BREAKING: Audible announces Richard Armitage’s next audiobook

Audible Studios, a production arm of Audible.com, today announced the release of beloved stage and screen actor Richard Armitage’s next audiobook, quickly on the heels of audience favorites David Copperfield and The Turn of the Screw (2016). This impassioned performance by the star of Hannibal and The Hobbit will be available for download shortly.

In addition to his impressive television and film resume, Armitage is a renowned and polished audiobook narrator, nominated three times for Audie Awards: for Classic Love Poems (2015); for Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: A Novel (2014); and for Venetia (2011). Audible anticipates a further nomination for David Copperfield.

Asked about the new project, Reid Armbruster, Audible’s director of social media, stated, “We are pleased to be developing our relationship with Richard Armitage after the massive audience response to his audiobooks so far. It gives us particular pleasure to be able to supply Armitage’s fans with an audiobook version of a text that they assure us practically every week that they would be pleased to purchase.”

“The telephone book is likely to be tremendously popular, based on the the level of enthusiasm to hear Richard reading the phone book expressed in tweets,” said Audible EVP and publisher Beth Anderson. “With every recording, we strive to identify the perfect match of text and actor, and we think listeners will agree that Richard Armitage and the phone book is that ideal pairing. Fans of Richard’s television and film work are going to love spending time at the gym or in the car as he reads them the names and numbers of random people no one’s ever heard of. In particular, the long pages of Rodriguezes, Schmidts, Huangs and Johnsons should make for particularly exciting narration!”

Fans speculated that Armitage, well-known for the intensity with which he researches every role and project, would get particularly involved in this one.

“Given the fact that the phone book practically doesn’t exist anymore,” commented an under-employed former history professor and blogger in Wisconsin, “just assembling a reliable text to read that actually included the entire phone book in a list form might be a significant challenge. Or,” she continued, “he could just read it off the Internet.”

However, a picture circulating on social media seemed to support the possibility that Armitage had already completed the recording process for the book.

Richard Armitage records the telephone book in the audible.com studios. Or perhaps the script preparer confused the phone book with a Tommy Tutone song.

The entertainment press was eager to discover more about the new project. After a fruitless search in Berlin, our intrepid reporter located Richard Armitage on the summit of Cardón on Fuerteventura. “There’s no snow. No skiing. Why can’t we film this damn thing in Austria?” he was heard to be grumbling when she scrambled up the slope after him.

Sensing his impatience, the reporter asked him a burning question: “Given your interest in finding an individual voice for EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER in a cast of thousands in David Copperfield, will you also individualize all the names in the Manhattan white pages for Audible? Or will you go for the safer approach of a single voice for each family name?”

At first, Armitage did not answer. Then he opened his mouth and yelled:

April Fool!

Happy April Fools’ Day to Richard Armitage, audible.com, and all of Armitage’s fans.

~ by Servetus on April 1, 2016.