Our Mutual Friend: BBC (Bbc Radio Presents)
Category: Books,Humor & Entertainment,Radio
Our Mutual Friend: BBC (Bbc Radio Presents) Details
From School Library Journal Grade 7 Up-With a cast of characters that covers the whole spectrum of London life, Dickens weaves a tapestry of tales that are by turn funny, moving and tragic. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. Read more Review “The fact that Dickens is always thought of as a caricaturist, although he was constantly trying to be something else, is perhaps the surest mark of his genius.” —George OrwellFrom the Trade Paperback edition. Read more See all Editorial Reviews
Reviews
This review is for the MP3 Audio version. I had been looking forward to listening to this after enjoying the MP3 of Little Dorrit, performed superbly by Anton Lesser. Unfortunately, this disc is a disgrace. Apart from the questionable decision of not choosing an English voice to read Dickens, the performance is so lazy and wooden that it sucks all the interest out of the novel. The reader has not even bothered to learn how common London place names are pronounced ('Southwark' in the first paragraph is not 'south-wark') and has countless weird pronunciations of common English words ('ruin' is rendered throughout as 'roon'). Given that Dickens is the most dramatic of novelists, including virtual stage directions in the text ('he sneered,' 'she sobbed,' 'he roared'), there is no excuse for delivering every line using a flat monotone in which even such distinctions as male, female, educated, working class, all sound the same. This recording does Dickens an unforgivable disservice and everyone connected with its production should be ashamed.
