Of Giants and Windmills...
“Maddest of all is to see life as it is and not as it should be...”
Just a little bit more...
I make no pretence to being any kind of expert on Cervantes or Quixote; there are others far better qualified and informed to explore the subject. My approach is that of a fan.
From the outset of this project, I’ve wanted to create an accessible telling of Don Quixote, seeking to capture and stay faithful to the spirit engendered in Cervantes’ story.
Inevitably, adapting a book on the scale of Quixote to just forty minutes requires compromise. Of the 126 chapters, six alone survive into this adaptation. And for reasons of story, two of those have been switched from their original order.
You may find it odd then that despite stripping out the best part of 118 chapters; we’ve taken the opportunity to expand existing personalities and introduce new ones – it’s not as if there is any dearth of characters in the original material.
These developments and additions play an important role – they exist to support storyline, which might otherwise become fragmented from such wholesale editing, and (I hope) provide an extra layer of depth and personality to Quixote’s already vivid world.
The book contains such a wealth of material that it would be a shame for more not to make it into adaptation. And, it is because of that – and the episodic nature of the material – that there is a real possibility of further chapters being added in the future. Look out also for the upcoming podcast radio plays we'll be producing over the coming months.
Did you know...
An unauthorised sequel to part one of Don Quixote appeared in 1614, written by the unknown Alonso Fernandez de Avellaneda.
Cervantes references the imposter’s novel several times in his own sequel, with the characters denouncing the work as so inferior as to be unlikely to have been written by the original author.