The Lord of the Rings (1981 radio series)

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For other uses, see The Lord of the Rings (disambiguation).

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The Lord of the Rings
LordOfTheRingsBBCRadioAdaptation1981Cover.jpg
Genre Radio drama
Running time 30 minutes per episode
Country United Kingdom
Language(s) English
Home station BBC Radio 4
Starring Ian Holm
Michael Hordern
Robert Stephens
William Nighy
James Grout
Simon Cadell
John Le Mesurier
Jack May
Peter Vaughan
Creator(s) J. R. R. Tolkien
Writer(s) Brian Sibley
Michael Bakewell
Director(s) Jane Morgan
Penny Leicester
Narrated by Gerard Murphy
Air dates 8 March 1981 to 30 August 1981
No. of episodes 26

In 1981 BBC Radio 4 produced a dramatisation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings in 26 half-hour stereo installments. The novel had previously been adapted as a 12-part BBC Radio adaptation in 1955 and 1956 (of which no recordings are known to have survived), and a 1979 production by The Mind's Eye for National Public Radio in the USA.

Like the novel on which it is based, The Lord of the Rings is the story of an epic struggle between the Dark Lord Sauron of Mordor, the primary villain of the work, and an alliance of heroes who join forces to save the world from falling under his shadow.

Broadcast history

The serial was originally broadcast from 8 March to 30 August 1981 on BBC Radio 4 on Sundays from 12 Noon to 12:30pm. Each episode was repeated on the following Wednesday from 10:30pm to 11:00pm. The first broadcast of Episode 2 was blacked out across a large part of southeast England because of a transmitter failure (a very rare occurrence even then).

The series was also broadcast in Canada on CBC AM in the summer of 1982. In the US it was on NPR with a new synopsis preceding each episode, narrated by Tammy Grimes. It was also aired in Australia.

A soundtrack album featuring a completely re-recorded and in some cases expanded, suite of Stephen Oliver's music was released in 1981.

The 26-part series was subsequently edited into 13 hour-long episodes broadcast from 17 July to 9 October 1982, restoring some dialogue originally cut for timing (since each hour-long episode is actually around 57 minutes, as opposed to 54 minutes for two half-hour episodes with overlaps and extra credits removed), rearranging some scenes for dramatic impact and adding linking narration and music cues. Even so, a small amount of material was also lost, notably a minute long scene featuring Gandalf and Pippin on Shadowfax discussing the beacon fires of Gondor. This material was not restored to the 2002 re-edited CD version.

The re-edited version was released on both cassette tape and CD sets which also included the soundtrack album (noticeably taken from a vinyl copy). Incidentally, episode 8 of the series, The Voice of Saruman was labelled as The Voice of Sauron on the cassette & CD box sets.

Discrepancies

The script by Brian Sibley and Michael Bakewell attempts to be as faithful as possible to the original novel, but there are some errors and alterations. They include:

  • At one point, Minas Anor and Minas Tirith are referred to as though they were separate cities, but Minas Anor is actually the original name for Minas Tirith. This was when Gandalf and Pippin were discussing the palantír whilst en route to Minas Tirith.
  • The radio serial omits the sequence in the book in which the hobbits visit Tom Bombadil. This sequence was also excised from Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated adaptation and Peter Jackson film version. It was omitted by Jackson as he claimed it contributed nothing to the long-range narrative of the story. However, the scene was dramatised, in a similar style but with different actors, in a later series of Tolkien radio adaptations by Sibley entitled The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (a title otherwise only loosely connected with the book of the same name).
  • Gandalf refers to the Balrog of Moria as a servant of Sauron. In the novel, the Balrog was originally a servant of Sauron's predecessor Morgoth, but was freed from any kind of service and fled into the earth upon Morgoth's defeat during the War of Wrath in The Silmarillion.[citation needed]
  • The story includes an arc where Wormtongue is waylaid by the Ringwraiths. This only appears in Unfinished Tales, not The Lord of the Rings.
  • In the final episode, Bilbo's Last Song, a Tolkien poem which does not appear in the novel is used to flesh out the sequence at the Grey Havens.

Links to other The Lord of the Rings productions

Peter Woodthorpe (Gollum/Sméagol) and Michael Graham Cox (Boromir) previously played the same roles in Ralph Bakshi's animated version.

Ian Holm, who played Frodo Baggins in the radio serial, went on to play Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's movie trilogy.

Re-release in 2002

In 2002, following the success of Jackson's movies, the BBC reissued the series in three sets corresponding to the three original volumes (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King).

This version omitted the original episode divisions, and included a new opening and closing narration for the first two sets, and an opening narration only for the last, written by Sibley and performed by Ian Holm as Frodo Baggins - Frodo's narrations deal with his efforts to write his historical account of the War of the Ring in the Red Book, as well as his own personal reflections and musings on the story's events.

The re-edited version also included some additional music cues, which had to be taken from the soundtrack album because the original master tapes for the series music had been lost.

The soundtrack, now digitally remastered, was also included with The Return of the King set, with a demo of John Le Mesurier singing Bilbo's Last Song included as a bonus track.

The 13-episode series was also rerun on Radio 4 in 2002.

The series has not been heard on the digital BBC archive station BBC Radio 4 Extra, despite frequent requests, reportedly because of copyright issues.[citation needed]

Cast and credits

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Episode list

Episode Title First broadcast
1 The Long Awaited Party 8 March 1981
2 The Shadow of the Past 15 March 1981
3 The Black Riders 22 March 1981
4 Trouble at The Prancing Pony 29 March 1981
5 The Knife in the Dark 5 April 1981
6 The Council of Elrond 12 April 1981
7 The Fellowship of the Ring 19 April 1981
8 The Mines of Moria 26 April 1981
9 The Mirror of Galadriel 3 May 1981
10 The Breaking of the Fellowship 10 May 1981
11 The Riders of Rohan 17 May 1981
12 Treebeard of Fangorn 24 May 1981
13 The King of the Golden Hall 31 May 1981
14 Helm's Deep 7 June 1981
15 The Voice of Saruman 14 June 1981
16 The Black Gate Is Closed 21 June 1981
17 The Window on the West 28 June 1981
18 Minas Tirith 5 July 1981
19 Shelob's Lair 12 July 1981
20 The Siege of Gondor 19 July 1981
21 The Battle of Pelennor Fields 26 July 1981
22 The Houses of Healing 2 August 1981
23 Mount Doom 9 August 1981
24 The Return of the King 16 August 1981
25 Homeward Bound 23 August 1981
26 The Grey Havens 30 August 1981

Trivia

Many of the cast members of this production were also recording the science fiction series Earthsearch and Earthsearch 2 at the same time. Sean Arnold, Sonia Fraser and Gordon Reid had principal roles, while roles in individual episodes were played by Alexander John, John McAndrew, Michael Spice, Pauline Letts, John Bott and Graham Faulkner. Kathryn Hurlbutt and Haydn Wood also appeared in the long running BBC Radio 4 soap The Archers.

Notes and references

External links

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