Saturday 20 August 2011

TITUS FUGIT

Time is running out! According to the BBC iPlayer, all six episodes of The History of Titus Groan (see last post below) will vanish from the audio bookshelf at 4:02PM Sun, 21 Aug 2011. Why wait that long?!

9 comments:

scb said...

Is it still going to be made available to purchase in its entirety? I'm planning to do that...

Brian Sibley said...

Oh, yes! :)

Good Dog said...

The plan was to listen to the first three episode today and the final three tomorrow before time on iPlayer ran out. As with all plans it didn't quite turn out that way.

I listened to all six straight through. And now it's dark, I'm hungry, haven't read the paper and haven't done one jot of work... But it was so worth it.

Brian, that was one of the most remarkable things I've heard on the radio in years. And this is from someone who really loved The Complete Smiley. But The History of Titus Groan was absolutely astonishing and had me transfixed from beginning to end. Well done to you and everyone involved for such an incredible achievement.

And I'm thinking if I get up early tomorrow and get a lot of writing done before, say, ten in the morning...

Brian Sibley said...

Good Dog – So sorry that I (aided and abetted by the inhabitants of Gormenghast) disrupted your Saturday schedule, but thank you a FABULOUS testimonial! :)

Good Dog said...

Brian,

Yes, very bad you for making me take a day off from work, and on the weekend no less, to listen to such a stunning piece of work. Of course it should be double bad because when I got up this morning...

Yep, you guessed it. And I managed to not only listen to all six again - even with a quick run to the nearby M&S for lunch - but wound back the last ten minutes of Titus Alive and must have listened to that sequence alone about four or five times.

After all that had gone before, the remarkable acting by David Warner and Luke Treadaway elevated your exemplary script to produce such an astonishing denouement. Add in Roger Goula's beautiful music and I had tears of sadness and joy running down my face each time.

Thank you.

Brian Sibley said...

Thanks again, DG, you have left me speechless other than to say that Mr Peake and I were incomparably served not just by a wonderful cast (which they were!) and RG's music, but by my producer/director, Jeremy Mortimer, and his two co-directors, Gemma Jenkins and David Hunter and a crack sound crew headed by Peter Ringrose.

Boll Weavil said...

I know exactly what Good Dog means. I took Titus to my work to listen to. Normally it's very difficult for me to accept a revision of something as superior to the one I'm already familar with - especially if, as with the 1985 double-header,it has a strong cast. Even so, by the death of Sepulchrave, I realised I wasn't actually doing any work whilst listening, just staring into space. When Steerpike was killed, I was gutted and had no idea of where it was all going. I had to listen on immediately. By the end of episode six I knew that, completely unexpectedly, I had heard a great drama - a work where cast, script, music and effects were all absolutely perfect and blended together in just the right way for the story.
As is known, radio has always been my preferred medium - I have about 500 plays in my collection, gathered over the past thirty years.Even so,on the rare occasions when a production like this occurs, I stop everything I'm doing, turn up the volume and listen like everyone else because I know I am present at a significant moment in radio drama history and that is exactly why I am there.

Arts and Crafts said...

This artistic triumph worthy of a good vacation, right?, is august Brian! every worker deserves a good holiday

Brian Sibley said...

Boll – Thanks ever so! To my mind there's no question: you and Good Dog ought to be running BBC Radio! :)

Eudora – We are planning to go away early September – all being well: David had a double hernia operation a week ago and, at the moment, can't drive or lift anything. But the sunshine of Greece is certainly calling to us!