Do3 - The Secret Grief

[french frank]

Sunday 20 March, 8pm

'In this commission for Radio 3 David Eldridge explores the idea of a fascism of the mind. ...

Nigel is bored. But then he meets the glamorous Liv and Tony and becomes part of their beautiful world; a beauty that hides a disturbing secret.'

Frances Barber is back again in a leading role.

[Mobson7]

I really like this Romford Boy's work! Born in 1973, he's a very good interpreter of modern life conversations in his own plays, whilst bringing his own interpretation to the plays of others, such as Ibsen, Brecht & Weill and Vinterberg. We are lucky to have this radio play so soon after last month's play, Like Minded People, broadcast on R4's The Friday Play slot on 4th February, with Ruth Wilson and Tom Brooke telling the story of one couple's relationship stretched over 25 years of political and social change. His new play, The Knot of the Heart, is currently running at the Almeida, a contemporary story of a beautiful and privileged woman enjoying a burgeoning career in television, whilst her social drug habit is developing into a hard drug addiction, which I'm looking forward to seeing next month. My favourite radio play of his to date, is an adaption of his award winning play, Festen, first shown at the Almeida before transferring to West End's Lyric in 2004. The Drama on 3 production starred the original west end cast and was broadcast on 24th April 2005. Tonight's play sounds right up my street, and I love listening for the wicked cadences in the voice that belongs to Frances Barber!

[french frank]

Well, I listened through to the end. I'll take a lot of persuading that this wasn't a pretty pointless, unsubtle and in places badly written, play. I found some of the extended narrative sections postively painful. The performances? Silk purses and sow's ears come to mind

[DracoM]

Me too! Clunky, clunky stuff. I thought it was all clever double-think and irony, then I realised that if it was, I wasn't getting it at all. Felt like an early Lichtenstein comic book take on ' the right' or whatever.

Crumbs.

Have we all missed the point?

[french frank]

Have we all missed the point?

Possibly. I could have done without the mentions of the Paul Smith shirt and suit too

[Eudaimonia]

Possibly. I could have done without the mentions of the Paul Smith shirt and suit too

Ha! Well, I was a little chagrined when they namedropped Jaeger and Mulberry. Am I dressing like a gross English nationalist without knowing it?

Anyway, I didn't appreciate the hamfisted middle-class moralism at the end. The characters didn't ring true at all: would a woman like that have really been so mortally offended at the suggestion she'd ever had three-way with two handsome young men? Seriously? Given that the I-player had a content warning, I was waiting for the scene where they all got it on together...what a letdown! And the main character--ugh, what an unsympathetic wishy-washy prig. If he'd had any guts, he would have bugged off around the hour mark.

[french frank]

Come to think of it, I don't think any of the characters came over as real people. I'm not 100% convinced by the 'Show, don't tell' dictum, but the narrative was definitely too much telling and Nigel sounded a bit too matter-of-fact in his delivery. And the final 'And that's why I decided to tell my story ...'

As for the storyline: it could have come over much more powerfully if, for example, we'd witnessed Nigel struggling with himself not stand up his ex-wife rather than the laconic 'Course, I stood her up', and most of the play came over to me as an excuse for some soft porn, with a bit of sinister doings on the side.

As Draco said, perhaps we've all missed the point, but I found the 'secret grief' as unconvincing as the characters and plot.

Hard going.

Edit: And the final 'And that's why I decided to tell my story ...' : This ranks, for me with, 'And I woke up and it had all been a dream.' Is this what they call 'Post modernist irony'? If so, what does that mean?

[DracoM]

'The hour mark'?
That long?

The moment he goes to Roger's party, stands at the door and says I should have turned round and .....and then didn't, I knew thw writing was on the wall.


So to speak.

[Mobson7]

Ha Ha, well I must say it's great to see such reactions to this play!...why, on other occasions, other plays hardly get a nod; a poster once had to ask if they were the only one who had listened! That's what David Eldridge does, draws you into the world as he sees it, not concerned if you cannot, and that's why he is a successful modern playwright with plays transferring from the Royal Court and the Almeida to the West end; his play The Market Boy getting high praise at the National theatre. His latest stage play, The Knot of the Heart, again at the Almeida, asks 'Why has this happened to us, things like this don't happen to families like ours', referring to one successful young woman's decline into hard drugs. It's sold out to the end of its run on 30th April and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it isn't west end bound...he definitely puts bums on seats; a modern day Pinter, wordier for sure,
but with acute observation of people who actually do, or could well exist in our topsy turvy, devil-may-care environ. In the '70's when I went to see my first Pinter, I hated it! Now with over 40 years of theatre going which has escalated since retirement; I saw 2 plays last week at The National and this week will see the Hampstead & Bush's current plays, I merit his work alongside other exciting contemporary playwrights such as Butterworth, Hall, Johnson, Tucker-Green, Raine, Wade, Bartlett...all young writers of plays that have something to say about our present condition, which is not usually pretty. I applaud that Drama on 3 can afford to commission a leading modern playwright, as well bring us the costume and classic dramas, like next week's Wuthering Heights which french frank seems so excited about. He, DE, is not everybody's cup of tea, but he's my Earl Grey!
Oh, and I almost forgot getting carried away in rhetoric...this play? Well, no wordy diatribe just to say it's utterly Eldridge!

[french frank]

Ha Ha, well I must say it's great to see such reactions to this play!...why, on other occasions, other plays hardly get a nod; a poster even had to ask if they were the only one who had listened! That's what David Eldridge does, draws you into the world as he sees it

We just need aeolium, tony yyy, Russ and Forget It to pile in with their comments!

I can quite believe that he is a successful stage playwright. I was going to suggest perhaps he hadn't done so much for radio, but I see he's written several for Radio 4.

Cards on the table - my contribution to the R4 messageboard was to see if I could work out from the answers whether Radio 3's mission to appeal to 'a wider audience' (so evident in their classical music output) would stretch to the drama output too. I'm not sure that this play supports the theory (sex, drugs, right-wing extremism and 'strong language') but equally I'm not particularly keen to hear another Eldridge play soon.

next week's Wuthering Heights which french frank seems so excited about

Is that ironic?

All this said, every experience has its validity, even if I no like or think it a poor play or poorly performed/directed. In this spirit, every R3 play has its interest.

[Mobson7]

They can post as they please, but the point of Drama on 3 is that in it's diversification, it broadcasts plays that are not going to be liked by everyone...'Simples', yes of course, but in knowing that just as there are people out there writing about today, giving us their take on our society, there are people who are prepared to listen. That's as vital as listening to those playwrights of ore who may be so easily embraced by a wider audience, where there is the comfort of knowing what you are going to get, as opposed to someone like Eldridge, who surprises you with something you don't necessarily want to hear! For example, the moment I heard Frances Barber's twisted northern accent instead of her usual silky soft diction and heard the way this play was going. Yes, DE has written for radio, his last play, as I've mentioned above, was broadcast on R4 in February.

As you can see, ff, I posted on R4 about your forum last month with negative response. However, since the demise of the R3 Arts board, and even when it was live, if there's a fab play I'd like to draw attention to, I comment on it. Usually posters respond, with thanks for drawing it to their attention. For myself, each week I look at the schedule for all plays on R4 and R3 and mark the ones that I want to listen to; as time seems to go so very fast these days, can't hear them all, which is the beauty of i-Player or the tape recorder...and yes, I agree with you, every play on R3, and R4, has its merits. An afternoon play broadcast on Friday 11th March, received the most incredible response, with 6 separate threads at least on 2 different boards, and stirred people into comment...the 45 minute play was about the murder of a young lancastrian women kicked to death in a park in 2007, just because of the way she looked. "Every experience has its validity" yes and in this case, the play was perfectly performed by an actress and a poet and a moving voiceover from the mother of the deceased daughter.

[french frank]

Could I just clarify - in case it wasn't clear - that my reference in the final sentence to 'a poor play or poorly performed/directed' was a general one, not intended as a description of the Eldridge play. I meant to say there was almost almost a validity to listening to a play regardless of how (un)enthusiastic you are about the play itself. One does bear in mind that other people find different things in a production.

(Yes, I did notice your reference to this forum - thanks!)

[Russ]

Have we all missed the point?

No I don't think we did, but the 'point' was not a substantial one in my view, nor, more importantly, a particularly dramatic one - protoganist Nigel is set up as an aimless everyman type of character, calling himself "a potent symbol of my lacklustre generation", and 'the secret grief' is his disgust at himself at being easily seduced by wealth and glamour, and succumbing to a new breed of amoral champagne fascists, as characterised by Liv and Tony, who are in turn under the thumb of the sinister Roger, whose brief role forms little part of the drama itself. The political aspirations and views of the characters are trite, although this was probably intentional on the part of the playwright, as if to underline Nigel's essential vacuity and lack of direction, which he continues after ditching his former friends in the mini-redemption at the end.

That's about it, really, so I thought the piece as a whole was a bit slight, especially after the thrill of Festen, whose central revelation worked with far greater effect, and which I liked enormously (and the only other play I've heard from David Eldridge).

The Knot of the Heart sounds fascinating, but I'm afraid my parlous finances don't extend to attending the theatre!

Russ

[Mobson7]

[QUOTE=french frank;40505]


I can quite believe that he is a successful stage playwright. I was going to suggest perhaps he hadn't done so much for radio, but I see he's written several for Radio 4.

and on Radio 3; his play, Festen, was broadcast on Drama on 3 on 25th April 2005.

[french frank]

and on Radio 3; his play, Festen, was broadcast on Drama on 3 on 25th April 2005.

The reason why I thought he might not have done much radio was this reliance on narration. This is often hard to avoid when adapting a novel, but I can't really see much justification for it here. It wasn't as if this was interior monologue or wrestling within himself as to what he should do: it was straight telling us what had happened with some dramatisation in between. Presumably Eldridge had a reason for choosing that format but I've no idea what it was.

Now, 'David Eldridge explores a fascism of the mind'. Fascism. Of the mind. No, I still don't get it. But I think there is something loitering about ...