002 Historical Drama – Old
An earlier episode of Tommies
also makes the list. 4 May 1915 is one of the better and
more poignant Tommies from the early
run, in which Mickey Bliss (Lee Ross) goes almost psychopathic after suffering
a disappointment (his superior Captain Roger Patton [Damian Lynch] won’t listen
to his insight that the Germans are listening into field telephone
conversations) and a yearning for Celestine de Tullio (Pippa Nixon). He foments a fight in which he destroys a car
and attacks a blameless soldier, while Jemhedar Parvin Jodha (Rudy
Dharmalingum) helps him face that this stupid lack of judgment may quite
literally be the end of him. Miraculously,
not only does Patton get Mickey out of this scape, he also recommends him for
promotion; that way, Mickey can influence Signals policy more directly. Thus, I finally get to understand why and how
Mickey goes from Sergeant to Captain Bliss.
The poignancy comes from the autistic character “Spiridon” (Adrian
Scarborough) whose helpful singlemindedness avails him of nothing when the
lorry in which he is trying to get back to camp after a rest day is blown
up. To that end, the story ends with a
sing-song instead of the usual Nina Perry music. Written by Jonathan Ruffell
and directed by David Hunter. It also
starred Matthew Watson, Mark Edel-Hunt, David Cann, Elaine Claxton, and the
commentator was Indira Varma.
I believe I’ve expressed before some interest in the varying
fortunes of Martyn Wade’s radio drama.
Well, he can add another feather to his cap with Gondal from 1992, re-broadcast for the bicentenary of Emily Brontë’s
birth. It’s a familiar story: as children, Branwell, Charlotte, Emily, and
Anne Brontë play with a set of toy soldiers given to them by their father. They create a fantasy world, which Branwell
and Charlotte give up as they reach maturity but which to Emily (Janet Maw),
the reclusive, self-centered, passionate sister, cleaves almost until the end
of her life. As Wade makes very clear,
it’s here that Emily develops the stories and relationships that will fuel her
only novel, Wuthering Heights, whose
genesis is developed as a bit of one-upmanship with Charlotte, with whom she
feels a (un)healthy rivalry as well as sisterly understanding. Emily pretends not to mind that Jane Eyre sells better than Wuthering Heights; she pretends to be
above such things as romantic attachments, when in truth she has never been
able to find anyone to meet her exacting standards. But back to Gondal, one of the fantasy realms
the children develop, in which Lady Augusta (Amanda Quick) is the proud,
tempestuous (anti)heroine clearly modeled on Emily and prescient of Cathy
Earnshaw, and where Angelica (Moir Leslie) is the sweet-tempered riff on
Anne. In this vaguely medieval saga,
Augusta marries badly but longs for the mysterious, dark-featured Fernando
(Nathaniel Parker), who loves her in turn.
They have no happy ever after, basically paving the way for each other’s
destruction, with Angelica’s father Alfred (Clive Francis) getting caught in
the middle. The only character who
features in both worlds is Augusta’s mother’s maid, Tabitha (Linda Polan), who
is also the Nelly Dean-like servant in the Brontë’s household. It was occasionally difficult to tell the
voices of Augusta and Emily apart, though it was appropriate that sometimes in
the middle of a sweeping Gondal moment you would be interrupted by Emily having
to do some mundane task. I found it quite
moving as it ended with Emily’s death. It
was directed by Cherry Cookson.
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