Adaptations - is it worse if characters LOOK wrong or SOUND wrong?

[ANightingale]

I was ill last week and aching too much to hold a book - I chanced on a radio adaptation of a much-loved book and thought I'd give it a try, but I had to stop listening because almost all the voices were completely wrong (i.e. not a match for what I'd always had in my head).

It occurred to me that I don't really mind, on screen adaptations, if a character doesn't look as I'd pictured them (though it can be jarring when a famous actor is chosen who bears no resemblance to the book description). If they sound wrong - particularly in audio only adaptations - I simply can't listen.

Interested to know what others think.

Both annoy me - I couldn’t get over Tom Cruise playing a very tall, blond, blue eyed Jack Reacher (although I can see why the author was delighted to have Cruise cast in the movie).

Yes, I think the triumph of getting an A-lister can sometimes override everything else.

One of my favourite books when I was growing up was Helen Forrester autobiographies which I've read several times as a comfort read. Then I found they were audiobooks and thought they'd be a great comfort listen. But the chosen narrator has a strong, rather harsh sounding scouse twang. Which completely ruins it for me. The whole point of Helen was that she felt like an outsider in Liverpool at first because she had an upper middle class RP accent for which she was very much teased in her poverty stricken neighbourhood.

I couldn't listen sadly.