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Old 04-12-2008, 02:14 AM   #196
Estelyn Telcontar
Princess of Skwerlz
 
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Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: where the Sea is eastwards (WtR: 6060 miles)
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Estelyn Telcontar has reached the Cracks of Doom and destroyed the Ring!Estelyn Telcontar has reached the Cracks of Doom and destroyed the Ring!Estelyn Telcontar has reached the Cracks of Doom and destroyed the Ring!Estelyn Telcontar has reached the Cracks of Doom and destroyed the Ring!Estelyn Telcontar has reached the Cracks of Doom and destroyed the Ring!Estelyn Telcontar has reached the Cracks of Doom and destroyed the Ring!Estelyn Telcontar has reached the Cracks of Doom and destroyed the Ring!Estelyn Telcontar has reached the Cracks of Doom and destroyed the Ring!Estelyn Telcontar has reached the Cracks of Doom and destroyed the Ring!Estelyn Telcontar has reached the Cracks of Doom and destroyed the Ring!
I'm sorry I haven't participated much so far - I have the recordings, but the fact that they are cut differently makes it difficult for me to find the right starting and finishing points. As preparation for the Tolkien Seminar has priority at the moment, I'm not taking the time for that complicated selection.

My research for the paper I will be presenting did lead me to a review of the radio production in Brian Rosebury's Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon. Here are a few excerpts for your enjoyment:
Quote:
The 13-hour BBC radio production is, of course, fundamentally hampered by its inability to suggest the physical and cultural presence of Middle-earth, other than through inevitably rather generalised sound-effects...
That statement is less a criticism than a simple analysation of the shortcomings of the audio medium. Praise is given for the use of narration from Tolkien's text to give glimpses.

Dialogues are praised as well-delivered and skilfully abridged, with special mention of Woodthorpe's Gollum, though abridgements are said to tend to "flatten the text in the direction of an adventure story."

In summary Rosebury writes:
Quote:
The strength of the BBC version as an adaptation lies in its largely faithful, and nearly complete, realisation of the sequence of events (...): in that sense, if no other, the criterion that as little as possible of the original should be lost is met more closely by this than by the movie versions.
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'Mercy!' cried Gandalf. 'If the giving of information is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you. What more do you want to know?' 'The whole history of Middle-earth...'
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