Podcast/Audiobook The hobbit and Lors of the rings

Charming!

What a strange program. Basically just people in their everyday clothes, sitting around a grassy, rocky set. And the appearances do not much match the characters, as though the cast for an audiobook has just stepped outside and set up cameras.

I hadn't bothered to click on it because I haven't much use for audio books. But it is rather charming. It's helpful that they have the narrator sum up the action up to that point. We all know the story by heart but others may not.

{{ Jackanory was part of my childhood. Its not meant to look like the thing, its meant to be like getting read a betime story. And it had some of the finest actors of the period in it, in this example you have Bernard Cribbens (Who fans will know him as Wilfred Mott, but his career is as long and varied as your arm, and he also narrated a lo tof childrens stuff back then, he was one of the main voices of my childhood. There is also David Wood, who was a stage and character actor who bought his own theatre and later wrote the screenplay for the film version of Swallows and Amazons, and then there is Maurice Denham another great stage and screen character actor of his day, and Jan Francis who has been in loads of tv dramas, sircoms and in her later career soaps.

So you tended to get big names of their day reading them. It was all part of the BBC's being a public broadcaster, their childrens programming had to contain an element of education.

There are some classic readings from Jackanory, my personal favourite is the late great Rik Mayal reading Roald Dahl's George's Marvelous Medicine. Mayal's anarchic style and humour is perfectly suited to the tale. }}

Lovely! Didn't know that story even existed, good for starting my breakfast. But then I find out it comes in 5 parts. Have to work through it bit by bit.