Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (2006) by Simon Armitage, starring Sam West and Sir Ian McKellen

[@davelawday6609]

That was fantastic,my wife new the story but it was new to me... thank you...kind regards Dave 😁👍👍👍👍

[@rawrbeez6625]

Is this adapted from armitages translation or is it somehow complete at 45 mins?

[@MysticalMagpie-wo5fn]

This is a radio play specifically written by Simon Armitage, so I guess he must have based it on his own translation. Needless to say, when it's a drama rather than a reading it can indeed fit the whole story into 45 minutes.

[@rawrbeez6625]

@@MysticalMagpie-wo5fn not for a poem that is 2530 lines totaling about 20,000 words. It’s really good I did a whole listen but it’s definitely an adaptation. You have to think that when it was laid down it was originally supposed to be heard in a reading rather than read on a page. So it basically is a dramatic reading to begin with.

[@MysticalMagpie-wo5fn]

@@rawrbeez6625 Perhaps I should have said its 'narratively complete'. What you say is essentially true of most radio adaptations of anything - they have traditionally tended to lean into the original text in ways that TV and film don't always allow for, and which do indeed make them resemble dramatic readings. For example, radio easily retains the author's narration and often finds it very useful to do so, with the obvious positive that you also give the listener a feel of what the actual text was like (it strikes me, also, that while Dickens wrote for the page, he wasn't so far from the oral tradition either, as he obviously demonstrated with his public readings. Radio adaptations tend to retain his voice and it makes a huge difference to the feel of the drama). So while what you say is correct, it's something that is broadly true of all radio drama I think. Needless to say,. it isn't even the shortest adaptation of Gawain - there's a credible animated short from the same people who produced an excellent 25-minute Beowulf and a beautiful 25-minute Russian animated version of Hamlet (no substitute for the original text, of course).

[@paddymeboy]

@@rawrbeez6625 If it was intended to be heard rather than read, why write it down? The original poem is definitely a literary production, not oral tradition like Homer - it's too carefully constructed. What I want to know is why they keep saying Gah-wain. An unfortunately Armitage is just not very good. He doesn't seen to have ay feel for the story, or for poetry, at all - he turns it into a pantomime. There are other, better modern translations.

[@rawrbeez6625]

@@paddymeboy because it was composed 800 years ago when nearly everyone was illiterate? It was hundreds of years before the advent of the printing press? Thats how stories were told. Thats why the original has rhyme and meter. Armitages actual translation (not this radio adaptation) is meant to make the story more accessible to a modern audience. He intentional put his focus on the fidelity of the story rather than the verse, which is a fine way to go and honestly made for a very compelling read. Tolkiens is cool but it’s a bit ponderous. It was also like a labor of love for him. Worked on it for decades, with basically the same goals as Armitage, to make it accessible for a modern audience, but he did so decades earlier and never finished. So I think he may have edited down a little bit more had he survived to see it to publication but Armitage still has the best read out of all of them. Wish the full audio was performed somewhere.