How Peter Jackson ruined The Hobbit

The films have lost sight of the depth and richness that made JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit work, says Robbie Collin 

By Robbie Collin

The Telegraph- 12 Dec 2014

In the early 1970s, Nicol Williamson, the great Scottish character actor, sat down with the founder of a record label that specialised in recordings of steam locomotives and planned a dramatisation of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

Williamson was a self-declared lover of Tolkien’s writing, and was also in discussions with director John Boorman, who wanted him to play Gandalf in his forthcoming film version of The Lord of the Rings. Boorman’s film eventually came to nothing, for various reasons, including United Artists’ horror at the sex scenes the director had inserted into the plot. But the recording went ahead with Tolkien’s blessing, and was released by Argo Records in 1974, in a four-LP set.

The whole thing runs to just under three-and-a-half hours. The words are all Tolkien’s, but were significantly edited down by Harley Usill, Argo’s owner, and then trimmed again by Williamson. Yet it retains everything that’s wonderful about The Hobbit: it’s witty, warm and wholly accessible, but also keenly attuned to the depth and richness of Tolkien’s original work.

More