Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turling dromes!

Share and enjoy!

There's still a couple of days left to enjoy The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy live show reunion before it gets eaten by some twelve-foot piranha bees, or an enormous mutant star-goat or something. Hopefully Mr. Maggs and co will be able to get the live show up and running again one day. I was fortunate enough to see it last year and it really was splendid.

...in search of the perfect mixtape

I think this one comes pretty darn close:

ps. This blog ain't dead yet and I intend to get back to ripping more yarns when I'm back off me hols!

"Inside Star Trek"

Boldly going forward 'cause we can't find reverse.

London Below

At last Auntie's epic radio dramatisation of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere is almost upon us and what a fantastic cast Dirk Maggs has assembled for the retelling. You can read all about it from the Beeb here and there's an write up of the press launch last week over there. Happily in addition the production will also be a podcast from the 22nd of this month to boot. Whiz for atoms!

"An Expotition to the North Pole"

E.H. Shepard

Unfortunately I'm missing the second of Humphrey Carpenter's Secret Gardens Radio plays. I recall it was about Beatrix Potter in later life and she was played by the late, great Mary Wimbush. 

However I'm happy to be able to share the third of the trilogy which is all about the true life characters that inspired A.A.Milne to create the unforgettable inhabitants of The Hundred Acre Wood, and loads of fun to boot.

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"In A Hole In The Ground There Lived A Tolkien"

BBC Secret Gardens: In A Hole In The Ground There Lived A Tolkien (1992). Back into the T_ape archive for this charming and (to the best of my knowledge) never repeated radio drama imagining the creation process of The Hobbit as it percolates through the young Tolkien's mind. The play was written by Humphrey Carpenter (1946-2005) who also included the 1977 Tolkien biography amongst his many literary achievements.

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Fired By The Ring

A real gem ripped from the T_ape archives this is, even if I say so myself. Archive On 4: Fired By The Ring (2002) is a feature length look at how all kinds of artists from different disciplines have remade Tolkien's epic, with Brian Sibley, Philip Pullman, Peter Jackson and many other luminaries. Being originally broadcast on BBC Radio Four it's only fitting that the programme features heavily on the superlative 1981 BBC radio series and is thus  peppered with quotes, interviews and out-takes from the production that cannot be found anywhere else to my knowledge. I have also included in the download, scans of an old SFX Magazine article covering the history and making of the radio series. Well worth your time I reckon.

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Further reading: Microphones In Middle Earth

Tolkien In Love

Luthien Tinuviel by Alan Lee

"Novelist Helen Cross, who herself lives in Birmingham, uncovers the story of the young J.R.R. Tolkien, falling in love with Edith Bratt.

The love story of Beren and Luthien at the heart of his novel The Silmarillion was inspired by their relationship. They were both orphans, living in a boarding house in Edgbaston, Birmingham. The teenagers would talk out of their respective bedroom windows until dawn, and go for cycle rides to the Lickey Hills. However, when their romance was discovered, Tolkien's guardian, Father Francis Morgan, forbade Tolkien to see Edith until he came of age.Tolkien won an Exhibition to Oxford and Edith went to live in Cheltenham. But at midnight, as he turned 21, Tolkien wrote to Edith saying his feelings were unchanged. Unfortunately, in the intervening years, Edith had got engaged to someone else. 

Tolkien got on a train and she met him at Cheltenham station. They walked out to the nearby countryside and Tolkien persuaded her to break off her engagement and marry him instead. But the First World War was about to intervene, and Tolkien volunteered and was sent to the Somme.

Helen Cross visits key locations in Birmingham, Cheltenham and Oxford, to tell the story of Tolkien's young life and the love story at the heart of it.

 The readings are by the never not great David Warner as Tolkien and Ed Sear as the young Tolkien.

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The Hobbit, The Musical

"Actor Billy Boyd, who played a hobbit in the films of The Lord Of The Rings, narrates the story of the first ever stage production of J.R.R.Tolkien's The Hobbit, at New College School in Oxford in 1967. It was written by Humphrey Carpenter, with music by composer, Paul Drayton, then Director of Music at the school. We hear from the boys who performed it, who were choristers at the time and who are now renowned in the musical world: Choral conductor Simon Halsey, Martin Pickard Head of Music at Opera North, artist's agent Stephen Lumsden and composer Howard Goodall- who watched his older brother Ashley, now a marketing professional, perform. They talk about their memories and about Tolkien's presence in the audience on the last night.

The present-day Chamber choir at New College School sing some of the original songs, and we also play a never before broadcast recording of the production as it happened in 1967.

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Rare Books, Rare People: The Hobbit

Another from the T_ape Archives - Rare Books, Rare People: The Hobbit (2004) in which writer, broadcaster and antiquarian book dealer Rick Gekoski recounts the time he, as a student, had rooms in Oxford above none other than J.R.R. Tolkien, who was by then an old man. Every day Gekoski would see the sacks full of fan mail arrive for Tolkien and crowds of colourful, hairy fans, looking much like hobbits themselves, hanging around trying to catch sight of their hero. If only, Gekoski reflects, he'd got his elderly neighbour to sign a copy of the book...

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"Here Be Dragons"

"Last year Janet Ellis examined why mermaids continue to hold such a fascination; now she turns her attention to a figure every bit as resonant with audiences down the generations - the dragon. From the earliest days of story-telling the dragon has appeared across international cultures, occasionally a benign presence, as in the Chinese tradition, though most often a ferocious beast that lays waste to its enemies without a moment's hesitation. More recently the dragon has become a favourite of children's programmes and books from Ivor the Engine and Noggin the Nog to the How to Train your Dragon series of books - now turned into a major Hollywood film. Its close resemblance to real life creatures and formerly dinosaurs lends the dragon a particularly interesting position among mythological beasts, and Janet hears from poet Simon Armitage who says that those reading medieval stories including those about dragons would most likely have believed in the real possibility of meeting up with the beasts out on the crusades - lending them a special degree of excitement. She also speaks to Cressida Cowell the author behind the "How to Train..." books, as well as the co-creator of TV's Merlin which contains one of the most impressive dragon characters to appear in recent years, played with such relish by John Hurt.

"Here be Dragons" is a lively and informative ride on the back of one of the great stalwarts of the imaginative landscape.

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James Bond Stories

BBC Ian Fleming's James Bond Stories (2008). Damian Lewis reads The Living Daylights, From A View To A Kill, The Property Of A Lady and For Your Eyes Only.

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The James Bond Dossier

Amis, Amis and Bond (2007). Martin Amis explores his father's obsessive interest in James Bond and the writing of Ian Fleming, with fellow Bond enthusiast Charlie Higson.

Forty years ago, Kingsley Amis undertook an unusual project, analysing in detail all of Ian Fleming's James Bond books and compiling a guide to being James Bond for prospective spies, based entirely on Fleming's writing.

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The Bond Correspondence

The Bond Correspondence (2008). Lucy Fleming embarks upon a quest to discover more about her mysterious uncle Ian, creator of James Bond. Sir Roger Moore plays Ian Fleming's voice.

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Kissy Suzuki

Illustration by Michael Gillette.

“You only live twice:
Once when you’re born
And once when you look death in the face.

You Only Live Twice (1990). Adapted by Michael Bakewell; Performed by a full cast with  Michael Jayston as Bond.

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Ready When You Are, J.B.

"John Barry: The Lost Tapes (2012). One of Britain's premier film composers, John Barry was renowned for his scores for the early James Bond films as well as Midnight Cowboy, Out of Africa and Dances With Wolves. The winner of five Oscars, Barry who passed away last year was a private man - but 'John Barry - The Lost Tapes offers a revealing insight into his working life

Author and broadcaster Eddi Fiegel, during the course of many extensive interviews with John for her biography, also recorded a conversation for BBC radio, which was never broadcast and considered lost - until now.

Barry is a vivid raconteur and recounted the first decade of his career, from fledgling pop musician and producer to Oscar winning-composer. He also gave me some rare insights into his song writing craft.

He talked fondly about his early days with his instrumental group The John Barry Seven, his recordings with Adam Faith, the first venture into film and his remarkable recordings on the James Bond movies. With the success of Goldfinger in 1964, barely a week seemed to go by without John receiving a new film commission. It was a prolific time for him and, over the next two years, his scores included Thunderball, Richard Lester's The Knack and The Ipcress File starring a young Michael Caine. The pair became firm friends.

John's Oscar winning score for Born Free made him an international figure and the royal screening of the film saw a leading British actor 'throw a fit' when upstaged in front of the Royal family.

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Pussy Galore

Illustration by Michael Gillette.

“...Goldfinger could not have known that high tension was Bond's natural way of life and that pressure and danger relaxed him.

Sir Ian McKellen, Toby Stephens and Rosamund Pike lead this full-cast adaptation of Ian Fleming's 1959 novel Goldfinger faithfully dramatised by Archie Scottney and directed by Martin Jarvis (2010). 

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Tatiana Romanova

Illustration by Michael Gillette

"Red wine with fish. Well that should have told me something.

Toby Stephens reprises his role as Bond with Mark Gatiss and John Sessions in From Russia With Love (2012).

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The Last Englishman

"James Bond, the Last Englishman (2008). As part of the Ian Fleming centenary, Prof. David Cannadine sets James Bond and his creator in their historical context. He suggests that Bond was popular not just because he was sexy and suave - he was seen as a consoling fantasy for a country that had lost an Empire but not yet found a role in the world.

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Honey Rider

Illustration by Michael Gillette.

"All the greatest men are maniacs. They are possessed by a mania which drives them forward towards their goal. The great scientists, the philosophers, the religious leaders - all maniacs. What else but a blind singleness of purpose could have given focus to their genius, would have kept them in the groove of purpose. Mania ... is as priceless as genius.

Toby Stephens as Bond and David Suchet as Dr No (2008). 

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