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

[Brian Sibley]

Originally Posted by davem

One thing I wonder about is why the BBC originally went for 26 half-hour episodes, rather than 13 one hour episodes. After all they were pretty quick to edit it into 13 episodes for rebroadcast. I also wonder if Brian & Michael Bakewell would have taken a different approach if they'd been commissioned to do it as 13 hour long episodes in the first place - certainly they'd have needed fewer cliff-hangers ...

The series was originally commissioned for what was a regular 30-minute drama slot. The success prompted the BBC to up-grade to the other regular slot which ran for 60 minutes. I would have certainly approached the division of the material quite differently had it been for hour-long episodes and the cliff-hangers' (many of them phoney or contrived) are now I think a blemish on the 60-minute versions.

Not that it matters after all these years, but the producer found my obsessive attitude towards the material during recording an utter trial (I was almost as defensive of Tolkien's text as Tolkien would have been!) and, as a result, I was not consulted about the amalgamation of the episodes - which I assume was done by the producer with, possibly, the assistance of Michael Bakewell.

This was ironic since I was commissioned to create the original 26 episode structure and was given credit for that work in addition to that for the episodes I dramatised, but the structuring of the 13 hour repeat was carried out without my involvement! The dramatisation as it was originally intended to be heard can, in fact, no longer be heard!!

Meanwhile, my article on the series The Ring Goes Ever On has now got its illustrations back and will be expanded as soon as I have time.