Posted by PeterH on December 30, 2006 at 18:10:10 from 81.153.236.175 user Peter_H.
In Reply to: Re: Old Peter's Russian Tales on BBC Radio 4 posted by Jenny Berki on December 30, 2006 at 16:06:38:
I certainly would not have preferred a 'cod Russian' Old Peter - that would be even worse. He would probably sound like a joke spy from a 'Carry On' film or something. I would have thought that an actor with a Russian background could be found - someone who could give the script a discernible and genuine Russian inflexion.
But a more logical thing to do would have been to have the stories simply read by a narrator, and not dramatised. The narrator could speak in standard RP, or even in a 1930s middle-class accent which after all is what AR spoke. That would at least avoid any regional English distractions. As to who could have fitted this role - well, we don't have to look far. An accomplished actor with a good track-record of reading and recording Ransome? Not a difficult one, even for the BBC . . .