Focus On The Family, an “American evangelical tax-exempt non-profit organization” has been creating audio dramas that I’ve been completely ignoring (probably unjustly) for years.
It looks like they’ve got some terrific source material and some solid acting expertize for their most recent project, an audio dramatization of The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. More details |HERE|.
It may be that The Screwtape Letters was written as a response to Letters From The Earth by Mark Twain – certainly the two books take the epistolary form and are set in a Bangsian Fantasy world. Twain’s take was skeptical athiesm, Lewis’s was was rational apologetic. Call and response?
In the June 6, 1962 issue of The Christian Century published C.S. Lewis’s answer to the question:
“What books did most to shape your vocational attitude and your philosophy of life?”
Here was C.S. Lewis’s list:
1. Phantastes, A Faerie Romance For Men And Women by George MacDonald |GUTENBERG|
2. The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton |GUTENBERG AUSTRALIA|
3. The Aeneid by Virgil |LibriVox AUDIOBOOK|
4. The Temple: Sacred Poems And Private Ejaculations by George Herbert
5. The Prelude; Or, Growth Of A Poet’s Mind by William Wordsworth
6. The Idea Of The Holy by Rudolf Otto
7. The Consolation Of Philosophy by Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius |GUTENBERG|
8. Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell |GUTENBERG (ABRIDGED VERSION)|
9. Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams |GUTENBERG AUSTRALIA|
10. Theism and Humanism by Arthur James Balfour
Given Lewis’ stuggle with both Christiainity and atheism is it not curious that The Bible doesn’t show up on that list? Probably not. It may have been #11.
[via the Audiobook DJ blog]
Posted by Jesse Willis
Wow, nice find on the video, Jesse, VERY nice looking studio, and what a voice! Look forward to hearing this project.
How is it that actor can get into a demon’s character so convincingly? Is it simply acting skill? Please, please tell me it’s acting skill.
Also, everyone please note: comments on this post are closed to everyone not named “Fred.”
I think anyone interested in good audio drama is being sadly closed-minded if they haven’t taken advantage of what Focus On The Family Radio Theatre did for the better part of a decade starting in the late 90s with their first presentation, “A Christmas Carol” (in which they obtained permission to use many elements of the 1951 movie script) and continuing with their wonderful biographical portraits of great figures like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, or classic literary works, or the fascinating “Luke Reports” dramatizing the story of how the third Gospel may have been assembled. Yes, Focus On The Family is a socially conservative organization, but they have always looked to assembling top-notch talent for their productions and do not present them in any kind of amateurish, stilted fashion, and promoting present day political agendas is not the purpose of the Radio Theatre productions. I think there should be room to give the additional work this organization has done a fair shake.
The reason that Lewis does not mention the Bible on his list is that those who were asked to contribute a list of 10 books that had most influenced them were instructed by The Christian Century not to list the Bible, as it was assumed that it would be on everyone’s list.