BBC Dramatization: JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings

I've been listening to this since I was a kid when we had it in our house on cassettes, even before I read the books (and then found out how much more sense it made). I've been listening to it at work the last few weeks (bleak: little room, lotsa messy files, and one of the biggest downers of an ending.) This dramatization is superbly acted, most notable, I think are Michael Hordern as Gandalf and Peter Woodthorpe as Gollum-blows the guy who did it in the films right outta the water. The sound effects are great, the music is gorgeous (though some of the battle scenes get shortened into these weird songs/spoken sections for abbreviation I suppose), a total sensory immersion. In 13 hour long episodes, which clocks a little more than Peter Jackson's films it seems, but far more faithfully adapted and even more impressive that it's all audio. I'll be posting over the next few days, hopefully.

Wikipedia info, including cast list

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I'm glad people are enjoying this post. Thanks for stopping by and for the comments :)
Now I'm off to Little Italy for dinner and then to see 300. The best part is, we had to read Herodotus last year in my LitHum class and I don't remember reading about the Battle of Thermopylae at all. All I remember is Xerxes getting mad at a river and having his men flog it. And also cutting this dude in half. And then tomorrow, I am officially on Spring Break after a wonderfully hellish week. I'll be in Florida, so posting will be up n running again by the end of next week.