S4E10 – AH – “After Hours” with Paul McCusker

This season as we read through “The Screwtape Letters”, I’m using the Annotated Edition by Paul McCusker. Over the course of his career, Mr. McCusker has also been involved with many of the C.S. Lewis projects with Focus On The Family, including a production of The Screwtape Letters starring Andy Serkis. In today’s episode I ask him about all these different projects.

S4E10: “After Hours” with Paul McCusker (Download)

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Timestamps

00:00 – Entering “The Eagle & Child”…
00:13 – Welcome
00:47 – Paul McCusker
01:34 – Quote-of-the-week
02:03 – Drink-of-the-week
03:09 – Early career
05:49 – Introduction to Lewis
09:54 – C.S. Lewis at War
12:16 – Narnia
15:41 – Screwtape Audio Drama
32:22 – Annotated Screwtape
46:56 – Screwtape relationship
48:56 – More information
49:36 – “Last Call” Bell and Closing Remarks

YouTube Version

Show Notes

Opening Chit-Chat

Biographical Information

• I shared some biographical information about my guest:

Paul McCusker is a writer of many different kinds of things. You may know him from Adventures In Odyssey, Focus On The Family Radio Theatre, the film Beyond The Mask, the Father Gilbert Mysteries, or the Augustine Institute audio dramas Brother Francis: The Barefoot Saint of Assisi and The Trials of Saint Patrick or from many other dramas, novels, scripts and lyrics. He simply can’t make up his mind what he likes to write! Here’s here today because of his C.S. Lewis projects, such as The Chronicles of Narnia audio dramas, C.S. Lewis at War , his audio production of The Screwtape Letters, as well has his book, The Annotated Screwtape Letters. 

Paul McCusker Bio

Quote-of-the-week

• The quote-of-the-week came from this letter:

“to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that’s the whole art and joy of words”

Till We Have Faces (Part II, Chapter 4)

Drink-of-the-week

• Drink-of-the-week was Auchentoshan.

Patreon Toast

• I toasted Patreon supporter, Scott Watson:

Scott, may you resist Screwtape at every turn and leave him no place in which to gain a foothold.

Patreon Toast

Discussion

Background

• So, Paul, in the introduction I named some of the projects that you’ve been involved in previously. Could you please kick things off by giving us a quick sketch of your career thus far?

Contact with C.S. Lewis

• Quite a lot of your projects have involved C.S. Lewis. Did you grow up reading him?
• What has motivated you to adapt Lewis’ work?
• Today we’re going to be focusing on your work with The Screwtape Letters, but before we get to that, I really wanted to highlight some of the other projects you’ve worked on…

C.S. Lewis at war

• To begin with, you wrote a book called C. S. Lewis & Mere Christianity: The Crisis That Created a Classic, and you also worked on an associated audio drama, C.S. Lewis at war. What were these projects about?

Narnia

• You were also involved in the production of The Chronicles of Narnia. Here on Pints With Jack we discuss one book from the Narnia series each season and we’ve had several listeners write to us, asking us to talk about the Focus on the Family adaptation. Could you please tell us a little bit about it?

Screwtape Audio

• So let’s now talk about your Screwtape-related work… 
• In 2009 you produced a Radio Theatre version of The Screwtape Letters starring Andy Serkis (“Gollum” in Lord of the Rings), as well as Laura Michelle Kelly, Eileen Page, and someone I grew up watching in As Time Goes By, Geoffrey Palmer.
• Where did the idea for this production come from?
• It’s not the same as a simple audio book. Could you please explain a little bit about the “radio theatre” format and how you adapted the text to this new format? 
• What were some of the challenges in adapting Lewis’ work to this format?
• What advantages did this format provide?
• What did you decide to alter?
• There’s a really neat “Behind the scenes” video available on YouTube which I’ll share in the Show Notes, but can you tell us a little more about what it was like producing the final product?

Screwtape

• So let’s talk about your other major Screwtape work. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of C.S Lewis’ death, together with Harper Collins, you published an annotated version of The Screwtape Letters.
  • As we are reading through The Screwtape Letters this season on Pints With Jack, this is the version I’m reading. Not only is it beautiful, I’ve found the notes really helpful in preparing for our episodes.
• We’ve had Doug Gresham on our podcast a couple of times now. He’s the man in charge of Lewis’ literary estate and in the introduction to the book you explain that he wasn’t initially a fan of the idea of an annotated version of Screwtape. What was he concerned about?
• People on this podcast will know I’m a big fan of the word “amateur”, an amateur being is someone who does something for love. But were you nervous about trying to produce an annotated Screwtape, since you are an “amateur” rather than a “scholar”?
• I was particularly pleased to see that you included both the 1942 and 1961 Prefaces in your version. You don’t always find both of them together. Why is that?
• Personally, I’d like to see many more books like this produced. I think Lewis is very readable, but every now and then it’s helpful to have a “leg up”, someone to help you understand what he’s written. So, with that in mind, what kind of assistance do you give in your book to readers of The Screwtape Letters?
• What process did you go through in deciding what annotations to add?
• What has been your personal relationship with The Screwtape Letters as a reader? How did it change through these projects?

More Information

• Paul, thanks for coming on the show to talk about your work. I’d love to have you back on at some point to talk about your book and radio drama regarding Mere Christianity…but as we wrap up this episode, can you please tell people where they can find out more about you and your work?
  • https://www.paulmccusker.com/