Laurence Olivier in 'Bartleby, the Scrivener' by Herman Melville (1954)

'Bartleby, the Scrivener' by Herman Melville.
Radio drama starring and hosted by Sir Laurence Olivier.
NBC radio anthology series 'Theatre Royal'.
Broadcast on 13 February 1954.

[@MichaelYoder1961]

Read this in high school in the 1970s and loved it. Thanks

[@carolejander]

Thanks Roman - unusual story

[@elfbark624]

The ending is very different to the text book. Why?

[@wendelltong3089]

Excellent reading no way to improve it

[@opensourcecurrency]

Sadly, Olivier is misplaced in this role. David Paymer does a fine job in a better 2001 film adaptation.

[@schaerffenberg]

These performances seem uneasily incorrect somehow, perhaps because the actors endeavor to play it for laughs, unsuccessfully. In this cringeworthy rendition, the wit has been squeezed out of Melville's original. Tragically, James Mason's far better, one-man recitation is nowhere to be found. Unlike Olivier's attempt, Mason went to the heart of sad Bartleby, exposing the character's allegorical personification of loneliness in a heartless Industrial World, indifferent to the "less successful" individual. Readers who enjoy the Scriviner will reward themselves and edify others, if they can track down the 1950's James Mason reading and post it here, as a much-improved alternative to Olivier, et al.