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Mythmakers Encore: Andy Serkis Audio Book of The Lord of the Rings - Our Verdict · Mythmakers

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  Hello and welcome to the MythMakers podcast brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy.
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  This is the podcast for everybody who loves fantasy, old and new.
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  My name is Julia Golding, I'm a writer but I'm also the director of the Oxford Centre
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  for Fantasy, which in particular has a focus on J.R.R. Tolkien and the Inklings as well
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  as other fantasy writers who have come out of Oxford.
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  In today's episode I thought I would tackle the big thing that's recently happened for
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  all of you who love Tolkien, which is the new recording unabridged by Andy Circus,
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  the entire reading of the Lord of the Rings.
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  It's just come out and is the first time that an unabridged recording has been added to
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  your choices since the Robert English version back in 1990.
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  But I also wanted to add into the review of the comparison of the various options you
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  have, the much earlier 1981 BBC dramatized version, because for many people that is where
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  they begin their listening journey.
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  So taking those various options in order in which they were produced, I'd like to give
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  you a little guide as to what you might find if you choose to go with one of those.
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  Now let's go back to 1981.
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  I actually remember this being made, it was a huge part of my childhood that the BBC
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  had done this fantastic version.
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  It was dramatized in 26 episodes and in those days of course it wasn't on demand, you
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  had to wait with your cassette tape recorder to record them if you wanted to listen again
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  and I have to admit to doing that.
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  The cast was Stella, some of the names many of you will recognise so Ian Holm played Frodo
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  in the BBC version and he returned as Bilbo in the Peter Jackson films.
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  Gandalf was played by a man who was like a very well known actor at the time, Michael
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  Horden.
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  I actually knew him as a child because he was the voice of the Paddington cartoons but
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  he also was a very notable film actor.
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  Robert Stevens, he is perhaps also known for being once married to Maggie Smith, he played
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  Aragon and Bill Nye, he played Sam and there were lots of other very notable people, John
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  Le Miserie, played Bilbo and those of you who have watched the British comedy programme
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  Dad's Army, he was in that cast so you can see they really were able to attract into
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  the recording studio a really superior team of voice actors.
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  Now, a really nice thing about the BBC version is that it was directed by two women, Jane
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  Morgan and Penny Leicester and they did a really excellent job in choosing their material
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  dividing it up.
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  They brought along Stephen Oliver, whose music I think is definitely amongst the best versions
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  of the songs, extremely singable.
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  They also had little extras at the end of the, some of the episodes where you could have
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  even more songs if you wanted, like I remembered there was an extra set from Treebeard at one
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  point in the two towers.
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  So they did a really, really excellent job in bringing the poetry of Tolkien into the
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  dramatisation.
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  I think that one thing to point out is they took some cuts, like Peter Jackson did, they
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  didn't include Tom Bombadill.
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  There was sort of, you know, there is a argument that Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of
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  the Ring takes a long time to get going and the Tom Bombadill material isn't really important
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  later on in the plot so it's an obvious cut if you want to slim down your offering.
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  They also had really good, simple, special effects.
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  So when you listen to it, you do feel very, if you lay in bed or in the car or wherever
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  you are, you really feel in the world with sort of wind sounds and the idea of particularly
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  the black riders they have a very ghostly tone.
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  There's a very good smiegel as well.
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  I mean, we all got so used to Andy Circus, but actually the person who takes on smiegel
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  in this version, that's Peter Woodthorpe, he for me until I saw the piece Jackson films,
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  he was the smiegel, the voice of, and he had previously voiced the same character in
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  the Ralph Bakshi animated version and I believe that the gentleman who played Boramir, Michael
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  Graham Cox also had appeared in that version too as a voice actor.
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  So there's some lovely crossings over between the various versions.
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  So I would say that it was just such an excellent production, really very high class.
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  For me, the voice that I didn't quite warm to, and this perhaps is just a personal taste,
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  is I found Robert Stevens as a, he felt older and I happened to sort of already know what
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  Robert Stevens looked like because he'd appeared in some children's dramas at the time and
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  he had played a bad guy in a version of, I think it was a box of delights, the John Maysfield
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  story.
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  And I remember feeling he wasn't quite right.
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  So for me, that was one of the weaker sides of that production, but definitely highly
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  recommended, particularly as I mentioned earlier, for the quality of the songs, which they
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  do really, really well.
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  So moving on, we're heading a bit more into the digital age, but not quite yet.
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  In 1990, actor called Robert Inglis sat down and recorded an unabridged version of the
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  Lord of the Rings.
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  It was directed by Claudia Howard, and the music is a variety of either music sort of noted
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  by Tolkien, something that Robert Inglis had, a dog sharp his name is Inglis or Inglis.
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  I think I'll go of Inglis.
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  He'd made up himself and also Claudia Howard also added some music too.
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  In the production, I think they re-released it at the same time as the films.
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  It has some very nice musical interludes that signal the end of a book and the beginning
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  of another.
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  They use this same production note in the Martin Shaw version of Silmarillion, and then
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  well chosen, a sense of almost like the tie is leaving, and I think it really adds to
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  that version.
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  What do you get when you listen to Robert Inglis?
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  Well, you get a very professorial tone.
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  I kind of tell myself it's a bit like sitting listening to Tolkien, read it to you, and
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  that is a big plus point.
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  It's very good.
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  He doesn't push too far away from a reading voice.
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  It's not a dramatized reading, but he does find a lot of different notes and you're never
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  confused by who's speaking.
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  He doesn't extremely good job, and I think it's very listenable.
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  It definitely has a quality about it, which is very relaxing, and the perfect audio book
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  in a sense that you can just let it wash through you and wash over you and you go with the
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  story.
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  I think that perhaps he's less good on how to put this because it feels a bit like a
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  period piece.
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  It's almost surprised to find it was recorded in 1990 because he feels like he could have
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  recorded it in 1950.
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  There is an element of it feeling slightly old fashioned.
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  I think it might be the tone and the feeling of a gentleman of a certain age.
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  What you're getting, as I'm saying, does feel quite appropriate to imagining it being
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  a bit like Tolkien reading to you.
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  Let us move on now to the big new player in the field, and that is Andy Circus' version.
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  Now I think it's really interesting finding Andy Circus, having dedicated what must have
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  been a very large part of his life recently.
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  Maybe it was a lockdown project to recording this.
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  I think that what you get, of course, is it feels much more familiar to people who have
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  come at Tolkien from the film.
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  So the very first thing to say is when he chooses a character voice, he very often is
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  channeling what you see from the screen thanks to Peter Jackson.
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  So for example, the choice to make Pippin Scottish.
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  The Shah is a very small place, and it's quite funny to think that within such a small
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  area there are such wildly different accents, which is perfectly fine.
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  And I can see that it distinguishes the hobbits from each other.
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  But I'm also thinking of, of course, Billy Boyd as he does the voice is fine, but just
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  warn you that there is that element of hearing film actors underneath what Andy Circus is
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  doing.
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  The other thing, the other actor who is very clearly an inspiration for a voice is Boromir,
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  totally Sean Bean, very good interpretation of Sean Bean, again, the choice of an
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  Northern accent there.
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  So that I think will please lots of people, because they will be clued in, they can imagine
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  almost seeing a version of the film in their imagination happening.
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  The other thing about Andy Circus' approach is unlike Robert Engels who, as I said, had
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  more of a reading voice and doesn't push too far into the drama.
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  There is more energy and more performance behind Andy Circus' version.
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  So in terms of listening experience, there is peaks and troughs.
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  There is actually more, what is more dramatic and it is a performance as opposed to a reading
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  if I can draw that distinction.
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  I have to have some caveats.
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  There are a couple of things in it which for me are a problem and they come particularly
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  at the beginning of the Fellowship of the Ring, which is he is not that great at singing
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  the Hobbit songs.
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  He does get better, I felt, as the Fellowship of the Rings went on, but there are some
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  pretty ropey songs.
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  Either he has not been given a great tune or he has decided they don't sing very well.
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  And that was a bit off-putting.
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  And the section which I find really difficult and disappointing was Tom Bombardill.
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  He's gone for a very bombastic tone and it has just really jared for me.
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  I disliked it intensely.
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  If I'm going to listen alongside I would go and listen to that chapter done by Robert Engels
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  in future who doesn't send it up as much.
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  Maybe that because this character didn't appear in the films there wasn't a sense of who
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  he could be and he comes across it being.
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  He doesn't seem to have the gravity or the depth and the earth, he's the oldest creature
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  ever alive and the Andy Circus version makes him feel really annoying.
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  So I don't recommend those chapters.
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  But everything else I've thoroughly enjoyed and massive, massive plus point, which is
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  why you might go for this version over the others if you're a talking nerd, is that when
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  it's said to be an unabridged version, it is an unabridged version.
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  He does the prefectory material.
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  The talking introduction is absolutely fascinating as a scene setter for what you went
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  on to hear.
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  And the appendices, now that is a really bold choice by the people who have produced this
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  audio book, but hooray.
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  So now you can actually hear the appendices read as well, which is great.
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  That's new material and I think it's worth definitely buying Return of the King.
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  If you've already got say the Robert Engels version, you might want to say pick that one
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  because you've got a whole load of new material at the end.
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  And of course, he gets to be gollum again.
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  So that's pretty good, isn't it?
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  I find the strongest voices for me in what he's done, the sweet of voices he's done.
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  I really like Frodo and Sam, I think they're really good.
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  And also his arrogant is great.
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  It's a sort of slightly deeper Andy Circus voice, very attractive.
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  It doesn't have the problem I found with the Robert Stevens of being too plummy.
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  It's got a very, it's not a takeoff of Vigo Mortison at all.
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  If you're looking for a voice actor whom it's a bit like, it sounds a bit like Clive Lewis,
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  it's got a very nice tone.
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  And you can think, yeah, this is one of the heroes.
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  So thank you very much, audible for giving us yet more hours of talking to enjoy.
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  If I was going to finish with sort of like my star review, I think for performance as
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  in drama, you would have to struggle to beat the BBC version.
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  That's definitely five stars.
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  Robert Ingles on performance in drama is more of a three.
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  And Andy Circus is another five star for a single voice actor.
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  In terms of listenability, they all score really highly.
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  They're all five stars.
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  But if I was going to give you a sort of wish one, do I buy?
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  I'd say if you've got a family listening, go for the BBC version.
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  If you are personally listening on your own, the choice between the Andy Circus and the
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  Robert Ingles version is, do you want to be read to or do you want to be performed at?
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  And that's where I would decide which one I'm going for.
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  And of course, if you're like, get all of them, which is what I've done.
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  And depending how I feel, I choose the one I want to.
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  So thank you very much for listening.
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  And that's my view on the audio versions.
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  But before we leave, I always in every podcast, try and choose where in the world is the
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  best place to go.
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  And for this episode, I thought we'd choose where in the fancy world is the best place
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  to be ill.
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  Because listening to the Lord of the Rings again reminded me just how often, particularly
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  Frodo gets ill or gets wounded and how important healing and medicine is.
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  Now, obviously, you might say the best place it to go in Tolkien's world for healing
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  would be the houses of healing in Ministerus.
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  That's all or of course, Rivendell, where you've got Elrond as the sort of master healer.
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  But I was also thinking outside of Tolkien's world, I'm very fond of a fantasy series
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  that starts with a book called War Prize by Elizabeth Fawn.
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  And what I like about that series is that the character arc of the main character is
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  that she brings, it's not that magic or anything like that, she brings conventional medicine
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  to the invaders who come to her country.
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  She's handed over as a war prize and her role is to teach these people the importance
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  of healing.
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  And I really enjoy that.
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  That's the dilemma.
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  It's an unusual dilemma to have in a fancy book that her job is to persuade them that,
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  you know, you don't just kill somebody when they get injured.
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  They give them the mercy stroke because, you know, a broken leg meant they'd never be
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  able to be a warrior again.
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  She is turning around their traditions and their understandings about strength, weakness.
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  And what is really strong is that necessary muscles, it's intelligence and caring and all
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  those kind of things.
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  So, in a sense, I would say the best place for healing might be in Elizabeth Fawn's
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  war prize, just to ring the changes, not always choosing Tolkien, you see.
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  There, of course, going to see a Lewis, it's very useful to have Lucy's cordial on hand
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  because that seems a very quick pick me up, pretty much almost bringing you back from
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  the dead, so not quite, but almost.
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  So, that's also a little, you know, if you're going to travel, have Lucy's cordial with you,
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  that would help.
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  So that's the answer to where in the world.
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  I hope that you've also had a chance to listen to our podcast that we did with the live stream
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  about the forthcoming Amazon Prime series set in Tolkien's second age, where I was joined
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  by Paula Calamaris writer and Thai Trusdale filmmaker.
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  If you haven't caught up with that yet, it's available on YouTube, Facebook and also
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  as a podcast, so please do check that out and let us know what you think.
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  So, until next time, thank you very much for joining us here at MythMakers.
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  Goodbye.
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