Andy Serkis, a guy who knows a thing or two about The Hobbit, is about to devote himself to a 12-hour live-stream for charity. Tomorrow, May 8, Serkis will live-stream himself doing a continuous reading of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit from start to finish, a task that is likely to take about 12 hours. And it’s bound to be more entertaining than the Hobbit trilogy movies.

Join me for the Adventure this coming Friday, May 8. Stay tuned for more details on how you can support @NHSuk and @bestbeginnings pic.twitter.com/nxK11BTl4b

— Andy Serkis (@andyserkis) May 3, 2020

Andy Serkis, famous for playing Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movies, is headed back to Middle-earth – for charity. The actor is staging a live-read of The Hobbit for charity, via this GoFundMe page. I’ll allow Serkis to lay out the details for you, by which I mean I will copy and paste what he wrote on the GoFundMe site:

So many of us are struggling in isolation during the lockdown. While times are tough, I want to take you on one of the greatest fantasy adventures ever written, a 12 hour armchair marathon across Middle Earth whilst raising money for two amazing charities which are doing extraordinary work right now to help those most in need in the UK: Best Beginnings and NHS Charities Together.

Starting at 10am on Friday 8th May BST (5am EST, 2am PST), I’ll be embarking on a marathon reading of The Hobbit – from cover to cover, there and back again. The entire book. A Hobbitathon!

From an unexpected party to the last stage, join Bilbo and me on this tale of high adventure. Together we’ll face the might of the trolls, journey to the magical Rivendell, encounter the giant spiders in the labyrinths of Mirkwood, and the evil goblins living among the roots of the Misty Mountains, until we meet the dragon Smaug, and see the Battle of the Five Armies.

I will be announcing on this page how to live stream my Adventure so stay tuned and donate. If we hit our target of £100,000, there may be a special surprise later in our journey.

As for the charities, “Best Beginnings is working tirelessly during the #COVID19 pandemic to support babies, toddlers, pregnant families and new parents and reduce inequalities. The charity empowers and informs parents of all backgrounds through their NHS accredited pregnancy and parenting app, Baby Buddy App.”

This is likely to be worth checking out, even if you don’t want to stick with it for the full 12 hours. Serkis is a great voice actor, so I’m assuming he’ll be using those talents during the live-read. Plus, it’s all for a good cause. And as I said above, however this turns out, I’m 99.9% sure it’ll be better than the Hobbit movies, which we should all just forget about.

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