The Screwtape Letters: First Ever Full-cast Dramatization of the Diabolical Classic (Radio Theatre)

I imagine that if you're reading this review, you have not only read the original "The Screwtape Letters" by C. S. Lewis, but you are a fan of his writings and thought. Well, you are in for a ride if you purchase this audio drama.I was skeptical at first. How can a full-cast drama be contrived from mere letters? That is why I waited three full years before plunging into purchasing. I am not disappointed. For starters, understand that for the purposes of the drama; most of the written correspondence has been converted to a face-to-face discourse between Screwtape and Wormwood. Sometimes these meetings are private, and sometimes within view of the patient himself. Some of the letters are retained in letter form, complete with pen scratching paper sound effects, and Screwtape reading them aloud as he's writing them, and sometimes read aloud by Wormwood upon receiving the letter. But for the most part, the letters have been converted to actual conversation.The role of Screwtape is played by Andy Serkis, whom you'll likely remember as playing Gollum in "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" movies. Serkis, whose natural persona bears a sense of the diabolical and macabre all on it's on, brings with him a very animated verbal soliloquy. He sometimes overacts the part, in my opinion, but that is for you to decide. I had always imagined Screwtape a slightly more cerebral fiend than what Serkis' depicts him as. Serkis' Screwtape is a fellow who is extremely visceral and highly prone to emotional outbursts. Perhaps such outbursts are needed for audio only dramatization, since a more "intellectual" Screwtape does little to draw pictures in the listener's mind. If a more intellectual Screwtape is what you want, you might be better off with the John Ackland unabridged audiobook. I am not sure if Serkis' interest in playing Screwtape stemmed from Christianity, or from the desire to play malevolent characters. I am not even sure if Serkis is a Christian.As regards the time-frame the drama is set in, I am very glad that Focus didn't modernize the drama by making the patient a contemporary person subject to one of our contemporary wars. He remains, as in the book, a citizen of early twentieth century England, subject to being drafted into the second world war. And although readers of the book will notice that much of the book is quoted verbatim in the drama, a few liberties were taken. The principles remain intact.The medium is very good. It contains four compact disks and a DVD that contains behind the scenes videos, as well as a full feature of the audio drama, all four hours, in Dolby Surround Sound.The packaging is outstanding. Not like the pathetic cardboard sleeves that Focus on the Family's "Chronicles of Narnia" audio drama comes in. Instead of cardboard sleeves to scratch the surfaces of the disks, you will get an actual plastic case with center hub mounts for each individual disk. I would give the packanging twenty stars.So, four stars. Would have been five, except for Serkis' overacting in some parts.

This spiritual classic needs little introduction, unless one is unfamiliar with the excellent works of C.S. Lewis. Read just off the page, the book is brimming with deep wisdom and insight as to how the devils attack us at our weakest points. Each letters is packed to the gills with clues to our truest nature and the pitfalls we all face. An example? These linesfrom letter seven are haunting:"The attitude which you want to guard against is that in which temporal affairsare treated primarily as material for obedience. Once you have made the World anend, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very littledifference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing. Provided that meetings,pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades, matter more to him thanprayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours - and the more "religious" (onthose terms) the more securely ours. I could show you a pretty cageful downhere"This explains so much confusion in the world today-Add Andy Sirkis and Focus on the family and what you have is a tour de force presentation that the whole family can enjoy and be edified by. The sound is excellent as we have come to expect from focus on the family. The added dialogue is perfect, not overdone, but illustrative. It leaves C.S. Lewis' intentions fully in tact while adding another dimension of the experience with Uncle Screwtape.In surprise to a few of the negative reviews of this excellent production and particularly to C.S. Lewis' letters themselves, Midwest Guy said "took 1000 words to say what can be said in 10" If you think you can say in 10 words what C.S. Lewis said in 1000, you are either some kind of genius or you have no idea what C.S. Lewis is saying.This is an excellent production of the Screwtape Letters and more than worth the cost of admission.

The first time I tried to read The Screwtape Letters, I couldn't finish it. I was overwhelmed with anxiety. Lewis described a scenario so potentially real that it frightened me to the point of putting it down. Years later, that same anxiety is still in the back of my mind every time I return to it.For some listeners, myself included, the audio drama will remove some of that sense of anxiety associated with reading it. At first I had anticipated that the audio, with sound effects, would enhance that feeling of the hair on the back of your neck rising when you read it. However, I quickly found that the dramatization actually made the letters seem less real. The human voices and somewhat exaggerated effects, while amusing and engaging, removed an element of the unknown - the image of Screwtape as the beautiful, but wicked creature likely envisioned by many avid readers of Lewis.If you don't mind the creative tinkering, the drama is very entertaining. Instead of letter after letter, there is brilliant interaction between the characters of the story. The content of the letters seems preserved, but some are presented as dialog while Wormwood deals with his "patient", and a few presented as telephone calls between Screwtape and Wormwood. It's certainly a different way to get the story, and personally I enjoyed the new approach.The only real negative of this format that I found was that the drama moves through Screwtape's points so fast, that it's hard to let them really sink in. If you start to think about one, you quickly lose track of the storyline. One of the best things about the book is that you can really dive in to some points that Lewis is making through Screwtape, by pausing and reflecting on them. I suppose that one option would be to listen to the audio drama in a number of segments (such as one "letter" per day), especially since this mimics how the letters were originally published. But there's also something fresh and exciting about listening to the whole story this way.Overall, I highly recommend it.

Super.

While the effects are well done and they put a lot together to make this work, it doesn't fall in line with the original source material, nor the screenplay. It has the right words and Wormwood is quite good, but the humour is completely lost in the producer's attempt to make it dark and scary. So much effort is made to give this a horror jibe that the feel Lewis intended is completely lost. I actually prefer the screenplay to the novel, however this execution of it was not to my taste. I was aghast when I gave this as a gift with some hope they would laugh and learn ("advice not to take" as my father said to me when he gifted me a copy of the book) but instead they went on a horror show.

I certainly agree with what has been said so far about this excellent quality dramatisation, with some minor reservations.Some customers may be mislead by the way in which Amazon advertise this product, although the dedicated website setup by Focus on the Family does help clarify what you will actually get when you buy this "audio Drama". It is advertised by Amazon as a DVD, but in practice, it is a multimedia package comprising a DVD and four CD's. The CD's contain the full drama in full stereo, including some suitably spooky stereo illustrations to underline particularly diabolical utterances. The actual drama takes up three full CD's and two to three final scenes spill on to the fourth CD. The remainder of the fourth disc has 10 songs which are supposedly inspired by The Screwtape Letters and four of the songs are used as background music within the actual drama itself. The fourth CD is then concluded by CS Lewis's afterword to the Screwtape Letters written in the 1960's and an afterword from Focus on the family. Right at the very end, there is even a "Ghost scene".The DVD contains short films or trailers for the dramatised Screwtape Letters, with much of the material appearing on the dedicated website set up by Focus on the Family to promote this product. There is also a 5.1 surround sound mix of the audio drama, with the dialogue conforming to the standard cinema audio norms, i.e. most of the dialogue is heard in the centre of a virtual screen with music and effects swirling around you.Although this is dramatised, the text is faithful for the most part to Lewis's original writing, but in some cases, the examples Screwtape uses to amplify some of his points are left out, presumably to keep the drama fast moving. For example, when Screwtape teaches his nephew about attractive traits between men and women, there is a reference in the book to the fact that demons have taught women to dislike men's beards, the drama refers to the fact that the dark spirits have taught the humans to focus on secondary characteristics of attraction which are of no lasting benefit, but leaves out the reference to men's beards and also omits the fact that the preference of men for women who look like boys is partly in keeping with the age of jazz. Also, given that this production is presumably designed for Americans, certain English colloquialisms are translated for their convenience, hence Booby is translated as Idiot.Given that so much effort has been put into trying to maintain an authenticity to Lewis's original text, some of these omissions and translations seem a little strange and the songs associated with this production don't appear to have much relevance other than that some of them are used as backing music in the drama. I am slightly surprised that these songs weren't for example used as interludes in the DVD surround mix providing natural breaks or rest bites from the drama. I therefore can't help thinking that I would have preferred more of the original text if it meant that the fourth disc was better used rather than having these peculiar songs., the songs are not bad songs in their own right, but they don't really add to the drama in my view.To Conclude, this multimedia package appears to have been designed so that a large family can enjoy it individually or all together and it also seems to be designed to appeal to a visual audience who are not used to radio dramas. I don't personally set much store by their reference to cinema sound, so the CD's would be my preferred way of listening to this production and the DVD is perhaps more suitable for those who prefer cinema style presentation.

Absolutely brilliant and recommended to anyone.

I've always had an idea in my head about what Screwtape would sound like - very reserved and clipped. Andy Serkis does a great job here of putting a whole new spin on things as the under-secretary of a department in hell.The dramatisation brings out the themes and characters in a whole new way. It wasn't cheap, but worth the money and a great addition to my Lewis collection.