Which Hobbit recording should you buy?
Five different Hobbits are on sale, from under two and a half hours to over eleven. Two are unabridged, one is abridged and two are radio productions.
J.R.R. Tolkien · 5 recordings on Audible UK
Short answer
Andy Serkis if you want the modern recording, Rob Inglis if you want the classic one — both are complete and both are good, so this is genuinely a matter of taste. Serkis is more performed; Inglis sings the songs.
Every recording, compared
| Narrator | Length | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Andy Serkis Our pick | 10 hrs 24 mins | Unabridged | The 2020 recording, and the one the store pushes. Serkis also reads the whole of The Lord of the Rings, so the set matches. |
| Rob Inglis | 11 hrs 2 mins | Unabridged | The long-standing reading, still on sale. Inglis sings the songs rather than speaking them, which listeners either love or skip. |
| Martin Shaw | 5 hrs 57 mins | Abridged | About half the book. |
| Full cast — Heron Carvic, Paul Daneman and others | 3 hrs 42 mins | Full-cast dramatisation | The BBC radio adaptation. |
| Bernard Cribbins, Maurice Denham, Jan Francis, David Wood | 2 hrs 27 mins | Full-cast dramatisation | A second, shorter dramatisation. Charming, but nowhere near the whole story. |