Practising English
Listening practice for learners of B1 intermediate and B2 upper-intermediate levels of British English. Learn British English by listening to stories. Original and exciting stories written for learners and students of British English. Practise and prepare for Cambridge: B1 PET Preliminary and FCE First Certificate exams. IELTS: level 4, level 5 and level 6. Includes English grammar explanations and practice exercises, examples of vocabulary use, phrasal verbs and collocations help, British English pronunciation practice, advice and help for passing B1 and B2 English examinations: Cambridge, IELTS and Trinity. Start practising and improving your British English listening, vocabulary and speaking levels today!
Practising English
262. The Missing Actor (B1 Story)
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The story audioscript for the story. The B1 words are shown in black.
The missing actor
Detective Anna Jones had a long career solving strange crimes. One rainy night, the police had called her to a dark hotel outside the village to help them. A film actor and celebrity, John Kelly, had disappeared from his locked room. The manager had knocked on the door, to bring his dinner, but there had been no reply.
Unfortunately, the local police had been careless, and Anna realised they had touched and moved objects in the room. Anna couldn’t stand this lack of professional behaviour. It made her job even more complicated.
However, she couldn’t help feeling that probably there was a simple explanation to this mystery – despite the locked door. There usually was.
Although the window had been pushed shut, it wasn’t, in fact, locked. The actor had left by the window. The room was only on the first floor. But why?
‘Search the gardens around the hotel,’ she ordered. ‘He can’t have gone far.’
Walking through the rain, Anna went in a different direction from the police.
She came to a part of the huge gardens where there was a single lamppost, and in its light, a young man was dancing and singing holding an umbrella.
‘He’s mad!’ thought Anna.
John Kelly then saw Anna. ‘Hello,’ he said.
‘Good evening, Mr Kelly. I’m Detective Jones. We’ve been looking for you. Are you all right?’
John Kelly laughed. ‘Yes, thank you! Please don’t tell anybody. They’ll think I’m crazy. But I’m practising for a play in the West end – Singing in the Rain. I saw this lovely lamppost in the hotel garden, and it was raining. I thought what a wonderful opportunity!’
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To read more about my book, click here (you can access it from any Amazon platform):
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Learners studying towards B2 level will be interested in my B1 to B2 reader: The Tudor Conspiracy (includes audio version) https://amzn.to/4gPsj0i
For very young learners (from 8-10), I recommend my picture reader book for children learning A1 to A2 English. It comes with a fully dramatised audio version: https://amzn.to/46TCWvv
At https://www.practisingenglish.com/ I offer learners of intermediate-level English, free grammar help and exercises and other English learning pages.
https://www.practisingenglish.com/
Be back soon with another podcast!
Mike Bilbrough (Secondary school English teacher and Doctor in English philology)