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ROBIN BROOKS - LEWIS AND TOLKIEN: THE LOST ROAD (320kbs-m4a/101mb/44mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 4th September 2023
Whether you like or loathe elves and talking lions, JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis each created compelling fictional worlds whose influence has become global.
CS Lewis was an academic and broadcaster whose prolific publication of literary criticism, novels, Christian apologia and the Narnia books for children brought him an international reputation in his lifetime.
By the time of his death in 1973, JRR Tolkien's 'The Lord of The Rings' and 'The Hobbit', (along with other published stories and poems which drew upon the mythology of Middle Earth), had already made him a cult figure around the world.
Starring Haydn Gwynne, Tom Goodman-Hill and Pip Torrens.
Robin Brooks' drama is a playful tribute to the long friendship between the two men, and the way it shaped their achievements.
Elf Queen ...... Haydn Gwynne
JRR Tolkien ...... Tom Goodman-Hill
CS Lewis ...... Pip Torrens
Worm ...... Carolyn Pickles
Betjeman ...... Harry Jardine
Informator ...... John Norton
Marcus ...... Arthur Hughes
Tiny Elf Princess ...... Isabel Brooks
Director: Jonquil Panting.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2013.
GREAT LIVES - NIALL FERGUSON ON JRR TOLKIEN (320kbs-m4a/64mb/28mins)
BBC Radio 4 broadcast: 7th December 2021
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein in 1892. Orphaned before he was a teenager, he fought at the Somme in World War One before going on to become one of the best-selling authors of all time. Bilbo, Gandalf, Gollum, Frodo, Sauron - these are just a few of the famous characters he created for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
Nominating Tolkien - an Oxford University professor - is the popular historian, Niall Ferguson. He aims to rescue Tolkien from the hippies, who, he says, claimed Tolkien as their own. "The fascinating thing to me about Tolkien is that his sensibility is so profoundly conservative - with a small 'c'. ...when you look at the man's politics, he was such a reactionary!" Presenter Matthew Parris, who doesn't believe in elves or dwarves, is not so sure that the fantasy author deserves to be rescued. With additional help and guidance from Malcolm Guite.
Niall Ferguson is senior fellow of the Hoover Institution and author of Empire: How Britain made the Modern World.
The producer for BBC Audio in Bristol is Ellie Richold.
BBC Radio 4 broadcast: 6th August 2016
Joss Ackland narrates a search through BBC archives for unheard gems from JRR Tolkien, as Oxford Academic Dr Stuart Lee discovers the unbroadcast offcuts from an interview given by the author.
Tolkien gave the interview for a BBC film in 1968, but only a tiny part of it was used in the broadcast programme. It was one of only a handful of recorded interviews he gave, and was also to be his last.
Dr Lee's search for the unbroadcast rushes takes him to the depths of the BBC film archives, and back to the making of the original film Tolkien in Oxford.
For the director Leslie Megahey, only 23 at the time, this was his first film, and the one that launched a prestigious career. The programme reunites him with three others - researcher Patrick O'Sullivan, Tolkien fan Michael Hebbert, and critic Valentine Cunningham who describes how he was brought in to be the voice of dissent challenging the burgeoning Tolkien cult spreading from America.
What emerges is a picture of a playful academic, whose fiction was little respected by adults at the time and looked down on as a lesser form of literature. But he is robustly defended by Professor Tom Shippey and remembered fondly by his colleague Dr Roger Highfield.
Stuart Lee presents the results of his search through the archives to Dr Dimitra Fimi who considers any new words from Tolkien's mouth as 'gold'. While, for Dr Lee, the real dragon's hoard is the privilege of hearing Tolkien in relaxed mode reflecting on his life as never before.
Producers: Anna Scott-Brown and Adam Fowler
An Overtone production for BBC Radio 4.