The Odyssey, Homer
The Odyssey, Homer
List: $12.38 | Sale: $8.67
Club: $6.19

The Odyssey

Author: Homer

Narrator: Tim McInnerny, Amanda Redman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Bertie Carvel, Mary Wimbush, Adjoa Andoh, Janet McTeer, Frances Barber, Danny Webb, Cheryl Campbell, Full Cast

Unabridged: 3 hr 50 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/01/2004


Synopsis

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast production of Homer’s epic seafaring adventure, dramatised by award-winning poet Simon Armitage and starring Tim McInnerny, Amanda Redman & Benedict Cumberbatch.

‘My fame is written in the heavens, and my fate too...’ So speaks Odysseus as he starts to recount his struggles to sail home to Ithaca, in one of the greatest pieces of storytelling in Western literature.

'The Odyssey' is his incredible traveller’s tale – and also the story of his faithful wife Penelope who waits for him, besieged by suitors, and their son Telemachus who has a quest of his own. In a twenty-year journey, fabulous fantasy mixes with extraordinary reality as Odysseus encounters enchantresses, nymphs, monsters, prophets and ghosts. From the temptations of the lotus flowers and the Sirens’ song to the horrors of the Cyclops’ cave and the Land of the Dead, the story of his encounters is riveting. We hear of Circe, who turned his men into swine; Calypso, who held Odysseus prisoner for seven years; and the dreadful six-headed monster Scylla who devoured some of his crew. And we hear of the Gods, who have a vital role to play....

Dramatised by major contemporary poet Simon Armitage to celebrate the return of the Olympics to Athens, this full cast production brings Odysseus’s adventures to vivid life, conveying all the excitement, suspense and poetry of the original. A stunning aural rollercoaster ride, 'The Odyssey' will have your heart in your mouth and stir your soul.

'As irresistible as gravity ... a production so thrilling that it rapidly becomes unthinkable to press the stop - or even the pause - button' - Independent on Sunday.

Odysseus: Tim McLnnerny
Penelope: Amanda Redman
Telemachus: Benedict Cumberbatch
Athena: Janet McTeer
Zeus: John Wood
Eurycleia: Mary Wimbush
Hermes: Bertie Carvel
King Alcinous: Geoffrey Whitehead
Queen Arete: Cheryl Campbell
Princess Nausicaa: Alice Hart
Calypso: Adjoa Andoh
The Cyclops: Barrie Rutter
Antinous: Danny Webb
Eurymachus: Jonathan Keeble
Amphinomus: Chris Pavlo
Eurylochus: Ewan Bailey
Polites: John Rowe
Elpenus: Stephen Hogan
Eurybates: Philip Fox
Antiphus: Jon Glover
Eumaeus: Ioan Meredith
Circe: Frances Barber
Ghost of Anticleia: Joanna McCallum
The Sirens: Elena Ferarri
The Sirens: Belinda Sykes
The Sirens: Harriet Williams

About Homer

Homer is a legendary ancient Greek poet, traditionally said to be the author of the epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. The ancient Greeks generally believed that Homer was a historical individual, but modern scholars are skeptical: no reliable biographical information has been handed down from classical antiquity, and the poems themselves manifestly represent the culmination of many centuries of oral storytelling and a well-developed "formulaic" system of poetic composition. It has been suggested that "Homer" is "not the name of a historical poet, but a fictitious or constructed name."


Reviews

Apropos of the upcoming film adaptation discourse, Have you considered who you would cast as Odysseus? But have you also considered that getting on a boat is a bad idea? Let’s explore! With literature. It’s like a lame Reading Rainbow episode about to happen, here we go: When you stop and think about......more

Goodreads review by Sasha on February 27, 2015

"Okay, so here's what happened. I went out after work with the guys, we went to a perfectly nice bar, this chick was hitting on me but I totally brushed her off. Anyway we ended up getting pretty wrecked, and we might have smoked something in the bathroom, I'm not totally clear on that part, and the......more

Goodreads review by Charlotte on January 13, 2019

Quite possibly one of my favourite books! It was this novel that ignited my love for Greek and Roman mythology and antiquity - leading me to choose a degree in Classical Civilisations. I always look back on The Odyssey with fondness - I love all the monsters he faces and the gods who involve themselve......more

Goodreads review by Leonard on January 30, 2023

I first read Homer in the 19th-century French translation by Leconte de Lisle — the equivalent, say, of the 18th-century translation into English by Alexander Pope: a pompous, archaic and exhausting bore of a book. I kept my chin up and, after a while, tried another inflated Frenchman: the 1955 tran......more

Goodreads review by Bella on May 05, 2025

long distance couple goals......more