatest Comic, 2000 AD. Alien editor Tharg the Mighty presents eight thrilling episodes of science fiction. Based on works by some of the leading writers and artists in comics, this series of aliens, time travel, robots and baby dictators is full of twists and turns. The future has never been more shocking or funny!

Comedian Al Murray plays his great-great-great-grandfather William Makepeace Thackeray as the unreliable narrator in this radical makeover of his ancestor’s celebrated satire on class, sex, money, hypocrisy and snobbery in 19th-century England. As the curtain rises on our ‘story without a hero’, moneyless Becky Sharp leaves school with her upper-class best friend Amelia Sedley. Clever, cunning and ambitious, Becky is determined to make her way in Regency society - and she’ll trample on anyone who gets in her way.