Terry Jones is best known as part of the Monty Python team, but he always had an independent literary life which began while he was reading English at Oxford. These quirky moral tales are about greed, vanity, harmless madness, theft, and ecology. they include a lovely explanation of the heavens in which the dawn chorus awakens the princess of light. Here, fantasy, morality and enjoyment combine to delightfl effect and will entertain listeners as old as 14.

Nearly 20 years ago Jones and a galaxy of famous friends got together and recorded these tales for the fun of it, but the tapes were put away in a cupboard and forgotten until last year. Now we can see how magical writing was complemented by equally magical reading, by - among others - the late Michael Hordern and Joan Greenwood, as well as others just starting out in 1982 such as the young Helen Mirren and Bob Hoskins.

BT