Audio Sample

Seven Ages

Poetry with music

Read by Sir Michael Caine, Dame Judi Dench, Sir Ian McKellen, John Cleese, Catherine McCormack, Pete Postlethwaite & Ralph Fiennes

unabridged

‘One of the best anthologies of the year… An arresting, deeply moving collection of the best of British poetry read by a star-studded cast’ The Independent. This exceptional anthology, based on Lord Owen’s published anthology Seven Ages – Poetry for a Lifetime, features many of Britain’s leading actors who have all given their services for charity. Shakespeare’s ‘seven ages’ speech (read by Sir Ian McKellen) punctuates the programme which contains 150 poems read by forty actors. Michael Caine reads Kipling’s ‘If’; Ralph Fiennes reads Hood’s ‘I Remember, I Remember’; John Cleese reads ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’; Pete Postlethwaite reads ‘Kubla Khan’.

Running Time: 2 h 34 m

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More product details

Digital ISBN:	978-962-954-644-1
Cat. no.:	NA218912
Download size:	38 MB
BISAC:	POE005020
Released:	March 2000

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Sir Michael Caine

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Dame Judi Dench

Dame Judi Dench is an award-winning British actress, whose career has encompassed film, theatre, television and radio. Film credits include Shakespeare in Love and Mrs Brown.

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Sir Ian McKellen

Sir Ian McKellen is one of Britain’s leading actors, having made a memorable contribution on the stage, in film, television and radio. He has been nominated for an Oscar and gained star status in the cinema as Gandalf the Grey in Lord of the Rings, but his success has been built on a classical base. Richard III (on stage and screen) was just one of many Shakespeare roles, and Uncle Vanya, one of a number of Chekhov plays. On television, he has appeared in works as different as The Scarlet Pimpernel, Hedda Gabler, Othello, and Ian McKellen’s Diary (two documentaries about his life and work). Throughout his career, he has taken time to work on radio/audio drama – though this is his first performance as Prospero.

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John Cleese

A institution of British comedy, John Cleese is renowned for his work in film and television. Monty Python and Fawlty Towers are two of his best-known achievements.

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Catherine McCormack

Titles read by Catherine McCormack

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Pete Postlethwaite

The British actor Pete Postlethwaite is well-known for his work in film, television and theatre. He was nominated for an Oscar for In the Name of the Father.

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Ralph Fiennes

Ralph Fiennes is one of Britain’s best-known actors, in theatre, film and television. Film credits include Schindler’s List and The English Patient.

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Included in this title

William Shakespeare: Seven Ages – from As You Like It
Thom Gunn: Baby Song
Anne Stevenson: The Victory
Emily Dickinson: Surgeons
William Shakespeare: Fancy – from The Merchant of Venice
Ogden Nash: The Guppy
Edward Lear: The Quangle Wangle’s Hat
Thomas Hood: I Remember, I Remember
William Allingham: The Fairies
Thomas Hood: A Parental Ode
Robert Louis Stevenson: My Shadow
Edward Lear: The Owl and The Pussy Cat
A. A. Milne: Sneezles
Lewis Carroll: The Walrus and The Carpenter
Ted Hughes: Jellyfish
G. K. Chesterton: The Donkey
Anonymous: The Common Cormorant
Robert Louis Stevenson: Where Go The Boats
Ted Hughes: Crab
A. A. Milne: The End
Robert Louis Stevenson: To Any Reader
Dylan Thomas: Under Milk Wood
Vernon Watkins: The Collier
Shel Silverstein: Sick
John Whitworth: Boring
John Greenleaf Whittier: from The Barefoot Boy
William Shakespeare: Full Fathom Five from The Tempest
Oscar Wilde: Rosa Mystica
Rudyard Kipling: A Smuggler’s Song
C. Day Lewis: Walking Away
Hilaire Belloc: Tarantella
T. S. Eliot: Macavity
Rudyard Kipling: If
William Shakespeare: This Above All
W. B. Yeats: The Arrow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: The Arrow and The Song
Rabindranath Tagore: They Who Are Near To Me
Christina Rossetti: The First Day
Thomas Lowell Beddoes: The Song of Torrismond
Robert Bridges: My Delight and Thy Delight
Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Sonnet 43
Rudyard Kipling: The Virginity
Percy Bysshe Shelley: The Longest Journey
Anonymous: We Have Known Treasure
William Shakespeare: Sonnet 138
Christina Rossetti: Echo
Rabindranath Tagore: Delusions I Did Cherish
William Shakespeare: Sonnet 18
A. E. Housman: When I Was One-And-Twenty
W. B. Yeats: The Mermaid
Robert Herrick: Upon the Nipples of Julia’s Breast
Robert Burns: My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose
William Shakespeare: Sonnet 116
D. H. Lawrence: New Year’s Eve
D. H. Lawrence: Green
John Keats: A Thing of Beauty Is a Joy Forever
William Shakespeare: Prologue from King Henry V
Julian Grenfell: Into Battle
W. B. Yeats: An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
James Russell Lowell: Once to Every Man and Nation
Seamus Heaney: Whatever You Say, Say Nothing
John McCrea: In Flanders Fields
Vera Brittain: Perhaps
Wilfred Owen: Anthem for Doomed Youth
Wilfred Owen: Dulce et Decorum Est
Eva Dobell: Pluck
W. H. Auden: from In Memory of W. B. Yeats
John Jarmain: At a War Grave
John Jarmain: El Alamein
Ruth Fainlight: Handbag
Elsie Cawser: Salvage Song
Rudyard Kipling: England
Matthew Arnold: Dover Beach
Dan Pagis: Written with a Pencil in a Sealed Wagon
John Donne: No Man Is An Island
John Boyle O’Reilly: What is Good
Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass
Anonymous: Addendum to the Ten Commandments
Geoffrey Chaucer: A Student
James Leigh Hunt: Abou Ben Adhem
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: from The Song of Hiawatha
William Wordsworth: My Heart Leaps Up
William Blake: Auguries of Innocence
William Blake: The Tyger
Emily Dickinson: Of All The Souls That Stand Create
Percy Bysshe Shelley: Chorus of Spirits
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Kubla Khan
Robert Burns: A Man’s a Man for A’ That
Robert Frost: The Road Not Taken
Anonymous: The Bleed‘n’ Sparrer
W. B. Yeats: Politics
Ogden Nash: Peekaboo, I Almost See You
Ogden Nash: Samson Agonistes
John Masefield: Sea Fever
Emily Dickinson: The Exultation
Morris Bishop: We Have Been Here Before
Alfred, Lord Tennyson: from The Brook
William Wordsworth: Upon Westminster Bridge
John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester: A Song of a Young Lady To Her Ancient Lover
Robert Burns: John Anderson, My Jo
Stanley J. Sharples: In Praise of Cocoa, Cupid’s Nightcap
Rudyard Kipling: The Way Through the Woods
Christina Rossetti: from Uphill
Dylan Thomas: Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Christina Rossetti: Song
Leo Marks: Code Poem for the French Resistance
Emily Dickinson: This World is not Conclusion
Robert Louis Stevenson: Requiem
Christina Rossetti: Sleeping at Last
William Shakespeare: Fear No More from Cymbeline
John Banister Tabb: Evolution

Reviews

Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award

What a collection! The concept of this audio presentation may seem random or even confusing at first, but many will recognize its structure from William Shakespeare’s As You Like It. In his ‘All the world’s a stage’ soliloquy, Shakespeare maps out the seven stages of man’s life. So, too, does this compilation of great writings read by some of the finest British actors and speakers. The resounding voice of Sir Ian McKellen serves as the tour guide, signifying each transition to a new age. In fact, the voices of all the performers here – from Dame Judi Dench’s distinctive authority to the familiar rolling tones of John Cleese – are magnificent. This audio presentation is a great concept with a phenomenal delivery.

R.A.P., AudioFile