Neville Jason

Jason was born Neville Jacobson in London in 1934. His grandfather, Carl, was one of the six original shareholders of Marks & Spencer. In 1943, at age 9, Jason was evacuated from his London home to California as part of the British government's attempts to protect civilians. Here, he discovered a love of acting. When he returned to the United Kingdom, he adopted his stage name of Neville Jason as a tribute to a surname his mother used for her career as a professional singer.

Jason trained in acting at RADA. Early in his career, he was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Old Vic Theatre Company. In the latter company, he appeared alongside Vivien Leigh and Sir Laurence Olivier in Peter Brook's influential production of Titus Andronicus. Alongside his theatre career, Jason had small roles in notable films including From Russia with Love and The Duellists.{{cite web |title=Neville Jason |url=https://www.bafta.org/heritage/in-memory-of/neville-jason |website=Bafta 75 |date=10 January 2017 |publisher=British Academy of Film and Television |access-date=24 March 2022}} On television, he notably appeared as Prince Reynart in the 1978 Doctor Who serial The Androids of Tara and played the regular role of Lapointe on the 1960s television adaptation of Maigret.

Jason became most notable for his career as an audiobook narrator and director.{{cite web|title=Death|date=19 October 2015 |url=https://tobyhadoke.com/neville-jason-rip-androids-of-tara-actor-dies/|publisher=Toby Hadoke|accessdate=21 March 2021}} He began working with Naxos Audiobooks in 1987{{cite web |last1=Soames |first1=Nicolas |title=Talking with Neville Jason|url=https://www.audiofilemagazine.com/narrators/neville-jason/ |website=AudioFile Magazine |access-date=24 March 2022}} and would go on to record over 60 books for their label. His recordings included the collected works of T. H. White,{{cite web |title=The Once and Future King |url=https://www.audible.com.au/pd/The-Once-and-Future-King-Audiobook/B00FEZD56M?qid=1648110339&sr=1-79&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_4_19&pf_rd_p=771c6463-05d7-4981-9b47-920dc34a70f1&pf_rd_r=BMWS9315CTW54KA63B06 |website=Audible |publisher=Amazon |access-date=24 March 2022}} novels by Thomas Hardy, and an unabridged recording of War and Peace. For his work in audio, Jason won four AudioFile Earphone Awards as a reader, and two Talkie Awards as a director.{{cite web|title=Naxos AudioBooks|date=5 January 2016 |url=https://naxosaudiobooks.com/jason-neville/|publisher=Naxos AudioBooks|accessdate=21 March 2021}} His final recording for Naxos was Primo Levi's The Periodic Table, which he had selected himself.

Jason received international media coverage for his recordings of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time (regarded by Guinness World Records as the longest novel ever written). {{cite web |title=Longest novel |url=https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/longest-novel |website=Guinness World Records |access-date=24 March 2022}} In the 1990s, he recorded a 36-hour abridgement of the novel, under its traditional title of Remembrance of Things Past. In 2002, he wrote a biography The Life and Work of Marcel Proust, which he recorded over 3 CDs for Naxos.{{cite web |title=The Life & Work of Marcel Proust |url=https://naxosaudiobooks.com/life-and-work-of-marcel-proust-the-unabridged/ |website=Naxos Audiobooks |date=27 January 2016 |access-date=24 March 2022}} In 2010, Jason recorded a 10-hour "essential" abridgement of the novel to introduce new readers.{{cite web |title=The Essential Remembrance of Things Past |url=https://www.audible.com.au/pd/The-Essential-Remembrance-of-Things-Past-Audiobook/B00FML3MJS?qid=1648111104&sr=1-9&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_9&pf_rd_p=771c6463-05d7-4981-9b47-920dc34a70f1&pf_rd_r=8FDSZBGJ7R0C5TJFADQQ |website=Audible |publisher=Amazon |access-date=24 March 2022}} In 2011, he was asked by Naxos producer Nicolas Soames to record a complete and unabridged reading of the novel. Jason recorded the 1,260,000 words of the novel over 45 days. Jason would record approximately 9 hours' worth of material over 3 days, followed by 3 days rest, and then resuming. Between each volume of the novel he took a week off.{{cite web |last1=Soames |first1=Nicolas |title=Neville Jason has just finished reading Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust Unabridged |url=https://naxosaudiobooks.com/neville-jason-has-finished-reading-remembrance-of-things-past-by-marcel-proust-unabridged/ |website=Naxos Audiobooks |date=30 June 2012 |access-date=24 March 2022}} The recordings received enthusiastic reviews, with Michael Mott writing in The Sewanee Review that "Jason creates his own masterpiece for which his training as a singer must be in part responsible".{{cite journal |last1=Mott |first1=Michael |title=Neville Jason's Proust |journal=The Sewanee Review |date=Summer 2014 |volume=122 |issue=3 |page=518 |doi=10.1353/sew.2014.0071 |jstor=43662889 |s2cid=161955654 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43662889 |access-date=24 March 2022|url-access=subscription }}

Jason met his wife, Gillian Bosworth, in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Old Vic Theatre in the 1960s. The couple founded the Gillian Jason Gallery in Camden Town with a focus on contemporary British painters. The couple had two children. They lived in London with a medieval holiday home in France.

{{Reflist}}

• {{IMDb name|0419271}}
• [https://theatricalia.com/person/2q4/neville-jason Neville Jason] at Theatricalia

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Category:1934 births

Category:2015 deaths

Category:English male film actors

Category:English male television actors

Category:20th-century English male actors

Category:Jewish English male actors

Category:Alumni of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art

Category:Royal Shakespeare Company members

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