In 2001, he provided the voices of the Witch-king of Angmar and Khamûl in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and voiced the roles of Mauhúr, Snaga, and most significantly Gollum/Sméagol in the rest of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. On a stage about 30 times smaller – with budget presumably reduced proportionately – this spectacle of compression, by aiming small, brings big rewards.After an education at Lancaster University, Andy Serkis was highly involved in theater, and began acting on screen in 1989. The original London run is more known for losing money than winning friends. Peter Marinker’s Gandalf is in an unenviable fight with Ian McKellen’s movie version but finds some space of his own. With extraordinary contortions of torso and vocal cords, Matthew Bugg’s Gollum makes a formidable case for the superiority of Equity members over CGI. Nuwan Hugh Perera’s Sam and Georgia Louise’s Galadriel bring charming presence and lovely voices. Louis Maskell’s Frodo dramatises the agonising undeniable destiny of one of children’s literature’s numerous Christ figures. At three hours running time, the adaptation risks irritating Tolkien-holics with bits left out of the books, while dismaying Hobbit-phobics (more my tribe) with some of the stuff that survives.īut the cast is a blast. References to the despoiling of the earth by greed and war land more emphatically now than at the premiere. Matthew Warchus and Shaun McKenna’s dialogue and lyrics locate tonally between the Ring Cycle and Harry Potter, where Tolkien’s quest by a fresh-faced group for a piece of supernatural jewellery sits quite happily. The songs, though, move with enjoyable eclecticism through folk via Bollywood to pop, echoing the musical backgrounds of the Indian/Finnish/Anglo-American compositional team of AR Rahman, Värttinä, and Christopher Nightingale. Stephen Sondheim’s rule was that characters start singing when they can no longer speak, but here they more tend to shut up to belt out. During the long sections inside the tiny theatre, they cram in battles, orc attacks, treks across land, over mountains or through caves and lavish production numbers involving 20 actors or musicians (several performers also play instruments).Īs with the musical version of The Third Man currently running at the Menier in London, speech and score sometimes feel more competitive than complementary. The creative team ought to be listed in a Guinness book of theatrical records. Undeniable destiny … Louis Maskell in The Lord of the Rings: A Musical Tale

Lord of the rings gollum voice actor