The series has two constant presences: the incomparable Bill Nighy, who represents Terry Pratchett as the voice of his author’s footnotes, and Peter Serafinowicz, of Spaced and Star Wars, as the voice of Death. ‘Escape to the Discworld’ takes us behind the scenes as director and producer Neil Gardner brings each book to life, taking advantage of developments in sound since the first books were recorded on tape years ago, and bringing in new actors. The extraordinary challenge will bring over 420 hours of audio to the listener. “It’s our responsibility to ensure the quality control that Terry would have insisted upon in his lifetime.” But the adaptations into film, TV and beyond, it all comes down to us,” says Wilkins. Pratchett’s assistant of more than 20 years, Rob Wilkins, now runs the estate with Rhianna, herself an established writer. 'It’s our responsibility to ensure the quality control that Terry would have insisted upon in his lifetime' His readers had the chance to see a replica of his office, the heartland of Discworld, in a 2018 exhibition in Wiltshire’s main town of Salisbury, but ‘Escape to the Discworld’ gives the first look at the office proper, as well as showing how key the Pratchett office has been to this mammoth recording. Pratchett died five months before the book was released, after years dealing with Alzheimer’s, or what he referred to as “The Embuggerance”.

It is the centre of his literary estate, which is still run from his desk in a room filled with Discworld tchotchkes, and a big neon sign with what the family considered to be their magic words, “Mind how you go…”, from the dedication of his final novel, 2015’s The Shepherd’s Crown. Nestled in a village in Wiltshire, in the heart of rural Southwest England, stands the house where Sir Terry Pratchett and Lyn, his wife and business partner, lived with their daughter, Rhianna. If you thought bringing the 2000 AD comics to life was a challenge, this has gone seven leagues bigger, as ‘Escape to the Discworld’ clearly shows. A new documentary, out today, takes readers behind the scenes of Penguin Audio’s biggest project to date: recording new and unabridged audiobooks of all 41 of Sir Terry Pratchett’s bestselling Discworld books.

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