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Post by goodhelenstar on Sept 26, 2019 20:07:23 GMT
Started a different thread as this is not the TV show but R4's adaptation which I'm greatly enjoying. It took a couple of episodes to get used to a different voice for Aunt Lydia, but Sarah Kestelman is very good. I'm not sure it's very fair of the BBC to serialise this at the moment, when the novel is shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the other contenders are not receiving the same treatment.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2019 20:24:30 GMT
The TestamentsRelease Date: 26 Sep 2019 Available for 29 days Margaret Atwood's powerful and long-awaited sequel to The Handmaid's Tale. In The Testaments, set fifteen years after the events of Atwood’s dystopian masterpiece, the testimonies of three women bring the story to a dramatic conclusion. Today, faced with her imminent marriage to one of the Gilead Commanders, Agnes takes drastic measures. And finds help from a very unlikely source... Writer: Margaret Atwood Reader: Katherine Press Abridger: Katrin Williams Producer: Justine Willett
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Post by linseed on Sept 27, 2019 6:43:00 GMT
I’m finding it very good. I heard the original Handmaid’s Tale as a R4 adaptation, and I prompted me to read the book.
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Post by goodhelenstar on Oct 9, 2019 10:58:08 GMT
The Testaments has now finished. There are omnibus editions on R4 Extra: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008pq6/episodes/player. Excellent, but I didn't much care for the ending which seemed a little melodramatic and out of character for Margaret Atwood. Still, it will give the producers of The Handmaid's Tale something to get their teeth into!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 9, 2019 13:07:59 GMT
It seemed an appropriate ending to me. The only problem I had was the voices didn't seem right, all the way through.
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Post by goodhelenstar on Oct 9, 2019 13:45:36 GMT
If you saw the TV series then Aunt Lydia would seem strange at first but I thought Sarah Kestelman did a great job. The two younger characters were sometimes difficult to tell apart, and as they had multiple aliases I did find it tricky to decide who was who. Katherine Press is British, but I couldn't detect that in her accent. I imagine it's clearer in the book, which I haven't read yet. Samantha Dakin is American and is a voiceover specialist.
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Post by marion on Jan 9, 2020 11:51:50 GMT
I actually got round to this and finished listening last night. But although I enjoyed it, I didn't really picture Aunt Lydia as the head of the Resistance. I mean it was a bit of a slow burn before she achieved anything wasn't it? Also, why bother bringing back Baby Nicole and not making a big press announcement? I think that was explained between Lydia and Commander Judd but the logic escaped me. So on the whole I am glad I listened rather than splashing out on the book.
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Post by goodhelenstar on Jan 9, 2020 16:01:55 GMT
There was quite a lot about how Lydia came to be an aunt – essentially kill or be killed. As I recall in the TV series she was a former teacher, a profession invented by the TV writers which made her less high-powered than being a judge. It's hard to reconcile her behaviour to the Handmaids with what we are to believe she really felt. We know she genuinely cared for her 'girls' but I had understood she was invested in Gilead and thought of herself as practising tough love to brainwash the girls into being good Handmaids. Instead it seems she saw through the system and was biding her time until she could do something about it, at a terrible price of course. I'll have to remind myself about the Baby Nichole bit!
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