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Daily Mirror
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Largest-ever cast for an audiobook brought together for exciting new project
Writer Wendy Erskine's The Benefactors is one of the most hotly anticipated books of the year for 2025. Audiobook fans are in for a treat, as a cast of more than 30 narrators record this debut novel Irish writer Wendy Erskine 's debut novel has been hotly anticipated since it was snapped up by Sceptre in 24-hour pre-empt in September 2024. Centring around a sexual assault, the novel explores pushing family connections to their breaking point, the implications of wealth and class in contemporary Belfast. All of life is here in the pages of Erskine's The Benefactors, and so, it is no surprise that a polyphonic array of voices from the city appear in the audiobook, too. The main narrative is spread over five points of view, three of which are mothers whose sons have sexually assaulted a schoolfriend, Misty. Misty and her own step-father, Boogie's narratives bring the reader close to the horrors of seeking justice. But while this is a novel about a traumatic event, Erskine's style is to fuse humour and heart throughout. Publisher of The Benefactors Hodder & Stoughton commissioned its largest-ever cast for the audiobook. More than 30 narrators contributed to the audiobook, making it the largest cast to date for the publishers' audiobook production. Open casting submission sought to find voice-talent, which was then chosen by Erskine for inclusion in the audio-recording. As in the audio editions of her two short story collections, Erskine herself narrates the majority of the book. But interspersed between this through-line story of sexual assault in modern Belfast are more than 30 narrators. One of which is David Torrens, the owner of Belfast-based independent bookshop No Alibis, a stalwart in supporting the Irish writing community. The Benefactors is refreshing for its expansive narrative net it casts around the city. No city is defined by one event, and so too is Erskine's Belfast not solely focused on a sexual assault case. These narratives range from a woman seeking her long-lost son, and it going horribly wrong, to life amongst the dead in funeral parlours. Erskine told The Bookseller: 'The experience of this book moving from the page to audio was – and this is no exaggeration – wonderful. Right from the beginning, the approach was innovative and predicated on giving listeners the most authentic experience of the book. 'I was there for the recording of many of the monologues, most of which were done by people with no previous experience of that kind of thing and wow, what they brought to my words was beyond what I could possibly have anticipated.' Erskine burst onto the literary scene with her short story collection Sweet Home, published by the Stinging Fly and Picador in 2018. Her follow-up collection Dance Move was a BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime. She has been listed for the Gordon Burn Prize, the Republic of Consciousness Prize, the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award and the Edge Hill Prize. She was awarded the Butler Prize for Literature and the Edge Hill Readers' Prize. Taken as a whole, Erskine's works form a census of modern Belfast, taking in everything from conversations in hairdressers' salons to the aftermath of sexual assault.
Pink Villa
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Pink Villa
Kim Yoo Jung was ‘scared' to take on Dear X role with Kim Young Dae, reveals what convinced her
Kim Yoo Jung is no newbie in the entertainment industry. Having transitioned from a child actor role to that of one of the most sought-after young names in the business, she has seen it all. Taking on her part in Dear X, an anticipated role in which she stars alongside Kim Young Dae, Kim Do Hoon, and more, the 25-year-old has opened up about her decision to accept the role after initially hesitating. She revealed that it was director Lee Eung Bok, known to bring out exciting thrillers like Sweet Home, and classic romances like Guardian: The Lonely and Great God and Descendants of the Sun, whose involvement convinced her. Kim Yoo Jung spills about her role as Baek Ah Jin Talking to Cosmopolitan Korea, the Lovers of the Red Sky star shared that though she took some time to accept the role, it ended up being the right choice for her. 'The original webtoon is well-known, and I heard it is a really interesting story.' However, the difficulty in portraying the role of Baek Ah Jin is what held her back. 'I was a bit scared to take it on. But after meeting the director and speaking with him, I gained the confidence to move forward. He explained in detail why I was the right person to play Baek Ah Jin.' If that wasn't all, Kim Yoo Jung, who also considers chemistry with fellow actors and crew as important as her acting on set, found the right synergy with the director, making it an enjoyable experience for her overall. 'Of course, the script and character are important, but so is the chemistry with the people you are working with. In that sense, I trusted the director.' She was last seen in Chicken Nugget on Netflix, in a cameo role as Choi Min Ah. However, her latest full-fledged character was with Song Kang for the demon-human love story, My Demon. The show received much love from international audiences who praised its visual charm. The drama will see her turn into a ruthless top actor who is supported by Yoon Joon Seo, who stays by her side all the time. Played by Kim Young Dae, he lets love guide his path. Dear X is said to be eyeing a 2025 premiere.
The Guardian
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Benefactors by Wendy Erskine review – a polyphonic portrait of class and trauma in Belfast
That we tend to regard the shift from the short story to the novel as a natural authorial progression perhaps speaks to a failure to recognise the shorter form as its own distinct discipline. Short stories are not novels in miniature, or parts of novels pruned to stand on their own. Without the luxury of space and looser pacing, they demand of the writer a linguistic precision and compression that, at its most radical, borders on the poetic, and which across the breadth of a novel would feel wearying. Novels need room to breathe. The writer expanding their scope therefore faces a difficult adjustment: guarding against density while ensuring they don't get lost in the space. For Wendy Erskine, the move to a larger canvas feels entirely unforced. Her highly praised stories, collected in 2018's Sweet Home and 2022's Dance Move, often display a certain capaciousness, a willingness to wander beyond the single epiphanic moment that is the traditional preserve of the short story. Now, in her first novel, she revels in the possibilities of an expanded cast, yet controls the pace and framing with all the precision of a miniaturist. The result is a novel that feels like a balancing act: at once sprawling and meticulous, polyphonic and tonally coherent. The Benefactors is ambitiously structured, but functions in some ways as a short story with a novel around it. At the book's heart is a pivotal, life-altering moment. Gracefully flowing into and out of it are the day-to-day lives that the moment both springs from and distorts, rendered in a tapestry of third-person narration and unattributed interjections of monologue – a kind of community chorus, commenting and adding colour. At the centre is Misty, a teenager who dreams of a career in special effects makeup, but who tops up her current job in a hotel by putting in the hours on Bennyz, or Benefactors, a camgirl site not unlike OnlyFans. Misty has a crush on Chris, the spoiled son of a wealthy businessman, but at a party in an Airbnb Chris and his friends Rami and Lineup sexually assault her. The trauma is Misty's, but the aftermath is dominated by the parents: Misty's adoptive father Boogie, Chris's stepmother Frankie, Rami's widowed mother Miriam, and Lineup's idealistic but ultimately hypocritical mother Bronagh, who runs a successful children's charity. Erskine's great gift is for character. Not a single figure in this novel feels contrived; all are complicatedly flawed and empathetically rendered. In the novel's first third, Erskine juggles not only a series of perspectival shifts but also multiple, fragmentary diversions back in time, constructing from a mosaic of voices and moments both a convincing cast and a richly textured collective portrait of suburban Belfast – an array of pasts and circumstances deeply and believably integrated. As the novel comes to rest in the present, Erskine draws for the communication of her characters' inner lives on her other most striking skill: the construction of warmly human dialogue on the page. In the book's most remarkable character, Misty's wonderfully abrasive grandmother Nan D, all Erskine's generous literary gifts find their perfect expression. Observe, for example, the sheer rhythmic poetry that careens across the page when Nan D, who favours a more direct form of reparation than the criminal justice system allows for, sardonically relays in beautifully cadenced sarcasm a cinematic fantasy of justice heroically upheld: Misty could end up with one of those lawyers like off the films, a young underdog, nice long hair like your woman, can't remember her name. She's been in loads of things. From the wrong side of the tracks, underdog, but sees something in Misty that reminds her of herself, you know what I mean? And works night and day. In libraries at midnight and grafting grafting grafting. And she turns a whole jury around, our girl. And those guys are going down and their lives are just grubbed up for all time. Boogie, too, is touchingly portrayed. The scene when, on hearing that Misty has been assaulted, he drives to the supermarket on the way to collect her from the police station and buys all the uncomplicated comfort he can think of – food, a dressing gown, orange juice – is, like much of this novel, poignant and true without ever being sentimental or manipulative. When Misty's sister Gen, who accompanies Misty to the police station, uses the word 'Dad' – just once, and entirely uneditorialised – the reader feels the weight of it without anything further needing to be said, such is the depth of the characterisation that has gone before. As should be obvious by this point, there is no doubting Erskine's skill as a writer. The problem is that skill itself must be skilfully deployed – rougher textures allowed to show through the polish. Otherwise, the depiction can cleanse the subject of life. The Benefactors is a work of great assurance and precision, but by the end there is a sense that it has imposed its discipline and control on its characters, denying them emotional expansiveness. The novel's structure – the quotidian trickling towards the seismic, the seismic dissolving in turn back into the quotidian – makes a perfectly valid point about the processing of trauma in collective life, but it costs the story its impact. When, towards the end, a character finally loses their temper, allows themselves to be seized by the irrational, it feels less like a shock than a relief, as if they have shattered not just their own inner reservation but the constraints of the narration around them – a narration that circles a significant trauma, but somehow never quite reaches inside it, as if in fear of what might be found there, and how it might trouble the perfect surface of Erskine's creation. The Benefactors by Wendy Erskine is published by Sceptre (£18.99). To support the Guardian order your copy at Delivery charges may apply.
Korea Herald
02-06-2025
- Business
- Korea Herald
Naver, Webtoon CEOs head to Silicon Valley to meet Netflix executives
Top executives from Korea's Naver and its webtoon subsidiary are set to meet with Netflix leadership this week in Silicon Valley, signaling a potential deepening of strategic collaboration between the digital content giants. According to Naver on Monday, the IT giant's CEO Choi Soo-yeon and Webtoon Entertainment CEO Kim Jun-koo are slated to visit Netflix headquarters on Thursday at the invitation of the US streaming platform. It will mark the first meeting between Choi and Netflix executives. While details have not been disclosed, the invitation-only nature of the meeting has sparked speculation about new collaborative opportunities at both the content and platform levels. The two companies have been strengthening ties since last year. In November, Naver integrated a Netflix subscription benefit into its paid membership program. Under the deal, users paying 4,900 won ($3.55) per month for a Naver Membership were granted access to Netflix's ad-supported plan, which costs 7,000 won -- a move widely seen as a bold and innovative bundling strategy. The so-called Naver-Netflix partnership has shown tangible results. Netflix's monthly active users across the country surged from 10 million in June 2023 to over 14 million after the Naver partnership was launched. Naver saw a 1.5-fold increase in average daily new signups to its membership service. On the content side, Naver Webtoon has emerged as a key intellectual property supplier to Netflix. Original webtoon-based series such as 'All of Us Are Dead,' 'Sweet Home' and 'Trauma Center: Golden Hour' have topped the global charts, cementing the webtoon platform's value on streaming platforms. Despite market rumors, both sides denied that the upcoming talks would explore the integration of Naver Webtoon content directly into the Netflix mobile app. 'It's a meeting arranged purely within the context of a partnership,' a Naver official said. 'The CEOs are indeed scheduled to meet with Netflix executives at their invitation, but there are no predetermined agendas or confirmed outcomes,' the official added.
Korea Herald
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
'One: High School Heroes' brings to life smash-hit webtoon
Star-studded ensemble joins the show, with Disney+ 'Moving' star Lee Jung-ha and 'Single's Inferno' star Yuk Jun-seo A smash-hit webtoon driven by a mission to eradicate school violence is getting the live-action treatment. "One: High School Heroes," Wavve's latest original series, is set to premiere this Friday with a star-studded ensemble, including Lee Jung-ha, best known as the superpowered lead of the Disney+ series "Moving," and Yuk Jun-seo, the breakout heartthrob from Netflix's "Single's Inferno." The coming-of-age action drama centers on Eui-gyum (played by Lee), a top student burdened by his domineering father. He teams up with Yoon-gi (Kim Do-wan) to form a covert masked vigilante group determined to confront school violence head-on. Based on the popular webtoon of the same name, which has amassed over 65 million views, the series promises a faithful adaptation of the original narrative. 'The series will have a storyline that's almost identical to the original work,' director Lee Sung-tae said during a press conference held Wednesday in Seoul's Gwangjin-gu. He added, 'Some parts were slightly adapted for the drama, such as adding elements to strengthen the oppressive atmosphere of Eui-gyum's father's household and making the character Yoon-gi more flexible than in the original. We added narrative depth to Yoon-gi's character to make him more relatable." Marking Lee Jung-ha's return to the small screen following his star-making role in "Moving," the actor once again steps into the shoes of a hero -- though this time, grounded in the real world. Known for portraying a superhuman with dynamic combat skills in "Moving," Lee said he immersed himself in extensive martial arts training to prepare for the wide range of action sequences required in the new series. Joining him is Yuk, who has been steadily rising through the entertainment ranks following his appearances on "The Iron Squad," Netflix's "Sweet Home," and the dating reality show "Single's Inferno" season four. In "One: High School Heroes," he plays enigmatic transfer student Lee Gul-jae, a fan-favorite character from the webtoon. 'It's a uniquely charming character with an already established fanbase. I focused on preserving that without damaging it,' said Yuk. 'Honestly, it feels almost embarrassing for me to be here as an actor. I auditioned and got the role before my identity as an actor was even fully formed. I'm sure the director had a lot of concerns. I spent a lot of time trying to make the role feel more like 'me.'" Yuk also spoke about the physically demanding nature of the role, which required him to lean into his real-life background serving in the South Korean military's Underwater Demolition Team. 'For this project, I focused on delivering intense action that could amplify my UDT background. There were more physical scenes than dialogue. ... The character needed to use his body actively and perform some unusual action scenes. It's the kind of action I'll never forget for the rest of my life,' he said.
