DailyMail.co.uk – 2nd August, 2015

By Michael Hodges for Event Magazine

Is holding a paperback on the beach too much bother? Would you like Reese Witherspoon to read you a story as you drive to the coast? Sounds as if you’re ready for the audio book revolution…

Reese Witherspoon found reading Harper Lee’s Go Set A Watchman which recasts Scout’s father Atticus Finch, the hero of To Kill A Mockingbird, as a racist, a shocking experience

Tucked away in a London studio, Bill Bailey is focusing on being a bear – specifically the roly-poly Baloo from The Jungle Book.

“I know,” says the roundish, bearded comedian with a resigned shrug. “It’s the role I was born for – a big, slothful bear.”

“Well, I don’t feel typecast at all,” says Richard E Grant, who has joined Bailey for the morning to play Kaa, the book’s ancient snake. “I’m an old and overweight python.”

The tanned, slim and floppy-haired Swaziland-born actor, still famous for his cartwheeling turn in 1987’s Withnail And I, is right – he doesn’t look in the slightest bit snakish. Well, not much.

You might think the celebrated pair are rehearsing for a major new film or stage show of Rudyard Kipling’s children’s classic. But you’d be wrong.

When I met them at the studio recently, the actors were recording an audio book, the latest literary phenomenon which – among other things – has completely changed the way we enjoy literature on holiday.
Audio books have been around for some time. But they’re no longer on the periphery of literature.
Digital audio sales for 2014 were just over £10 million, 24 per cent up on the previous year, and an astonishing 170 per cent up on 2010 figures – according to the Publishers Association’s Statistics Yearbook.

Now they are challenging Hollywood, which is no longer seen as the first option for big-budget re-imaginings of literary favourites.

Increasingly, as well as sole narrators – a market Stephen Fry has made his own with a rendition of the entire Harry Potter series – ensemble pieces attract big names

Producers at Amazon-owned audio book company Audible scored an artistic coup, and demonstrated the growing power of the industry, when they won the rights to produce an audio book of Go Set A Watchman, by To Kill A Mockingbird author Harper Lee, and wooed Hollywood star Reese Witherspoon to narrate it.
Now listeners can hear the dulcet tones of the star of Legally Blonde and Wild, narrating, uninterrupted, as they bask by the beach – reaching for that third pina colada without having to put down their book.

Witherspoon found reading the book, which recasts Scout’s father Atticus Finch, the hero of To Kill A Mockingbird, as a racist, a shocking experience.

“I had to keep reminding myself it was written in the Fifties,” she has said. “And these were the complex issues that people of the day were dealing with.”

But it paid off for Audible – the book went straight to the top of the charts in the U.S. and the UK.
Aiden Gillen, star of the hit TV series Game Of Thrones, is another Audible conquest, recruited to narrate the audio book of Sun Tzu’s The Art Of War.

Audio books are no longer cheap, but some providers offer free trials. Audible offers members two new books a month for less than £15, which, as the average audio book lasts 13 to 14 hours, is less than 50p an hour. Or, if you just want one title, buy Go Set A Watchman for £18.99.

Perhaps this explains why audio books are one of the fastest-growing arms of the entertainment industry, perfectly matched to the round-the-clock lifestyle of millions of people who no longer have the luxury of curling up in an armchair with a novel.

“People are on the move; we just don’t have time to open a book,” says Tracey Markham, UK manager for Audible.

“But we do have access to devices like smartphones and laptops, so we can listen to books when we are commuting, travelling and running.”

Initially the genres that drove the market were the same as those that sell actual books – crime, thrillers and science fiction.

And if you were feeling risqué, Random House even released an audio book of Fifty Shades Of Grey and its sequels (though one unimpressed reviewer compared U.S. actress Becca Batteo’s narration to ‘an anxious computer reading out pornography’).

Increasingly, as well as sole narrators – a market Stephen Fry has made his own with a rendition of the entire Harry Potter series – ensemble pieces attract big names.

Audible’s latest ensemble recording, Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, signals its intent to take on literary classics as well as genre works

Audible has recently released Amok, a dramatisation of the best-selling thriller by German author Sebastian Fitzek, starring Adrian Lester and Rafe Spall. Last year The Child, by the same author, starred Andy Serkis, Emilia Fox and Rupert Penry-Jones.

Audible’s latest ensemble recording, Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, signals its intent to take on literary classics as well as genre works.

Bill Bailey, known for his live act and TV panel show appearances, admits an audio book recording session can be challenging.

“Comedy is a solitary profession, but this is a collaborative process. Normally it’s just me: that’s relaxing. But with a group like this there’s adrenaline because I don’t want to let the side down. I have a recurring nightmare where I turn up and I have no idea what I am supposed to say.”

Richard E Grant also relishes the chance to play Kaa, the reptile who saves boy Mowgli from the monkeys, and has no regrets that his performance will be heard rather than seen.

“This is probably the easiest way to earn a buck for me. There’s no make-up, no costume, and you can’t cock up as long as you can sight-read.”

Grant doesn’t reveal what he is paid, but he does well.

“If you record an audio book you are there for five days on your own. This whole thing today has taken about half an hour so it’s very quick. Then you hope the cheque arrives.”

Markham thinks he’s earned it.

“Narrating is an art,” she says. “I like someone to tell me a story. It’s a treat, something to be savoured.”

Some voices are easier to savour than others. Sam West’s delivery of Brighton Rock is as sinister and unsettling as having a switchblade drawn on you.

Stephen Fry’s mellifluous slide through Potter-land has won over legions of fans who might have struggled if JK Rowling had done the narration herself.

Not all authors appreciate that fact. Some think that because they wrote a book they are the right person to narrate it.

“That’s not always the best thing,” says Markham. “Usually it takes an author a day in the studios trying to narrate for me to persuade them that a professional narrator would be best.”

But occasionally, using the author does work.

“Germaine Greer narrated The Female Eunuch,” Markham says. “And she got very passionate about reading something she had first written a huge amount of time ago. It was a real experience for her.”

The audio book market now generates its own new work – in 2014 Audible commissioned Philip Pullman to write a companion piece to His Dark Materials, narrated by Bill Nighy.

Back in the studios, Bailey admits he is a fan.

“I’ve listened to countless audio books.” he says. “I love them when I’m driving – though it can be a bit grim listening to Wild Swans by Jung Chang on the way to Manchester. I had to stop, have a cup of tea and thank God I didn’t grow up in China.”

Grant says he doesn’t read audio books because he “would have to wear headphones in bed” if his wife was reading something else.

“You’re looking at me like I’m prehistoric.” he says. “And maybe I am the wrong generation. But I still love reading, I get through three books a week.”

Grant claims to care little for public perception of his work unless “someone wants to punch you, and that hasn’t happened yet.”

But for Bailey audio books offer a break from a comedy industry that is overwhelmed by a rash of stand-ups, threatening to “swamp the things that makes our industry different, interesting and original.”

Bailey knew Kipling’s stories as a boy, and Grant was read The Jungle Book by his parents when he was young, and in turn read them to his own daughter (“that’s when you are trying to make the audience go to sleep”).

Kipling seems an unusual choice for Bailey, a hippyish performer, associated with animal rights causes.

“I think Kipling would have liked the animal bits of my show,” he says. “Especially the bit where I rescue an owl.”

“If you look at Kipling through the filter of history, of course, he is in that late Victorian era that was trying to improve and educate. I totally agree with that.”

As the bear and the python head back to the studio I ask Grant how on earth he knows how good his audio book work is if he never listens to it.

“Oh, that’s easy,” he says in the doorway. “If they invite you back to do another one.”

In association with ZSL, ‘The Jungle Book – The Mowgli Stories’ is out on Aug 26 and available for free at audible.co.uk/jungle