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The Wind in the Willows cover art

The Wind in the Willows

By: Kenneth Grahame,Dina Gregory
Narrated by: Cush Jumbo,Harriet Walter,Aimee Lou Wood,Susan Wokoma,Jennifer Saunders,Raj Gatak,Clare Corbett,Gerard McDermott,Stephanie Racine
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Listen to clips from the audiobook and meet the characters

<i>The Wind in the Willows</i>
Experience the wonder of Lady Toad's song
Mistress Badger encounters two friends in need of help
Mrs Mole and Miss Water Rat meet for the very first time
  • The Wind in the Willows
  • Experience the wonder of Lady Toad's song
  • Mistress Badger encounters two friends in need of help
  • Mrs Mole and Miss Water Rat meet for the very first time

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About the performer

Cush Jumbo is best known for starring in US series The Good Fight. She is the author of Josephine and I and received an OBE last year for her contribution to drama. Cush will take to the stage as Hamlet at The Young Vic in the near future and in 2021, will star as the lead in Britbox thriller The Beast Must Die opposite Jared Harris.

About the performer

Dame Harriet Walter is an award-winning British actress. She attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and has worked extensively in theatre, film television and radio. Her television credits include Sky Atlantic’s The End, Belgravia, Killing Eve, Succession, The Spanish Princess and The Crown. Films include The Last Duel, Herself, Rocketman, The Sense of an Ending, Sense and Sensibility and Atonement. On stage she is best known for her Shakespearean work, for example as Lady Macbeth, Beatrice and Cleopatra but also as Brutus, Henry IV and Prospero in the all-female trilogy for the Donmar Theatre. She has also created many new characters for contemporary writers. She was awarded an honorary doctorate by Birmingham University and is an honorary associate of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Harriet is also a writer and has published four books.

About the performer

Aimée Lou Wood is a British actress. She is best known for her debut role as Aimee Gibbs in the Netflix original comedy-drama series Sex Education and Sonya in the West End revival of Uncle Vanya. She can next be seen in feature film Louis Wain and season 3 of Sex Education.

About the performer

In 2020, BAFTA Breakthrough Brit Susan Wokoma starred in Amazon Prime Video’s Truth Seekers, Netflix’s Enola Holmes and Donmar Warehouse’s Teenage Dick. Previous to this, Susan filmed the BBC One series Dark Mon£y, Channel 4 comedy series Year of the Rabbit, comedic horror series Crazyhead, The Ghost and The House of Truth and the second series of the BAFTA award-winning Chewing Gum. She also appeared on stage in Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Additional screen credits include: Crashing, Half of a Yellow Sun, The Inbetweeners 2 and That Summer Day. Susan wrote and starred in the award-winning short Love the Sinner and has also written the screenplay for BBC Films Three Weeks.

About the performer

Jennifer Saunders is one half of the legendary comedy duo French and Saunders. She also wrote and starred in the award-winning and critically acclaimed television series Absolutely Fabulous. The feature film Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie was released in the summer of 2016. Jennifer co-wrote and acted in Girls on Top, The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle and Jam and Jerusalem. Other television credits include Blandings, Josh, Stick Man, The Boy In The Dress, This Is Jinsy, Dead Boss and Friends. She wrote and starred in many of the 69 Comic Strip films. Recent credits include The Stranger and There’s Something About Movies. Jennifer has voiced characters in feature films such as Sing, The Minions and Shrek 2. In 2020, she recorded an episode of The Simpsons.

About the adaptor

Dina Gregory is a storyteller and lyricist who hails from Devon. She holds a Masters in Psychology, Physiology & Philosophy (PPP Joint Honours) from Somerville College, Oxford University, and a second Masters in Musical Theatre Writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her musicals, plays, songs, arias and choral anthems have been performed at venues large and small, both in the USA and the UK. Her short stories—many penned for children—can be heard on Audible. One of Dina’s longstanding collaborators is her twin sister, singer-songwriter and composer Rosabella Gregory. During childhood, the pair divided their time between the piano and the moors. Many of Dina’s projects are written with Rosabella, including this The Wind in the Willows adaptation.

About the composer and singer

Rosabella Gregory is an award-winning singer-songwriter and composer. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, she has released three albums and performed throughout the UK and internationally, both as a solo artist and in support of the legendary Jools Holland on his Country House tour. Her musicianship has led to collaborations within Theatre, Television and Opera. Collaborating with her twin sister, Dina, has given Rosabella some of her most rewarding writing experiences, dating back to a rock opera they penned when they were teens (Mellisa’s Maelstrom), which was produced by English National Opera’s Baylis programme; right up to the present day and their collaboration on The Wind in the Willows.

Summary

Experience the classic tale of The Wind in the Willows as you’ve never heard it before. 

Meet Lady Toad, Mistress Badger, Miss Water Rat and Mrs Mole as they go about their adventures, messing around on the river, gallivanting in Lady Toad’s shiny new toy and fighting valiantly to save Toad Hall from unruly squatters. 

In this retelling by Dina Gregory, The Wind in the Willows becomes a story about a group of female animals to be admired for their close sisterhood and fierce independence. Featuring original music and songs by Rosabella Gregory and sound effects captured on location, put your headphones on, sit back and lose yourself in the British countryside.

  Cover artwork and illustrations: Melissa Castrillon.

Public Domain (P)2020 Audible, Ltd

What listeners say about The Wind in the Willows

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Why Bother?

Before I garner the usual criticism of being a misogynist dinosaur: I'm not. I do however resent the rewriting of other peoples work - especially long established works - to make them more acceptable to particular audiences. I recall with horror reprints of Biggles Books in the noughties where the WW1 squadron pilots were competing for bottles of lemonade rather than bottles of wine, because - I kid you not - it was deemed unacceptable to present children with adult pilots in a War Zone drinking alcohol.

This book is a well loved children's Classic for what it is. It is a book of its time, as all books are. Wishfully rewriting every book published throughout history to reflect particular views of more enlightened times is a pointless exercise in over the top Political Correctness. The time and effort would be better spent writing something original and new instead.

The fact that many people love The Wind in the Willows regardless of its Edwardian World View speaks volumes for the original and the author. And lets not forget that there are elements of Graeme's own life and sadness woven into the original narrative.

This awful rewrite ignores all that and substitutes a gender political world view of the 21st Century: but of course, its now a skewed and politicised version of the original work.

A much better approach would have been writing an original work that was both entertaining and reflected modern views and attitudes: an author doing this might create a children's classic of tomorrow. Please don't wreck any more of the well loved ones we've already got.

Note the 'Story' 5 stars are for the original story, the general thrust of which remains the same.

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355 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

You can't give it away!

This was a free gift from audible. In my excitement I accepted the gift before I noticed the ominous word, 're-telling.' Then I discovered this was simply woke revisionism, where everyone is reduced to one aspect of their identity, and forced to obsess over it. No thanks. I don't want your progressive identitarian nonsense. This is to be permanently deleted from my account.

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263 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Charmless

A charmless, arrogant and fashionable attempt to recontextualise a timeless classic. The high production values only serve to underline the fact that 'style over content' is the only strength in this unnecessarily patronising rewrite, a strength which is ultimately redundant.

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231 people found this helpful

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  • 09-12-20

No Magic

I just felt terribly disappointed with the lack of a magical feeling in this telling of the story

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207 people found this helpful

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Terrible...

My wife and I thoroughly enjoy the original stories...but this is pure tripe!

The PC brigade comes to Audible.....avoid

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173 people found this helpful

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Just Horrible

For some reason I see my last review was taken down..
Suffice to say, even free is too expensive for this clumsily shoehorned, politically instigated drivel.
Do yourself a favour and listen to the charming original, rather than encourage the destruction of yet another classic piece of British literature in the name of virtue signalling wokeness.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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But why?

Yet another lazy, 'gender change for no real reason' , woke, nonsense... No thank you.

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151 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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Avoid! Avoid! Avoid!

Awful! Awful! Awful! I suppose that it was free but that is small comfort.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

A classic ruined by the woke culture.

Why on earth does this classic need to be redone and making it all female?! Why does everything have to have an all female version these days.

It takes away from the original charm and fun completely. Avoid, glad I didn’t pay for this rubbish!

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132 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Enjoyable if baffling

I don’t really understand the need to change the gender of the characters while keeping the story pretty much the same. To be honest the only reason I listened to this book was because it was free. The performances are good, and I never tire of hearing Jennifer Saunders’s voice. But let’s not come out with any more “feminist approved” versions of classics again?

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96 people found this helpful