This Saturday (August 4) at 10.30am, Billy Boyd will narrate the story behind the first ever stage production of of J.R.R.Tolkien’s The Hobbit on BBC Radio 4.
The very first stage production, written by Humphrey Carpenter with music composed by Paul Drayton, was performed at New College School in Oxford in 1967.
Some of the choristers in that first production are now eminent in the musical world: choral conductor Simon Halsey, Opera North’s Martin Pickard and artist’s agent Stephen Lumsden. Composer Howard Goodall watched his older brother Ashley perform. They talk about their memories and of Tolkien’s presence in the audience on the last night.
Thanks to Ringer Andrew for the heads-up.
Update: Ringer HuanCry adds that Radio 4 is also broadcasting a documentary Tolkien in Love the day before.
[Billy Boyd and the Hobbit] | [Tolkien in Love]
Posted in:
Share:
Alan Jacobs muses in The Atlantic that “from the beginnings of modern fantasy, in the work of Tolkien, technology has always been the enemy of the good life. But does it have to be that way?”
It’s an interesting thought piece that draws on some key comments Tolkien made in letters around the time Lord of the Rings was published.
“Anyway all this stuff is mainly concerned with Fall, Mortality, and the Machine.” Letter 131. Letters of JRR Tolkien.
[More]
Posted in:
Share:
Our own Cliff “Quickbeam” Broadway got the chance to have a few words with Richard Armitage in the Hall H press session. Armitage read The Hobbit as a young child of seven, and (among other things) spoke about the responsibility that comes with taking on a role in a universe with such depth that it feels like it could have existed.
Choice quote: “…and then actually putting the costume on and trying to make that character live and breath and walk and talk. It’s like you’re given this responsibility to every other person who’s read them, who’s reading the books for the first time or who has read them when they were seven. That’s the responsibility — and you have to own that for everyone.”
Posted in:
Share:
The Tolkien scholarly community is afire with curiosity and rumours after it emerged that a new Tolkien book is on the horizon. The book, which we understand will be called The Fall of Arthur appears to be set for a May 2013 release going from pre-order information that inadvertently popped up on the website of retailing giant Amazon. It’s possible that it has been edited by Christopher Tolkien, but this is unconfirmed.
The Fall of Arthur is a long, alliterative poem based on Arthurian legends. Some excerpts from it were published in Humphrey Carpenter’s biography of JRR Tolkien. It seems it was written in the 1930s. In Letters of JRR Tolkien there is a bare mention of The Fall of Arthur.
I write alliterative verse with pleasure, though I have published little beyond fragments in The Lord of the Rings, except ‘The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth’… a dramatic dialogue on the nature of the ‘heroic’ and the ‘chivalrous’. I still hope to finish a long poem on The Fall of Arthur in the same measure. Letter 165, Letters of JRR Tolkien.
Posted in:
Share:
From our friends at the Tolkien Society: The Tolkien Society is pleased to announce that this year’s Oxonmoot will take place on 21st-23rd September at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. This year will be The Tolkien Society’s 38th Oxonmoot and will include fellowship, talks and panels, friendly discussion, a quiz, an art exhibition and a party with a raft of creative opportunities! This year’s Oxonmoot is particularly special as The Tolkien Society will be holding a celebration in honour of the 75th anniversary of the publication of The Hobbit. The Hobbit was first published on the 21st September 1937 and has become one of the world’s most popular books: it has been translated into over 50 languages and estimates put sales of The Hobbit at over 100 million worldwide.
Continue reading “Announcing Oxonmoot 2012, Celebrating 75 years of Tolkien’s The Hobbit”
Posted in:
Share:
The University of Illinois has just announced a topic for its Engaged Citizenship Common Experience Speakers Series. On July 17, 2012, it will present Sanctifying Myths: The currency of class, gender, and courage in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings & Peter Jackson’s films.
Dr Donna Bussell, PhD, will highlight Tolkien’s understanding of the spiritual and cultural work of mythology and manifestations of courage in major characters such as Frodo, Sam, Arwen and Aragorn.
Her talk also explores the importance of minor characters whose roles (and lower status) reveal much about the nature of courage in relation to class and gender in the story. Bussell concludes with a few thoughts on how these ideas are (or are not) treated in Jackson’s films, and the implications of these revisions for the transmission of Tolkien’s ideals.
[More]
Posted in:
Share:
