Chamber of Secrets and the Most Famous Film You've (Probably) Never Heard Of!

(0:05 - 3:33) Hello and welcome to Mythmakers. Mythmakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding and in today's episode I am being joined by Andrew Head, our friend from Down Under, from Australia, who is a blind, creative and consumer of fantasy products. Is that fair to call you that, Andrew? Yes, yes. I mean, Andrew is my go-to on these matters and I was raring to talk to him about this new series which Audible is doing with the Harry Potter series, turning it into a full cast dramatisation. And as Andrew has so much experience, both as a writer and as a customer for fantasy, I thought he was the perfect person to talk to. So, Andrew, I believe that you have listened to the first two in this series, which is Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone or Magician's Stone for Americans and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Tell me, what do you find? Do you enjoy listening to these? Are they a good experience for you? Yes. I find it's quite different to how I've listened to it in the past, but I really like it. It's very immersive overall. You've got a narrator narrating the text and then whenever, for those who haven't listened to it yet, whenever a character speaks, it's an actor playing each of the parts, if you will. Yeah. And that narrator, just for those of you who haven't looked at it, it's a lady with a lovely voice called Jumbo Cush. So, it's very different from the two male narrators for the straightforward book versions, the Stephen Fry and the Jim Dale. So, going back to, let's talk mostly about the Chamber of Secrets. What did you feel about the overall production? The people chosen as the main characters, the soundscape, the sense of place? I think where it's different, obviously, is you get a sense of being in a room or left and right speakers and they're really making you feel immersed in this world, aren't they? Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's very immersive. Yeah, it's wonderful that it's like an audio movie in a sense, yeah. And it's like, yeah, when you hear them running, when they say, oh, you know, they ran towards the door, you hear them running or, you know, with the flying car, you know, when Ron says, put your foot down, Fred, you know, the car's idling and when he says put your foot down, you hear it sort of, you know, rev up and drive off. And it's just, yeah, really, really cool and immersive what they've done. I like a lot of the, obviously, I don't know who all the actors are, but I like that there's lots of actors playing the different parts. I really like... Freddie Treadway is Harry, just to, you know, and I'll fill you in on some of the others. You can tell me who you like. So you've got Max Lester as Ron Weasley. (3:33 - 3:52) Yep. Arabella Stanton as Hermione Granger. Don't you think she sounds exactly like Emma Watson? Oh, 100%. Yeah, 100%. It's, it's uncanny. And she's Hermione, I believe she is playing Hermione in the TV show adaptation as well. (3:52 - 4:20) Yeah. So she's cornered the market on Hermione Granger for this generation. You've got Daniel Mays as Dobby and Nina Wadia as Molly Weasley. A name that a lot of people will know is Simon Pegg as Arthur Weasley, because Simon Pegg has been in the Mission Impossible films. He's like a comedian that lots of people are being familiar with. Kit Harington as Gilderoy Lockhart. (4:20 - 5:59) Kit Harington, of course, was Jon Snow in Game of Thrones. Yeah, that's one of the things I was going to say. I think he's done a superb job as Gilderoy Lockhart. But for me, it's quite funny, because obviously, I only known him as Jon Snow. And he's a very good actor, because I assume that his northern accent that he does for Jon Snow was his regular voice. So to hear Kit Harington, you can, how do I put it, you can sort of hear, you know, you can tell it's still Kit Harington with his regular voice. And sometimes at the end of sentences, you can sort of hear, you know, sometimes in my head, I would go, as a joke, I'd go, said Jon Snow. Who knew he could actually act? We got Alex Hassell as Lucius Malfoy, Michelle Gomez as Minerva Gonigal. So coming down towards the end of this list of the main stars, I think Riz Ahmed as Severus Snape, it's so hard to step into the shoes of Alan Rickman. I'm not a big fan of, sorry to say, I'm not a big fan of his voice. And I'm not the biggest fan of Uncle Vernon's voice either. But, you know, it can't be perfect. (6:00 - 6:05) So it is what it is. Yeah, I'm just trying to see who plays Uncle Vernon. Let me have a quick look. (6:05 - 6:44) Jeremy Swift. Yes. And of course, again, big shoes to fill. I'm very fond of Hugh Laurie as Albus Dumbledore. Oh, yes. I was coming to that. I only know him, Hugh Laurie, as Prince George from Blackadder. Ah, no. He was also House to most of them. Yeah. Where he did an American accent. So yeah. And also recently in The Night Manager as the baddie. So he's a man with a great range. But if you only think of him as like the ridiculous Prince George, then clearly. (6:45 - 7:04) So when I heard Hugh Laurie was cast as Dumbledore, I was like, oh, this is going to be fantastic. And it's great. It's wonderful to hear an older Hugh Laurie playing Dumbledore, who obviously, you know, he has his silly moments, but obviously, he can be quite serious. (7:04 - 9:19) And it's wonderful to hear him be the lovable, funny, yet serious Dumbledore. And I think he does a superb job. Yeah. It makes me wish that they'd cast him in the TV series that they're doing. But anyway. Oh, yeah. And another sort of like for like voice is Mark Addy as Rubeus Hagrid. Yes. It took me a little while to recognise him. But when I was reading The Philosopher's Stone, but all of a sudden I went, oh, hang on. That's Mark Addy. And of course, we all know him as King Robert from Game of Thrones, such a deep, booming voice. And I think it really suits him as Hagrid. And of course, he does Hagrid's West Country sort of accent. Oh, yeah. You couldn't have cast anyone better with that voice. Yeah. It's very similar to Robbie Coltrane, of course, in the way it strikes the ear. And then finally, the last person to mention is Matthew McFadden as Voldemort. To be honest, he's not had an awful lot to do yet. So we wait to see what happens with that. Yeah. I liked him in The Philosopher's Stone and I liked, he also did Tom Riddle, didn't he? Or was Tom Riddle? I think there's a different actor. I think looking down the list, there's a young actor called Oscar Brudanell-Jones as Tom Riddle Jr. He did a good job. Yeah. Anyway, and some of the most intriguing, when you dig right down into the bottom of the list, you've got things like Shirley Bassey, who's like a famous singer of Goldfinger and things like that, who plays one of the warblers on the radio. So they obviously just had such fun saying, who can we get involved in this production? And they've gone far and wide. The other surprise actor was Miles Jupp as Cornelius Fudge. Yes. And I know him from the news quiz BBC Friday Night Comedy, and I didn't recognise him. (9:19 - 9:31) And it was only when I heard the massive 14-minute cast list, which is great to listen to. And I was like, oh, Miles Jupp as Cornelius, that's great. That's fantastic. (9:31 - 10:44) Yeah, you're right about the listening to the end, because when I was listening to the first one, I was on a dog walk. So I just left it playing as I wasn't back home yet. And the number of extra people involved in it, plus the craftspeople, because they also list everybody did everything. It does take a long time. It reminded me of if you've ever sat and watched the rolling credits of Lord of the Rings, anybody, that goes on for a good 10 minutes as well. So the cast, I think I agree with you that the balance in the cast is good. I'm going to hold back on Riz Ahmed because I think that the test of him will come in later books in the series. I find his voice a little bit light. Who does he play again? Severus Snape. I find it quite hard sometimes to hear it, actually. He just seems slightly less defined. I guess I'm used to the Alan Rickman sneer. (10:45 - 11:49) So what about the actors? Well done, everybody. But what about the music and the foley sounds? The foley sounds are things like the door knocking and the car revving and all that stuff. How do you find the presence? Let's start with the music first. How do you find that? I love the music. It's great because, obviously, there's the iconic music for the movies. It's wonderful that they've come up with their own theme tune and their own score for this production. They've done a really good job on the main theme. You'll get music at the beginning and end of each chapter. It's really, really lovely. It's atmospheric and it helps get you in, I suppose. So I like that there's more music. I guess it does a different job to film music. (11:50 - 12:27) Yeah. Andrew, have you seen Chamber of Secrets with audio description? I have, yes. So if you remember, quite often when they're showing landscapes or train journeys or something, there isn't dialogue. There's some kind of soundtrack, Hedwig's theme or some kind of comedy theme or whatever it is. So clearly, a composer for a film has bigger spaces to put the music in. The job of this composer, I think, is much more complicated because they have to punctuate and not take over. (12:29 - 13:26) Yeah, that's true. I think I wasn't that impressed when I listened to the first one, but it's growing on me, the main theme, and I can now remember it, whereas I couldn't when I listened to the first one. I don't find it too much of a distraction, which is good. I was worried it was going to be a bit too intrusive. What about the Foley sounds? Oh, as I say, it's very, very immersive. It really helps draw you in. The scale of detail that they've gone to is incredible. When they're in the bathroom, which obviously in this one, quite a lot, it echoes. When I listen to books, I prefer to have my Bluetooth speaker, but because this is so immersive and rich in audio, I've listened to some of it with the speaker. (13:26 - 15:13) I've listened to some of it with my noise-cancelling headphones. I've listened to some of it with my Apple AirPods. Yeah, it's nice to have headphones in at different times and get more of the atmospheric sounds of the fire in the background, say, in the common room or Hagrid's hut, and just the different sounds of different rooms, like a classroom as opposed to a dormitory or something. So, moving on. So, we've both been generally impressed by these productions, I think, it'd be fair to say. Oh, and I will say the actress for Moaning Myrtle also did a fantastic job. Megan Richards, there you go. Megan Richards, well done. The only thing I don't like, by the way, is I don't like the fact that the twins are the same, the two Weasleys are the same actor. I forgot to mention that. Yes, I agree. I agree. I mean, I assume they did that. So, from an audio perspective, and I'm just assuming I'm using logic, but from an audio perspective, they may have done that to sort of show that they're identical. But I think it's, I mean, in theory, great, but I think it would be better to have two different actors because it's a bit confusing as to, oh, is that Fred saying that or is that George? I don't think it's a helpful confusion either because it's identical. So, Hamish Lloyd-Barnes has given this job of doing both. Oh, there must be a lot more work for him. It particularly doesn't work for me when they layer the voices over each other. (15:14 - 17:38) Yeah. And I don't know why they just didn't find two twins or somebody who sounded a bit like Hamish. Anyway, that's a cheapskate thing to do, which is weird considering it's such a massive production. So, what I wanted to ask you, particularly, is how does this compare for you to the single reader version? You said to me that you had listened to the Stephen Fry version, which is the one I've listened to. How would you compare? If you're going to listen to this again, are you going to go back to the Stephen Fry version or are you going to go back to this? The full cast is very enjoyable. It's great. It's different and it's nice to reread it with all this difference. But, in my humble opinion, it cannot replace Stephen Fry's version. It's just so nostalgic and he just does such a great job with the narration and all the different voices he does for the characters. He's an extremely talented actor. It's amazing, so many different voices subtly changing for all the characters. It just can't compare. I listened to this over and over and over and over. As a child, I'd have it from 11 to 18, 19. I'd read the books all the way through, but then sometimes I'd go through periods at night where I'd just go from book one to seven and start listening to a new CD each night and just fall asleep to Harry Potter, basically. It's still not gotten old. I still love the books as much as ever. It can't replace that. But, in saying that, I do hope that maybe there's young blind children listening to the full cast editions for the first time. If that's what gets them into Harry Potter and they enjoy it and this is the version that they prefer, well then, that's great. If it does that job, then that's wonderful. (17:39 - 19:21) I guess this touches on this phenomenon that we're going through at the moment of there being these dramatized full cast versions of books which are written for reading or reading out aloud. What do you feel about this? Is this the first one you've listened to like this or are there others you've already tried where they've done this? Well, the only other one that springs to mind immediately is Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials where there's no folio sound effects in the background, but it's Philip Pullman reading the story and then all the actors are voiced by different people. Do you think it works? Because they haven't adapted it for, well, they've only slightly adapted it in this case. I think they may have dropped a word here or there, as he said or she said, but nothing else. So, it's a sort of juggling act between the narrator and the cast and clearly J.K. Rowling didn't write it with this in mind. Let me explain. If we think of Lords of the Rings, the version that stands a bit like this, of course, is the BBC dramatized adaptation which was made into a radio play and so it moved much further away from the book as a result because it is a radio play. But you get similar qualities and then you get the red versions. I think we've talked about them before, the Andy Serkis one and so on. (19:22 - 20:17) So, this one, they haven't gone to the let's adapt it for a radio play version. They've done let's just read it and drop in the characters and the question is, does it work? Yes, I think it does. I think it does. I take my hat off to them. They've done a good job of putting it all together and it's a great new medium. Yeah, I think you're right. I think it's a new medium. Yeah, it's great. It'd be interesting if they're going to bring out more books like this. It'd be interesting to see how they do it. Some of the books I listened to on audio started promoting to me versions like this. For example, some of the books by Ilona Andrews. (20:17 - 20:52) I listened to a sample thinking, what would I get if I downloaded this? From the sample I tried, I found the Foley sounds far too, I should perhaps give it another go, but I found the Foley sounds too on the nose, you know, footsteps and things. Clearly, this has had a lot more money spent on it and it's been done to the most professional standards you can. So, this is, I think, like the peak version of this, whereas in some other versions, it's just a bit distracting. (20:55 - 22:03) So, I'm interested to see how it develops. Also, the other thing is that I think Harry Potter itself, because of the sort of dialogue driven nature of it and the banter and what have you, works quite well with voices reading out. A book that is more reflective with, you know, it only works with certain points of view, doesn't it? So, a book, a third person view with a narrator seems to work, whereas if you're doing a first person story, it would be funny. How would that work? So, they've picked the right one to try. I hadn't thought of that, actually. But maybe we should keep an eye out for some, because they're going to be doing more of this, because they can get us all to pay again. Can't they? Probably get more product. You can see what style of books works best. So, they've just done, I've started listening to The Prisoner of Azkaban, which so far is actually my favourite of the three, which I also like it as a book, because of the murder mystery feel of it. (22:04 - 22:23) And then the clever, I haven't got to that bit yet, but the sort of how you solve all the problems in the plot with the time turner. But I actually, yeah, I'm actually enjoying that one most out of all of them. So, if you haven't got to that, I think you've got something to look forward to going forward. (22:25 - 26:00) Yes, I'll be particularly interested, now that you mentioned it, I'll be particularly interested to hear what The Dementors sound like. Yeah, and the other thing about it, which of course, my most recent memory of that story is the film version, which I did like as a film, but I enjoy the slower pace. I'd forgotten, for example, that Harry gets a couple of weeks just enjoying himself in Diagon Alley and gets to know it and that feeling of finally Harry gets something happy, you know. And I very much like the way they're doing Professor Lupin. So, lots to look forward to there. So, going back to our verdict on The Chamber of Secrets, Andrew, would you give it a star rating out of five? Overall, five out of five stars. But if we include, if we, comparing to Stephen Fry, it'd be four out of five, but on its own, yeah, definitely five out of five for the, yeah, the superb job they've done, the immersiveness, it's brought, as I say, reading Harry Potter again, it sort of brought it to life in a new way. So, yeah, I'd give it five out of five stars for sure. Well, thank you so much, Andrew, for joining us. And yeah, I look forward to seeing what they do with the rest of the series. I'm going to be intrigued because the books get longer and longer after. So, it's going to be many hours of listening by the time we get to Goblet of Fire. Anyway, thank you very much for joining us. No worries. Thank you. Thanks for having me. And in the second part of today's episode, I wanted to have a quick look at the information that's just come out today, that's January 2026, about the highest grossing films of all time. So, I'll tell you what they are in reverse order and just look at how many of them are fantasy films. Often the fantasy is in the form of an animation. So, we've got Inside Out 2 at number 10 in 2024, which took 1.69 billion. That's the sort of what you need to do to get into the top 10. At number nine, we've got Zootopia 2, 2025, a very recent film that's just made it onto the list. At number eight, this is the first time we see a sort of live action one. We've got Spider Man No Way Home from back in 2021. At number seven, we've got Avengers Infinity War from 2018. And this is the first film on the list to get over 2 billion. At number six, we've got Star Wars, The Force Awakens from 2015. That was the big reboot of Star Wars, which went quite well. I'm not sure the other films in that series maintained that enthusiasm. And then at number five, we've got Ni-Za 2 from 2025. More about Ni-Za in a moment. At number four, we've got Titanic. Now, I think Titanic is the only non-fantasy title in this list. That's from back in 1997 and is the oldest film on the list. And at number three, we have Avatar, The Way of Water from 2022. At number two, we've got Avengers Endgame from 2019. (26:01 - 26:48) And then sitting at the top of the list, at quite a remarkable amount of money, we've got Avatar the 2009, the first version of that franchise, which came in with a grossing amount of 2.92 billion, so nearly 3 billion. Some interesting things to say about this. One is films aren't earning as much. I think that represents the decline of the film industry in theatres. Clearly, there's a lot of money to be made in other forms of this. Also, if you compared it to the top grossing video games, these would be very modest figures. (26:48 - 28:56) So, we have to remember that a lot of money is being made over in this other medium these days, though they do feed across, of course. And the common phenomenon between all of them is spectacle. Fantasy obviously lends itself to these huge landscapes and special effects and flying and superhero powers and all that kind of thing. But even Titanic on that list shares that in their DNA. It has the drama of this massive ship, the landscapes of the sea, the iceberg, the frozen waste and all that sort of thing. Plus, it's a love story as well, which the central performance there was very engaging. Avatar is also a love story. And so, there are a number of romances on this list. So, it seems as though if you want to make a lot of money, you have to spend a lot of money on these big films, the big spectacles. But you can also make your studio go broke because it may bomb. For example, the Star Wars franchise, it hasn't gone broke obviously, clearly not, and or shows it's in good health. But something like the Solo film didn't make back its money. So, you can have your misses even if you go full on with your special effects and your starscapes and all that kind of thing. Story and performance are key. I personally don't like Avatar. I've not gone since seeing the first one. It's not for me, but it's clearly for many people out there because there's two titles in the top 10. Of the films on the list, the one that I've actually enjoyed the most is the Spider-Man because I think Tom Holland's great as Spider-Man and that's the one I like on this list. (28:57 - 29:03) I found Titanic a bit overextended, a bit overblown. Not for me. Soundtrack was good. (29:03 - 30:21) Some bits of it were fine, but these aren't my favourite kinds of films. What do you think? I mean, it's down to taste, isn't it? What they're looking at here is our films which are able to play to the biggest common denominator in the world. So, we may have our favourite homegrown films, but these ones are able to appeal to a wide audience. But what about Ni Za? I'd never heard of this film before and it made most of its box office 2.21 billion in China. It is made in China. So, that of course sent me to have a look at the trailer for this film. It's a series of films about a boy born to be a demon who defies his fate. It looks great and reminds me a lot of the Demon Hunters, that film that's been ruling the roost on Netflix for the last year. And it's interesting to see a shift to particularly animation coming out of the East from Korea, from China, Japan, of course, for many, many years. (30:21 - 30:34) And how that's appealing to a world taste. I think it's good because it gives us different stories, different images, different ideas about folklore and mythology. So, it adds to the world's stories. (30:35 - 30:48) I'd be very interested to see this. I wonder if I have to look at to see if there's a version that I can access. What is missing for me, of course, is there is no Lord of the Rings. (30:48 - 32:32) None of the three films make it on here. There is none of the Narnia films. It'd be interesting to see if this starts to change when the new Narnia films come out. But these huge films with the Marvel Universe behind them or Star Wars behind them, have they reached their high tide? And is there now a draining away from that kind of film until a new franchise comes along? I don't think any of us know what it will be. And also, it reminds us of the importance of animated films. Clearly, that appeals to a kid audience, the kind of film you take a birthday party to. But they are also incredibly expensive to make. You wouldn't think that, would you? You'd think, oh, surely building sets and all this kind of thing, that is more expensive. But no, an animated film is a very expensive thing to make. If you get it right, though, you can make a lot of money. But it does remind us that fantasy is what sells, be it superhero, be it blue creatures from another planet, be it space opera or clever, witty, inside out style drama or animal fables. Fantasy is what sells. So, I can report today that fantasy is very much alive and kicking as a genre in the film industry. Thank you very much for listening. Thanks for listening to Mythmakers Podcast, brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. (32:33 - 32:50) Visit OxfordCentreForFantasy.org to join in the fun. Find out about our online courses, in-person stays in Oxford, plus visit our shop for great gifts. Tell a friend and subscribe, wherever you find your favourite podcasts worldwide.