Magic that will not Disappoint

While I concede that if you listen to, the truly wonderful, LOTR play before this as the earlier reviewer has you may be surprised at the different style and tone of the play. But I think the disappointment as he put it, may have clouded the plays many excellent qualities and caused him understandably, to be a too hash in his condemnation of this version of the book. The book of The Hobbit is not LOTR, it is children?s book, much lighter in tone but full of high drama for a young child and so wonderful tongue in cheek material for adults too but not as dark, serious and compelling as the later work, so the plays are naturally different and the way they are dramatized has rightly has to be different also (plus we must note they this was produced in 1968 and the LOTR produced in 1981 so the quality and technology is going to have improved) I had this play on tape as a child and wore it out, long before I fell in love with the written works of Tolkien and for the child then and the adult now, the eagle?s screaming voices came straight from the beaks of birds, the elves ululating tones made it clear they were from distant and higher & magical race, the music and actors seemed perfect for their places in this play, Gandalf is not the great Michael Hordern but he fits a friendly yet sinister guide who although he prove true at the end I never truly trusted of understood till the later books, just right for a wizard I think. Lastly the joint, mixed up and overleaping narration of Bilbo and a Tolkienesce narrator makes for a comforting friend in Bilbo that children can trust and rely on in later years. Too much to credit a children?s play with? I don?t this so! You?re kids need the Hobbit in their lives.

27 people found this helpful

Nostalgia

The best dramatised version of the hobbit ever!

Wore my tapes out when I was young! So glad I found it again!

If you can't decide which version to go for this is the one!

R.I.P Ears

10 people found this helpful

Magical

A simple story magically told. Pity peter Jackson couldn’t recreate this gem when making 3 bloated movies!

5 people found this helpful

"TRULY AWESOME"

"Ask us any question the hobbits likes"

"Yes, yes whats in my pocket"

"It's fingers"

Best first book I could ever of purchased.

4 people found this helpful

The Hobbit

Having never read this book, I have found this version easy to follow and understand. To be able to laugh along with the characters has brightened my day

8 people found this helpful

Erm... Shall we say... Interesting?

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Ok, at the moment I am on a bit of a Tolkien adventure and was really excited to get this. It doesn't disappoint, it is great, it just isn't quite Tolkien!

The script is bizarre in places and the performances are uninspiring, however I still really enjoyed this version which is reminiscent of the animated versions of the book from the 1970s. If you only get one version of The Hobbit on audiobook then I recommend the unabridged version instead, however if you enjoy the bizarre then this, now extremely dated version, whilst possibly completely abhorrent to the Tolkien purists is really quite a secret pleasure.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

A bit of a hack job of the whole story, if you still know what is going on by the end then you are doing better than me.

What three words best describe the narrator’s performance?

Dated
Stylised
Strange

Could you see The Hobbit (Dramatised) being made into a movie or a TV series? Who would the stars be?

Erm, that bloke from 'The Office' might make a good Bilbo ;-)

Any additional comments?

Dare you brave this strange imagining of a classic?

7 people found this helpful

Dreadful

May have good back 1970s but for 2020 it’s pitiful. Music is god awful. The last 4 chapters are instrumentals. I’m a huge fan of the BBC but this belongs back in the time of Middle Earth

1 person found this helpful

A little dated...

If you want a dramatised version of The Hobbit then simply put you can't go much wrong with this one. However if you wanted a dramatised version that didn't have dodgy singing, dated sound effects, sometimes confusing dialogue and a little too much old fashioned pomposity then you might want to look elsewhere or wait.



Kids love it, adults may suffer from occasional bouts of reality as they cringe.

5 people found this helpful

Hysterical dwarves!

What disappointed you about The Hobbit (Dramatised)?

This is a messy and noisy dramatisation. Bilbo, Gandalf and even the dwarves sound hysterical. I often had to turn it down or simply skip forward when decide to sing, scream or talk at the same time. Not even 4 hours and I couldn't finish this book. It was getting on my nerves! It was also hard to distinguish the voices of the characters. If I didn't know the story so well, I would end thinking that there are two dwarves max in the trip, that they all think the same, that Bilbo is a great wizard and Gandalf a proud little hobbit!

What did you like best about this story?

The story itself is still fantastic, just hard to follow in this version.

4 people found this helpful

Disappointing

I love the BBC dramatisation of 'Lord of the Rings' with Michael Hordern as Gandalf and thought it would be good to 'complete' the story by purchasing their version of 'The Hobbit', which was, I regret, a great mistake. I do not personally respond to the voicing of many of the characters - too much school of funny voices for my taste; the goblins, wargs, eagles, wood elves etc are all electronically filtered and remind me of daleks (sic). Also, I find the odd pronunciation of many of the names (garn-delf etc.) difficult to accept. The final thing I would flag up is the fact that the 'episodes' have not been edited together so approximately a minute of each is repeated after play out/play in music. Not recommended.

19 people found this helpful