The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

A Full-Cast BBC Radio Dramatisation

By: Richard O'Callaghan, J. R. R. Tolkien

Narrated by: Peter Woodthorpe, Robert Stephens, Michael Hordern, Bill Nighy, John McAndrew, David Collings, Douglas Livingstone, full cast

With its first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on March 8, 1981, this dramatised tale of Middle Earth became an instant global classic. It boasts a truly outstanding cast including Ian Holm (as Frodo), Michael Hordern (as Gandalf), Robert Stephens (as Aragorn), Bill Nighy (as Sam Gamgee) and John Le Mesurier (as Bilbo).

Brian Sibley's famous adaptation has been divided into three corresponding parts, with newly-recorded beginning and end narration by Ian Holm, who now stars as Bilbo in the feature films based on The Lord of the Rings.

Part One, The Fellowship of the Ring, introduces us to Frodo Baggins. With his uncle Bilbo having mysteriously disappeared, Frodo finds himself in possession of a simple gold ring that has great and evil power. It is the Ruling Ring, taken long ago from the Dark Lord, Sauron, who now seeks to possess it again. Frodo must do everything he can to prevent this, and with the help of Gandalf the wizard and a band of loyal companions he begins a perilous journey across Middle-earth. Sauron's Black Riders are on their trail as they travel to Rivendell, attempt to cross the snow-swept Misty Mountains and, in desperation, enter the terrifying Mines of Moria.


©2018 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2018 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

© and (P)2001 BBC Worldwide Ltd

Great dramatization, but read the book first!

I read The Lord of the Rings twice as a teenager, and watched the movies more than once. When I found this dramatization I thought it would be nice to experience the story again, but in a new way. I was a bit sceptical as I read the reviews, but decided to buy it anyway. And I'm glad I did! I spent most of yesterday with my headphones on, and the story made my Saturday cleaning and laundry quite enjoyable this week.

I listen to a lot of audiobooks and wasn't sure if I'd enjoy a dramatization, but I really did. My boyfriend listened to the beginning of the story with me and was annoyed with how the story wasn't exactly as it is in the book, but I didn't mind. It's a very short version of the story, and they do skip a lot of things that are hard to fit in the "story-told-by-dialogue-and-sounds" style of a dramatization, and for the same reason you miss a lot of details because you can't see anything and no one is explaining what's going on in the action-sequences (but the result of the action is mentioned after by the characters). I still enjoyed it as I could imagine everything based on my memory of the story from the book. I think they did a great job making this, and the narrators/cast are really good.

DON'T buy this if you want the whole book and the whole detailed story, because then you will be disappointed (there are audiobooks available...). Buy this book if you love the story and want to experience it again, but don't mind if it's a short version or that Tom Bombadil is still missing. I loved it, and have already bought Two Towers:-)

Great to have this producion online

I have had this BBC recording on tape for ten years it is wonderful to be able to have a digital version.I still think it is brilliant sound picture of a superb trilogy, the actor's voices match the spirit of each character. It is a production as good in a spoken word sense as the movies are in a visual sense. I can only recomend the three recodings to people who wish to absorb what tolkien was writing about.

As wonderful as I remember...

I loved it. I listened to it every night as I was going to bed and finished it in less than a week. Starting. The Two Towers tonight. Happy Reading.

Not enough detail

Great job with character's voices and setting the mood, but there was way too much detail left out for my liking. it didn't suck me in and create a world like the book.

good effort, weak on sound production

I won't bother to comment on the story, which everyone will already knows. As far as the sound and effects: I was listening in a car during a long drive.
Sometimes yells and screeches were very loud after long whispering... good jump scare, but for bad driver and passengers listening. I spent the next few hours with my hands at the volume control adjusting to comfort over road noise, then down during load action or singing. There was a good deal of singing, but no real musicality. Sound effects seemed done on a BBC tight budget. We often imagined coconuts being clipclopped together, funny but not great for immersion.

It could be louder

Loved it, great narration and amazing actors, thing is, it was too low for my liking, I listen while I do other things so many times I had to rewind a little to hear it again, but overall, the experience was pretty nice

An epic dramatization

Loved the soundscape and all the different actors and their performances. A very faithful adaptation of a classic.

Superb

Great audiobook with superb interpretation of the book. Effects are excelent, well synched, the actors are picked perfectlly.

Absolutely love!

Amazed at how Ian Holm sounds like Martin Freeman. Haha Incredible dramatization, will play over and over again.

The most faithful-to-the-books dramatisation

It doesn't have Cate Blanchett's Galadriel or dear Sir Ian, but even so, the classic 1980 BBC radio play with Ian Holm's excellent Frodo still holds its own against far bigger budget successors in a different medium.

Since it's an audiodrama, it retains more of Tolkien's beautiful language, without getting too bogged down in description. It's able to incorporate a few more of the poems and stories (Beren and Lúthien, the Fall of Gil-Galad, Gimli's wonderful Khazad-dûm poem). And while it skips Tom Bombadil and some other less crucial early incidents, it doesn't alter, only abridge, so Farmer Maggot and Barliaman Butterbur are full-fledged characters, and the hypnofic, almost musical voice of this Saruman is a different but extremely compelling take on the character.

Peter Jackson owes a tremendous debt to this adaptation, which interspliced the action of characters split up across different chapters and sometimes different books into a more cohesive and vivid narrative than JRRT could easily compose. This version also adds useful narrative details gleaned from the appendices and Unfinished Tales, scraps Tolkien wrote later to explain things that he'd glossed over (for example, how the Ringwraiths found the Shire — thoze scenes with Saruman and Wormtongue). Also, because every mention of Arwen is retained and given emotional weight, while much else is abridged, the sense of Aragorn's quest to be worthy of her, and her sending gifts from afar to aud and enxourage him kn his quest, comes through more fully than in the books without altering her.

One final note: the original BBC radio drama was 13 one hour episodes with cliffhanger and reprise. This edition is an omnibus that removes the cliffhsngers, but adds a new Ian Holm Feodo scene at rhe beginning and end to ease the listener into the story.
I find it very effective.