The Hobbit (1968 radio series)

"The Hobbit" is a 1968 BBC Radio adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 children's fantasy novel "The Hobbit".

The series was adapted by Michael Kilgarriff and produced by John Powell in eight half-hour mono episodes for BBC Radio 4.

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The radio series follows the plot of the original novel (revised 1951 version) very closely, except for the addition of The Tale Bearer, a narrator whose account of the story is often interrupted and embellished by the protagonist Bilbo Baggins in the role of secondary narrator.

Bilbo, a stay-at-home hobbit, is approached by the wizard Gandalf to undertake a dangerous adventure, and despite his initial reluctance he soon finds himself accompanying Thorin Oakenshield and his party of dwarves on a long and difficult quest to recover the dwarves' treasure from Smaug the dragon, encountering trolls, goblins, Gollum (acquiring a magic ring near Gollum's cave), wargs, eagles, giant spiders, elves and men along the way. In the process Bilbo is transformed from a clumsy, timid and rather comic figure into a dignified and occasionally heroic everyman.

Production

The show's production was complicated by the inclusion of multiple sound effects (often inserted live while recording the actors' performances), songs from the novel, and special sounds and electronic voice treatments created by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. All of the trolls, elves, goblins, wargs and eagles have treated voices, as does Gandalf when imitating the trolls.

Influences from "The Lord of the Rings"

Although the script is closely based on the original novel, Kilgariff incorporates a few names and phrases from "The Lord of the Rings" that did not originally appear in "The Hobbit".
*In an early scene at Bag End, Gandalf originally tells Bilbo, "Great elephants, you're not at all yourself today". In the radio version this is changed to "Great oliphaunts", the form used in "The Lord of the Rings".
*At the beginning of the Battle of Five Armies Gandalf says, "Upon victory depends not just the treasure, nor only our lives, but the whole future and well-being of Middle-earth". The name Middle-earth is not used at all in the original novel.
*During the battle the Elvenking uses his name, Thranduil, as a battle-cry.
*In the same battle Thorin uses the Dwarves' battle-cry, "Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd aimênu!"

Despite this, the script retains almost all of the book's differences and inconsistencies from Tolkien's other works.

Wiping and recovery

The original master tapes for the series seem to have been wiped sometime during the 1970s. The reason is not clear, although it was rumoured to be due to a dispute with the Tolkien estate (if so, the subsequent recovery and commercial issue of the series proves that the dispute was resolved).

The BBC eventually recovered the series from a domestic off-air FM recording, apparently comprising 90- and 60-minute compilations edited together from the original episodes. The sound quality of these recordings is clear and legible, though it is noticeably inferior to a studio-quality recording and exhibits prominent tape hiss.

For broadcast and home audio purposes the BBC re-edited these compilations back into half-hour episodes, adding a brief snatch of the theme tune at the beginning and end of each. The title "The Hobbit" is spoken only at the beginning of the first episode and there are no opening or closing credits. It is quite likely that the credits were never included in the episodes themselves, but would originally have been read by a continuity announcer at the end of each episode.

The lack of credits makes it difficult to establish the names of the actors who played all the roles.

Audio release and reference

There have been several home audio releases of the series on cassette and CD. The 1997 CD release includes a bonus CD containing 9¼ minutes of additional music in stereo, which was taken from BBC records REC 91S [LP] "David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London play music by David Cain" recorded in 1971. The tracks include:

#Opening and Bilbo's Theme (1:58)
#Elves' Dances (1:38)
#Bilbo's Lullaby (2:10)
#Fanfare and Dance in Esgaroth (3:31)

The 1997 set also contains a "Personal Memoir" by series producer John Powell, from which some of the information in this article is derived.

Cast and credits

*The Tale Bearer - Anthony Jackson
*Bilbo Baggins - Paul Daneman
*Gandalf - Heron Carvic
*Gollum - Wolfe Morris
*Thorin Oakenshield - John Justin
*Elrond - John Pullen
*The Elvenking - Leonard Fenton
*Beorn - Denys Hawthorne
*Bard the Bowman - Peter Williams
*Balin - Peter Pratt
*Smaug - Francis de Wolff
**Other parts are not individually credited (see above)
*Music - composed by David Cain
Performed by David Munrow with The Early Music Consort
*Special sound effects and voice treatments - David Cain and Dick Mills, BBC Radiophonic Workshop
*Producer - John Powell