Latest / Mythmakers / Chamber of Secrets and the Most Famous Film You've (Probably) Never Heard Of!
Transcript
- 0:00Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
- 0:12creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding.
- 0:19And in today's episode I am being joined by Andrew Heard, our friend from Down Under,
- 0:25from Australia, who is a blind, creative and consumer of fantasy products. Is that fair to call
- 0:34you that, Andrew? Yes, yes. I mean, Andrew is my go-to on these matters. And I was
- 0:42raring to talk to him about this new series, which Audible is doing with the Harry Potter series,
- 0:51turning it into a full cast dramatisation. And as Andrew has so much experience at both as a writer
- 0:58and as a customer for fantasy, I thought he was the perfect person to talk to. So, Andrew,
- 1:06I believe that you have listened to the first two in this series, which is Harry Potter and
- 1:12the Philosopher's Stone, or Magician's Stone for Americans, and Harry Potter and the Chamber
- 1:18of Secrets. Tell me, what do you find? Well, do you enjoy listening to these? Are they a good
- 1:24experience for you? Yes, they're, I find it's quite different to how I've listened to it in the past,
- 1:32but it's, I really like it's, it's very, very immersive overall. You've got the, you know,
- 1:37a narrator, the writing, the text, and then whenever, for those who haven't listened to it yet,
- 1:44whenever a character speaks, it's a new, an actor playing each of the parts, if you will.
- 1:51Yeah, and that narrator, just for those of you who haven't sort of looked at it, it's a lady
- 1:56who a lovely voice called Jumbo Kush. So, it's very different from the two male narrators for the
- 2:01straightforward book versions, Stephen Fry and the Jim Dale. So, going back to, let's talk about
- 2:08mostly about the Chamber of Secrets. What did you feel about the overall production? The people
- 2:13chosen as the main characters, the soundscape, the sort of sense of place. I think where it's
- 2:22different, obviously, as you get a sense of being in a room or left and right speakers, and you
- 2:28know, they're really making you feel immersed in this world, aren't they? Oh, yeah, definitely,
- 2:33yeah, it's very, very immersive. Yeah, it's wonderful that they're, you know, it's like an audio
- 2:39movie, in a sense. Yeah, and it's like, yeah, you know, when you hear them running, when they say,
- 2:48oh, you know, they ran towards the door, you hear them running, or, you know, with the flying car,
- 2:55you know, when it when Ron says, put your foot down, Fred, you know, the car's idling and when he
- 3:01says, put your foot down, you hear it, you know, rev up and then drive off, and it's just, yeah,
- 3:07really, really cool and immersive, what they've done. I like a lot of the,
- 3:13but not obviously, I don't know who all the actors are, but I like that there's lots of actors
- 3:18playing the different parts. I really like. Freddie, tread away is Harry, just a, you know,
- 3:26yeah, and I'll fill you in on some of the others, you can tell me who you like. So you've got
- 3:30Max Leicester as Ron Weasley. Yeah. Uh, Arabelle Stanton as Hermione Granger, don't you think she
- 3:37sounds exactly like Emma Watson? Oh, 100%. Yeah, 100%. It's, it's uncanny. And she's Hermione, I
- 3:47believe she is playing Hermione in the TV show adaptation as well. Yeah, so she's cornered the
- 3:53market on, on Hermione Granger for this generation. You've got Daniel Mazers Dobby and Nina Wadier
- 4:01as Molly Weasley. And a name that a lot of people will know is Simon Pegg as Arthur Weasley because
- 4:07Simon Pegg has been in the Mission Impossible films. He's like a comedian that lots of people
- 4:15being familiar with. Um, Kit Harrington as Gilderoy Lockhart. Now Kit Harrington was, um, Jon Snow
- 4:24in Game of Thrones. So yeah, that's one of the things I was going to do. I think he's done,
- 4:32he's done a superb job as the Gilderoy Lockhart. But for me, it's quite funny because obviously,
- 4:39I only know him as Jon Snow and he's a very good actor because I assume that his northern accent
- 4:47that he does for Jon Snow was his regular voice. Ah, so to hear Kit Harrington, you can,
- 4:56how do I put it? You can sort of hear, you know, you can tell it, it's, it's still Kit Harrington,
- 5:01with his, his regular voice. And sometimes at the end of sentences, you can sort of hear,
- 5:06you know, sometimes in my head, I would go as a jerk, I'd go said Jon Snow.
- 5:14Yeah, who knew, who knew he could actually act?
- 5:20Uh, we got Alex, Alex Hassel as Lucius Malfoy, Michelle Gomez as Manur Vagonigal.
- 5:27Uh, so coming down towards the end of this list of the main stars, I think Riz Ahmed as
- 5:34Severus Snape, it's so hard to step into the shoes of, yeah, Alan Rickman.
- 5:42Alan Rickman. Yeah. I'm not a big fan of, sorry to say, I'm not a big fan of his voice and I'm
- 5:51not the biggest fan of Uncle Vernon's voice either. But, you know, it can't be perfect, so it is
- 6:00what it is. Yeah, I'm just trying to see his plays, Uncle Vernon. Let me have a quick look,
- 6:05Jeremy Swift. Yes, I'm not, but of course, again, big shoes to fill. I'm very fond of Hugh Laurie
- 6:13as Alba Stumble doll. Oh, yes, I was coming to that. I only know him. He, Laurie, Prince George from
- 6:22Blackheader. Ah, no, he was also house to mostly, yeah, of where he did an American accent. So,
- 6:30oh, okay, cool. Yeah. And also recently in the night manager as the baddie. So,
- 6:38he's a man with a great range, but if you only think of him as like ridiculous Prince George,
- 6:43then clearly. So, so when I heard, I would have heard Hugh Laurie was cast the double doll,
- 6:48oh, this is going to be fantastic. And it's great. It's wonderful to hear an older Hugh Laurie
- 6:57playing Dumbledore, who obviously, you know, he has his silly moments, but he can be obviously,
- 7:02he can be quite serious. And it's wonderful to hear him be the lovable, funny yet serious Dumbledore,
- 7:10and I think he does a superb job. Yeah, and makes me wish that they'd cast him in the TV series
- 7:16that they're doing, but anyway. Oh, yeah. And another sort of like for like voice is Mark Addy
- 7:22as Rubius Hagrid. Oh, this. It took me a little while to recognize him, but when I was reading
- 7:31the philosophy story, but all of a sudden, oh, hang on, that's Mark Addy. And of course, we all know
- 7:35him as King Robert from Game of Thrones, such a deep, brewing voice. And I think it really suits
- 7:43really suits him as Hagrid. And of course, he does Hagrid's West country sort of accent.
- 7:48Oh, yeah, you couldn't have cast anyone better with that once. Yeah, and it's very similar to
- 7:55Robbie Coltrane, of course, in the way it strikes the ear. And then finally, the last person to
- 8:01mention is Matthew McFadden as Voldemort, to be honest, he's not had an awful lot to do yet.
- 8:07So we wait to see what happens with that. Yeah, I liked him in the philosophy stone. And I liked
- 8:18was he, he also did Tom Riddle. Didn't he always Tom Riddle? I did. What do you, I think there's
- 8:24a different actor. I think looking down the list, there's a young actor called Oscar,
- 8:29Brutanelle Jones as Tom Riddle, Jr. So he did a good job. Yeah. Anyway, and some of the most
- 8:40intriguing, when you dig right down into the bottom of the list, you've got things like Shirley
- 8:48Bassie, who's like a famous singer of Goldfinger and things like that, who plays one of the
- 8:54the warbillars on the radio. So they obviously just had such fun saying, who can we get involved
- 8:59in this production? And they've gone far on wide. So the other, the other surprise actor was Miles
- 9:08Jupp as Cornelia Spudge. Yes. And I know him from, from the news quiz, they've been to see
- 9:15Fernando comedy. And I didn't recognize him. And it was only when I heard the massive 14-minute
- 9:23cast list of the air, which is great to listen to. Yeah. And I was like, oh, Miles Jupp is
- 9:28Cornelia, that's great. That's fantastic. Yeah, you're right about the listening to the end,
- 9:34because I happened to, when I was listening to the first one, I was on a dogwalk. So I just left
- 9:40it, left it playing as I wasn't back home yet. And the number of extra people involved in it,
- 9:48plus the crafts people, because they also list everybody who, you know, did everything. It does
- 9:53take a long time. It's reminded me of, if you've ever sat and watched the rolling credits of Lord
- 9:58of the Rings, anybody, you know, that goes on for a good 10 minutes as well. So yeah. So the cast,
- 10:08I think I agree with you that the balance in the cast is good. I think we, I'm going to hold
- 10:16back on Riz Armer, because I think that his, the test of him will come in later books in the series.
- 10:25I find his voice a little bit light. Just a bit of a play again. A severest snake. Just a bit.
- 10:32I find it quite hard sometimes to hear it, actually. He just seems slightly, yeah, just slightly
- 10:40less defined. I guess I'm used to the Alan Rickman sneer. So what about the, I mean,
- 10:47so actors, well done, everybody, but what about the music and the sort of Foley sounds?
- 10:56The Foley sounds are things like the door knocking and the car revving and all that stuff.
- 11:00How do you find the presence? Let's start with the music first. How do you find that?
- 11:06I love, I love the music. It's great if, because obviously there's the iconic
- 11:14music for the movies. So it's wonderful that they've come up with, you know, their own
- 11:21theme tune and their own score for this production. And yeah, they've done a really good job
- 11:27on the main theme. And then, you know, yeah, you'll get music at the beginning and then
- 11:33they're each chapter. It's, yeah, really, really lovely. It's, you know, atmospheric and it helps
- 11:40get you in, I suppose. So I like it at the end, it's more music. I guess it does a different job
- 11:47to film music. Have you, Andrew, have you seen Chamber of Secrets with audio description?
- 11:55I have, yes. So if you remember, they're, you know, quite often when they're showing landscapes or,
- 12:02you know, train journeys or something, there isn't dialogue. There's some kind of soundtrack,
- 12:09headwigs theme or some kind of comedy theme or whatever it is. So clearly, and a composer for a
- 12:16film has bigger spaces to put the music in. The job of this composer, I think is much more complicated
- 12:23because they have to punctuate and not take over. Yeah, yeah, that's true. I think I didn't,
- 12:32wasn't that impressed when I would listen to the first one, but it's growing on me, the main theme.
- 12:38And I can now remember it, whereas I couldn't, when I listened to the first one, I don't find it
- 12:43too much of a distraction, which is good. I was worried it was going to be a bit too interesting.
- 12:48What's about the Foley sounds? As I say, it's very, very immersive. Yeah, it really helps
- 12:56draw you in. The scale of detail that they've gone to is incredible. And you know, when they're in
- 13:03the bathroom, you know, which obviously in this one quite a lot. There, you know, it echoes and then
- 13:12it's, I mean, I've sort of, when I listen to books, I prefer to have my Bluetooth speaker, but
- 13:20because this is so immersive and rich in audio, I've listened to some of it with the speaker.
- 13:25I've listened to some of it with my noise canceling headphones. I've listened to some of it with my
- 13:30Apple AirPods. And yeah, it's nice to have headphones in at different times and get more of the,
- 13:40you know, the atmospheric sounds of the fire in the background, say in the common room or
- 13:45Hagrid's hut and just the different sounds of different rooms, like a classroom as opposed to
- 13:53the dormitory or something. So moving on, so we've both been generally impressed by these
- 13:59productions, I think, it'd be fair to say. I will say, the actress for Manning Metal
- 14:07did also did a fantastic job. Megan Richards, there you go. Megan Richards, well done.
- 14:13The only thing I don't like, by the way, is I don't like the fact that the twins are the same,
- 14:20the two wishes are the same actor. I forgot to mention that, yes, I agree, I agree. I mean,
- 14:26I assume they did that. So from an audio perspective, and I'm just assuming using logic, but from
- 14:35an audio perspective, they may have done that to sort of show that they're identical, but I
- 14:43I think it's, I mean, in theory, great, but I think it would be better to have two different
- 14:51actors, because it's, I hear it's a bit confusing as to, is that afraid saying that or is that
- 14:57George? I don't think it's a helpful confusion either, because it's identical. So Hey,
- 15:02Mish Lloyd Barnes is given this job of doing both. And it particularly, a lot more work for it.
- 15:09It particularly doesn't work for me when they layer the voices over each other.
- 15:13Yeah. And I don't know why they just didn't find two twins or
- 15:19something who sounded a bit like Hey, Mish, anyway, that's a cheap skate thing to do, which is
- 15:26weird considering it's such a massive production. So what I wanted to ask you, particularly, is
- 15:34how does this compare for you to the single reader version? I think you said to me that you had
- 15:39listened to the Stephen Fry version, which is the one I've listened to. What did you, how would you
- 15:46if you're going to listen to this again, are you going to go back to the Stephen Fry version,
- 15:50or are you going to go back to this? The full cast is very enjoyable. It's great.
- 15:56It's different, and it's nice to reread it with all this difference. But
- 16:04it can't, in my humble opinion, it cannot replace
- 16:09Stephen Fry's version. It's just so nostalgic and it just does such a great job with
- 16:21the narration and all the different voices he does for the characters. He's an extremely
- 16:28talented actor. It's amazing. So many different voices subtly changing for all the characters,
- 16:37and yeah, it just can't compare. I listen to this over and over and over and over. As a child,
- 16:43I'd have it from 11 to 1819. I'd read the books all the way through, but then sometimes I'd
- 16:54go to a period night where I just go from book 1 to 7 and listen to it, start listening to a
- 17:01new CD each night and just fall asleep to Harry Potter, basically. And it's still not
- 17:08not still not got an old, you know, I still love the books as much as ever. So it's, yeah,
- 17:13it can't replace that. But in saying that, I do hope that maybe there's young
- 17:21blind children listening to this, listening to the full cast editions for the first time,
- 17:27and if that's what gets them into Harry Potter and they enjoy it, and this is the version
- 17:32that they prefer, well, then that's great. And if it does that job, then that's wonderful.
- 17:39I guess this rather sort of touches on this phenomenon that we're going through at the moment
- 17:46of there being these dramatized full cast versions of books which are written for reading,
- 17:54or reading out aloud. What do you feel about this? I don't, have you listened to any,
- 17:59is this the first one you've listened to like this, or are there others you've already tried
- 18:04where they've done this? Well, the only other one that springs to mind immediately is
- 18:12Philip Pullman's his dark materials, where it's not, there's no musical, well, are there
- 18:17bit of music? There's no folio sound effects in the background, but it's, you know, Philip Pullman
- 18:22reading the story and then all the actors are voiced by different people. How do you think it works
- 18:28because they haven't adapted it for, well, they've only slightly adapted it in this case. I think
- 18:36they may have dropped a word here or there, as he said, or she said, but nothing else. So it's
- 18:41a sort of juggling act between an erata and the cast, and clearly JK Rowling didn't write it
- 18:50with this in mind. If we think of, let me explain, if we think of Lord of the Rings, the version
- 18:58that stands a bit like this, of course, is the BBC dramatized adaptation, which was made into a radio
- 19:04play. And so it moved much further away from the book as a result because it is a radio play.
- 19:11But you get similar qualities and then you get the red versions. I think we've talked about them
- 19:19before, the Andy Circus one and so on. So this one, they haven't gone to the Let's Adapt it
- 19:25for a radio play version. They've done that. Let's just read it and drop in the characters,
- 19:32and the question is, does it work? Yes, I think it does. I think it does. I take my hat off to them
- 19:40and they've done a good job of putting it all together, and it's a great, I know,
- 19:48you medium. Yeah, I think you're right. I think it's a new medium.
- 19:53Yeah, it's great. It'd be interesting if they're going to bring out more books like this,
- 19:59it'd be interesting to see how they do it.
- 20:03Some of the books I listened to an audio started promoting to me versions like this,
- 20:13for example, some of the books by Alona Andrews. And I listened to a sample thinking,
- 20:19what would I get if I downloaded this? And I didn't, from the sample I tried, I found the Foley
- 20:26sounds far too, I should perhaps give it another go, but I found the Foley sounds too on the nose,
- 20:33you know, footsteps and things. Clearly, this has had a lot more money spent on it,
- 20:38and it's been done to the most professional standards you can. So this is, I think, like the
- 20:44peak version of this, whereas in some other versions, it's just a bit distracting.
- 20:52So I'm interested to see how it develops. Also, the other thing is that I think Harry Potter
- 21:00itself, because of the sort of dialogue driven nature of it and the banter and what have you
- 21:04worked quite well with voices reading out, a book that is more reflective with, you know,
- 21:14it only works with certain points of view, doesn't it? So a third person point view with a narrator
- 21:19seems to work, whereas if you're doing a first person's story, it would be funny, how would
- 21:27that work? So they've picked the right one to try. I hadn't thought of that actually.
- 21:33But maybe we should keep an eye out for some, because they're going to be doing more of this,
- 21:37because they can get us all to pay again, can't they probably get more product?
- 21:42You'd see what style of books works best. So they've just done, I've started listening to
- 21:50the Prisoner of Azkaban, which so far is actually my favourite of the three, which I also like it as
- 21:58a book, because of the murder mystery feel of it. Then the clever, I haven't got to that bit yet,
- 22:06but the sort of how you solve all the problems in the plot with the time-turner.
- 22:13But I actually, yeah, I'm actually enjoying that one most out of all of them. So if you haven't
- 22:20got to that, I think you've got something to look forward to going forward.
- 22:24Yes, I'll be particularly interested, what now you mentioned, I'll be particularly interested
- 22:30to hear what the dementors are like.
- 22:33Yeah, and the other thing about it, which of course, my most recent memory of that story is the
- 22:39film version, which I did like as a film, but I enjoy the slower pace. I'd forgotten, for example,
- 22:46that Harry gets a couple of weeks just enjoying himself in Diagon Alley and gets to know it,
- 22:52and that feeling of finally Harry gets something happy, you know. And I'm very much like the way
- 22:58they're doing Professor Lupin. So lots to look forward to there. So going back to our verdict
- 23:06on the Chamber of Secrets, Andrew, would you give it a star rating out of five?
- 23:11Overall, five out of five stars, but if we, comparing Stephen Friday before out of five,
- 23:21but on its own, yeah, definitely five out of five for the, yeah, the superb job they've done,
- 23:27the immersiveness, it's brought, as I say, reading Harry Potter again, it sort of brought
- 23:34it to life in a new way. So yeah, I'd give it five out of five stars for sure.
- 23:40Well, thank you so much, Andrew, for joining us. And yeah, let's look forward to seeing what they
- 23:44do with the rest of the series. I'm going to be intrigued because the books get longer and longer
- 23:49after, so it's going to be many hours of listening by the time we get to gobblet of fire.
- 23:56Anyway, thank you very much for joining us. No worries, thank you. Thanks for having me.
- 24:03And in the second part of today's episode, I wanted to have a quick look at the information
- 24:10that's just come out today, that's January 2026, about the highest-grossing films of all time.
- 24:18So I'll tell you what they are in reverse order and just look at how many of them are fantasy films.
- 24:26Often the fantasy is in the form of an animation. So we've got inside out two at number 10
- 24:34in 2024, which took 1.69 billion, that's the sort of, what you need to do to get into the top 10.
- 24:43At number 9, we got Zootopia 2, 2025, a very recent film that's just made it onto the list.
- 24:50At number 8, this is the first time we see a sort of live action one. We got Spider-Man no way home
- 24:57from back in 2021. At number 7, we've got Avengers Infinity War from 2018. And this is the first film
- 25:07on the list to get over 2 billion. At number 6, we got Star Wars The Force Awakens from 2015.
- 25:15That was the big reboot of Star Wars, which went quite well. I'm not sure it's the other films
- 25:22in that series maintained that enthusiasm. And then at number 5, we've got Nezah 2 from 2025.
- 25:31More about Nezah in a moment. At number 4, we've got Titanic. Now I think Titanic is the only
- 25:41non-thantasy title in this list. That's from back in 1997 and is the oldest film on the list.
- 25:50And at number 3, we have Avatar The Way of Water from 2022. And number 2, we got Avengers Endgame
- 25:58from 2019. And then sitting at the top of the list, at quite a remarkable amount of money,
- 26:06we've got Avatar The 2009, the first version of that franchise, which came in with a grossing
- 26:15amount of 2.92 billion. So nearly 3 billion. Some interesting things to say about this. One is
- 26:24films aren't earning as much. I think that represents the decline of the film industry in theatres.
- 26:37Clearly, there's a lot of money to be made in other forms of this. Also, if you compare it to
- 26:42the top-grossing video games, these would be very modest figures. So we have to remember that a lot
- 26:49of money is being made over in this other medium these days. Though they do feed across, of course.
- 26:57And the common phenomenon between all of them is spectacle. Fantasy obviously lends itself to
- 27:08these huge landscapes and special effects and flying and superhero powers and all that kind of
- 27:14thing. But even Titanic on that list shares that in their DNA. They has the drama of this massive
- 27:23ship, the landscapes of the sea, the iceberg, the frozen waste and all that sort of thing. Plus,
- 27:31it's a love story as well, which the central performance there was very engaging. Avatar is also
- 27:39a love story. And so there are a number of romances on this list.
- 27:46So it seems as though if you want to make a lot of money, you have to spend a lot of money on
- 27:52these big films, the big spectacles, but you can also make your studio go broke because it may
- 27:59bomb. For example, the Star Wars franchise hasn't gone broke, obviously, clearly not.
- 28:06And or shows it's in good health, but something like the solo film didn't make back its money.
- 28:12So you can have your misses, even if you go full on with your special effects and your
- 28:19your sort of your starscapes and all that kind of thing. Story and performance are key.
- 28:28I personally don't like Avatar. I've not gone since seeing the first one. It's not for me,
- 28:34but it's clearly for many people out there because there's two titles in the top 10.
- 28:44Of the films on the list, the one that I've actually enjoyed the most is The Spider-Man,
- 28:48because I'm rather, I think Tom Holland's great. And he has Spider-Man and that's the one I like on
- 28:55this list. I found Titanic a bit overextended, a bit overblown, not for me. Soundtrack was good.
- 29:03Some bits of it were fine, but these aren't my favourite kinds of films. What do you think? I mean,
- 29:12down to tasters and this. They're what they're looking at here is our films which are able to play
- 29:18to the biggest common denominator in the world. So we may have our favourite homegrown films,
- 29:24but these ones are able to appeal to a wide audience. But what about Nizah?
- 29:31Number two. I've never heard of this film before and it is made most of its box office,
- 29:372.21 billion in China. It is made in China. So that of course sent me to have a look at the trailer for
- 29:45this film. It's a series of films about a boy born to be a demon who defies his fate. It looks great
- 29:58and reminds me a lot of the demon hunters that film that's been ruling the roost on Netflix
- 30:07for the last year. And it's interesting to see a shift to particularly animation coming out of
- 30:14the East from Korea, from China, Japan, of course, for many, many years. And how that's
- 30:22appealing to a world taste, I think it's good because it gives us different stories, different images,
- 30:27different ideas about folklore and mythology. So it adds to the world's stories. I'd be very
- 30:35interested to see this. I wonder if I have to look at see if there's a version that I can access.
- 30:42Yes. What is missing for me, of course, is there is no Lord of the Rings. None of the three films make it on here.
- 30:49There is no none of the Narnia films. It'd be interesting to see if this starts to change when
- 30:56the New Narnia films come out. But these huge films with the Marvel Universe behind them or
- 31:04Star Wars behind them, have they reached their high tide and is there now a draining away from
- 31:11that kind of film until a new franchise comes along? I don't think any of us know what it will be.
- 31:20And also it reminds us of the importance of animated films. Clearly that appeals to a kid
- 31:27audience, the kind of film you take a birthday party to. But they are also incredibly expensive to
- 31:34make. You wouldn't think that, would you? You would think, oh, surely, building sets and all this
- 31:37kind of thing. That is more expensive. But no, an animated film is a very expensive thing to make.
- 31:44If you get it right, though, you can make a lot of money. But it does remind us that fantasy is
- 31:51what sells. Be it superhero, be it blue creatures from another planet, be it space opera or clever
- 32:02witty inside-out style drama or animal fables. Fantasy is what sells. So I can report today that
- 32:13a fantasy is very much alive and kicking as a genre in the film industry.
- 32:17Thank you very much for listening.
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