016 Speculative Fiction – New
It took me awhile to get into Variations on a Theme by Neil Armstrong, but in the end I think it
was more than the sum of its parts (and quite radiogenic, actually). There was a wodge of Moon Landing-related
drama on Radio 4 over the summer, and this poetic drama (unsurprisingly given
Michael Symmons Roberts is one of Radio 4’s poets-in-residence, in all but
name) carved out a niche. Cleverly told,
it tackled the surprisingly vital conspiracy theories about the hoaxed Moon
Landing (apparently a significantly larger percentage of British people believe
these conspiracies than Americans).
Laura (Verity Henry) is a waitress at a thinly-disguised Epcot Center in
Florida where she serves beer to tourists and nostalgic ex-pats in a fake
English pub. There, she meets conspiracy
theorist and all-around tosser, Billy (Graeme Hawley), who has spent his life
making money off of collectibles. He
insists that the Moon Landings were faked, and nothing the increasingly
exasperated Laura says can seem to convince him. Meanwhile, con artists and identity thieves
Belle (Lydia Wilson) and Luna (Laurel Lefko) are wandering around in the Nevada
desert, seemingly validating Billy’s theories when they find what appears to be
a life-sized Moon set. It turns out,
however, that this is a movie set for a film that was never made—in which Noel
(Andonis James Anthony) was starring as Neil Armstrong, a role he has been
playing all his life (due to his lookalike appearance). Noel also makes an appearance at the pub in
Epcot, and it’s his voice that has been giving us the poetic “Neil”
monologues. So if Noel can be a visual
and aural stand-in for Armstrong, what makes him the fake? While the drama is unequivocal on its condemnation
of conspiracy theories, the way it plays with reality is very clever and
satisfying. It was directed by Susan
Roberts.
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