The Hobbit (1968 radio series)

Oh I adore this adaptation.

If you ever want somewhere cosy and warm to hide then I recommend buying this, sticking it on your MP3 player as one long album, closing your eyes and disappearing off into a loving audio re-creation of Middle-earth for a few hours.

Paul Daneman is absolutely definitive for me now as Bilbo Baggins. He gives such a delightful reading as the reluctant hobbit thrown into adventures he’s not at all prepared for. He impatiently shares narration duties with the actual narrator, which is a brilliant device and helps create a more casual and fun tone to the piece. He’s arrogant but jovial; pompous but naïve. If I had only one wish then it’d be that the vocal characterisation had been tweaked just a little bit as he went along to show that Bilbo was growing up and becoming wiser, as the more serious political and emotional moments towards the end sound a little insincere.

Heron Carvic (cracking name!) as Gandalf isn’t as warm and grandpa-like as the William Squire, Michael Hordern and Ian McKellen Gandalfs, in fact it’d be quite fair to describe him as a slightly bad tempered Alec Guinness. But it’s not a nasty characterization, not by a long shot, as there’s a wonderful knowingness and sparkle to Carvic’s portrayal that’s very pleasing indeed. He’s stern and authoritative but humorous with it, so he’s never too mean or intimidating. Gandalf’s such a contradiction at times, I can imagine he must be quite a challenge to play.

The biggest surprise I encountered with  this version was that the cast seem to really love acting it all out and aren’t treating it like “a silly children’s story” at all, which a lot of people tend to scold The Hobbit for being. It feels more like a fan reading than a group of hired talent unfamiliar with the source material. I think that’s why I love this so much.

The production is also very absorbing. You really get the sense that you’re bouncing around from open field to mountainside and down into caves and out again into the talons of giant eagles. It’s really gotten me interested in the craft of radio play production.

The eclectic music is brilliantly other-worldly, even though it’s roots are clearly to be found in Celtic/folk rhythms. The dwarves’ Misty Mountain song is an oddball mix of counter-melodic instrumentation and deep, rumbling, baritone singing whilst the Goblin chants are percussive and full of sinister minor chords. It’s all very unique but somehow very familiar.

I read Tolkien’s original The Hobbit during my lunchtime breaks working as a debt recovery clerk for the local water board in 2001 and as such was left with a slightly negative memory of it (it was hard concentrating over the sound of Neighbours playing in the background on the cafeteria television), so listening to this radio version has helped restore my faith in it and wash away those unwanted associations. It also prepped me for the release of the new Peter Jackson film adaptation.

Has anybody else caught this version? What did you think?