Good Friday 2015
Agricultural Labourers, Vegetarian Long Distance Walkers and obscure South Coast Clergymen
I've written elsewhere on this site, among the Essays, of how I got my mojo working again (by which I mean the ability to write), concentrating on biographical subjects. There has been a worrying development of this. Having dramatised the early adulthood of the agricultural worker and author Fred Kitchen's life (see earlier in this News Section) I was commissioned by Radio 4 to complete the job and fill in the later years, 1940-69: 30 years of a man's life in 5 x15 minute episodes. It goes out on the week of April 13th, through the week in the post 'Woman's Hour' and post 'Front Row' slot. (follow 'read more' link)
Agricultural Labourers, Vegetarian Long Distance Walkers and obscure South Coast Clergymen
I've written elsewhere on this site, among the Essays, of how I got my mojo working again (by which I mean the ability to write), concentrating on biographical subjects. There has been a worrying development of this. Having dramatised the early adulthood of the agricultural worker and author Fred Kitchen's life (see earlier in this News Section) I was commissioned by Radio 4 to complete the job and fill in the later years, 1940-69: 30 years of a man's life in 5 x15 minute episodes. It goes out on the week of April 13th, through the week in the post 'Woman's Hour' and post 'Front Row' slot. (follow 'read more' link)
I wrote four of the episodes when I was ill and - superstitiously - left notes for Episode 5 in case I didn't survive an impending heart operation. It was wonderful to be able to work at such a time, researching, applying fingers to the keyboard, and watching the scripts emerge. I was grateful. When I finally got back to the series, a few months after the operation (the BBC had put it on hold) I revised it thoroughly and produced a final episode about a man dying of a defective heart ('Your engine's running out, Mr. Kitchen'), which made me think how things had changed since 1969, when Fred died, and the contrast with my own experience. It wasn't hard to invest that episode with some feeling. I still wasn't sure if the whole series was up to snuff but the actors were complimentary (we had, at our disposal, the entire BBC Repertory Department - one of the biggest read throughs that I have attended - our recording being a week before Xmas last year, 2014 - at an otherwise quiet time for the actors). So I was up and down from my seat in the control room at the recording - in the immortal words of Mark Wahlberg in 'The Departed' - 'like a 13 year old's cock', saying thanks and goodbye and 'let's work together again soon' to each of the actors as they recorded their brief scenes and left for Oxford Circus, the Regent Street lights, and a bit of Xmas shopping. Well, 'Joskin' is (pleasingly) 'Drama of the Week' , which my director tells me is the equivalent of a podcast (which means nothing to me, O Vienna). The Head of Radio Drama says it's better than the first series, which (gnomically) could mean anything. And there it is: a substantial drama about an agricultural labourer, who gets his last suit on the never-never and dislikes motorways because you can't peer into neighbouring fields.
And then, a week or two ago, in the post from the same director - David Hunter - a first hand diary account of a vegetarian's attempt on the record of the walk from Land's End to John O'Groats in 1905: 'Could you make anything of this?' I've just had a couple of days on it and think I can, though it's an odd hybrid of the factual and the fictional. I see an opportunity to tell in that same 15 Minute Drama slot something out of the ordinary, numinous, as well as a tale of blisters and poached eggs. And yesterday, Thursday, packing up my car by the Harbour at Folkestone, where I live, one of the fishermen, whom I know a bit, calls out to me - while gutting his catch at a great slab - 'What do you write?' So I told him. 'I've got this memoir of a Folkestone Vicar, long dead. It's very readable. I'll post it through your door.'
I used to write about (God help me) Shakespeare; Tolstoy; Flaubert; E.M. Forster; Edith Wharton; Thomas Hardy; Caravaggio and Vermeer even. Now it's agricultural labourers, vegetarian long distance walkers and (maybe) obscure Folkestone Vicars. What's going on? Well, not much, I suppose, is the answer. I distrust fanciful plots, sexy killers and Gillian Anderson as a police officer immaculate in crisp satin blouse. What I enjoy is the jog trot of day to day life and trying to capture it if I can. I'm clearly in my last - most down beat - phase...
And then, a week or two ago, in the post from the same director - David Hunter - a first hand diary account of a vegetarian's attempt on the record of the walk from Land's End to John O'Groats in 1905: 'Could you make anything of this?' I've just had a couple of days on it and think I can, though it's an odd hybrid of the factual and the fictional. I see an opportunity to tell in that same 15 Minute Drama slot something out of the ordinary, numinous, as well as a tale of blisters and poached eggs. And yesterday, Thursday, packing up my car by the Harbour at Folkestone, where I live, one of the fishermen, whom I know a bit, calls out to me - while gutting his catch at a great slab - 'What do you write?' So I told him. 'I've got this memoir of a Folkestone Vicar, long dead. It's very readable. I'll post it through your door.'
I used to write about (God help me) Shakespeare; Tolstoy; Flaubert; E.M. Forster; Edith Wharton; Thomas Hardy; Caravaggio and Vermeer even. Now it's agricultural labourers, vegetarian long distance walkers and (maybe) obscure Folkestone Vicars. What's going on? Well, not much, I suppose, is the answer. I distrust fanciful plots, sexy killers and Gillian Anderson as a police officer immaculate in crisp satin blouse. What I enjoy is the jog trot of day to day life and trying to capture it if I can. I'm clearly in my last - most down beat - phase...