Kari Vaananen doubles Klonkku and Konkari!

Kudos! And "Kudos" to everyone at Finland's Yle TV1 for having the gumption back in 1993 to attempt a small screen adaptation of Lord of the Rings without recourse to CGI, motion capture, or any technology not readily available to the makers of Michael Bentine's Potty Time. "Take what you've got and fly with it" as Jim Henson said. So, okay, stuff like the Balrog may have to go, and the whole "Mines of Moria" sequence may have to be cut down to a minute and a half...




... but  cast it correctly, adapt judiciously, and who's to say you won't have another Brook's Mahabharata? Not me! Now December is here, the 'taches of Movember have fallen, and the grey dawn greets unopened windows like something distant, brilliant, viewed from the bottom of a well while dusk begins to take the piss, I for one am happy to join those huddled round the glogg in fingerless gloves and, transported by the sound of goat bell and sax, hear tales told in comic sans and glimpse adventurously cast faces in the fire. (Is that Paul Putner?)