A thread for some of the rarer and odder gems from the golden age of British TV drama, what you might call the "Long Sixties".
The first item practically chooses itself: the deeply strange Penda's Fen, written by David Rudkin and directed by Alan Clarke. It was first broadcast on March 21st 1974 as part of the Play for Today series. No adolescent who saw it ever forgot it.
Complete film (1 h 30 m):
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PJmrsRtCYxg
More to follow.
"Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte." - Max Liebermann,, Berlin, 1933
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feynman, NYC, 1966
Filmed in Suffolk. The great Michael Hordern (probably best-known to non-Brits as the narrating voice in Kubrick's Barry Lyndon) gives one of his most memorable TV performances as the slowly imploding bachelor don, Professor Parkin.
"Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte." - Max Liebermann,, Berlin, 1933
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feynman, NYC, 1966
Grizzly, pleased to hear you enjoyed Penda's Fen, and thanks for the Quietus article. It's a good account. Glad to hear that the British Film Institute is finally giving the film the attention it deserves*, and I agree with this:
Although increasingly mentioned in the same breath as the recently-canonised 1970s folk horror triumvirate of Witchfinder General, Blood on Satan's Claw, and The Wicker Man, Penda's Fen resists conscription into the genre. Unlike the former films, it does not achieve its potency by surmounting any crude, generic pulp trappings, for it has none.
Right. It isn't flawless (he tries to pack too much into the last 15 minutes), but it's not kitsch. And it's strange and disturbing, but it's not a horror film. Still, the scene when he wakes up in bed gave me one of the biggest shocks of my young life, especially when the camera-angle changed.
I keep wanting to say more, but it''s hard to discuss these films without giving spoilers. I think they're best seen unprepared. Penda's Fen and several others I'll post here are sensitively discussed at this blog:
That blogger also put me onto another strange and formally innovative TV play by Rudkin, one I had never seen before: White Lady (1987), colour, 46m 22s:
Forthcoming from Strange Attractor Books, the critical anthology Child be Strange will not only include new scholarship ensuing from the [BFI Penda's Fen] conference — written by the participating academics, critics, and medievalists — but a wealth of other material. Child be Strange will be a sourcebook for Penda’s Fen, and collect original archival texts and images, creative responses, walking guides, chronologies, glossaries relating to the myths and landscapes of Penda’s Fen, recommended reading, watching, and summaries of peripheral works.
"Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte." - Max Liebermann,, Berlin, 1933
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feynman, NYC, 1966
This is brilliant: The Lorelei, BBC, 1990, colour, 74m 10s:
A young geography teacher on a short solo holiday in wild North Wales has a (very) brief and completely inexplicable encounter. There is nothing ghostly, monstrous, or even threatening about it, but it leaves her baffled and shaken. In her own words: "It scared the flesh off me." She dismisses the incident and returns to her everyday life in London. Ramifications ensue.