Indicating exactly why I prefer Fry to Dale, in Jim Dale’s reading, Voldemort is this weird hissy villain voice that sounds like Snidely Whiplash more than a real character. I was on YouTube the other day, listening to a comparison between Stephen Fry and Jim Dale, reading the final chapter of The Deathly Hallows, the final confrontation between Voldemort and Harry. Who wins?Peter: This is something I can’t argue with and actually, this undermines my own argument a bit. Whereas Fry handles the same scene with beautiful tenderness and humanity. His Hermione is a little too bossy and his Harry is a little too stupid.

The scenes at Hogwarts with the ghosts, professors, and portrait people always slay me in Dale’s version, while I think Fry’s subtlety can work against him.I will concede that Dale sometimes misses the mark with major characters in key scenes: like when Hermione and Harry are trying to figure out how to work the time-turner in Azkaban, Dale’s exaggeration is kind of painful. (What’s stronger than 100% - can I 127% disagree?) I credit Jim Dale’s secondary characters for finally converting me to the world of Harry Potter. The really minor ones, like Stan and Ernie on the Knight Bus, are, to my mind, both hilarious and very much their own people, when Stephen does it.Rachel: That is so fascinating, because I completely 100% disagree. It had to have crept in there somewhere.I think Stephen Fry inhabits the secondary characters the best, too. I haven’t actually seen the episodes, so you win that point by default.Peter: I dunno if she would’ve watched Blackadder while writing the book, but it was such a gigantic part of the television landscape - like Fawlty Towers, like Monty Python - that I seriously doubt she was unaware of it.

Scott sellers being strange.rar