Customer Reviews

One Corpse Too Many: Brother Cadfael Enhanced Audiotrack

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I have always believed that the BBC made the finest adaptations for radio and television, and indeed the BROTHER CADFAEL series is no exception; Bert Coules (who most recently adapted Sherlock Holmes for BBC radio) and the fine actor Philip Madoc brought Cadfael to life in three adaptations which are well worth listening to if you can: MONKS HOOD, THE VIRGIN INN THE ICE and DEAD MAN'S RANSOM. However, Sir Derek Jacobi was an excellent Cadfael for television ... even if some of the teleplays didn't quite follow the plot of the original novels. Acorn Audio did something quite extraordinary when they turned the audio tracks of the four teleplays of the first Cadfael TV series into an audio series, adding a narrator to fill in the gaps and adding some slight commentary on the action which could not be seen on an audiotape; in doing so, they tightened up the narrative to keep the stories moving at a good clip so that the listener would not lose interest, and Stephen Flynn's narration is well-read and well-written. This story, ONE CORPSE TOO MANY, was the first of the TV Cadfael mysteries (despite the fact that the book it was based on was the SECOND in the series), and is a good way to introduce Brother Cadfael, played wonderfully by Derek Jacobi, and his soon-to-be comrade and best friend Hugh Beringar. I am sorry that Acorn Audio hasn't adapted the rest of the televised Cadfael stories into this format, and the only grievance I have is that the cast of characters is not read out at the end of each story (all we get to know is that Sir Derek Jacobi plays Brother Cadfael, when there are some fine actors in each of the stories). This is something entirely new, coming somewhere in between actual radio drama and books-on-tape, and I highly recommend it for anyone interested in the Brother Cadfael series. The listener will not lose anything by not seeing the action on a TV screen, and the acting you will HEAR combined with the narration will definitely provide an ejoyable listening experience.