
The Man Born to Be King
A BBC Radio 4 Drama Collection
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About this listen
Dorothy L. Sayers' classic play cycle based on the life and times of Jesus
Dorothy L. Sayers was best known for her mystery novels featuring aristocratic amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey. But she was also a poet, playwright and committed Christian, and in The Man Born to Be King she combined art and evangelism to powerful effect, making the story of Christ accessible, relevant and every bit as thrilling as her detective fiction.
Written specially for the BBC Radio, the play cycle caused huge controversy for its depiction of Christ as a character, and its use of contemporary speech instead of Biblical language. However it proved extremely popular with listeners, who wrote in to thank Sayers for making Jesus real to them and reigniting their interest in his remarkable story.
Based on the four Gospels, it includes one story of the Nativity, six plays about Jesus' life and ministry, and five Passion Plays telling of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the Last Supper, Jesus' arrest and trial before Pontius Pilate, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. Backed up with a sweeping musical score, these immersive dramas surprise and shock us anew and provide fresh, illuminating insight into 'the greatest story ever told'.
The plays included are Kings in Judea, The King's Herald, A Certain Nobleman, The Heirs to the Kingdom, The Bread of Heaven, The Feast of Tabernacles, The Light and The Life, Royal Progress, The King's Supper, The Princes of This World, King of Sorrows and The King Comes to His Own.
Cast and credits
Written by Dorothy L Sayers
Adapted by/Producer: Raymond Raikes
The Evangelist (John Bar-Zebedee): Gabriel Woolf
Jesus: John Westbrook
Joseph/ Jacob Ben-Issachar: Norman Shelley
Simon Bar-Jonah (Simon Peter): Stephen Jack
Judas Iscariot: Alan Wheatley
Matthew: Nigel Stock
Herod The Great: Robert Eddison
Nicodemus: John Wyse
Ephraim: Denys Blakelock
Shadrach: Malcolm Hayes
Rabbit Solomon: John Gabriel
Phoebe: Caroline Monkhouse
Flavius: Trader Faulkner
Calpurnia: Penelope Lee
Mary Virgin: June Tobin
Mary Magdalen: Mary Wimbush
Martha: Marjorie Westbury
Lazarus: Richard Hurndall
Benjamin Ben-Hadad: Ralph Truman
Joseph, kinsman to Jesus: Haydn Jones
Simeon, kinsman to Jesus: Wilfrid Carter
Baruch the Zealot: Francis de Wolff
Baruch’s Wife: Vivienne Chatterton
Gestas: John Laurie
Dysmas: Russell Napier
Simon of Cyrene: Rodney Dias
Proclus, a Roman Centurion: Trevor Martin
Roman soldier: Bruce Beeby
Roman soldier: Harvey Hall
Joseph of Arimathea: Howieson Culff
Calaphas, High Priest of Israel: Heron Carvic
Salome, mother to James and John: Henzie Raeburn
Mary Cleophas: Molly Rankin
Balthazar, King of Ethiopia: Paul Danqdah
Melchior/ A Zealot: Michael Kilgarriff
Casper: James Dale
Claudia Procula, wife to Pilate: Mary Law
Pontius Pilate, Governor of Judaea: Alec Clunes
Philip: Rolf Lefebvre
Thomas Didymus/ Father: Philip Leaver
Mother: Wynne Clark
Miriam, child: Elizabeth Proud
Isaac, child/a slave boy: Daniel Rose
Hannah: Hester Paton-Brown
James Bar-Zebedee: John Glen
Andrew Bar-Jonah: John Boxer
Hezekiah, secretary/ Roman Soldier: John Baker
Annas, father-in-law to Caiaphas: Edward Atienza
Pontius Pilate, Governor of Judaea: Alec Clunes
Claudia Procula: Mary Law
Captain Elihu: Keith Alexander
Eunice, a Syro-Phoenician: Elizabeth Morgan
Cleophas: Harry Hutchinson
Portress at the High Priest’s House: Miriam Margolyes
Zillah, her daughter: Jo Manning-Wilson
Issacher, servant: Hugh Dickson
Susannah, mother to the Bride groom: Betty Baskcomb
Rebecca, friend to Susannah: Gladys Spencer/ Janet Burnell
Other cast: Ian Frost, Janette Richer, Nan Marriott-Watson, Janette Richer, Peter Marinker, Raf de la Torre, James Thomason, John Forrest, Michael Goldie
First broadcast BBC Home Service 19th, 26th Jan, 2nd, 9th , 16th, 23rd Feb, 2nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd, 28th, 30th March 1975
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- By wotsallthisthen on 04-07-24
By: George Orwell, and others
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The Art of War
- By: Sun Tzu
- Narrated by: Aidan Gillen
- Length: 1 hr and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.
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The actual book The Art of War, not a commentary
- By Nemo71 on 12-31-19
By: Sun Tzu
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The Answer Is No
- A Short Story
- By: Fredrik Backman, Elizabeth DeNoma - translator
- Narrated by: Stacy Gonzalez
- Length: 1 hr and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.
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Narrator doesn’t get Backman’s satire or rhythm
- By joey1603 on 12-01-24
By: Fredrik Backman, and others
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Say No More
- By: Caroline Overington
- Narrated by: Anna Skellern
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Original Recording
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Who is Audrey Hoedemaker? It's a question her sister Maureen has heard more times than she can count, and she doesn't know what the short answer would be. Little sister, troubled teen, backpacker, musical theatre coach, con artist, childcare worker. Murderer. A tragic, traumatic childhood casts a long shadow on the Hoedemaker sisters. Maureen has worked hard to move beyond the violence of the past and build a good, honest life for herself. Audrey, however, just can't seem to do the same, careening from one state of chaos to another.
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Seriously, that was the ending?
- By alicia in athens on 02-13-25
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He Who Fights with Monsters 2
- A LitRPG Adventure (He Who Fights with Monsters, Book 2)
- By: Shirtaloon, Travis Deverell
- Narrated by: Heath Miller
- Length: 22 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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But Jason Asano is settling into his new life. Now, a contest draws young elites to the city of Greenstone to compete for a grand prize. Jason must gather a band of companions if he is to stand a chance against the best the world has to offer. While the young adventurers are caught up in competition, the city leaders deal with revelations of betrayal as a vast and terrible enemy is revealed. Although Jason seems uninvolved, he has unknowingly crossed the enemy’s path before.
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Contrary to common reviews
- By Karen on 05-21-21
By: Shirtaloon, and others
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Fahrenheit 451
- By: Ray Bradbury
- Narrated by: Tim Robbins
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family."
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Wish I Hadn't Cliff Noted This in High School
- By Joel on 03-27-17
By: Ray Bradbury
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Starship Troopers
- By: Robert A. Heinlein
- Narrated by: R.C. Bray
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Johnnie Rico never really intended to join up—and definitely not the infantry. But now that he’s in the thick of it, trying to get through combat training harder than anything he could have imagined, he knows everyone in his unit is one bad move away from buying the farm in the interstellar war the Terran Federation is waging against the Arachnids. Because everyone in the Mobile Infantry fights. And if the training doesn’t kill you, the Bugs are more than ready to finish the job.
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The definitive version!
- By Kristopher G. Hesson on 10-03-24
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Brain Damage
- By: Freida McFadden
- Narrated by: Megan Tusing
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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As Charly struggles to recover from her brain injury, she begins to realize that the events of that fateful night are trapped in the damaged right side of her brain. Now, she must put the jigsaw pieces together to discover the identity of the man who tried to kill her...before he finishes the job he started.
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Who Else Laughed, Cried, and Shuddered?
- By Jennifer Chichester on 09-16-22
By: Freida McFadden
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The House on the Water
- A Novella
- By: Margot Hunt
- Narrated by: Taylor Schilling
- Length: 2 hrs and 47 mins
- Original Recording
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Every year, Caroline Reed takes a trip with her best friend, Esme Lamont. They’re usually accompanied by their spouses - but this year, everything’s changed. Esme has just gone through a bitter divorce, and Caroline's wondering if her own marriage is reaching its breaking point as she and her husband, John, cope with the discovery that their son has been abusing drugs. Still, the inseparable duo books a weeklong stay at a beach-front home in Shoreham, Florida, inviting Esme’s brother, Nick, and his new husband. After a blissful first night in the vacation home, tragedy strikes.
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Wonderful Story
- By David M. Wilcox on 12-04-20
By: Margot Hunt
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Punk 57
- By: Penelope Douglas
- Narrated by: Laurie Catherine Winkel, Matthew Holland
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In fifth grade my teacher set us up with pen pals from a different school. Thinking I was a girl, with a name like Misha, the other teacher paired me up with her student Ryen. My teacher, believing Ryen was a boy like me, agreed. It didn't take long for us to figure out the mistake. And in no time at all, we were arguing about everything. The best take-out pizza. Android vs. iPhone. Whether or not Eminem is the greatest rapper ever. For the next seven years, it was us. She's the only one who keeps me on track, talks me down, and accepts everything I am.
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Way better than expected
- By Abigail French on 09-13-17
By: Penelope Douglas
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Only one negative thing to warn you about...
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The First Collection of Twelve Stories is a captivating collection featuring the brilliant detective Lord Peter Wimsey in a series of thrilling, often witty mysteries. This illustrated volume includes such unforgettable tales as The Fantastic Horror of the Cat in the Bag, where Wimsey faces a bizarre crime involving a mysterious cat, and The Unprincipled Affair of the Practical Joker, which pits the detective against a cunning adversary with a penchant for dark humor.
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The Best Crime Stories Ever Told
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Lot of duds, some gems
- By Regina on 11-09-13
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Lord Peter Wimsey: BBC Radio Drama Collection Volume 2
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Fantastic Story & Voice Actors - Horrifying Music
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Whose Body? first introduced Lord Peter to the world and begins with a corpse in the bath of a London flat. Clouds of Witness finds Wimsey investigating murder close to home, and in Unnatural Death he investigates the suspicious demise of an elderly woman. First broadcast on BBC radio in the 1970s and presented here in their entirety, these full-cast adaptations are admired by fans of the genre worldwide.
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Lord Peter brought to life
- By Amazon Customer on 11-14-17
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Lord Peter Wimsey: BBC Radio Drama Collection, Volume 3
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Only one negative thing to warn you about...
- By Mountain K9iner on 01-13-19
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When acclaimed mystery writer Dorothy L. Sayers first began compiling anthologies of the best crime stories in the 1920s and ’30s, the genre was in the flush of its first golden age. While it is hard to imagine today - after every possible mystery plot has been told, retold, subverted, and played straight again by hundreds of writers over nearly a century - in Sayers’s day there were still twists that had never been seen, and machinations of crime that would shock even jaded Jazz Age fans.
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Lot of duds, some gems
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A short story from the British Library Crime Classic collection Final Acts. Detective novelist Dorothy L. Sayers presents a look at morality and motive as playwright John Scales grows angrier and more resentful towards the actor who reinvented his script, and must decide how far he will allow his hatred to take him.
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Thank You British Library Crime Classics
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The first three mysteries for Dorothy L. Sayers' aristocratic sleuth: first, a body is discovered in a Battersea bathroom, wearing nothing but a pair of pince-nez, on the same night that financier Sir Reuben Levy disappears from his Park Lane home. Then, Wimsey returns to England when his brother, the Duke of Denver, is accused of murdering the fiance of their sister, Lady Mary, and a trial in the House of Lords looms; and finally, an overheard conversation in a restaurant begins an investigation of the strangely premature death of wealthy and terminally ill old lady Miss Agatha Dawson.
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Love Lord Peter
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This audiobook includes unabridged recordings of the first four Lord Peter Wimsey detective novels, read by Audie-award winning narrator Jonathan Keeble. A must-listen for fans of Agatha Christie's Poirot and Margery Allingham's Campion Mysteries, Lord Peter Wimsey is the immortal amateur sleuth created by Dorothy L Sayers.
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Wonderful narrator. A treat to listen.
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With a dynamic spirit, these great English poets made a conscious return to nostalgia and spiritual depth. Each chose a different path, but they are united in a love of moods, impressions, scenes, stories, sights and sounds. In this collection of more than forty poems are some of the finest and most memorable works in the English language.
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Inspirational, beautiful and timeless
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The Lord Peter Wimsey and Detective Alan Grant Collection
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The Lord Peter Wimsey and Detective Alan Grant Collection is a collection of 11 detective novels and stories from Dorothy L. Sayers and Josephine Tey, read by award-winning narrators Karen Cass and Jonathan Keeble.
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Josephine Tey
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Captivating radio dramatisations of seven of Charles Dickens' most famous novels. Charles Dickens is one of the most renowned authors of all time, and this first digital volume of the dramatised canon of his work includes seven of his most popular novels.
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Love Dickens! Books/Chapters/Length below...
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When copywriter Victor Dean falls to his death on the stairs of Pym's Advertising Agency, everyone assumes it was an unfortunate accident. His replacement doesn't think so and begins asking a lot of questions. The new man is something of a mystery to his colleagues, and he certainly dresses well considering his meagre writer's salary.
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Abridging books is like amputation.
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BBC Classics: Ultimate Story Collection
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A treasure chest of timeless short stories by some of the world's greatest authors.
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These are not full cast audio dramas
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Superb cast and presentation!
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Full-cast dramatisations of six masterpieces from the founding fathers of dystopian fiction. Dark and disturbing, provocative and prescient, dystopian literature has long captured our imagination with its nightmarish visions of forbidding future worlds. Included here are six classic novels of time-travel, totalitarianism and terror, written by some of the masters of speculative fiction and adapted for radio with all-star casts.
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The BBC DRAMA NEVER FAILS
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George Bernard Shaw
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- By: George Bernard Shaw
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George Bernard Shaw - or Bernard Shaw, as he preferred to be known - was one of Ireland's foremost dramatists and thinkers. His plays range from contemporary satires to historical allegories, and are infused with ideas, insight, wit and wisdom. Included here are some of his best works, adapted for radio and brought together in reverse chronological order in one statement collection.
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King Magnus and Prime Minister Proteus
- By SS on 07-06-23
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Brother Cadfael
- A BBC Radio Collection of Three Full-Cast Dramatisations
- By: Ellis Peters
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- Original Recording
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A onetime Crusader turned Benedictine monk, Brother Cadfael is a most unusual detective. Living a quiet life as a monastery herbalist, he spends his days ministering to his brothers using the medical skills he acquired in the Holy Lands—but his worldly knowledge and wide experience of human nature are frequently called upon when there is a murder to solve....
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chopped up, but..
- By Cheryl Root on 12-31-21
By: Ellis Peters
What listeners say about The Man Born to Be King
Highly rated for:
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- Wesley M.
- 04-17-22
Outstanding!!
Excellently written, adheres well to the Gospels. Sayers showed great talent. Excellent performance, good actors and good production.
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- D. Rairigh
- 11-23-22
Follows the Gospel of John pretty well
Out of necessity, Dorothy Sayers takes creative liberties with the Gospel account, but on the whole she made a great effort to be faithful to the Biblical account. It's a worthwhile listen, putting the life of Jesus in somewhat more modern vernacular and helping to identify with the emotions of the real people of that time in history.
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- Gwen W. Young
- 11-13-24
A beautiful presentation of the Life of Jesus
Very moving! Great dialogue! A whole new approach for me about the life of Jesus.
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- bepster2
- 04-21-22
As it was meant to be
I've read this play cycle many times, but I've always wondered what it would be like to hear it performed as it was meant to be. Imagine my excitement when such a recording appeared on audible! I've never spent a credit on a book more willingly. This recording was made in 1975, which explains some of the special effects (I found the angels in the first play to be basically inaudible), but it holds up extremely well with Ms Sayers' writing behind it. I cried like a baby during the crucifixion. Excellent production all around.
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- Aaron Friar
- 04-23-22
What CS Lewis listened to during Holy Week!
been looking a long time for this classic performance. Fantastic! will listen to it again and again.
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- Meredith L. Burton
- 08-20-22
A Beautiful Dramatization of the Life of Jesus
I have always enjoyed the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, but I never knew that Dorothy Sayers wrote a cycle of plays based on the life of Jesus Christ. This riveting dramatization is accurate to Scripture. The language is modernized to be more accessible and, hopefully, to whet the appetites of listeners and inspire them to read the Biblical accounts of Jesus's life in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Sayers imbues her characters with humanity, exploring the fears, inadequacies and ultimate faith of the apostles. I love how Sayers provides interesting scenes and fleshes out seemingly minor characters like the Roman Centurion and Pontius Pilate's wife, Claudia. If you enjoy dramas like The Chosen or Biblical dramatizations of any kind, then this series of radio plays is not to be missed.
The voice acting is superb in this series of plays. I particularly enjoyed John Westbrook's portrayal of Jesus, for he captured Christ's humanity and His divinity simultaneously. Other great acting came from the man who portrayed Pilate, the man who portrayed Matthew, the man who portrayed the High Priest Caiaphas, and the woman who portrayed Mary Magdalene. All of the acting was superior, and I could not find a faulty performance in the large cast.
The Man Born to Be King is a marvelous listening experience. Thoroughly recommended! God bless you all.
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- Jill Brim
- 06-09-23
Some parts too loud, some parts too soft
Wonderful portrayal, wonderful translation from the Greek. Wish the background dynamics were not so overwhelming
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- Karen Sampson
- 01-15-22
Beautiful!
I have loved this book for years. But to read it as a book is a completely different experience than experiencing it as a radio drama which is what it was written to be. I’m so delighted that Audible was able to make this stunning performance available!
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- doug
- 04-09-24
Perfect for Lent
My children and I listened during the season of Lent 2024 and we loved it!
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- Adam Shields
- 02-23-23
I would like a bit less dynamic range
Summary: A series of twelve radio plays that ran on BBC radio from Dec 1941 until Oct 1942.
Any attempt to portray Jesus artistically has to make artistic and theological choices. Those choices will be debated, but at the same time, if the story of Jesus cannot be shared, then people cannot hear. On the other hand, the natural choices are to make Jesus more understandable to a culture. That is not inherently bad, but those choices to make Jesus understandable will reduce Jesus in ways that make him less of a challenge to the culture. And so there is a catch-22, where to be so concerned about misportraying Jesus means that we keep the story of Jesus hidden, but to not be concerned enough about misportraying Jesus means that we can distort who Jesus is and make him into someone he was not.
I know this point may be a bit controversial. Still, generally, the more culturally and socially dominant an artist is, the more likely the distortions will accommodate Jesus to culture, which will tend to draw Jesus to bless hierarchy and culture. While generally, those that are less culturally or socially dominant will tend to portray Jesus in a way that rebukes culture. This is not a hard and fast rule but a tendency. In reality, no one is whole dominant or oppressed. Sayers was a woman in a sexist society that was very interested in maintaining class structures. It was unknown to most during her life, but after her death, it was revealed that she had a child out of wedlock, who was raised as her nephew. So she also had an acquaintance with social shame. She also was part of a culture and country that was militarily powerful, where racial hierarchy was practiced, and which thought of itself as a powerful world-leading country. There are places where I think that Sayers had blind spots and distorted Jesus and places where I think she did a good job showing a facet of Jesus that people may have missed.
For context to know how I approached the radio dramas, I read every word of this annotated printed edition (I recieved a digital copy of the book from the publisher for review). And I listened to all the radio plays from a copy I purchased from Audible, originally recorded in 1975. The audio and this print edition are not exactly the, but the differences are fairly minor. One of the common annotation points is to note some of the changes from the earlier edition of the play to the original broadcast version, but it does not compare to later versions.
The annotation includes introductions to each play by the editor, the cast of the original 1940s radio play, and the original notes that Sayers wrote to the director and performers. When the plays were first published, Sayers wrote an introduction and a second introduction by the BBC producer. And the annotation itself has an introduction. By the time I had read all three introductions, I was bored with the introductions, and I was impatient to start the play.
Overall I think the plays are worth listening to and/or reading. The distance in culture is enough that annotations are helpful for added context, but most things are fairly clear. But the culture is different enough that, in some ways, it may be better to listen to or read these plays than something closer to our current culture like the TV series The Chosen. About halfway through reading/listening, I realized that the distance between today and the original broadcast is just a bit longer than the distance between the original broadcast and the end of the American Civil War. In one of the notes to the cast and director, Sayers uses the N-word. The annotation discusses it a bit, and this edition doesn't print out the word, but it does point out cultural biases within the plays.
I do not want to do a simple list of positives and negatives, but I think there are two main negatives to the presentation and one main positive that I want to note. The first area of concern is how Jesus is portrayed. Jesus is voiced by an actor that sounds like a standard BBC voice. Sayers says in her comments that she wants a variety of regional accents in the different disciples. Her point that it is easier to distinguish various clear accents or voices is true. And she also says that she wants it clear that the disciples and Jesus were not all upper-class aristocrats. I think that, like many children's bibles that have started using a variety of skin tones, Jesus tends to be lighter-skinned than others on the page. So Jesus here is made a bit "better" than the regional accents of many of the other disciples. Also, Jesus is mentioned as being blond several times in the text. Sayers knows that Jesus was not blond in reality, but she wanted to distinguish him (again, like her voice comments.) But in a society where white racial superiority exists, making Jesus blond doesn't simply make him identifiable to British people. Still, it makes him part of their caste in opposition to people of other ethnicities, races, and castes.
Jesus is portrayed as human in many cases. But there are places where I think the British objections to emotion were used to make Jesus less human. For example, there are no tears when Jesus comes to Mary and Martha after Lazurus' death. This is one of the few places where Sayers deviates from scripture. There are some other examples as well, but at the same time, so many more places, Jesus is portrayed well as a human.
This leads me to where what I liked most about the plays, the background motivations. This is most easily seen in the portrayal of Judas. Sayers' version of Judas is smart, self-assured, and a serious follower of God and Jesus. But in some ways, he thinks that he is more capable than Jesus. There are a few lines where Judas says (my paraphrase) if only Jesus had followed my directions, he would not be in this political mess. There is also good background that makes Caiphas, Pilate, and other characters make sense. For Peter, who cut the ear of one of the guards that were arresting Jesus, it was that guard that first confronts Peter in the courtyard where Peter denies Jesus.
With any artistic work, there are interpretative decisions that have to be made. And I obviously do not agree with all of the ones Sayers made here. But I think work like this should be taken seriously as a theological work, not just an artistic one.
I do want to make a comment about the actual audio. This is a recording from the 1970s and is pretty good. But I would like it to have been remastered to reduce some of the audio range. I tend to listen to audiobooks as I walk my dog. And I was constantly adjusting the volume up or down on this one because the volume range was too wide. There were places where the audio was not as clear as I would have liked, and reading really helped. There were other places where the emotion of the voices really mattered to my understanding, and I am not sure that the text, apart from the narration, would have given me the whole story.
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