Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Scoop cover art

Scoop

By: Evelyn Waugh
Narrated by: Simon Cadell
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £13.00

Buy Now for £13.00

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Evelyn Waugh BBC Radio Drama Collection cover art
My Life and Times cover art
Dead Souls cover art
A Dance to the Music of Time: First Movement cover art
Cold Comfort Farm cover art
The Diary of a Nobody cover art
Cast in Shadow cover art
Doc cover art
The Frontiersmen cover art
The John Carter Trilogy of Edgar Rice Burroughs cover art
Candide [CSA Word] cover art
The Winds of War cover art
Doctor Who cover art
A Dying Breed cover art
Lorna Doone [Naxos] cover art
Conceit & Concealment cover art

Summary

Lord Copper, newspaper magnate and proprietor of the Daily Beast, has always prided himself on his intuitive flair for spotting ace reporters. That is not to say he has not made the odd blunder, however, and may in a moment of weakness make another.

Acting on a dinner party tip from Mrs. Algernon Stitch, Lord Copper feels convinced that he has hit on just the chap to cover a promising war in the African Republic of Ishmaelia.

So begins Scoop, Waugh's exuberant comedy of mistaken identity and brilliantly irreverent satire of the hectic pursuit of hot news. Evelyn Waugh's tale of an innocent abroad is a hilarious satire on journalism set amidst the powerful currents of the 1930s and contains a memorable collection of comic creations.

©1938 Evelyn Waugh (P)2015 Hachette Audio

What listeners say about Scoop

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    146
  • 4 Stars
    53
  • 3 Stars
    23
  • 2 Stars
    10
  • 1 Stars
    2
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    165
  • 4 Stars
    38
  • 3 Stars
    9
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    131
  • 4 Stars
    46
  • 3 Stars
    23
  • 2 Stars
    5
  • 1 Stars
    6

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Back when we ruled the world....😊😊😊

All I can say is ....wonderfully read, and charmingly written.
WHY is E W soo given to taking the p..s out of the English knobs?? Where would we be without then? They/ we discovered the world.
loved it....

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Very Funny

Very old-fashioned attitudes to race, but bewildered nature writer sent to report on a civil war in an East African country is superb. The description of The Beast and its offices reflect the tabloids of the period.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Sublime

Doesn’t get better than this- perfect narration of a classic. A window into a bygone age- from wistful to high comedy- perfect!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

the fantastic Beast - and where to find it

What did you like most about Scoop?

Perhaps THE classic satire of newspapers and newspapermen. Riotously funny, beautifully written and unerringly accurate.

What did you like best about this story?

Written in 1938, Scoop ostensibly portrays a vanished world. Yet to anyone still working in national newspapers in 2017, the remarkable thing is how little the industry itself has changed!

What about Simon Cadell’s performance did you like?

Cadell is brilliant - diffident, quietly expressive and a pleasure to listen to.

If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

When the Beast put the Boot in

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

great story be aware dated context

really great story with a 1930s news and historical feel. be aware that language and attitudes are offensive but were of their time

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Classic and consistently funny

Simon Cadell's reading of Scoop is pitch perfect. Waugh's comedy lends itself more to the written than to the spoken word, so the audio version lacks the laugh-out-loud factor of the printed book, but this is still a fabulous use of a credit. Highly recommended.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

First class!

Thoroughly enjoyed this book, Simon Cadell brilliant, chapter12 most entertaining !
Very much recommended ,one of the best from Evelyn Waugh.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The perfect narration for such a tale!

Scoop is widely considered one of Waugh's best novels (although that view will fluctuate as the story's depictions of ethnic minorities are suspect!) Cadell has an understated gravitas which works very well for Waugh's writing style. I'd really recommend this audiobook for anyone who's interested in 'reading' some Waugh. It's only a shame that Cadell didn't record more before his early death.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Days of the Past?

However amusing and downright funny, this novel is best taken as a product very much of its time and with care and judgement needed as to the narrative as it unfolds and some of the unacceptable language used in our days. The satire of the workings of the press needs no qualification, however, and as much holds true today as it did then. If not more so. This is consistently funny. Even though the novel is written with a colonial take on things, we can now see that there is the clear fact that the treatment of developing countries by those that would exploit them is evidenced in this novel and is not rejected. Waugh’s characters often amuse and this will please all listeners/readers. The novel has the daftness of P G Wodehouse in quantity. I enjoyed the opening and closing sections of the novel by far. Waugh was clearly stimulated in writing by his friend that transforms into Julie Stich and her sections are irresistibly funny regardless of her assumptions about the rightness of her behaviour. The Audible performance by the late Simon Cadell is pitch-perfect and a true joy to listen to. My ratings on this novel reflect the body of this personal review. Overall it is 4 stars afforded by the humour, not the story.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Superb

I haven’t read (or listened to) Evelyn Waugh in decades. Scoop was new to me. Beautifully written, very funny and superbly recounted by Simon Cadell. If it is possible to improve on Waugh, Mr Cadell has succeeded.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!