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Theatre in your head - this is what audiobook drama is about. We have become
such a visual society, so dependent upon explosive images in primary colours
that we forget only too easily the subtlety of language, of expression.
After recording nine Shakespeare plays I have no doubt that the audiobook
experience is more important than ever. It is exciting to watch Kenneth
Branagh's film of Hamlet; those who saw Paul Scofield's King Lear on stage
will never forget it. But there is something deeply engaging about hearing
these two perform the roles on audiobook for YOUR ears and YOUR imagination only.
Suddenly, the words - and the internal emotional state they reflect - become
paramount, more centre-stage. When King Lear comforts Cordelia (‘We two alone will sing
like birds i’th’cage') he also speaks directly to us, individually. He does not have to
project across an auditorium through a proscenium arch.
And can we detect, in the occasional inflection of King Richard III, the
shadow of a man trapped in behaviour by circumstances - as much victim as
villain?
This is theatre of the mind, and is so often closer to reality than a visual
performance. And the wonder of Shakespeare's words - the images, the iambic
rhythm, the acrobatic dance of concept and purpose - makes audiobook theatre
an ideal medium.
I have had the privilege of seeing some of our greatest actors record
Shakespeare in the studio. This can be a disadvantage, because I can also
remember the paraphernalia of recording: the microphones, the sound effects,
the scripts, the re-takes and kings and queens in jeans.
But not when the CD starts - out of battle comes Macbeth, out of a party
comes Richard and into court comes Lear. And the play begins.
Nicolas Soames
Producer
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