Radio Reviews

Given the fact this site primarily reviews radio programmes, I expect we will see a fair bit of James Follet appearing on this site. Through the seventies and eighties he wrote dozens of radio plays, many with an SF or fantasy feel, several are crying out for a decent review. The Twisted Image is a particular favourite of mine, it feels much more like a mood piece and is not dominated by a traditional narrative with a neat ending.

Initially it has the feel of an R.D Wingfield play (Douglas Blackwell &  Peter Wickham are excellent as the policemen) but slowly it moves in a different direction.  My favourite moment is the girl telling the story of visiting the empty shopping estate and seeing the shop dummies in the living fabric centre. For this small section the story steps away from a traditional crime story into the kind of urban dark fantasy popularised by Fritz Leiber (The Smoke Ghost or Our Lady of Darkness) or Ramsay Campbell. The rest of the story is less abstract in it’s presentation but this scene sets an unsettled tone for the rest of the play.

I shall not go too much into the strange happenings in the town of Oakhanger as that will remove much of the fun of the story, but time is playing funny tricks and the detectives are given a strange glimpse of the future. The story could easily have ended up like a bad episode of the X Files but James Follett wisely doesn’t try to rationalise the stranger elements of the story, you are left wondering what strange disturbance moved through the town of Oakhanger one night. In that respect it reels more like an urban folk tale told to kids to send chills down their spine.

As I mentioned earlier both actors do a great job as the policemen and James Follett’s great dialogue moves the play along swiftly, managing to highlight the strangeness of the situation without making a meal of it.

I have several more James Follett plays I would like to review and this one is not typical, it is however my favourite of all his plays. It has a nice disquieting feel which is engrossing throughout whilst carefully walking the line between horror and SF and cleverly avoiding both traps.

Grab it now..

Radioarchive link
http://radioarchive.cc/torrents-details.php?id=4488

James Follet info site
http://www.jamesfollett.dswilliams.co.uk/

Occasionally (very occasionally) you see, read or hear something that immediately becomes an old friend.  You slip into it like a comfortable shoe, and you wonder how you have ever done without it.

As you can see by my lack of posting it’s been a busy time, filming all over the UK, some big shows to prep for and we are moving into a new office.  Well on my last drive I purchased (purely on spec having read a review) Full Dark House, by Chrisopher Fowler on Audio book.  With this I settled down to listen to the CD’s as I drove around the UK.

The book features 2 new heroes for us all to enjoy, Arthur Bryant and John May – a pair of octogenarian investigators in the Peculiar Crimes Unit. Now that in itself is enough to get one interested, but when you add in the fact that Arthur Bryant is murdered on the first page, most of the book is set in 1940 and the action all takes place in a theatre its tantalising stuff.

Despite the idea of the Peculiar Crimes unit this is not the X Files.  The world of Bryant and May, whether it’s the 1940’s or present day London, is real – warts and all. There is a tremendous amount of dialogue, the relationship between the two men is critical to the success of the book and they are so clearly defined, so readily accepted by you, that by half way through the book you can see them as clearly as any literary character you have ever known.

The humour in the book, both in observation and dialogue is quite superb.  It is a real pleasure to be listening to a book, hooked by suspense one minute and sniggering the next. The detail of both modern day and the bombed out London of 1940 is fantastic, Christopher Fowler has an idea for texture and detail which fully immerses one in his world, without getting one to bogged down by unnecessary detail.

The story, building throughout to a thrilling climax, is peculiar in every regard without being ‘fantastic’. Characters are all real, but given the theatrical nature of the plot, given room for plenty of humour. It is real humour though, not manufactured and it never betrays the real dramatic centre of the book, or the tragedies behind it.

It flips backwards and forwards between 1940 and the present effortlessly, both stories, dovetailing neatly to the climax.  I think the decision the frame the drama (which is predominately set in 1940) was a stroke of genius.  The war time story could easily stand on it’s own as the drama and characters are quite brilliant, but by linking and referencing the present day and the past, the introduction of our heroes becomes so much more effective.

Knowing (and he lets us know enough, but not too much) about the events of 1940 seen from the present day, adds different complexities and dynamics to the story. What it also does is introduce Bryant and may at the very beginning of their relationship, whilst also clearly showing their present relationship.

In Bryant and May, Christopher Fowler has added 2 new characters to the great tradition of detective fiction.  When you try to summarise the characters, Bryant – brilliant, cranky, insensitive and bookish – May, Charming, empathic, organised, it gives a rather stereotyped impression.

In reality they are so brilliantly brought to life, the have the myriad of hues that real people have, and hence are not quite so easily categorised. What they are though, is thoroughly interesting and engrossing, and of course likeable.

Perhaps the biggest pleasure is to know I have heard the first book in a great series that promises many more hours with Bryant and May.

The book is brilliantly read by Tim Goodman, his Bryant is simply great and he delivers the lines with obvious pleasure.

I cannot recommend this highly enough, as either audio book or paperback – so dive in you will not regret it!

PS.  Just stared reading The Water Room and thoroughly enjoying it.

Buy them at:  http://www.wholestoryaudio.co.uk/catalogue/artist/author/christopher_fowler/654

Read about Christopher fowler at:  http://www.christopherfowler.co.uk/

Something is terribly wrong.

Grassy Knolls, second shooters, patsies, conspiracies galore…the 22nd November 1963 was probably the most infamous day in American History til 9/11.  They were both tragic days where violence attacked democracy, they were also days that have sadly developed a wealth of conspiricy theories.

I have nothing against a good conspiracy theory (after all how did Bruce Forsyth get on Strictly Come Dancing if it wasn’t for some Masonic entertainment organization) but sometimes they get in the way of truth, memory and indeed celebration (in the case of the ridiculous Moon landing conspiracies which try to darken the work of some brilliant and brave men).

JFK has become canonized since his untimely death, and whilst he was far from an angel, his charisma and acute political ability made his a popular figure, more so since his death.

Arguably the Kennedy Whitehouse used more wiretaps and buggings than the Nixon presidency, but as history looks back I am not sure I can imagine JFK having quite the same squalid conversations as Nixon had with Dean, Erlichman and Haldeman.

JFK’s ability to ‘get away with it’ was one of Nixon’s main bugbears, but watching and listening to JFK speak one can see why he made such an impact.  He had looks , charisma, confidence and great oratory.  Maybe people just wanted to believe this was the real thing that was going to make everything better.

Don’t forget that this is the early 60’s and the world had spent the last 15 years or so recovering from a terrible war.  The youth of the day was beginning to have it’s own identity, and for a while there was hope of a new future for the world and JFK was of course part of that.

The 6 day war, Bader Meinhof, the Angry Brigade and Vietnam had yet to break the love generation ,so maybe people had the right to be hopeful.

Radio 4 did a great series of programmes on JFK and his importance and this was perhaps my favourite, much against my preconceptions.

Trying to report what happened on that day is not easy.  It’s not just that some of the facts are a little vague, and contradictory it’s mainly the fact we are all ingrained to believe there was a conspiracy.

What Alan Thompson does in this excellent documentary is try to get to get across the story of the day without hyperbole, without opinion – and it is all the more powerful for that.

He let’s the interviews run and often ramble, from the policeman, newspapermen and the only living member of the Kennedy car Nellie Connolly.

Her interview is very upsetting, all the more for the way in which she tells it, a lady clearly still affected by what she saw in those 6 seconds. There are no experts to tell us what may have happened, no second hand stories of shady dealings, no pomposity from a US historian, just very ordinary people in an extraordinary time.

The extraordinary story is followed through to the end as Jack Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald.

It is astonishing to think that Oswald was initially arrested for the callous murder of Officer Tibbet before the station put two and two together and realized here was not just a cop killer.

The murder of Oswald by Ruby is more like a farce than a murder and the various interviews very clearly show what kind of man Ruby was and also how simply he was able to get in a position to shoot Oswald.

It also shows how different the day could have been, if we agree that Oswald fired the 3 shots, his $8 sight performed well, but also he was undoubtedly lucky to get that second shot on Kennedy, Ruby was very lucky to get a lethal shot Oswald.  A few bullets, a few inches difference and a very different day.

If you want scandal and revelation, conspiracy and surprise, then don’t listen to this.  If you want an honest attempt to simply present the day as several different people believe it happened then this is fascinating listening.

At the end of this I am not sure you can doubt the testimony of the eye witnesses, whilst you may doubt whether Oswald worked alone.

But ultimately all the politics and mafia rumours which may or may not have influenced Oswald’s assassination attempt and subsequent murder by Ruby fade when we hears the extraordinary events of those three days.

A compulsive and slightly unsettling programme that answered no questions, but wisely never promised to. I defy anyone not to feel emotion when you hear Nellie Connoly speak or the KLIF radio reporting ‘Something is terribly wrong’.  I had a slight feeling of despair at hearing the events unfold like some Greek tragedy, so many things that may have happened differently and changed history for all of us.

BBC Radio information

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/kennedy.shtml

Why you shouldn’t question the moon landings.

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html

Radioarchive link

http://radioarchive.cc/torrents-details.php?id=4475