Dolorous Ett's Bestiary

A very long time ago when I had more time on my hands, I taped the first of the radio dramatisations of Lindsey Davis's Marcus Didius Falco series: The Silver Pigs. I thought it was very well acted, and unusually well cast, and was particularly impressed with the late Fritha Goody, who played Helena Justina - which is not an easy role, especially when there are no visual cues for the listener.

Anyway, I haven't been buying so many spoken word CDs or tapes recently, and the sad death of Fritha Goody rather put me off buying any more Falco stuff. But recently there was a sale on Amazon, and I thought I'd give it another go with Venus in Copper - my favourite of the three early books. 

The scripts are still good and the acting generally good too, but there was some very odd casting for the female leads. I mean, how could giving big, scary, common-as-muck Thalia the snake dancer a soft, winsome little Chinese accent possibly seem a good idea? And Anna Madeley who played Helena Justina is a perfectly competent actress, but she sounds all fluttery and girly, which is not Helena Justina style at all - and more worryingly, she also sounds a dead ringer for one of the younger Archers women - Helen? Kirsty? I don't know, but I can't help feeling that Falco has enough to put up with in his squalid and dangerous life informing in the Aventine without an influx of Archers. It doesn't help that the scheming redhead he's been sent to watch is played with a slight Irish accent, which would be fine except that it reminded me of Siobhan.

Archers in ancient Rome? That can't possibly be right! Even Falco's mum would have problems dealing with a plague of Archers and their minions.

I really don't need this. There are too many rogue crossovers in my life at the moment. I still can't listen to the Mma Ramotswe series without expecting Aiel to pop up out of the bush, or for someone to reveal that Mma Potokwane is one of the Forsaken...