It probably would be unrealistic to expect every line from the book to be 100 percent accurate. I still think that the scripts for Focus on the Family Narnia were the best of any adaptation. But of course we didn’t see the voice actors when they performed the lines so we don’t know for certain if they performed the emotional facial expressions right. But I guess that is a disadvantage of audio. There are advantages though in giving us more time from the books and making the series easier to produce without having the concerns of the visual portion. And yet there is still much excellence and faithfulness to the original stories in the production. It would be to hard to believe that something better could be made for audio than Focus on the Family’s Narnia. 🙂

I just remembered another aspect of the FOTF adaptation of LWW that is different from the book — I noticed this when listening to it several days ago, but forgot to mention it in my earlier posts. In the radio drama, when Edmund meets the White Witch, he seems quite eager to get into her sleigh and sit with her as soon as she invites him, going by his tone of voice when he speaks to her. In the book, Lewis makes quite clear several times that Edmund is actually very afraid of the Witch when he first meets her, and when she suddenly switches from implicitly threatening him to being all nice and inviting him to sit with her, "Edmund did not like this arrangement at all but he dared not disobey". It's not until after he starts eating the enchanted Turkish Delight that he forgets his initial fears and becomes the Witch's willing ally, led on by the desire for more Turkish Delight and the promise of being made a Prince: "When he had first got onto the sledge he had been afraid that she might drive away with him to some unknown place from which he would not be able to get back; but he had forgotten about that fear now."

It may seem like a minor omission, but it's very significant to the story and to Edmund's characterisation in particular, and I'm surprised the FOTF script-writers left it out, just as they left out any reference to the Turkish Delight's magically addictive properties. It's really quite important that Lewis establishes from early on that Edmund does have a conscience and some common sense, and he's definitely able to sense from the start that this "Queen", however beautiful and impressive she looks outwardly, is a very dangerous character and not to be trusted. He isn't entirely evil by nature, but he's already been nurturing evil qualities such as selfishness and spite and pride and greed, and so the Witch is able to work on those and make him into her tool. But throughout the story — and even when he sneaks away from the Beavers' house to betray his brother and sisters to the Witch — he's never so completely won over by evil that he has no idea that what he's doing is wrong. He does know "deep down inside him... that the White Witch was bad and cruel", but he keeps on and on pushing those warning pangs of conscience away with his fixation on having more Turkish Delight and becoming a Prince and getting back at Peter.

The way Lewis sets all this out, it's a much more realistic depiction of a young human being's struggle with temptation than it would be if he was just instantly won over by the Witch from almost the moment he first met her, which is rather how it comes across in the FOTF version — especially without the explanation about the enchanted Turkish Delight. I'm really surprised that this radio adaptation left out those small but crucial details that make Edmund's transgression and redemption much more believable and relatable, and I'm looking forward to finding out how the BBC Radio version handles this part! (I'm still waiting for the CDs of it to arrive.)

@courtenay 

I have never heard the BBC Radio version except for a few clips on YouTube. I always wondered if it is as good as Focus on the Family’s Narnia, which I have listened to many times. I thought it was enough to own one version of the seven radio dramas of the entire series of Narnia. Also, the Focus on the Family dramas were the only ones offered for sale in my local Christian bookstores here in Michigan back in the 1990’s,

@narnian78 I get the impression the BBC Radio version was never aired in the USA — and as far as I know, neither of the two radio adaptations was ever aired in Australia, as I didn't know anything about them while I was growing up. Lots of NarniaWebbers seem to be familiar with the FOTF adaptations, but the BBC Radio adaptations almost never even get mentioned, which is why I'm guessing they haven't been widely broadcast to an American audience.

I think there may have been a single Talking Beasts podcast about the BBC Radio versions a few years ago, but it didn't go into each adaptation of each book in detail, let alone compare them one-on-one to the FOTF adaptations. I just know I remember hearing or reading somewhere that the BBC Radio adaptations don't make much use of a narrator and instead give extra lines to the characters themselves to fill us in on the story. I'll be interested to hear and compare how well that works, as using a narrator in a radio play can sound awkward, but so can giving too many expository speeches to the characters!

I'm pretty sure it was a Talking Beasts episode, as I remember they actually played a few excerpts from the BBC versions. I just recall we heard a little of how they did the ending to The Horse and His Boy, in which Bree and Hwin themselves speak the closing lines directly to the audience by way of an epilogue, with Bree remarking that they (the Horses) also got married — "but not to each other!" Hwin cuts in firmly. That made me laugh! There was also a mention somewhere that at the start of The Silver Chair, the BBC Radio version has Eustace explaining to Edmund and Lucy (at the end of their holiday with him in VDT) how horrible his school is, before we cut to the opening of the school term with Jill being bullied and meeting up with Eustace behind the gym.

It'll also be interesting to compare how the theological aspects of the stories come across in the two different radio versions, considering we've got one made by a conservative American Evangelical organisation and one made by a secular British publicly funded broadcaster. That may or may not have an influence in either case, but I do find it intriguing when Narnia adaptations fiddle around with that element, for whatever reasons — whether it's the policies of the organisation behind it, or the personal beliefs of the script writers, or who knows what else.

I must admit I'm just blathering on here in anticipation while I wait for my other set of CDs to arrive!!  

@courtenay 

Focus on the Family was started by Dr. James Dobson, who is very conservative, but I am not sure if he or his organization had much to do with the actual production of Radio Theatre other than possibly helping to fund the project. The same thing might be true of the BBC Radio series, although the broadcasting network might have provided other assistance. I don’t know if either of them had people read the scripts for the broadcasts or had any say about choosing the voice actors and other things involved in the production. I would think that the work in making the series would for the most part be left to other people.  The names Focus on the Family and BBC are on the series, but I think they were mostly created by other people who were approved by those organizations. I think the organizations were very helpful, but the BBC may have been somewhat motivated by money to broadcast the dramas with the popularity of the books.

Posted by: @narnian78

I don’t know if either of them had people read the scripts for the broadcasts or had any say about choosing the voice actors and other things involved in the production. I would think that the work in making the series would for the most part be left to other people.  The names Focus on the Family and BBC are on the series, but I think they were mostly created by other people who were approved by those organizations.

Oh sure, I agree that's probably the case. I just meant, I wonder if there was any mandate from the "top brass" as to what must be included or left out or changed — either in the theological elements of the stories or any other aspects — in line with any official policies of either FOTF or the BBC at the time. Of course, we've all been wondering similar things about how Netflix will handle the Christian basis of Narnia and whether anything will be changed or left out.

I haven't noticed any huge changes so far with FOTF, but those small but significant ones I've just posted about — Edmund not showing any initial fear or reluctance to join the Witch in her sleigh, and no mention of the Turkish Delight being enchanted — stand out to me as affecting our impressions of how far Edmund himself is to blame (rather than the Witch's magic) for aligning himself with evil. Was there some policy of FOTF that demanded those alterations (the organisation's official theology, and/or a ban on including references to addiction in a children's story, maybe??), or was it simply the personal tastes of whoever wrote the script for the adaptation? We'll probably never know. I just get a bit irked when my favourite stories get changed for no discernible reason!!   So I'll be interested to see what other alterations there are along the way and whether the BBC versions make similar changes or different ones.

Posted by: @courtenay

Was there some policy of FOTF that demanded those alterations (the organisation's official theology, and/or a ban on including references to addiction in a children's story, maybe??), or was it simply the personal tastes of whoever wrote the script for the adaptation?

I'm not an expert on either Focus on the Family or the British Broadcasting Corporation but neither the BBC miniseries nor the Walden Media movies mentioned that the Turkish Delight is addictive either. (Though I imagine that it's the subtext in every adaptation.) Either they couldn't figure out to how to work it into the dialogue, or they felt it would "excuse" Edmund from his wrongdoing.

Posted by: @col-klink

I'm not an expert on either Focus on the Family or the British Broadcasting Corporation but neither the BBC miniseries nor the Walden Media movies mentioned that the Turkish Delight is addictive either. (Though I imagine that it's the subtext in every adaptation.) Either they couldn't figure out to how to work it into the dialogue, or they felt it would "excuse" Edmund from his wrongdoing.

Yes, that's a good point — well, in a film or TV series, it would be a difficult thing to work into the story, because it's not explained verbally by any of the characters and there's no omniscient narrator to tell us about it. However, the FOTF adaptation does have a narrator, who could easily have filled us in on that point in the same words as (or similar to) the narrative in the original book, as he does regularly throughout the radio play.

Meanwhile, though, out of interest, I've just re-listened to that section of the FOTF radio play again, where Edmund first meets the Witch. I'm now fully convinced that there were definitely some behind-the-scenes decisions — whose, we don't know, but with a purpose behind them — to change this episode from what Lewis actually wrote, in order to make the Witch seem less obviously evil and dangerous and Edmund seem more culpable.

Point one: As the Witch comes into the scene, the narrator's voice describes her as "a great lady, taller and more beautiful than any woman that Edmund had ever seen." Emphasis added there, because Lewis in the original book simply writes "a great lady, taller than any woman that Edmund had ever seen." Lewis also remarks at the end of that paragraph, after describing the whiteness of the Witch's face and the redness of her mouth, "It was a beautiful face in other respects, but proud and cold and stern." The FOTF script leaves that line out entirely. So Lewis only makes a passing reference to her beauty and makes clear that she looks "proud and cold and stern" — in other words, she definitely isn't a nice person. FOTF makes a noticeably bigger point of her beauty, and of Edmund's perception of that beauty, but totally omits the pride and coldness and sternness. Hmmm.

Point two: In the book, after remarking to herself that Edmund is "easily dealt with", we're told the Queen (as she's referred to at this stage):

... rose from her seat and looked Edmund full in the face, her eyes flaming; at the same moment she raised her wand. Edmund felt sure that she was going to do something dreadful but he seemed unable to move. Then, just as he gave himself up for lost, she appeared to change her mind.

"My poor child," she said in quite a different voice, "how cold you look! Come and sit with me here on the sledge and I will put my mantle around you and we will talk."

In the FOTF version, this doesn't happen. As soon as the Witch finishes saying "easily dealt with", she immediately goes on with "My poor child, how cold you look! Come and sit with me..." There's not the slightest hint of her initially wanting, impulsively, to "deal" with Edmund by doing "something dreadful" to him. No threatening behaviour from her whatsoever, just the invitation to Edmund to sit in her sleigh. Hmmm again.

Point three: As I noticed the other day and have now confirmed, FOTF Edmund's response to that invitation is an immediate and audibly enthusiastic "Yes, please, Your Majesty!" This when what the actual author of this story tells us at this point is: "Edmund did not like this arrangement at all but he dared not disobey..." Extra hmmm.

And on top of that, as I said, no reference at all to the Turkish Delight being enchanted in any way.

I think it's bore obvious here that someone involved in the production of this radio play didn't agree with the way Lewis wrote this scene and decided to fiddle around with it. In the original story, the Witch is clearly a dangerous and frightening character and she at first openly intends to harm Edmund, but then rethinks her strategies — and he is increasingly terrified of her, and remains so until after he starts eating that Turkish Delight and she starts telling him she wants to make him a Prince. In this rewritten version, Edmund is immediately struck by the Witch's physical beauty; she is a bit sharp in the way she speaks to him at first, but she doesn't threaten him outwardly at all, and there is no reference to him being the slightest bit afraid of her; he eagerly accepts the invitation to sit with her and have her mantle wrapped around him; and we're not given any indication that she is using evil magic on him (through the Turkish Delight) to ensure he won't be able to resist the temptation to do as she bids.

As there's no other reason why this aspect of the story should be changed for the sake of an audio drama — it would have been just as easy to do it the way Lewis wrote it, especially since there's a narrator to fill in any not-audibly-obvious details — I can only guess there was some sort of theological motive here. I suspect it may be something to do with the difference between Lewis's Anglicanism (human beings are fallen and susceptible to temptation by Satan, but they do always have an inherent ability to know right from wrong, however often they fail to act rightly; the opening chapters of Mere Christianity set this out well) and conservative Protestantism (human beings are totally depraved and can never truly do right unless and until they are redeemed by Christ).

Or another possibility could be that there was a policy of not having anything that could be seen as a drug reference in a family-friendly drama, meaning that the Turkish Delight's magical properties had to be left out. In that case, I suppose it makes some sense to portray the White Witch as not openly dangerous and scary when Edmund first meets her, so that he's drawn in by her beauty and her apparent kindness and her appeals to his greed and pride. But overall there does seem to be some desire there to imply that Edmund is more innately corrupt and more completely to blame for his bad choices and wicked actions than Lewis himself made out.

It will be very interesting to find out what the BBC Radio version does with this scene and this general element of the plot!! I'm thinking I should start another discussion thread for that, though — comparing the FOTF and BBC Radio adaptations — once I've got both sets of CDs and can listen to each story from each version back-to-back.

Posted by: @courtenay

I think it's bore obvious here that someone involved in the production of this radio play didn't agree with the way Lewis wrote this scene and decided to fiddle around with it.

I suppose but it seems so much truer to the spirit of the book's scene than either the miniseries or the movie that your observations sound really petty to me. (I mean that in a very affectionate way. ) 

Posted by: @courtenay

As there's no other reason why this aspect of the story should be changed for the sake of an audio drama — it would have been just as easy to do it the way Lewis wrote it, especially since there's a narrator to fill in any not-audibly-obvious details — I can only guess there was some sort of theological motive here.

Well, while the Radio Theater Narnia adaptations do use a narrator a lot, it's actually pretty rare, though not unheard of, for the narrator to interrupt a scene. The narrator is usually used for transitions and introductions to new characters and places. If I were doing a radio drama of Narnia (or anything probably ), I'd probably use a narrator a lot more often.

Posted by: @courtenay

I suspect it may be something to do with the difference between Lewis's Anglicanism (human beings are fallen and susceptible to temptation by Satan, but they do always have an inherent ability to know right from wrong, however often they fail to act rightly; the opening chapters of Mere Christianity set this out well) and conservative Protestantism (human beings are totally depraved and can never truly do right unless and until they are redeemed by Christ).

There are actually a number of conservative Protestant denominations and I feel like you're kind of stereotyping. From what I vaguely remember hearing, the radio drama was adapted by a writer called Paul McCusker who was a Protestant when he did it but a Catholic now. Make of that what you will. 

Posted by: @courtenay

I should start another discussion thread for that, though — comparing the FOTF and BBC Radio adaptations — once I've got both sets of CDs and can listen to each story from each version back-to-back.

I wish I could listen to all the BBC radio dramas of Narnia. I've only been able to listen to the Magician's Nephew one and it wasn't very good, so I don't feel like spending a lot of money to listen to them. I don't remember if I wrote on Narniaweb about my thoughts on the BBC MN. Here's a brief summary. The writing is arguably more creative and interesting than the FoTF radio adaptation of the book which was more workmanlike. But the FOTF one wins for actually being good.  

If the movies or television series were made with scripts similar to Focus on the Family I would be more than pleased with them. The people who made the Focus on the Family dramas didn’t always have a perfect understanding of every word that Lewis wrote, but I think the adaptations were generally very good and much better than than any of the movies or television shows.  Some people might think it is nitpicking to point out the errors and inconsistencies of the dramas in adapting Lewis’ writing, but it is a good thing that we know about them. I will always love Focus on the Family’s Narnia even if it isn’t perfect. 🙂

Posted by: @col-klink

I suppose but it seems so much truer to the spirit of the book's scene than either the miniseries or the movie that your observations sound really petty to me. (I mean that in a very affectionate way. ) 

I don't know about that... I can't remember how Walden handled this scene (I've only seen the movie once and I think I've blocked most of it out), but for all her histrionics, Barbara Kellerman in the BBC TV series did do the bit where the White Witch at first stands up threateningly with the obvious intention of doing something nasty to Edmund, then suddenly rethinks it and starts acting all "nice" to him. The only part I can remember (I haven't seen that version for a while) that wasn't straight out of the book was when Edmund asks her for just one more piece of Turkish Delight to eat on the way home, and the Witch instantly goes into overdone scary mode again — "NO!!!" — rather than refusing sweetly and laughingly as she does in the book. But apart from that, I would say the dialogue and interactions between Edmund and the Witch are overall closer to the original in the BBC TV version than in the FOTF audio version. I wouldn't rate either of them as perfect, though!

As for being "really petty", probably I am, but because the FOTF adaptations do stick really closely to the books most of the time, it just stuck out like a sore thumb to me (so to speak) that this scene was changed, that's all. I'm not thinking of doing any comparisons with the various screen versions, all of which have significantly bigger downsides than the FOTF audio versions when it comes to being true to the books!  

Posted by: @col-klink

There are actually a number of conservative Protestant denominations and I feel like you're kind of stereotyping.

Fair point. Calvinist denominations, then, to be more specific with the origin of the "total depravity" concept. I should add that I have no idea if that had anything at all to do with the motivations for implicitly making Edmund's wrongdoing much more his own fault and much less the Witch's fault; I was just wondering if there was some theological motive behind it. But that's just speculation and I don't have anything further to back it up.

From what I vaguely remember hearing, the radio drama was adapted by a writer called Paul McCusker who was a Protestant when he did it but a Catholic now. Make of that what you will. 

Interesting! But then, as you say, there are many Protestant denominations and a huge variety of beliefs among them — and also, the script writer's personal beliefs may not have had anything to do with it. I'm also wondering if it really was just that they'd been told not to mention the addictive Turkish Delight, and so, without that plot device, it worked better to have the Witch appear much less threatening towards Edmund (at first) and therefore much more persuasive without resorting to "bad magic food".

Talking of which (and going a little off topic), I did think of a way in which a screen adaptation of LWW could explain the power of the Turkish Delight without having to resort to a narrator (which the book does, and which a radio play could do, but most movies wouldn't). After Edmund sneaks out of the Beavers' house, when the others realise he's gone and Mr Beaver explains why there's no use in looking for him, one thing he says of Edmund is: "He had the look of one who has been with the Witch and eaten her food." (That line definitely gets used in the BBC TV version.) At that point, one of the other children could ask "Eaten her food? What do you mean?", and then one of the Beavers could say something like: "The Witch has a way of enchanting food — usually some sort of sweet treat — so that anyone who eats it will want to go on eating more and more of it, even to the point where they kill themselves. That's almost certainly what she's done to your brother, just to make sure he'll go back to her..."

Posted by: @col-klink

I wish I could listen to all the BBC radio dramas of Narnia. I've only been able to listen to the Magician's Nephew one and it wasn't very good, so I don't feel like spending a lot of money to listen to them.  

Well, my CDs of the BBC Radio dramas have just arrived (according to the eBay notification email), but as I had them delivered to my work address — because there's no safe place for parcels to be left outside the block of flats where I live, whereas my workplace is staffed 24/7 and our managers are happy for staff to have larger items delivered there — and I won't be at work again until Wednesday, I'll have to wait till I get home Wednesday evening to start finding out how good, bad or indifferent I think these versions are!  

@courtenay Here's what I mean by the White Witch's introductory scene striking me as truer to the book than either the miniseries or the movie. But please keep in mind that I haven't watched or listened to any of the three adaptations in months, so my memory may be faulty. I have experienced them all more than once though. 

In the BBC miniseries, as you mentioned, the witch is obviously having a hard time controlling herself while pretending to be nice. When she says that Tumnus may have told Lucy "nasty queer stories" about her, she sounds like she's fantasizing about strangling him. It's kind of hilarious. The Walden Media movie, on the other hand, tries hard to fool the viewers into thinking the witch might be good. Rather than having her be the one to angrily confront and threaten Edmund, it has her dwarf do it and she intervene. (Counterintuitively, it also makes her less subtle than in the book. She offers to make Edmund's siblings his servants rather than his duke and duchesses.) The mannerisms of the witch in the Radio Theatre version are much more like how I imagine her in the book. She's quite audibly angry at Edmund initially and much more obviously passionate than in the movie but also more convincingly sweet when fooling him and in control of herself than in the miniseries. The actor playing Edmund also sounds more like how I imagine the character than in either the BBC or the Walden, chattier and less introverted, especially as he consumes more and more Turkish Delight. (There are other differences between the books and the other adaptations but those are the main ones.)

I'd like to stress I don't think either the other two versions of the scene are bad. They're well done for what their goals are. I just feel like the Radio Theatre adaptation's goals were most similar to the book's. But, of course, the vibe I get from the book's scene may be totally different from what other readers get. It's somewhat subjective.

I seem to remember the Radio Theatre adaptation cutting out the scene of Mrs. Beaver calmly packing while everyone's begging to leave but I don't have a CD handy. Can you verify that memory for me, Courtenay? I'm thinking of starting a topic about the ways the different adaptations handle that scene. On the one hand, it's a great scene and I'm kind of mad at Radio Theatre for cutting it if they really did that. On the other hand, the movie and the miniseries in their own ways, make Mrs. Beaver seem silly and the other characters sensible, which really isn't the impression the book gives if you ask me.

Posted by: @col-klink

I seem to remember the Radio Theatre adaptation cutting out the scene of Mrs. Beaver calmly packing while everyone's begging to leave but I don't have a CD handy. Can you verify that memory for me, Courtenay? I'm thinking of starting a topic about the ways the different adaptations handle that scene. On the one hand, it's a great scene and I'm kind of mad at Radio Theatre for cutting it if they really did that. On the other hand, the movie and the miniseries in their own ways, make Mrs. Beaver seem silly and the other characters sensible, which really isn't the impression the book gives if you ask me.

You're right, that was mostly skimmed over in the FOTF adaptation — I can't remember exactly how it's done, but there was definitely nothing like the fairly extended sequence that happens in the book. But at least they didn't make her come across as silly. The BBC TV version definitely does that, by having her fuss around still packing things while everyone else is audibly groaning in despair at the delay. It's a woeful misinterpretation of the scene, and indeed of her character, as Lewis portrays it. In the book, it's quite clear that she is thinking things through carefully, calculating how much time they have and making wise decisions on what to take, while all the others are the ones who are fussing and near panicking, to the point where they probably would have fled into the snow with no useful supplies at all if Mrs Beaver hadn't taken charge of the situation. It's only her final comment about the sewing machine that is a bit silly, but it's obvious in the context that she's only indulging a bit of wishful thinking about an item that is precious to her. And yet so many critics apparently interpret this whole episode as proof that Lewis didn't like women and couldn't portray female characters in a positive light!!

I'd be happy to see a discussion thread on how different adaptations do this particular scene. It will also be interesting to find out whether the BBC Radio adaptation does a more accurate job of it than the BBC TV series!

I noticed when looking at the cast of the BBC radio dramas that Camilla Power played Lucy in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Sylvester McCoy was Reepicheep in the other dramas. There was a different voice actress that played Lucy in Prince Caspian. This might seem a bit artificial to some of the listeners unless they found an actress with a similar voice to Camilla’s.  Different people have played the same roles in other audio dramas such as the Doctor in Dr. Who. With the BBC radio Narnia it may have been the only choice if the same actress was not available. It does seem that they were able to get some well experienced performers. And it has happened before that actors on Dr. Who have performed in Narnia productions. Tom Baker was excellent in The Silver Chair. 

Posted by: @narnian78

I noticed when looking at the cast of the BBC radio dramas that Camila Power played Lucy in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Sylvester McCoy was Reepicheep in the other dramas. There was a different voice actress that played Lucy in Prince Caspian. This might seem a bit artificial to some of the listeners unless they found an actress with a similar voice to Camilla’s.

Ooh, that's interesting. I'll have to listen carefully and see if it's obvious that it's a different actress's voice. I wonder if there were any other cast members that were changed, presumably due to being unavailable? That happens sometimes with screen productions too, and it's usually even more obvious when the new actor doesn't match the previous one in appearance as well as voice! 

 Different people have played the same roles in other audio dramas such as the Doctor in Dr. Who.

Ah yes, but it helps that the Doctor regenerates every time he dies and he comes back with a different appearance, so everyone's used to the same character being played by completely different actors. Brilliant plot twist that, really, as it allowed the series to continue after the original actor (William Hartnell) decided to retire, and so it goes on indefinitely.  

And it has happened before that actors on Dr. Who have performed in Narnia productions. Tom Baker was excellent in The Silver Chair. 

Oh yes, definitely! Whenever I read the book, I can always just see and hear Tom Baker as Puddleglum — he absolutely nailed the role. It will be interesting to hear what Sylvester McCoy does with Reepicheep, especially compared to Robert Benfield in the FOTF dramas. (I've only listened to those once before and can't quite remember what I thought of Reepicheep's voice in them, although I know I enjoyed them overall.)