i'm actually listening to this in the car driving to and from pueblo. it's amazing.

Wish the actual books where out on CD not just the radio drama but this was ok.

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1230710.html

It is very very good, and I strongly recommend it. Ian Holm as Frodo, Bill Nighy as Sam, Michael Hordern as Gandalf, and John Le Mesurier as Bilbo are excellent in their roles. (Shout out also to Stephen Thorne as Treebeard and Jack May as Théoden.) But the two key performers, in my view, are Robert Stephens as Aragorn and Peter Woodthorpe as Gollum/Sméagol.

I would say the biggest performance gap between the audio and the Peter Jackson movies is that between Stephens and Viggo Mortensen. Stephens' Aragorn is tough, damaged, wise, and (as far as we can tell) not even particularly good-looking. He carries every scene he is in, and invests dignity and authority in every line, be it Tolkien's original words or new material from Bakewell and Sibley. (And unlike the Peter Jackson films, Aragorn's story is left pretty much intact.)

The gap between Peter Woodthorpe and Andy Serkis is smaller but it is still in Woodthorpe's favour. Gollum's internal dialogue (ie his habit of talking to himself) works well for audio, and indeed here we get a number of extra scenes with Gollum's adventures away from the main storyline. In his penultimate scene, told by Frodo that he can never have the Ring back, he complains bitterly that "nassty hobbitses doesn't realise how long 'never' is", a moment where he almost engages our sympathy. His final moments shortly afterwards are gorgeously manic and rightly expanded considerably from the few lines Gollum's demise gets in the original text.

I remember a few years back seeing an archive interview with Tolkien where he stated with an air of elderly innocence that the books were all about Death. I wondered about this at the time, since to an extent I still read the book through my own nine-year-old eyes, and it's not such an obvious concern of the Peter Jackson films. But it's clearly a theme of the audio. Boromir's funeral, to a minor key variation of the theme tune; Denethor's suicide; Frodo and Sam facing up to death in Mordor (rather than bickering); Bilbo gradually slipping into old age; not to mention the various actual battles; these are all real and awful events in the BBC version. And the music is good, too. It is truly gripping. Get it if you can.

(The Jackson movies do score over the BBC in some respects, of course. New Zealand is a major star of the screen version; also the other members of the Fellowship not mentioned above are given more characterisation and a bit more to do. Though that is sometimes at the expense of the integrity of the story.)

read aloud mostly to RG and mostly on road trips in the last year - read for the umpteenth time, really should have kept track!) - what’s left to say? Any book that sustains this many readings and still makes you cry in appropriate places is a gem. We did skim over the meanderings of Sam and Frodo in the Emyn Muil as we both find that part drags a bit, but otherwise read and enjoyed every word.

Das BBC Hörspiel fällt zuerst einmal wegen einer sehr schönen Box und CD Hüllen auf. Ich habe mir die 13 CDs noch nicht alle angehört aber das erste 1/3 ist soweit sehr in Ordnung. Im Vergleich zu dem deutschen Hörspiel ist wirklich ein Tick mehr Detailreichtum vorhanden aber beim deutschen Hörspiel gefällt mir besser, daß der Erzähler öfter eingesetzt wird um actionreiche Szenen besser zu kommentieren die im englischen nur als Geräuschkulisse existieren (= schwerer rauszuhören was denn da nun wirklich passiert).
Ein bisschen teuer aber in meiner Tolkiensammlung eine ansehnliche Bereicherung!

Why?...Well...because from books to radio adaptation to movie script, things have to be left out.....

And with the film, a lot of things were left out.  I knew that I have truly been a fan of this 13-hour radio presentation from the BBC when I watch LOTR on the big screen.  As scenes flew by, I would almost say out loud, "damn, they left out this character and that plot turn and...."  Still, I'm happy to admit, the movie will suffice to finally bring a story I've long enjoyed to a much broader following....

But when I find myself talking to other people who have really gotten into the story behind the movie, I always end up telling them about a version of LOTR that I heard on National  Public Radio over twenty years ago, it was 26 1/2 hour episodes then and Tammy Grimes was the host of the series.  I recorded all 26 episodes off the radio and handled those 13 cassettes with kid gloves all these years...until the day I saw a 13 CD set of a radio adaptation of LOTR at a favorite book store of mine.  YES...it was the same presentation (sans Grimes), and after listening to all 13 CDs over the holiday season, I discovered additional dialogue here and there that apparentally had been deleted for the NPR airing...

OK, a reality check....this 13 CD set does has a few technical flaws (and yes, Tom Bombadil, Goldberry or the burrow wright episode isnt mentioned anywhere in it) ...just read some of the other reviews here to discover what some of those flaws are. Nevertheless, if you loved the movie (and I do) you ought to get this set.....  It will flesh out so much of what the movie had to leave out AND you can enjoy it in situations where reading the books won't do....  An interesting factoid of the BBC radio version is that the voice of Frodo is that of Ian Holm, the actor who gives us Bilbo in the movie. I wonder if he had kept his earlier Rings involvement in mind when he became Bilbo on the screen.  I can say more here but once again, the other reviewers before (and after) me will "fill up the corners" as the hobbits would say.

So I guess now the question must be asked, "Why settle for the movie when you can get so much more from this adaptation?"

This is the best of all the dramatization of the Lord of the Rings.  I first heard this on NPR playhouse on National Public Radio. It is very well done with good sound effects, quality acting and great music.

There are two formats of this dramatization.  This version is divded by the original NPR/BBC episodes. The second verson is divided
by Books (aka) The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King.

Buy the pictured version which is by presented in the original 13 episodes. It has the original suspense of the radio broadcast with surround sound.

The other version seems to drag on and on.

Even though it is abridged it keep to the charater of tolkien's original books .  Ian Holm who plays Bilbo in the Film Version of LOTR was cast first as a hobbit in this dramatization as Frodo.

This is a must own for fans of The Lord of the Rings

My old tapes are all worn out, and two were eaten by my old car stereo, so I was thrilled to finally get a clean copy of the great BBC dramatization.  I have dreamed Middle Earth since I was a child, and had enough visuals in my head to last a lifetime.  This old experience of the books has meant that I have overlapping interpretations of the characters in my head, those I built from the readings and those who built themselves out of the air, the sound waves of this BBC production.

Gollum/Smeagol (Woodthorpe) takes my breath away.  It is genius of him and the director that keeps his performance perfect, when in the hands of nearly anyone else it would have been absurd.  As Frodo carries his burden through the long year, Ian Holm changes with him.  His exhaustion, his bitter maturity, his love, his endurance, the awful changes as the Ring wraps aroung his psyche...this is all in Holm's performance.

And you fall in love with Sam all over again. Bill Nighy played Sam to a tee.  (Today you can find Nighy under lots of squiddly CGI in the "Pirates" movies.)  Peter Howell (Saruman), Michael Hordern (Gandalf), Marian Diamond (Galadriel), Douglas Livingstone (Gimli) and others of this production have been in my head for decades (this production is a quarter century old, made in 1981).

Even the odd, lispy voice of Robert Stephens has become a favorite version of Aragorn/Strider.  His voice makes him very human (considering that he hangs with elves), and tired (remember, the longevity granted by Numenorean blood or not, he's nearly 90 when the tale begins;  think of him as early middle age, at least mid-40's) deferring his heart's desire for long years of rough living as a Ranger.  How Stephen Thorne's Treebeard manages to be good rather than campy or absurd, with his booming oom!s, I don't know.  But it works.

And Faramir is rescued from the great disservice done to him by Peter Jackson, et al. (My one real complaint about the marvelous films is messing so with Faramir's character; Jackson has him do exactly what it was so telling of him NOT to do in the books, i.e., try to get the ring, and to impress Daddy Denathor, no less. That is not what Faramir would do, nor does he in the books and this BBC drama.  Faramir resists the Ring better than anyone but Sam Gamgee and Tom Bombadil, and that is one reason his creator, Tolkien, liked Faramir so.)

Use of Tolkien's words, music (by Stephen Oliver) that runs from stately/pastoral/very English (when it deals with men and hobbits) to alien but accessible and sung by boy sopranos (themes for the otherwordly elves), and marvelous acting, all make this one of my favorite audio experiences.  (If you get tired of the main theme, just recall that it was a radio production.  That music was to open and close the aural space, to separate the half hour of magic from the rest of the day.

～CD13枚、この迫力、この臨場感、そしてこの値段、絶対に買い！でしょう。俳優陣の（あえて俳優と書きます。イギリスの実力派俳優が総出演ですから）鬼気迫る演じっぷりも、音楽も、さすがBBC、手を抜いていません。
～～
イギリス英語でだいぶ聞きやすいとは言っても、役柄によっては役作りから聞き取りにくい人もいます。ゴラムはだいぶ難関ですが、ま、前半で言っているのはほとんどpreciousとBagginsだけですが（笑）　どこかで聞き逃してしまっても、ナレーターのパートはゆっくり話すしBGMもおさえ気味なので、ここで追いつけます。映画を見ていれば多少聞き取れなくても映像が浮～～かぶのでだいじょうぶだと思います。
個人的にはガンダルフの声はイメージにぴったりでした。聞き取りやすいし。アラゴルンが、映画の影響もあるのだと思うけれど、ちょっと饒舌すぎるかなーという感じです。ラジオドラマで寡黙じゃ仕方ないですけどね。レゴラスも若干男臭さが押し出されている感じ。
～～
だいぶ前のだからと心配していた音声の劣化はまったくなし。とてもクリアです。トラックもCD１枚につき５つから８つに区切ってあります。13枚のかさも、思ったよりコンパクトで邪魔になりません。CDの最初はほとんどのものが前のCDと内容を少しだぶらせてあるので、一枚だけ持ち歩いてもだいじょうぶ。私は13枚分をそっくりiPodに入れているので、聞き逃したらほ～～んの少しを戻して聞いたり、好きなところから聞けるのでとても便利です。～

英語力があまり無いので心配しましたが、今どの場面か分かりました。
意外と展開が早く進みます。映画に無い場面もあって嬉しいです。
台詞とかは原書どうりなので原書を見ながら聴いているとストーリーに付いていけて大丈夫でした。
映画の画面も浮かんでより楽しめました。

「スメアゴルならし」の場面でのゴラムの声にビックリ！
フロドとサム等の歌もたっぷりと聴かれて「指輪物語」らしさが出ていてとてもいい感じです。
各パート、良い所で終わっており次が聴きたくなります。

ケースの箱がしっかりしていて保存にも適しています。

This is a full dramatization of the LOTRs, and it really works. The voices are convincing and the parts that have been shortened are not a problem. There are 13 hours on 13 discs. Enjoy.

指輪物語が好きならおすすめ。
BBCのラジオで1980年ごろ？映画版老ビルボのイアンホルムがフロドを演じたもの。
全編英語だがそんなに難しくはない。
いわゆるオーディオブックとは違い、BGMがありゴラムなどは迫真の演技なので楽しめる。
映画版と比べ言語面での作りこみは甘いがあれと比較するのは流石に酷か

以下はちょっと細かい内容
"THIS IS the One Ring."の件は本当に暖炉の前で聴いてるような錯覚に陥る。
トムボンバディルは収録に不参加だった模様。
睡眠導入で聴いてると「エルベレスギルソニエル」の音量で一度目が覚める。