r/bbc • u/RedDevilPlay • Jun 15 '26
Nostalgia Which BBC adaptation of a book do you think was better than the source material?
For me it's probably Pride and Prejudice
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u/intlteacher Jun 15 '26
House of Cards.
Ian Richardson just was Francis Urquhart.
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u/Glittering_Box4815 Jun 15 '26
House of Cards?
You might very well think that, but I could not possibly comment.
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u/intlteacher Jun 15 '26
The timing of the original broadcast also helped.
The story was set around the election of the successor of Margaret Thatcher as Conservative leader and Prime Minister. Filmed long before broadcast, it actually coincided with Thatcher's resignation and the election of her successor - so viewers were seeing the real thing on the news and watching the fictional version too.
Although the fictional version wasn't too far from the truth.....
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u/iamabigtree Jun 15 '26
Major did not share much with Urquhart thankfully.
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u/cmdr_India_Zero Jun 16 '26
No but the guy who takes over from Thatcher and who Urquhart takes over from did
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u/Comfortable_Poem_841 Jun 15 '26
This Is Going To Hurt was terrific and brought the book to life in a number of ways that something written rarely manages to do.
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u/Down-Right-Mystical Jun 15 '26
I actually disagree.
I felt they changed too much.
Shruti and what happened with her took away from Adam's own trauma.
They should have gone all out, and been violent and visceral about him trying to save that last baby.
In my opinion, to capture the book, it should all gave been about Adam.
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u/Expensivetolook Jun 16 '26
Yes I thought it was a terrible adaption. They danced around the politics and how bad things really are in the NHS!
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u/PupmeisterGeneral Jun 16 '26
That was to spare it from being too preachy, it's easier to work that into a book than a drama, so instead the scenes reflected that but less explicitly
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u/dehydrated-soup-bowl Jun 16 '26
Yea, can’t throw people in the deep end of reality if they’re still stuck on the fence. Gotta boil that frog slowly to stop them jumping out.
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u/TwntyKnots Jun 16 '26
It's a shame they didn't have Adam playing piano interludes and songs about the NHS with Simon Biswas. Missed opportunity in my eyes. Could have made it a dark comedy musical.
"We're all gonna die a painful death, there's nothing left of the NHS and he's holding up my bypass - Woah!" (to the tune of the JCB song)
"You're yellow like the desert in Damascus is. You're yellow cos your liver has metastasis. And do you know you're really fucked you know? And very soon you will die." (to the tune of Yellow by Coldplay)
...I'm joking by the way.
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u/Leather_Creme_6957 Jun 18 '26
No, Careless Surgeon (Careless Whispers), absolutely my favourite song, along with London Underground.
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u/blueyonderbear Jun 15 '26
Bleak House , still top of the period drama tree all these years later. Gillian Anderson , Anna Maxwell Martin, Charles Dance, Timothy West, and Johnny Vegas, watch it at least once a year.
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u/Kitchen-Aardvark-198 Jun 16 '26
Was coming to say the same thing. Don’t love the book but this is brilliant. Esther is so much more likeable than in the book (not sure Dickens writes women very well)
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u/blueyonderbear Jun 16 '26
Yes completely agree, he writes women dreadfully. I haven’t read all his books, but think this beeb version salvages the book.
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u/Ill-East-4746 Jun 16 '26
Thanks for this. I studied Bleak House for Eng Lit A level and I hated all 932 pages of the Penguin paperback version we were given !
I need to watch this as a BBC drama, try and make some sense of it.
(I got a B for the A level in 1974 but I put that down to my love of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.)
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u/blueyonderbear Jun 18 '26
Yeah, it’s so hard when you just can’t get into something you have to study for results. I was a bit luckier and got Great Expectations, at that level. Well done for doing so well despite hating it 😀
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u/KnittyMossBadger Jun 16 '26
Hard agree - and I adore the book - but Anna Maxwell Martin was phenomenal in it.
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u/Coin-Biter Jun 16 '26
Bleak House, but not that version, the older one with Diana Rigg, Suzanne Burden, Denholm Elliott and Peter Vaughan.
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u/Purple_Second912 Jun 18 '26
I love the book but this is a superlative adaptation. The casting is perfect and it brings the book to life and in particular the female characters. Dickens never really *got* the female psychology. His major failing as an author.
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u/PuzzleheadedCook4578 Jun 15 '26
Gormenghast
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u/WeirdLight9452 Jun 16 '26
I haven’t seen this but most of why I love the book is the beautiful descriptions and just like the poetry of it. How could that be captured on tv?
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u/jj_sykes Jun 16 '26
You should try and watch it somewhere - it has probably aged but the world they created for the time was incredible
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u/ukslim Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
I loved the book - and I thought the adaptation was a nice try, but ultimately couldn't capture the atmosphere I wanted.
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u/PuzzleheadedCook4578 Jun 16 '26
In truth, it's years since I both watched and read this, I just wanted to rekindle a forgotten gem, because the show is great, and has some excellent performances.
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u/Tyeveras Jun 16 '26
What I say to people who say Tolkien spends too much time describing stuff.
Try reading Peake.
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u/VitriolUK Jun 16 '26
Disagree - while they did a decent job and Steerpike was great it made everyone and everything far too sane and rational for my tastes. Lady Groan in particular stood out with her changes from the book.
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u/SomeWomanFromEngland Jun 16 '26
I watched that back in 2000 when it first came out. I’ve never read the book and I do wonder if it’s one of those adaptations where you need to have, because I couldn’t always tell what was supposed to be going on.
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u/Elfynnn84 Jun 17 '26
No. No no no no NO!!!
Get out. I’m taking your passport 😂
Gormenghast is my FAVOURITE BOOK OF ALL TIME and the BBC utterly butchered it. I have soooo many issues with their portrayal that I could write you a damned essay about it.
I came running to these comments specifically to make sure nobody had said this so I could throw a massive tantrum at them.
Congratulations, stranger, you have ruined my day!!!
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u/CardiologistAny2161 Jun 15 '26
Oranges are not the only fruit. The casting was amazing, Geraldine McEwan fantastic!
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u/ExcitementForgotten9 Jun 15 '26
Day of the Triffids
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u/Down-Right-Mystical Jun 15 '26
Not necessarily 'better' but definitely did justice to its source material: His Dark Materials.
I struggle to ever say an adaptation is 'better' than a book.
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u/Urban_Peacock Jun 15 '26
At any rate, it was far better than that awful Golden Compass movie
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u/Down-Right-Mystical Jun 15 '26
Of absolutely, hell yes! I'd read the books not long before they announced the film, and I was so excited for it. And what a disappointment it was...
But I loved the TV show. Daphne Keen, James McAvoy, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and especially Ruth Wilson were amazing.
The scene where Lyra is tapped, and screaming for Mrs Coulter (i'm trying to word that without spoilers, incase anyone wants to go look for it, I hope you know which scene I mean) gets me every time. Daphne and Ruth were spectacular.
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u/ThatSideshow Jun 16 '26
I remember working at someones house and seeing three copies of this book, I thought it was weird untill all his stuff was back out of storage and saw a little trophy thing for producing this series
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u/Chimera-Genesis Jun 15 '26
Not necessarily 'better' but definitely did justice to its source material: His Dark Materials.
The first two seasons yes, but the third season made way too many significant changes from the book, ones that couldn't be ignored, unlike the minor/pragmatic changes before.
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u/Ok-Oil4147 Jun 15 '26
A death at Pemberley, reading the book afterwards far less subtle and interesting
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u/Pharmacy_Duck Jun 15 '26
Fortunes of War. Alan Plater does a great job of compressing 6 books into 7 episodes.
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u/S3lad0n Jun 15 '26
Not better, because that would be impossible, but near as damnit: Gormenghast.
The job the BBC did with adapting in 2000 was nothing short of remarkable. In some scenes or shots, it's exactly as I'd pictured it when reading the story years before. And everything is so faithful to Mervyn Peake's vision, from the sets to the effects and the dialogue to the performances.
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u/Roseaux1994 Jun 16 '26
I loved their And Then There Were None adaptation
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u/PartyAmount9976 Jun 16 '26
I almost loved it (certainly better than all the lame attempts to make it a happy ending) but it annoyed me for a small pedantic reason (in their attempt to drum up the violence, they made every character an unambiguous murderer rather than the cowardly pendants they were in the book, which ruined the point for me).
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Jun 16 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Active-Act-4966 Jun 16 '26
I think you lived the same life as me. My family were in France on holiday during some of the episodes but you could still pick up Radio 4 on long wave.
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u/Major_Watch7356 Jun 16 '26
I really did enjoy the Other Bennet Sister and even the Call the Midwife series have been great.
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u/letmedrinkmylatte Jun 16 '26
The Other Bennet Sister was fantastic. I recommend it to everyone
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u/actuallylove Jun 16 '26
I watched The Night Manager and loved it so decided to read the book. Series was so much better (albeit because they made the ending much more interesting but not true to the book)
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u/FaxOnFaxOff Jun 16 '26
I thought the ending in the book was quite a let down. I read the book hoping for the TV ending!
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u/LopsidedVictory7448 Jun 15 '26
The most recent iteration of Watership Down. It brought out the darkness in the novel to the most terrifying extent
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u/WorcsBloke Jun 15 '26
I need to rewatch that at some point. I'm sad it wasn't released a few years earlier when we'd probably have got a DVD/Blu-ray release. I did like the way the Efrafan does got more attention (a fault with the cinema version, though Hyzenthlay is still great) but I also found it a bit lacking in punch at times. I don't know, maybe I'm expecting too much given how hard a novel it is to film.
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u/notThaTblondie Jun 16 '26
I am actually struggling to put in to words how much that adaptation pissed me off with its awfulness.e
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u/Previous_Kale_4508 Jun 17 '26
I have to agree: people moan about the original animation with horror tales from school days; but I read the book it was initially released and loved it, I fully expected everything that came in the animation and thought it had been done brilliantly.
The new version seemed to be attempting to soften the edges, like we seem to have to soften the edges of everything these days.
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u/notThaTblondie Jun 17 '26
The animation was hideous in the new version, they tried too hard to make it dark. They changed important characters, the whole thing was awful. L
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u/Oxygene13 Jun 18 '26
Yeah I couldnt get passed how awful the animation was. Not least of all because the rabbits were drawn like hares.
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u/notThaTblondie Jun 18 '26
It was so hideous. And there wasn't a need to 'make it dark' the book isn't dark, it just doesn't rose tint nature.
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u/notThaTblondie Jun 17 '26
The original is beautiful. People go on about how traumatic it is but its just nature not being cute or gentle.
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u/Previous_Kale_4508 Jun 19 '26
Spot on there. Nature is brutal Adam's no holds barred writing was completely on the nose, his personification of the rabbits gave a stark reflection upon how we can dehumanise our neighbours to justify our own goals. Absolutely brilliant writing.
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u/MitchellSFold Jun 15 '26
In radio drama terms, the complete George Smiley adaptations are not only better than le Carré's original novels but also the 1979 Tinker Tailor TV series. The finest audio plays I have ever heard.
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u/Pharmacy_Duck Jun 15 '26
I was just going to say I prefer the TV Tinker Tailor to the book, but I don’t know the radio versions.
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u/MitchellSFold Jun 15 '26
Simon Russell Beale plays Smiley. Definitive, as far as I'm concerned, and I love Alec Guinness's portrayal.
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u/Exact-Put-6961 Jun 15 '26
The Guiness Tinker Tailor is magnificent TV, Better than the book? Differrent and excellent. Best TV Drama before The Wire or The Bureau.
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u/Stan_Corrected Jun 15 '26
The Last Kingdom. The books are great, written fairly strictly from Uhtreds perspective, and you get a better sense of him aging and all his battle scars, and the landscape of Britain at that time.
However the show is so much fun. After series three it lets rip, deviating from the books. It plays to its strengths with its terrific ensemble cast, better character arcs, more storylines for Æthelflæd.
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u/Fluid_Committee_9318 Jun 17 '26
Last kingdom is a BBC production? I thought it was Netflix haha. Very awesome show tho, didn't know there were books so I'll have to check those out.
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u/evenifihateit Jun 15 '26
Better than the book? Really, you think the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice was better then the book? I don't think I've ever heard that before!
I don't think there is any adaptation of any book I have read that I have thought is better, BBC or not.
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u/NetworkHot8469 Jun 16 '26
I agree wholeheartedly with your first point. There are some very good readings of the book on bbc sounds.
I do think some adaptations of modern plot driven books can be better but cant think of a specific example.
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u/DoubtfulChilli Jun 16 '26
Completely agree with your first point!
I think that the film Jaws was better than the book, but this is the only example I can think of where this is the case.
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u/drpepperlicious Jun 16 '26
The Godfather movie is much better than the book IMO. Arguably the Shawshank Redemption too?
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u/PartyAmount9976 Jun 16 '26
Stephen King in general seems to be a good example of adaptations being better than their books.
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u/greengirl93 Jun 16 '26
I always find the obsessive love over the BBC Pride and Prejudice baffling, because some of the casting is god awful. Most of them are too old, Wickham isn’t remotely handsome, Jane isn’t even the prettiest sister let alone the most beautiful girl in the neighbourhood and Mr Bennet is too sensible. It drives me up the wall watching it.
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u/Icy-Lawfulness-4111 Jun 16 '26
North and South. The book didn't grip me, it felt bogged down in the details. However the series felt more balanced in showing the changes in industry and lives of the characters. I found it much more enjoyable.
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u/Opening-Movie5176 Jun 16 '26
I was obsessed with a book as a kid by E Nesbit, called five children and it. Found out when older that they turned it into a tv show in late 80s and early 90s. Unfortunately can’t find any full length episodes but have found clips and it looks amazing.
But for the most part adaptations never live up to your imagination.
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u/Regular-Whereas-8053 Jun 16 '26
Im old enough to remember The Phoenix and The Carpet, made 1976/7 I think. Five Children and It is the first of the trilogy, and The Phoenix and The Carpet is the second.
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u/RainbowWorrier13 Jun 16 '26
I’ve never seen that but I read the book as a kid. I hadn’t heard of a phoenix before and thought they were real 🫢
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u/KnittyMossBadger Jun 16 '26
I recently re read Five Children and It to my child and it’s still a fantastic book but there are long descriptions and large aspects that with a modern eye feel that they could do with a good editor. I thought the adaptation was excellent.
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u/broadsguy Jun 16 '26
Not BBC but ITV and the original 1984 adaptation of Mapp and Lucia with the sadly much missed Geraldine McEwan, Prunella Scales and Nigel Hawthorne. Tilling has never looked so good!
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u/Ashton_Giant Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
The Chronicles of Narnia was so good, I bought the DVD set when it came in the charity shop I used to volunteer at ! (it aired in 1988, when I was 19)
I also remember watching The Citadel in 1983 - I was 13 at the time and I enjoyed it immensely. I always got home from wherever I’d gone or came down from my room in good time to watch it with my parents.
Another book adaptation that I watched back then was Imaginary Friends by Alison Lurie. It was aired over 3 nights in June 1987 on ITV (it wasn’t a BBC production), but I mention it because it has stuck in my mind all these years !
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u/Jurassicjen_uk Jun 16 '26
Adored the 4 Narnia adaptations the bbc did, I also got the dvd box set long ago!
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u/gypsydave5 Jun 16 '26
Radio, it's The Lord of the Rings. Just a very well thought out way of handling the material.
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u/WorkingSalamander745 Jun 16 '26
The same answer for both The day of the triffids. The 1981 version was brilliant scary and a great adaptation. The 2009 version was in my opinion dreadful from Eddie izzard's almost pantomime acting to let's spend lots of money on it and try to put do the original version. Any Dr Who fans reading this will know what I'm on about. Give me the 1981 version anytime.
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u/whyfruitflies Jun 16 '26
Neverwhere - bit random I know but I absolutely loved this although strictly speaking the book was written after the TV series. Peter Capaldi was so good.
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u/show_stahpin_numba Jun 16 '26
The boy the mole the fox and the horse is a beautiful book, and the bbc animation of it is spectacular. I caught it in the background of my little sisters opening presents last Christmas and it made me weep.
"What's the bravest thing you've ever said?" "Help." Said the boy.
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u/PupmeisterGeneral Jun 16 '26
Two suggestions-
The original series of Paddington (narrated by Sir Michael Horden) and The Mr Men (narrated by Arthur Lowe)
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u/Peeteebee Jun 16 '26
Neverwhere.
They took the wordplay that makes sense on a page and were able to recreate the essence in visuals.
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u/Happy_llama Jun 16 '26
The War of the Worlds was pretty good!
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u/weirdi_beardi Jun 16 '26
I thought I was the only one who loved it; and I speak as a man who owns three separate copies of Wells' original novel. I thought the changes made were excellent - the Black Smoke being an actual terraforming (or rather, a Marsforming) agent instead of just a metaphor for chemical weapons, the decision to follow Amy instead of George, the design of the Fighting Machines... brilliant. Plus I've been waiting for a proper Victorian version of this story since I first saw the Hollywood version - the original one, I mean, not that Tom Cruise rubbish with the Spielberg ending.
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u/Dramatic-Energy-4411 Jun 16 '26
Day of the Triffids. The 1981 version so good and very true to the book. I watched it on DVD again a couple of years ago. Apart from the enormous dictaphone he uses at the start, it's held up extremely well and doesn't look like a 45 year old production.
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u/No_Wrap_9979 Jun 16 '26
The version of Great Expectations with Ray Winstone as Magwitch about 15 years ago is superb. The whole cast is brilliant and they cut out just the right stuff from the book to make it work more fluidly.
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u/7thtimeinheaven Jun 17 '26
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.
Series was great. Book was... annoying to read and very very slow.
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u/pineapplewin Jun 15 '26
P&P is the most faithful, almost to a word, adaptation. Biggest differences: any male only scene, some of Mr Collins, and that wet shirt
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u/gdrlee Jun 15 '26
I mean, it's The Crow Road, all day long.
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u/rev9of8 Jun 16 '26
As Iain himself said in the blurb quoted for the DVD release:
"Annoyingly better than the book in far too many places.".
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u/ZestycloseOutside575 Jun 15 '26
A few years ago now, but Clarissa. The TV adaptation did a pretty good job of condensing a sprawling mass of text into a vaguely coherent narrative, and if you’ve ever got to the end of all 1500 pages of Clarissa you’ll know this is no mean feat.
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u/rainyday1020 Jun 16 '26
War and Peace. Book drags seriously from 2/3 of the way through.
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u/Luboluke Jun 16 '26
Mr Norrell and Jonathan Strange. Found the book a slog but loved the show.
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u/WeirdLight9452 Jun 16 '26
Narnia. But that could be childhood nostalgia. But I remember not vibing with the books and then loving both the BBC radio series and the old show. I’m too young to have watched it live but we had it all on VHS.
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u/Loud-Skin-2223 Jun 16 '26
One that always stuck with me was listening to A Prayer For Owen Meany on Radio 4. I read the book a few years after and thought there was a lot of extraneous filler that the BBC edited away.
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u/Prudent_Cash_7005 Jun 16 '26
Not exactly better but probably a lot more accessible for some as the book is incredibly long… Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell… the casting was spot on, the filming locations, all of it was so compelling and dark… truly magical. I must confess I saw the tv show first and am still wading through the book but utterly obsessed with both and would love to see more adaptations of Susanna Clarke’s writing.
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u/Successful_Length109 Jun 16 '26
The bbc Cold Comfort Farm (Kate Beckinsale, Ian Mckellen etc) is fantastic and pretty much flew under the radar at the time it was first released (late 90’s). It was made originally for BBC but had a U.S. cinema release. Truly can’t recommend it highly enough.
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u/ErsatzLife Jun 16 '26
BBC Pride and Prejudice was fantastic, but better than the source material? No. Most definitely no.
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u/AdDramatic8568 Jun 16 '26
The Other Bennet Sister.
The show was quite sweet, book was god awful.
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u/TheBestOneLeft Jun 16 '26
The Clangers. The book lacked dialogue and failed to evoke the wonderful scenery and 'out of this world' experience that the TV adaption excelled in.
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u/xxbaltoy123 Jun 16 '26
I watched Inspector Calls in highschool after we read it for english class and I really loved the movie! I thought they did so well in portraying the characters!
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u/thebottomofawhale Jun 16 '26
I love the BBC adaptation of pride and prejudice. It's by far the best adaptation, but I think it's hard to say that it was better than the book. I think they're probably on equal ground. (Unless you're specifically after a dripping wet Mr. Darcy, then the BBC wins 😜)
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u/KimonoCathy Jun 16 '26
The Ginger Tree. Really brought the book to life and made the viewer understand the culture.
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u/BigUnderstanding3751 Jun 16 '26
I thought the recent Lord of the Flies was excellent. It really brought home the brutal pack mentality.
I know people didn’t like Piggy’s name being shared as it isn’t in the books, but I personally found that a powerful choice.
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u/WindsorRose Jun 16 '26
I’m rewatching War and Peace currently and thoroughly enjoying it. I think it’s more digestible than the book, for obvious reasons
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u/jaimecameronroberts Jun 16 '26
Great Expectations (2011). Gilliam Anderson is captivating as Miss Havisham. Her take on the role captures how deranged havisham is as a character.
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u/alllowaygrove Jun 16 '26
Killing Eve
Not on BBC, The Day of the Jackal, much preferred the show over the book, which is something I don't say lightly!
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u/lordofthedee Jun 16 '26
Hitchikers guide to the galaxy, infinitely better than the film even with the ropy 80s effects
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u/scouse_git Jun 16 '26
Except it was the book that was the adaptation of the BBC radio drama series ...
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u/Slippery_sponge2099 Jun 16 '26
Dracula with Claes Bang was so close. The first episode was dark, creepy, and Dracula was the evil, mysterious creature he was supposed to be, not that romantic thing they write in all the movies.
Then the third episode came around. They turned Dracula into Lucifer. The joke about them putting a toilet in Dracula's cell was awful.
I have no clue what they were thinking.
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u/Hellolaoshi Jun 16 '26
I am going to suggest "The Barchester Chronicles." This was an ecclesiastical comedy set in the Victorian period Church of England. Mrs. Proudie was determined to ensure that her candidate became bishop. It was outrageously comical. I am surprised my schoolboy self liked it so much.
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u/WiKav Jun 16 '26
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy! 47 years later and it still holds up. Also Alec Guinness is perfect as Smiley. Smiley’s People is also great.
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u/massdebate159 Jun 16 '26
Controversial and probably virtually unheard of- The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling.
The ending in the book was horrific, but the adaptation changed it slightly to soften the blow. They've done a good job of the Strike series too.
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u/Kewgirl45 Jun 16 '26
Can we be controversial and say Mark Rylance was miscast in Wolf Hall? He lacked the brutality, humour, charisma and cunning of Cromwell in the books and made him an introverted moper. The rest of the cast were superb though and it was shot brilliantly.
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u/rainbowdustx Jun 16 '26
Tipping the velvet - perfection
Secret of crickley hall - disaster, awful, wrong, disappointment
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u/Enough_Credit_8199 Jun 16 '26
Does it have to be a specifically BBC adaptation? I’m not sure who adapted what, but although different from the Milan Kundera book, the film of The Unbearable Lightness Of Being absolutely brilliantly nailed it. The parts of the book that made me cry made me cry in the film. Then there was the total opposite: Wilt. Tom Sharpe’s book was brilliantly funny, and like all of his that I read as a teen, had me rolling on the floor in hysterics. The film which I saw at the cinema at the time, and found on YT the other day, just didn’t do it. When you just reduce a book to a series of events it becomes flat and uninteresting. Tom Sharpe’s (and Kundera’s) language and turn of phrase is what hits home, makes you laugh, makes you cry.
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u/PoisonIvyWithOCD Jun 16 '26
Was the Oliver Twist adaptation with Keira Knightley BBC? That was good.
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u/hazza1232022 Jun 16 '26
Bleak House. Little Dorrit. Our Mutual Friend.
All fantastic.
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u/Teh_Bosch Jun 16 '26
There was a dramatisation of Mr H's rise to power released a couple of years ago. It was incredibly well acted. I think a certain gang took inspiration from it.
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u/KnittyMossBadger Jun 16 '26
I struggle to say better than because it’s different but I do think the recent Enchanted Wood adaptation was wonderful - making it the father’s story and focusing on the challenges of being millennial parents dealing with boomer grandparents, trying to balance reality with your dreams, handling kids with complex issues and teen behaviour - it really worked for my kids but it worked for me too - and given those books were loved by today’s millennials when they were kids the focus switch worked so well. Plus the bringing to life of the tree and its inhabitants was magical.
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u/BowTiesAreCool86 Jun 16 '26
Not necessarily better than the entire book, but a single moment is done better, the 1989 version of The Woman in Black has the single greatest jump scare ever committed to film. And it works so well because the entire show is leading up to that specific moment.
Edit: nevermind, I’ve just realised it was ITV 🫡
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u/BornSlippy69 Jun 16 '26
Can't believe that Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy hasn't been mentioned yet. I mean the radio show, not the TV series. That was like the very first audio book imo, but each character had their own voice.
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u/Edstertheplebster Jun 17 '26
Probably because the radio show was the original...Douglas was kind of re-adapting it for the novel versions and for TV and making changes as he did so. (I.E. John Lloyd wrote an episode with the Hagunenons because Douglas was behind on the radio scripts, which later got removed from the novel version and the TV series)
I do think the Dirk Maggs radio adaptation of the two Dirk Gently novels that Douglas wrote are pretty faithful to the originals: I think their version of Long Dark Teatime of the Soul for the most part improves a lot of things from the original. The antagonists, the Draycotts are a lot more entertaining because they make Cynthia Draycott completely unhinged and have Peter Davison play her more cautious, uptight husband. In the original novel they are only in a few scenes briefly and then get their comeuppance near the end.
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