Live from Connecticut this week, for the ‘Not My Job’ segment of the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, the guest is author James Patterson. His conversation with host Peter Sagal deals with his long, wide-ranging career, and is not just interesting but often very funny, especially when dealing with writer feuds.
This is the full Wait, Wait… broadcast, but you can jump directly to the “Not My Job” segment, it starts around the 18:00 mark.
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Every year around this time, there are articles about which recorded version of A Christmas Carol is "the best." Usually it comes down to the films that starred either Alistair Sim or Reginald Owen. But for me, it's this one. It's not a movie, though, or a TV production. It's, of all things, an audio version that was done in 1960 for, I believe, the BBC. It's quite wonderful and as good an adaptation of the story as I've come across. It stars Sir Ralph Richardson as Scrooge, and Oscar-winner Paul Scofield as Dickens, the narrator. Casts don't get much better than that. And it's about as fine a way to head into Christmas Eve for the Holiday Music Fest. I first heard this on radio station WFMT in Chicago which has been playing this every Christmas Eve for many decades. Eventually, I found it on audio tape. I've listened to it annually since I was a kidling. Some years I think I won't listen to it this year, but put it on for a few minutes for tradition's sake -- but after the first sentence it sucks me in. There are four reasons why, for me, this is far and away the best version. But one reason leaps out. First, the acting is as good as it gets. Scofield is crisp and emphatic as the narrator, and almost every creak of his voice draws you in to the world, and Richardson as Scrooge is a Christmas pudding joy. Second, being radio, you aren't limited by budgets to create the Dickensian world. Your imagination fills in every lush and poverty-stricken, nook and cranny -- and ghostly spirit, aided by moody sound effects and violins. Third, the adaptation sticks closely to the Dickens tale, and Scrooge comes across more a realistic, rounded-person than as a Mythic Icon. And fourth, and most of all by far, unlike any of the other version, this includes...Dickens. While the story of A Christmas Carol is beloved, it's Dickens' writing that makes it even more vibrant than the story alone is. And that's all lost in the movie versions, even down even to the legendary opening line, "Marley was dead, to begin with." Or any of the other classic narrative lines. (Like my favorite, when Scrooge first comes in contact with a ghost and was "as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.") Or the richness of Dickens setting the mood and tone and description of the gritty and ephemeral and emotional world. All that's gone in movies, good as the productions may be. But all of that is here in this radio adaptation, and Scofield's reading of it is joyously wonderful and memorable. For many, this will be A Christmas Carol unlike any other you're aware of, giving it a meaning and richness you didn't realize was there. The ending of the tale is so much more moving and joyful here, as we listen to Dickens' own words, that begin with "Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more," and it soars from there, to perhaps my favorite extended passage about the new Scrooge and how good he is in the "good old world. Or any other good old world." If you have the time or inclination, do give it a listen. If only for five minutes to at least get the flavor. You might find yourself sticking around. Let it play in the background, if you have other things to do. It runs about 55 minutes. (Side note: speaking of Dickens, if you know the original cast album of Oliver!, the actor here who plays the Ghost of Christmas Present, Willoughby Goddard, was Mr. Bumble on Broadway and also in the original London production.) Normally I would post this later in the evening -- but given the various time zones across the country, I thought that I'd get it embedded earlier to give as many listeners as possible the chance to hear it on Christmas Eve. This might not play immediately, since it's a large file and may have to buffer first. But be patient, it's worth it. Ralph Richardson, left. Paul Scofield, right.
This episode of the show is a two-fer, though oddly it’s the guest who’s not the Mystery Guest who caught my eye. And that’s Erle Stanley Gardner. While he’s not officially the Mystery Guest, the panelists are blindfolded in small part because they might recognize him, but more I’m sure because they’d recognize his name as the author of the Perry Mason novels. Oddly, though, that's not noted, and he’s only identified on screen as “Mystery Writer.” He’s a fun guest for his outgoing brusqueness – and also for playing the game really well, giving hesitating unsure responses when the answers are obvious. And he gives one of the funniest replies at the 9:40 mark, even getting a hug for it from host John Daly. Interestingly, this seems to take place not only before the Perry Mason TV series premiered, but just days before (which is likely why he’s a guest), since he has to very quickly rush mentioning the show as Daly bids him goodbye, adding “or we’re both going to get fired!” Also worth noting that Jim Backus is one of the panelists. If you want to jump to it, it begins at the 2:45 mark. The official Mystery Guest is George Sanders, who comes along at the 20-minute mark. Though he does an acceptable job with a disguised Russian voice at the beginning, eventually that slides away, however he has an answer to one question that, while surprisingly correct, is unexpected. (For the record, this is George Sanders below.) I posted this eight years ago, but sometimes when things get so insane, it's good to step back and let the warm, endearing, loopy world of James Thurber wash over. And after deciding to post this, it whimsically occurred to be that the whole story is about screwing up the storage of papers... A while before initially writing it, I had mentioned a story here about seeing John Goodman at the start of his career in a small role in the pre-Broadway world premiere of Big River, based on Huckleberry Finn. He played 'Pap Fin,' and the musical, which began at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, eventually made it to Broadway, where it won the Tony Award as Best Musical, with a score by country music songwriter Roger Miller, who won a Tony, as well. What I also mentioned at the time is that during the show's Broadway run, Roger Miller himself briefly replaced John Goodman for a month in the role. Wonderful as this tale is and much as I'd love to have seen Roger Miller in the role, that's not the point here, just the background. That because there’s actually one other story similar to that which I’d put above it. (That last sentence original read, "probably put above it. I've edited out the "probably." I'd dearly have loved to have seen Roger Miller in his show. But...well, it's just too hard to top this -- ) Back around 1960, they did a wonderful review on Broadway called A Thurber Carnival, which were adaptations of a bunch of short stories by James Thurber. There’s a great cast album which is well-worth tracking down if you like Thurber. One of my favorite scenes on it is also one of my favorite Thurber stories, “File and Forget,” a first-person story about a hellish time that Thurber supposedly had trying to correct with his publisher about a delivery problem of one of his books. On stage, the role of 'James Thurber' was played by Tom Ewell. Into the run, it turned out that the real Thurber was a bit of a ham, and for a month the production had James Thurber himself play himself in that one scene! There was one particular challenge: Thurber was near-blind. Because of this, he couldn’t make the entrances and exits properly. What they did was build a sort of conveyor belt with a chair on it. Thurber simply sat in the chair and it would roll on and off the stage. Now, that I would have paid really-good cash money to see. For both of these stories, Thurber and Miller, it’s a shame that no one recorded them. And a shame that they both occurred in the days before cell phones, when someone in the audience would have taped it. Still, it’s fun to imagine both… It's not the same thing, but this is audio of "File and Forget" from the original Broadway cast album. I just finished reading, Unscripted, a new book by New York Times reporters James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams about the recent scandal and battle for control of the Paramount/CBS/Viacom empire centered on the Sumner Redstone family, but which spills over to the corporate boardroom, Les Moonves and the #MeToo movement. Non-fiction books about big business and Wall Street machinations are, for reasons I can’t quite explain, among my favorite reading. I’ve read two books by Pulitzer Prizer-winner James B. Stewart (DisneyWar about the Eisner/Katzenberg years, and Den of Thieves on the insider trading scandal in the 1980s involving Ivan Boesky, Michael Milliken and others), and Rachel Abrams was on the New York Times team that won the Pulitzer Prize for its #MeToo reporting. So, I was anxiously awaiting this one ever since I read about its pending publication months earlier. And it was worth the wait, really wonderful. A fascinating story, seriously impressive meticulous research, and as readable as a good novel. (It was also just optioned to be adapted for a limited series, which should give you some idea of how wide-ranging and involving the story is. And it’s a natural for that, as HBO's Succession showed. This, on the other hand, is real life and actually happened, stunning as at times it seems.) This is where the disclaimer comes in. I wasn’t anxious to read it for the corporate subject matter or being a fan of James B. Stewart. (Though I would have read the book for either of those reasons.) My being anxious to read it was Rachel Abrams, whose work I’ve admired, but far more to the point – I’ve been friends with her father Ian Abrams for decades, and we were even business partners in a “bulletin board service” (a precursor of chat rooms) for professional writers, called the PAGE BBS. (Among our other partners was the inveterate Chris Dunn.) So, in full disclosure, Ian and I were movie publicists together, and both survived to get into screenwriting. In fact, among his credits, Ian wrote the movie, Undercover Blues that starred Dennis Quaid and Kathleen Turner, and co-created the CBS series Early Edition that starred Kyle Chandler and Fisher Stevens as his sort of sidekick buddy, and was on the air for four seasons. So, I knew Rachel from when she was around 10 years old, although not well, a very nice, smart, quiet kid – and then the family moved to Philadelphia because Ian hated Hollywood and decided to teach at Drexel University, where he created their screenwriting program. Rachel eventually grew up, as such things happen, and got into journalism, where she later worked for the Hollywood Reporter, and took on the #MeToo beat, doggedly covering Harvey Weinstein and more. Her topnotch work caught the eye of the New York Times, which wisely hired her. And she’s become a powerhouse, fearless journalist. It’s no small thing that she partnered with the long-respected James B. Stewart. In fact, it is seriously impressive. After all, as he notes himself in the afterward, he had never worked with a co-author before in his long career. In fact, they hardly even knew on another at the Times, but were working on a similar story and overlapped. As he writes in the acknowledgements, “She was a dream collaborator: incredibly hard-working, resourceful, ethical, considerate and brimming with enthusiasm for every discovery. Working with her was both inspiring and fun.” Not shabby. And her words for Stewart were as glowing and moving, among them – his “reputation is belied by his grace and humility. Working with him has made me a better journalist, and I am very grateful to have had him as a partner.” So, yes, I’m biased. But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. In fact, I’m right. It was a New York Times bestseller, has 4.1 stars on Amazon, and among its reviews are – “Jaw-dropping...an epic tale of toxic wealth and greed populated by connivers and manipulators.” — The New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice “A deeply reported account... The story, whose contours would be familiar to fans of the HBO series Succession, stands as a real-life warning to other family dynasties led by powerful founders….a masterful job.” -- Financial Times “The book is a page-turner — an over-the-top tale of money, power, sex, and relentless scheming to wrest billions away from an old man who in his final years seems to have lost the capacity for just about anything except sex.” -- Fortune “A must-read... A bombshell new book from two Pulitzer winners reveals some truly shocking storylines within the real-life Succession drama that is the Paramount media empire... Abrams, a New York Times investigative reporter, and Stewart, a Times business columnist have written a jaw-dropping yarn.” -- Daily Beast There’s more, but we’ll leave it at that. I just wanted to make it clear that my praise wasn’t purely subjective. The book really is terrific. And if one is a fan of Succession, this is the real thing. (In fact, I suspect that as much as the series is inspired by the Murdochs and Trumps, the Redstone story has to have played a part in there, too.) Billionaire Sumner Redstone is a Shakesperean character, triumphant, towering, profoundly flawed, and ultimately a tragic figure. Then add in the turbulent family drama, boardroom maneuverings, sexual lavishness, lawsuits flying all over the place with tens of millions of dollars regularly thrown around like pocket change, and twists and turns every step of the way, notably a daughter thrown into the middle of it all against her best inclination. All that, and a quote from Nell Minow. (Hey, I said I was biased. But again, I’m not wrong – her warning is incredibly prescient.) It’s really well-written on top of everything, wonderfully readable for all the detail. If you’re interested, you can find it here. And as a bonus, here are James B. Stewart and Rachel Abrams being interviewed on the Today show. On this week’s ‘Not My Job’ segment of the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, the guest is literary fiction writer George Saunders, recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant and the Man Booker Prize. He has a fun conversation with host Peter Sagal about the odd jobs he did before getting into writing, including working in a slaughterhouse to get enough money to get to Chicago and later as a roofer in Chicago after arriving. And a funny tale about his first novel, a 700-page effort that was so terrible he saw his wife in agony by page six.
This the full Wait, Wait… broadcast, but you can jump directly to the “Not My Job” segment, it starts around the 18:30 mark. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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