Lynne Truss

The mesmerising tale of a cat with nine lives, and a relationship as ancient as time itself and just as powerful.

The BBC Radio 4 series that inspired the bestselling book Eats, Shoots & Leaves The runaway success of Eats, Shoots & Leaves brought millions of grammar geeks out of the closet and made it cool to care about punctuation. This is the radio series that started it all: five programmes in which Lynne Truss explores changing fashions in punctuation. She accompanies the founder of the Apostrophe Protection Society through Berwick Street Market on a hunt for the 'greengrocer's apostrophe', enters the classroom to hear how children learn punctuation, and finds out whether anyone punctuates text messages.

Talking to writers and experts like Fay Weldon and David Crystal, she discovers the origins of the comma in Greek drama and Gregorian chant, considers the case for 'semi-colonic irrigation' and asks how a writer's choice of punctuation expresses his tone of voice.Looking into the future, she wonders if 'emoticons' will put colons, commas and apostrophes on the endangered species list. Impassioned, informative and always amusing, this is an essential listen for anyone who loves language.

Lynne Truss spent four years as sports writer for The Times and here she gives us a perceptive and very funny insight on being a woman in a traditionally male-dominated world.

All four series of Lynne Truss's comedy thrillers set in 1950s Brighton - plus Christmas special

Brighton, 1957: a sunny seaside resort with a sinister underbelly. This den of villainy is policed by the touchingly innocent Inspector Steine, who naively believes he wiped out all the hoodlums in the Middle Street Massacre six years earlier. Can long-suffering Sergeant Brunswick and keen Constable Twitten persuade him that a criminal mastermind is at large - and that the station's charlady, Mrs Groynes, might bear investigation?

Inspector Steine - A headless corpse on the ghost train, a murdered theatre critic, a bank robbery and a beautiful fish-and-chip-shop owner spell trouble for the hapless Inspector. Meanwhile, a deranged criminal escapes from Broadmoor seeking revenge...

The Casebook of Inspector Steine - A matinee at the Hippodrome gives Mrs Groynes an idea, a day out in a vintage car proves eventful, Brunswick organises a police open day and goes undercover in a girls' school, and Steine meets a shady aristocrat - and finds his life in danger.

The Adventures of Inspector Steine - When his chance to shine is scuppered by Steine, Brunswick wants to kill him. But is he behind the attempts on Steine's life - or could it be the Unknown Villain, or old adversary Mrs Vine? Events are further complicated by a criminal convention and the reappearance of Brunswick's old flame, Doris...

The Return of Inspector Steine - Second World War bomb disposal hero Captain Hoagland limps into the station, with an award for Sergeant Brunswick and a head in a box. The latter is a warning that Adelaide Vine is back - and sadistic criminal Terence Chambers is heading for Brighton too, hell bent on havoc.

Christmas for Inspector Steine - It is December 1957, the year of the Queen's inaugural Christmas broadcast and Mrs Groynes' first seasonal celebrations with new husband Captain Hoagland. But only Twitten has the festive spirit...

Michael Fenton Stevens stars as Inspector Steine, with John Ramm as Sergeant Brunswick, Matt Green as Constable Twitten and Jan Ravens and Samantha Spiro as Mrs Groynes.

26 short stories about the eccentric inhabitants of Meridian Cliffs, a small, wind-battered town on England's South Coast

'Very few writers read their own work well on the radio, but Truss is an exception. Her voice and timing suit the material perfectly' The Lady

Welcome to Meridian Cliffs. Located at exactly 0 degrees 0 minutes west, and 0 degrees 0 minutes east, it's where the Greenwich Meridian meets the Channel, and time stands poised at absolute zero. But due to ever-increasing coastal erosion, it's getting smaller every day...

The residents of this curious town are easy to identify from their habit of shouting to be heard against the wind even when they're indoors. There's Sarah Birkett, granddaughter of the town's founder, who longs for a small improvement to her life, retired driving instructor Terry and his rescue dog Thelonius (the team mascot of Meridian Cliffs FC); carpet supremo Hugh Velvey, whose business and life are destroyed by arson and murder, and Ravi, whose curry house is the scene of a dramatic confession - and some unsettling news.

All are harbouring secrets, desires and dreams, and over the course of four series, we hear about their thwarted ambitions, hidden passions and forlorn hopes - and eavesdrop on a few typically sticky British moments. Beautifully observed, gently comic and often moving, these sublime short stories are written and read by Lynne Truss.

Production credits
Written and read by Lynne Truss
Directed by Kate McAll
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4, May 2016-April 2019

Series 1
There's No Need to Shout
Free Parking
Gimme Shelter

Series 2
In Your Dreams
Pavlovian
The Shortest Way Home
Houseroom
The Limit
Accept No Substitute
Mrs Manville Disposes
In Cold(ish) Blood
Darren Springs Forward
In the Dark

Series 3
Consequences
You Never Said
The West Wing
Tristan da Cunha
Waiting for JB
Weemails
Protective Colouring
Speed Kills
A Weight off His Mind
The Day the Earth Moved Slightly

Series 4
Taking It In
Celebration
Braking Distance

1957: When a young man is found dead in a deck chair on the seafront, Constable Twitten of the Brighton Police Force has a hunch that the murder may be connected to a notorious nightspot. As the case twists and turns, Constable Twitten must find the murderer and convince his colleagues that there's an evil mastermind behind Brighton's climbing crime rate.

The August bank holiday is approaching, and Constable Twitten is eagerly anticipating a quiet spell at work. But then they find the bodies - and the milk bottles. Three seemingly unconnected victims have all been killed with the same highly unusual murder weapon. Constable Twitten, Sergeant Brunswick and Inspector Steine are baffled, the town is alarmed and the local newspaper is delighted: after all, what sells papers better than a killer on the loose? Can our redoubtable trio solve the case and catch this most curious of killers before they strike again?

Three series of funny natural history tales from Lynne Truss featuring a star cast of narrators

Recorded in front of a live audience these wry funny tales introduce us to the varied creatures who make their homes on the shoreline in garden ponds and in our attics. In 18 comic monologues they reveal the truth about what life is really like in their respective habitats - and it's much more eventful than you might think...

Tidal Tales from the Rock Pool features salty stories from a roving joke-loving Periwinkle (Bill Wallis); a house-proud Hermit Crab (Geoffrey Palmer); a figure-conscious Sea Anemone (Alison Steadman); a tough talkin' Goby Fish (Sean Power); a poetic love-struck Limpet (Samantha Bond) and a diligent Lugworm (Tony Robinson). In Gossip from the Garden Pond we peek between the lily pads to meet a Tadpole who loves wiggling and doesn't want to grow up (Julian Rhind-Tutt); a beautiful highly-sexed Dragonfly (Alison Steadman); a hotly pursued Water Boatman (Sandi Toksvig); a ferocious Great Diving Beetle (David Ryall); a timid arachnophobic Garden Spider (Amanda Root) and a self-righteous Great Pond Snail (James Fleet).

And in Rumblings from the Rafters we venture into the draughty attic of a rambling old house in Amersham to hear from a subversive head-banging Death Watch Beetle (Bill Paterson); a bossy stressed Queen Wasp (Alison Steadman); a fast-thinking acrobatic House Fly (Lee Mack); a big-hearted Soprano Pipistrelle Bat (Pam Ferris); an Edible Dormouse who's convinced he's a Russian spy (Hugh Dennis) and a Peacock Butterfly with a feisty past (Amanda Abbington). 

Written and introduced by Lynne Truss with wildlife soundscapes by Chris Watson these hugely entertaining surprisingly informative anthropomorphic tales teem with drama and adventure - you'll never look at a rock pool pond or roof space in the same way again... 

It's September in Brighton and the city is playing host to weeks of endless rain and lashings of villainy. A trusted member of a local gang has disappeared part way through planning a huge heist; a violent criminal obsessed with hunting policemen has escaped Broadmoor and at Gosling's department store an American researcher has been found dead in the music section. Inspector Steine has other things on his mind but Sergeant Brunswick and Constable 'Clever Clogs' Twitten are both on the case.

Brighton, 1957. Inspector Steine enjoys his life as a policeman by the sea. No criminals, no crime, no stress. So it's rather annoying when an ambitious new constable shows up to work and starts investigating a series of burglaries. And when Constable Twitten is despatched to the theatre for the night, he sits next to a vicious theatre critic who is promptly shot dead part way through the opening night of a new play. It seems Brighton may be in need of a police force after all...

Inoffensive retired librarian, Alec Charlesworth, rescues a kitten from the cold on a December night - with unexpected and terrifying consequences ... A nail-biting tale of good versus evil involving one man, his dog and a group of 18th-century amateur scientific pioneers who just happen to be cats.