Unseen Academicals

An Audible Original Drama

By: Terry Pratchett

Narrated by: David Jason, Jon Culshaw, Mathew Horne, Josie Lawrence, Jaime Winstone

Length: 4 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

Football has come to the ancient city of Ankh-Morpork - not the old fashioned, grubby pushing and shoving but the new, fast football with pointy hats for goalposts and balls that go gloing when you drop them. And now, the wizards of Unseen University must win a football match, without using magic, so they're in the mood for trying everything else.

The prospect of the Big Match draws in a street urchin with a wonderful talent for kicking a tin can, a maker of jolly good pies, a dim but beautiful young woman who might just turn out to be the greatest fashion model there has ever been, and the mysterious Mr Nutt (and no one knows anything much about Mr Nutt, not even Mr Nutt, which worries him, too).

As the match approaches, four lives are entangled and changed for ever. Because the thing about football - the important thing about football - is that it is not just about football.

This Audible Original multicast dramatisation is directed by the multiaward-winning Dirk Maggs, best known for his adaptations of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere for the BBC.

Starring Tom Alexander, Samantha Béart, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Mark Benton, Stephen Briggs, Stephen Critchlow, Jon Culshaw, Phil Davis, Ray Fearon, Tony Gardner, Edward Harrison, David Holt, Mathew Horne, David Jason, Josie Lawrence, Toby Longworth, Harry Myers, Maggie Service, Andrew Spooner, Steven Webb, Keith Wickham and Jaime Winstone.

©2018 Terry and Lyn Pratchett (P)2018 Audible, Ltd

This Was Quite Decent

I wish all the Original British Recordings could be restored. I so thoroughly preferred them. This is pleasant. It's Sir Terry. It will have to do.

Would love an UNABRIDGED full-cast performance

This was a wonderful listen, very much like the BBC performances of Discworld. I just wish it was a full cast performance of the whole book.

It would be wonderful to know if Audible was working up full-cast performances of the pre Stephen Briggs discworld recordings that are currently unavailable in my region. Till then I will wait for the original recordings to be available to complete the collection.

A fantastic adaptation of a wonderful book

Out of all of the Discworld novels, Unseen Academicals truly is the best choice for a full cast adaptation. Well done to everyone involved.

best production easiest to listen to

I have listened to pretty much all the Terry Pratchett of the performance ones with a cast this is the best easiest to hear all the voices and the sound effects and all that

An enjoyable adaptation!

As an avid consumer of all works Terry Pratchett related, I thoroughly enjoyed this audio drama. It is important to note that this production is not trying to match the full exposition of the unabridged audiobook, which is an amazing narration by Stephen Briggs, (who incidentally voices Drumknott in this drama). I would encourage listeners to purchase this unabridged audio of UA first, as it tells the full tale as wrote by TP; this is a variant of the classic 'read the book before you see the movie' situation.

Having said all that I found this audio drama very engaging once I suspended my disbelief and stopped getting hung up on thoughts like 'but this doesn't match the canon!'. All in all I found it to be an excellent re-work of UA for a full cast format, and I'm really hoping for more discworld audio dramas like this in the future. Full cast Night Watch adaptation anyone?

fav bbc radio director doing my fav author

I would have been shocked if I didn't absolutely love this. I am, as of finishing, unshocked

Excellent book

Outstanding experience from discworld voice actors and terry pratchett. So glad I bought it.

one of the funnest and one of the last

I didn't see this book and read it originally when it first came out.
I started but I stopped and then I never picked it up cuz I got busy with other things in life. A few years later we lost Terry Pratchett and I didn't truly like one of his last books but he was in declining health.

This book is just as good as any he has ever done and this full cast performance with Sound and Music is great if you ever get tired of the reading of a book and listen to this one and really enter the world of Discworld. this one is kind of like the formation of professional sports in this city in this volume .

We lost another one of the great humor fantasy writers. and one of the truly comic Wits of our 20th and 21st century.

One of my faves

Because it's an audio drama I didn't expect it to be word for word "Unseen Academicals" unlike some of the other reviewers, but to be completely honest I prefer radio dramas to fiction audiobooks so this hit that sweet spot for me. It was wonderfully scripted, acted, & directed, and I loved every second of it. I've been wishing for the BBC to make more radio dramatizations of Discworld books, but I will HAPPILY take audible ones instead.

If you're a fan of the Discworld BBC Radio Plays this is the "book" for you! I started an Audible subscription JUST FOR THIS BOOK & I was not disappointed. I hope they choose to make more because I will buy them all!

Best Original Ever!

Best adaptation of this book ever. If you love the Discworld you will LOVE this listen. BEST EVER!