In case you missed The History of Titus Groan in Saturday's Classic Serial slot you have until Sunday afternoon to hear it in its entirety on the Radio 4 website (details at the end of this post).
Titus and Muzzlehatch: Image courtesy of the Mervyn Peake Estate
In The Guardian radio critic Elisabeth Mahoney has written a lovely piece about the nervousness she felt, having loved the 1985 adaptation, on hearing that Brian Sibley was tackling the novels for Radio 4 yet again. Not only that but:
"...it was a hugely ambitious project: Peake's three novels plus the concluding volume by Peake's wife, Maeve Gilmore, rediscovered last year, made into six hours of Classic Serial."
She writes that not only is this a "terrific new adaptation" but it also captures
"...every brilliant thing about Peake: the glorious writing; the strangeness; the collision of voices and realities; the satire of now - whenever now is as you read or listen - and the beautiful, vivid conjuring of fragments of the past."
If you're at all daunted by the idea of the six hours of radio drama then do read Mahoney's review - if her enthusiasm doesn't sell it to you nothing will. If you have heard Titus as it's been broadcast then you might like to read about the production and how it came together on the blog. More links below.
Paul Murphy is the Editor of the Radio 4 blog
- This is the link to all six episodes of The History of Titus Groan. They're available until 4.00pm on Sunday 21 August when the new Classic Serial, Anthony Trollope's The American Senator is broadcast.
- Read the previous posts on the Radio 4 blog: Writer Brian Sibley on adapting Titus for the radio and Producer Jeremy Mortimer on the making of The History of Titus Groan.
- Elisabeth Mahoney's review is here. Gillian Reynold's also reviewed Titus in the Telegraph and while "...admiring the acting, Brian Sibley's adaptation of a complex work, the pace of Jeremy Mortimer's direction", she "still couldn't understand what was going on. At all. The minute I thought I had, off it would go again into another dimension of fear, temptation, betrayal, each so vivid it flooded the mind's eye...".
- Links to Brian Sibley's blog and the official Mervyn Peake site.
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