The Lord of the Rings (1955 radio series)
These radio broadcasts were the first dramatisation of The Lord of the Rings, a book by J. R. R. Tolkien, the final volume of which, The Return of the King, had been published in October 1955.
The cast included Norman Shelley as Gandalf and Tom Bombadil, Felix Felton as Bilbo and Sauron and Robert Farquharson as Saruman and Denethor.
[2] He is best known for his novels about his invented Middle-earth, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and for the posthumously published The Silmarillion which provides a more mythical narrative about earlier ages.
A single clip from a 2016 radio special by BBC Sounds can be heard around the four-minute mark of the recording playing the opening theme of the series.
The broadcasts brought the book to the attention of a Mr Sam Gamgee, surprising Tolkien as his name was that of a Lord of the Rings character.
A sheet in Tolkien's handwriting shows that he rewrote a scene soon after the confrontation with the Nazgûl (the Ringwraiths) on Weathertop, in which the hobbit Frodo Baggins is stabbed by their leader, who had once been the Witch-king of Angmar, with a Morgul-knife.
Aragorn: No, only their shadows…[1] The critic Paul Ferris wrote in The Observer that the first series offered "the best light listening for the next five weeks ... [with the] pure quality of fairy-tale ... charming without being slight".
[8][12] Lee records that a review in an unknown newspaper, preserved in the BBC archives, stated that the "relaxed, vivid, and masculine style" of Tolkien's writing somehow adapted quite naturally to the medium of radio.
They were far more critical of the second series, where Tiller had compressed many scenes, resulting in what a self-described "Civil Servant" called "a footling and ridiculous sounding adventure story of the 'with one bound Jack was free' type".
[8] Tolkien had had, in Lee's words, "a long and strained relationship with the BBC", starting in 1936 with a broadcast of his modern English version of the medieval poem Pearl.
"[14] The same day, he wrote to Rayner Unwin that he "agreed with the [newspaper] 'critics' view of the radio adaptation" but was "annoyed" that they should "turn their attention" on him and the book when they admitted they had not read it.
As for the radio series itself, Tiller had in his view "managed excellently" with the Elves and the Council of Elrond, but had wrongly made Bilbo Baggins sound bored.
[8] In November 1956, Tolkien wrote to Tiller concerning the accents to be used in the production of a second series: "I paid great attention to such linguistic differentiation as was possible: in diction, idiom and so on; and I doubt if much more can be imported, except in so far as the individual actor represents his feeling for the character in tone and style.
Replying to Rayner Unwin in 1957, concerning an enquiry about the possibility of making a cartoon of The Lord of the Rings, he wrote: "I think I should find vulgarization less painful than the sillification achieved by the B.B.C.
