I need help. We've sold rights to the audio book of There Is No Dog and the actor they've suggested to read it is all wrong:  Too old, too ordinary, too middle-of-the-road.

This blog is really only for people who've read the book, because you need to be aware of the challenges of reading 250 pages of a third person omniscient narrator -- one who leaps from brain to brain of a variety of mortal, immortal, old and young characters. Sometimes all in the same paragraph.

I started thinking....comedian. But quite a lot of the book is intense and serious. Eddie Izzard would make a brilliant Eck. But what about the first chapter? And the last line? And anyway, doesn't he live in American now?  

Rob Brydon? Not warm enough. David Mitchell? Too posh.

What about Bill Bailey? I adore Bill Bailey.

The reader needs to be able to do warmth, irony, peevish teen, furry Eck, Bob's mad mother Mona, and Mr B.  Lucy needs to be sweet. Bob needs to be a just...sympathetic...enough.

Someone suggested Benedict Cumberbatch. I would very much like to hang around in his magnificent aura and stare at his strangely compelling face. Though obviously I wouldn't be doing that.

Bill Bailey? Gorgeous, wonderful Bill Bailey? Is he too famous now? Too busy? Too expensive?

Ideas, please? PLEASE??

p.s. Bill Bailey?