Quarter 1 Reviews- 016 Speculative Fiction – New

016 Speculative Fiction – New 

Some really interesting stuff this go-around.  I’ve heard productions on BBC Radio by Graeae before, but the adaptation of John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos seemed by far the most ambitious.  The story of mysterious, perhaps alien creatures who take the form of child-prodigies with a hive mind is a British horror classic.  Their protector, Dr Zellaby, played by Tyrone Huggins, was a tremendous part.  Zellaby’s relationship with his deaf daughter was highlighted, as was both characters’ skin color.  All of the children were played by deaf or disabled actors, and they all did a great job.  The sound production was also quite good.  The stated aim of this adaptation was to present a somewhat sympathetic viewpoint toward the Cuckoos, which it did up to a point; yet it was hard to identify with the Cuckoos entirely given their desire to wipe out the human race!  On the other hand, I think on radio this worked quite well as you focused on the odd way the Cuckoos spoke.  While this was certainly distinctive, it was perhaps less distracting than constantly seeing them on screen would be.  It was adapted by Roy Williams and directed by Polly Thomas and produced by Jenny Sealey and Eloise Whitmore.  It also starred Alexandra Mathie, Cherylee Houston, Annabel Pattison, and Hermon Berhane.

In Virtually Me, “Me,” the narrator (Gabriel Quigley), is a single mom trying to deal with work and her two twin children and sullen teenager Angus (Robin Laing).  Having her nightly glass of wine, she posts an ad for someone to invent her second self.  Christopher Walken (Roderick Gilkison)—not his real name—comes to the rescue, having developed an AI prototype, Me 2, who is connected to Me’s brain and memories.  Naturally, Me 2 is better than Me at everything, and unleashing her on childcare and work is a bad idea.  When she starts an affair with the divorced father of Me’s children, Me puts her foot down.  This benefited greatly from the warm performance of Gabriel Quigley.  It was written by Ali Taylor and directed by Kirsty Williams for BBC Scotland. 

I had a love-hate relationship with The Truth About Hawaii, a 10-part story for the 15 Minute Drama.  It felt a bit contrived from time to time, and I really wasn’t convinced the generally upbeat tone was always warranted, considering how serious and depressing a story it actually was.  Naturally, I didn’t think Sarah—the little Scottish girl in the near future who scraped her knee, got an infection, and was faced with first amputation and then death because antibiotics no longer work—would actually die, but the whole story was grim.  I liked some of the segues into which the story went—Sarah’s mother trying to get antibiotics off a chav who could navigate the Deep Web and the UN Secretary and her hapless PA—but it sometimes felt meandering.  I liked the metaphor of Sarah visiting Hawaii while she was in a coma, and the cameos by all sorts of public figures—like Elvis, Alexander Fleming, and others—very radiogenic.  It wasn’t until episode 8, which was basically a monologue from Sarah’s mother, that I finally felt that The Truth About Hawaii had actually found its footing.  Still, it was interesting and ambitious.