Ohh, dear reader, this is Kenneth Branagh as you’ve never experienced him. When I saw a seven-volume set of The Chronicles of Narnia on goodreads available for a single credit, with each book narrated by talents like Branagh and Patrick Stewart, I couldn’t resist — nor would I have wanted to had I could. Nevermind the fact that I already have a CD set of Narnia that’s an audiodrama narrated by Paul Scofield, with other vocal casting.

For the uninitiated, The Magician’s Nephew is chronologically first in the Narnia series, though not the first written. The book opens on a pair of kids, Digory and Polly, who become part of an unwitting experiment by Digory’s rascal of an uncle, Andrew. Andrew is an amateur magician, meaning in CS Lewis’ world he’s a reckless dilettante fooling with matters beyond his ken. Digory and Polly are thrown by a advice of Andrew’s creation into The World Between the Worlds, a peaceful wood dotted with pools that they realize can be used to travel to different “Worlds”. On their first attempt at visiting another place, they find a dying place and temptation — temptation that Digory can’t resist, and a choice that leads to the arrival of Jaydis, later known as the White Witch. As the story develops, the children will witness the Creation of Narnia, the order of which mirrors the Creation recorded in Genesis, and then meet Aslan and still more temptation. When I first read this some ten years ago, I liked the story but considered it the least of the Narnia tales. Here, I delighted in it much more, in large part due to the vocal talents of Kenneth Branagth. I’ve long favored Branagth as an actor, watching him in numerous versions of Shakespeare stories — he made a marvelous Iago, and an even better Harry the Prince — but here he shines vocally. The sheer variety of choices and characters he did was impressive, and some of them are absolutely hilarious. One of his critters sounded like of the vultures from The Jungle Book.

This was a wonderful rendition of Magician’s Nephew. I’m currently most of the way through The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, read by Michael York. (All are gathered at the Stone Stable, and Jaydis is about to demand the life of the traitor Edmund.)