Eight hours, non-stop of Harry Potter

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, NOV. 30. Even the most avid Harry Potter fans might find it difficult to digest, but his creator Ms. J.K. Rowlings insists that this is the only way to serve it.

So, this is how it will be served. On Boxing Day - the morning after Christmas - ``Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'' will be read non-stop for eight hours on BBC's Radio 4 - setting a new record for the longest non-interrupted reading of a book on radio.

The reading by actor-writer Stephen Fry will begin at noon on Radio 4's FM frequency and go on until 8 p.m. consuming, in the process, the radio's normal broadcast schedule. It would be moved to another frequency. ``I would like there to be a generation of children in their twenties who will look back and remembering listening to the radio on Boxing Day,'' said the Radio 4 controller, Ms. Helen Boaden pointing out that her channel would be the first broadcaster anywhere in the world to air a complete reading of a book.

Initially, Radio 4 was ``taken aback'' when Ms. Rowling insisted that she will allow them broadcast rights only if the book was read in one go without any interruption.

But faced with a take-it-or-leave-it option, Radio 4 decided to take it as a new broadcast ``experience''. Obviously, the thought of the hype that this unusual programming is expected to generate had something to do with the decision, though Ms. Boaden tried to put a more altruistic spin on it saying:``Radio 4 has the confidence, the tradition, the backbone if you like, to throw the normal rules in the air just once in a while and surprise everyone.''

But how many children will sit through eight hours of ``listenathon''? The power of story-telling, she said, should not be underestimated.

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Section  : International
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