Nicol Williamson's audio of The Hobbit?

PattyJB

Rivendell
I was sad to see that the wonderful actor Nicol Williamson has died. In one of the articles about him in The Telegraph, I read the following:

"Another cherished project in his later years was narrating an audio version of J R R Tolkien's The Hobbit. '

Is anyone here familiar with this?
 
A local classical radio station (now defunct, alas) used to play it every year when I was a teenager.

I enjoyed it a lot, although his performance of Roac made my throat hurt. :D

I wonder if a recording of it is available anywhere?
 
It's an edited version of the original full length recording but it is wonderful.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/hobbit-tolkien-read-nicol-williamson/dp/0600560570

I used to listen to it a lot when i was growing up and still play it from time to time. Nicol is excellent.

I was very sorry to hear of his passing.
 
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I don't hold with folk ripping off recordings and putting them up on Youtube. I suppose I'm old-fashioned.

I have the 4-disk LP set (and a record-player to play 'em on). [:)] They're an abridged reading of the book. And a set of the tapes - they're even further abridged.
 
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... old, but still playable, though I haven't, for a long time. But I liked Nicol Williamson's reading of the book - I still hear his voice in my head at times when I read the book.
 
I listened to part of it on youtube (kinda like a person test drives a car, or like grocery stores give free tastes of their new products hoping you'll like them and buy them.) I liked it very much. So then I went to both English speaking Amazons to try to buy it, and it wasn't available. I don't remember--it may still have been available on cassette tape, but I don't have capability to play that defunct format. So, I finished listening on Youtube. I would have purchased it if it had been available. I'm much more lax in my determination to buy and not rip off if whatever I'm sampling is not available to purchase. You're not old fashioned. I think that's very reasonable, and I hope the company that owns the copyrights will re-release this when The Hobbit comes out.
 
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Amazon doesn't have it (at least, on CD) and I don't have (or want) a pay-pal account so I didn't check E-bay. Audio-download may be a possibility for someone like you who uses that, but I've found it to be problematic.

I hope you can find it, because it is very enjoyable, although it is abridged.

I think I'll watch Excalibur tonight, in his honor. [sorry]
 
They don't have records and I suspect, if they did, they'd be from a second hand dealer and no one involved in the project would gain anything from the sale.

They have a link for cassette tapes but the link leads to a Harry Potter project. I notified them that the link was bad and if it's fixed, it may lead to a cassette of The Hobbit.

at least one site I checked said, Out of Print.
 
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Sounds like I want to hear it! I loved Williamson's voice, so I'll see if I can make time to listen to at least some of it on Youtube soon.
 
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