Microphones in Middle-earth...the BBC Lord of the Rings

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

My least favourite was the Smith version - for some reason, I wasn't enthused about Smith's monologues, nor of the voice that spoke the part. I think they made the whole story seem too mundane to me.

I think this is the problem faced by dramatising Tolkien's work. Because they are so full of prose and description it is hard to transfer that over to radio. I do get annoyed at any radio production where you have a character spending a long time describing the place they have walked into. It works better with two characters in dialogue talking about how they feel about the room, but with one character it is hard to find a way of doing it right. Farmer Giles was good (Brian 'Should be Thorin' Blessed was excellent), but Garm annoyed me at the beginning.

The episode in discussion at the moment is in a good place. You have a lot of character who can discuss the surroundings. Good Tolkien phrases can be interspursed between the appropriate characters. Sometimes when you have a good piece of description or whatever, it's tempting to give it all to one character, but I think it works better distributed. Sounds more natural.