The Lord of the Rings (1955 radio series)

Radio play

For other uses, see The Lord of the Rings (disambiguation).

The script was rediscovered in 2022. This sheet, handwritten by J. R. R. Tolkien, includes Frodo's exclamation O Elbereth! Gilthoniel! in Sindarin Elvish, and Tolkien's drafting of a dialogue in a scene soon after the controntation with the Nazgûl on Weathertop.[1]

During 1955 and 1956, a condensed radio dramatisation of The Lord of the Rings, adapted and produced by Terence Tiller, was broadcast in two series of six episodes each on BBC Radio's the Third Programme. 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 script had been thought lost, but it was rediscovered in the BBC archives in 2022.

The cast included Norman Shelley as Gandalf and Tom Bombadil, Felix Felton as Bilbo and Sauron and Robert Farquharson as Saruman and Denethor.

The adaptation was well received by newspaper critics at the time. The radio audience welcomed the first series, where Tiller had selected which scenes to use and which to cut; it was far more critical of the second series, where Tiller had compressed many scenes. Tolkien did not like the broadcasts, or the BBC's panel of critics.

## Context

[edit]

Further information: The Lord of the Rings

J. R. R. Tolkien was an English author and philologist of ancient Germanic languages, specialising in Old English; he spent much of his career as a professor at the University of Oxford.[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 devout Roman Catholic, he described The Lord of the Rings as "a fundamentally religious and Catholic work", rich in Christian symbolism.[3]

The BBC, founded in 1922, is the largest and oldest British public service broadcaster. It is headquartered in London, England.[4][5][6]

## Broadcast history

[edit]

During 1955 and 1956, BBC Radio's Third Programme, a cultural and music channel, broadcast a condensed radio dramatisation of The Lord of the Rings in twelve episodes. These radio broadcasts were the first dramatisation of J. R. R. Tolkien's epic fantasy The Lord of the Rings. Its final volume, The Return of the King, was published in October 1955. Since the BBC did not generally keep long-term archives of its productions at that time, no copies of the full adaptation are known to have survived. 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.[7] Although virtually all audio of the series is lost, and the script too had been thought lost, in 2022 the Tolkien scholar Stuart Lee rediscovered the full script for the dramatization in the BBC archives, including annotations by Tolkien himself. Lee's research on the script was published as an essay in The Great Tales Never End: Essays in Memory of Christopher Tolkien (2022).[1][8]

The first part of the story, The Fellowship of the Ring, was broadcast in six episodes in 1955. The final two volumes, The Two Towers and The Return of the King were covered in the second series of six episodes broadcast in 1956.[1] Both series of broadcasts were adapted and produced by Terence Tiller,[1] who corresponded with Tolkien for advice concerning the second series.[9][10] This was the only one of several adaptations of The Lord of the Rings that Tolkien lived to see, as he died in 1973.

Radio was the dominant broadcast medium in the United Kingdom at the time, and the broadcasts helped to publicise the book. The broadcasts were discussed on the BBC programme The Critics. 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. Gamgee wrote to Tolkien to ask about the origin of the character's name; Tolkien replied with a full explanation of its real and its fictitious etymology.[11]

## Content

[edit]

Artist's impression of a Nazgûl, depicted as a shadowy but solid body, cloaked and hooded in black, wearing a sword, and mounted on a black horse

The rediscovered script shows Tiller's construction of the radio series. 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.[8] Among the descriptions on the sheet for the narrator to voice, Tolkien drafted the dialogue:[1]

> Frodo: What has happened? Where is the pale King?
>  Sam: We lost you, Mr Frodo. Where did you get to?
>  Frodo: Didn’t you see them? – the wraiths, and the King?
>  Aragorn: No, only their shadows…[1]

## Reception

[edit]

### Critics and the public

[edit]

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. The reviewer was comfortable, too, with the passages voiced by the narrator, saying that even in explanations Tolkien was able to hold the listener's attention.[8]

Listeners' reactions were analysed by the BBC's audience researchers. They found that 1 adult in 1000 in Britain had listened in. For the first series, audience appreciation had by the last episode reached 64 from an initial 56, against an average for all programmes on the channel of 65.[8]

Lee comments that most of the recorded comments were very positive. He notes that listeners were divided about whether the series was "a milestone in BBC history", or a waste of listeners' time on a serious channel playing material meant for children. Overall, listeners enjoyed the first series, where Tiller had followed Tolkien's advice to make a selection of scenes and cut the rest. 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's opinion

[edit]

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. He was from the start sceptical about reducing nearly 400 pages of The Lord of the Rings to less than five hours of radio. He stated directly that he would prefer scenes to be cut rather than compressed to mere summaries.[8]

Tolkien's opinion on these broadcasts was revealed in several of his letters. In November 1955 he told a Mrs Molly Waldron that "I think the book quite unsuitable for 'dramatization', and have not enjoyed the broadcasts—though they have improved. I thought Tom Bombadil dreadful—but worse still was the announcer's preliminary remarks that Goldberry was his daughter (!), and that Willowman was an ally of Mordor (!!)."[13]

The following month, Tolkien wrote to the novelist Naomi Mitchison "I think poorly of the broadcast adaptations. Except for a few details I think they are not well done, even granted the script and the legitimacy of the enterprise (which I do not grant). But they took some trouble with the names. I thought that the dwarf (Glóin not Gimli [...]) was not too bad, if a bit exaggerated."[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.[15] Further, he found the speakers on the BBC's programme The Critics "intolerable with a superiority that only ignorance can maintain". He noted however that the review in The Times "was appreciative". 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."[9] A few days later he wrote to Tiller again, concerning scripts for three of the episodes: "Here is a book very unsuitable for dramatic or semi-dramatic representation. If that is attempted, it needs more space, a lot of space. ... Personally, I think it requires rather the older art of the reading 'mime', than the more nearly dramatic, which results in too great an emphasis on dialogue (mostly with its setting removed). ... I feel you have had a very hard task."[10]

Tolkien was unimpressed by the results. 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."[16]

## Cast

[edit]

The cast for the series was:[17]

* Derek Hart – Narrator
* Oliver Burt – Frodo
* Norman Shelley – Gandalf, Tom Bombadil, Old Man, Additional voices
* Victor Platt – Sam
* Godfrey Kenton – Aragorn, Mablung, Additional voices
* Michael Collins – Merry
* Basil Jones – Pippin
* Felix Felton – Bilbo, Sauron, Witch-king of Angmar ("The Black Captain"), Orcs, Additional voices
* Derek Prentice – Boromir, Faramir, Beregond, Orcs, Additional voices
* Frank Duncan – Legolas, Halbarad, Additional voices
* Eric Lugg – Gimli, Additional voices
* Gerik Schjelderup – Gollum, Orcs
* Robert Farquharson – Saruman, Denethor
* Valentine Dyall – Théoden, Treebeard, Orcs
* Bernard Rebel – Wormtongue
* Garard Green – Elrond, Celeborn, Additional voices
* Nicolette Bernard – Galadriel, Goldberry
* John Baker – Orcs
* Olive Gregg – Eowyn
* David Hemmings – Bergil
* Noel Johnson – Éomer
* Prunella Scales – Ioreth
* Roger Snowdon – Orcs

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b c d e f Alberge, Dalya (12 March 2022). "Hoard of the rings: 'lost' scripts for BBC Tolkien drama discovered". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 April 2022.
2. ^ Carpenter 1977, pp. 111, 200, 266.
3. ^ Carpenter 2023, letter 142 to Robert Murray, 2 December 1953
4. ^ "BBC History – The BBC takes to the Airwaves". BBC News. Archived from the original on 6 March 2007. Retrieved 19 July 2007.
5. ^ "BBC: World's largest broadcaster & Most trusted media brand". Media Newsline. 13 August 2009. Archived from the original on 5 October 2010. Retrieved 23 September 2010.
6. ^ "About the BBC – What is the BBC". BBC. Archived from the original on 16 January 2010. Retrieved 23 September 2010.
7. ^ "Archive on 4 – Tolkien: The Lost Recordings – BBC Sounds". BBC. Retrieved 23 April 2022.
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Lee 2022.
9. ^ a b Carpenter 2023, #193 to Terence Tiller, 2 November 1956
10. ^ a b Carpenter 2023, #194 to Terence Tiller, 6 November 1956
11. ^ Carpenter 2023, #184 to Sam Gamgee, 18 March 1956
12. ^ Ferris, Paul (20 November 1955). "Reviews". The Observer.
13. ^ Carpenter 2023, #175 to Mrs Molly Waldron, 30 November 1955
14. ^ Carpenter 2023, #176 to Naomi Mitchison, 8 December 1955
15. ^ Carpenter 2023, #177 to Rayner Unwin, 8 December 1955
16. ^ Carpenter 2023, #198 to Rayner Unwin, 19 June 1957
17. ^ Lee 2022, p. 164.

## Sources

[edit]

* Carpenter, Humphrey (1977). J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 978-0-04-928037-3.
* Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (2023) [1981]. The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien: Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-35-865298-4.
* Lee, Stuart D. (2022). "A Milestone in BBC History? The 1955-56 Radio Dramatization of The Lord of the Rings". In Ovenden, Richard; McIlwaine, Catherine (eds.). The Great Tales Never End: Essays in Memory of Christopher Tolkien. Bodleian Library Publishing. ISBN 978-1-8512-4565-9.

* v
* t
* e

The Lord of the Rings

* J. R. R. Tolkien
* Constructing The Lord of the Rings

About|

* Volumes
* The Fellowship of the Ring
* The Two Towers
* The Return of the King
* Stories
* "The Shadow of the Past"
* "The Council of Elrond"
* "The Scouring of the Shire"
* "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen"
* Translating
* list
* Swedish
* Reception
* Impact
* Literary
* Fandom
* Fan fiction
* Oxonmoot
* Tolkienmoot
* Works inspired
* Tolkien's impact on fantasy

Elements|

| Languages|

* Black Speech
* Elvish
* Quenya
* Sindarin
* Khuzdul
* Westron

|

Poetry|

* A Elbereth Gilthoniel
* Namárië
* Song of Eärendil
* The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late
* The Road Goes Ever On
* A Walking Song

Other|

* Artwork
* Family trees
* Heraldry
* Maps
* Proverbs
* Scripts
* Cirth
* Tengwar

Analysis|

| Themes|

* Addiction to power
* Ancestry as guide to character
* Architecture
* Company of the Ring
* Death and immortality
* Decline and fall
* Divination
* Dreams and visions
* Economy
* England
* Environmentalism
* Evil
* Feudal allegiance
* Forests
* Hell
* Heroism
* Luck and fate
* Magic
* Mental illness
* Moral dilemma
* Music
* Naming of weapons
* Northern courage
* Paganism
* Plants
* Prophecy
* Psychological journeys
* Quests
* Race
* Sexuality
* Sound and language
* Time
* Trees
* Women

|

Influences|

* Antiquarianism
* Beowulf
* Celtic
* Christianity
* Classical world
* Edwardian adventure stories
* First World War
* Norse
* Medieval
* Modern sources
* Modernism
* William Morris
* A mythology for England
* Philology
* Shakespeare

Techniques|

* Anachronism
* Character pairing
* Editorial framing
* Frame stories
* Pseudotranslation
* Impression of depth
* Narrative structure
* Interlacing
* Storytelling
* Prose style
* Ambiguity
* Epic Pooh

Peoples|

| Maiar|

* Balrogs
* Sauron
* Wizards
* Gandalf
* Radagast
* Saruman

|

Free
peoples|

* Dwarves
* Balin
* Gimli
* Elves
* Galadriel
* Glorfindel
* Half-elven
* Arwen
* Elrond
* Legolas
* Thranduil
* Ents
* Treebeard
* Hobbits
* Bilbo
* Frodo
* Merry
* Pippin
* Sam
* Men
* Beornings
* Drúedain
* Dúnedain
* Aragorn
* of Gondor
* Boromir
* Denethor
* Faramir
* of Rohan
* Éomer
* Éowyn
* Théoden
* Wormtongue

Monsters|

* Barrow-wight
* Gollum
* Nazgûl
* Witch-king of Angmar
* Old Man Willow
* Orcs
* Shelob
* Trolls
* Wargs
* Watcher in the Water

Other|

* Eagles
* Goldberry
* Tom Bombadil

World|

| Geography|

* Middle-earth
* Eriador
* Bree
* Old Forest
* Rivendell
* The Shire
* Bag End
* Gondor
* Harad
* Lothlórien
* Mirkwood
* Moria
* Mordor
* Rohan
* Isengard
* Undying Lands

|

Battles|

* Helm's Deep
* Pelennor Fields
* Morannon

Things|

* Mithril
* Oliphaunts
* Palantírs
* Phial of Galadriel
* Rings of Power
* One Ring
* List of weapons and armour

Related
works|

* The Hobbit
* The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
* Errantry
* Fastitocalon
* The Sea-Bell
* Donald Swann
* The Road Goes Ever On
* Bilbo's Last Song
* The Silmarillion
* Unfinished Tales
* The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien
* The History of Middle-earth
* The Children of Húrin
* The History of The Hobbit
* Beren and Lúthien
* The Fall of Gondolin
* The Nature of Middle-earth

Adaptations and derivative works

Books|

* Bored of the Rings (1969)
* The Last Ringbearer (1999)
* Muddle Earth (2003)

Illustrations|

* A Map of Middle-earth
* Pauline Baynes
* Barbara Remington
* John Howe
* Alan Lee
* Margrethe II of Denmark
* Ted Nasmith

Theatre|

* Fellowship! (2005)
* The Lord of the Rings (2006)

Music|

* Bo Hansson
* Music Inspired by Lord of the Rings (1972)
* Johan de Meij
* Symphony No. 1 The Lord of the Rings (1988)
* Led Zeppelin
* "Ramble On" (1969)
* "Misty Mountain Hop" (1971)
* "The Battle of Evermore" (1971)

Radio|

* The Lord of the Rings (BBC, 1955)
* The Lord of the Rings (NPR, 1979)
* Hordes of the Things (1980)
* The Lord of the Rings (BBC, 1981)
* Der Herr der Ringe (1992)

Film|

| Animated|

* The Lord of the Rings (Bakshi, 1978)
* The Return of the King (Rankin/Bass, 1980)
* The War of the Rohirrim (Kamiyama, 2024)

|

Peter Jackson
series|

* The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
* The Two Towers (2002)
* The Return of the King (2003)

Music|

* "Concerning Hobbits"
* "Into the West"
* "May It Be"

Approach|

* Production
* Hobbiton Movie Set
* Peter Jackson's interpretation
* Picturing Tolkien
* Tolkien on Film

Other|

* Sagan om ringen (1971)
* Khraniteli (1991)
* Hobitit (1993)
* The Rings of Power (2022)
* music

Fan-made|

* The Hunt for Gollum (2009)
* Born of Hope (2009)

Video games|

* Journey to Rivendell
* Game One
* Game Two: Shadows of Mordor
* War in Middle Earth
* Vol. I (1990)
* Vol. I (SNES)
* Riders of Rohan
* Elendor
* Vol. II: The Two Towers
* The Fellowship of the Ring
* The Two Towers
* The Return of the King
* War of the Ring
* The Third Age
* Game Boy Advance
* The Battle for Middle-earth
* Tactics
* The Battle for Middle-earth II
* The Rise of the Witch-king
* Conquest
* Aragorn's Quest
* War in the North
* Lego The Lord of the Rings
* Guardians of Middle-earth
* Shadow of Mordor
* Shadow of War
* Gollum
* Return to Moria

| The Lord of the Rings Online|

* Mines of Moria
* Siege of Mirkwood
* Rise of Isengard
* Riders of Rohan
* Helm's Deep
* Mordor
* Minas Morgul
* War of Three Peaks
* Fate of Gundabad
* Before the Shadow

|

Tabletop role-
playing games|

* Middle-earth Role Playing
* The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game
* The One Ring Roleplaying Game
* Adventures in Middle-earth

Board games|

* Middle Earth
* War of the Ring
* Gondor: The Siege of Minas Tirith
* Sauron
* Lord of the Rings
* War of the Ring

Card games|

* Middle-earth Collectible Card Game
* The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game
* The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game

Other games|

* Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game
* Lego The Lord of the Rings

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