Penda's Fen
Encyclopedia
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
television play
Television play
From the 1950s until the early 1980s, the television play was a popular television programming genre in the United Kingdom, with a shorter span in the United States. The genre was often associated with the social realist-influenced British drama style known as "kitchen sink realism", which depicted...
which was written by David Rudkin
David Rudkin
James David Rudkin is an English playwright of Northern Irish descent. Coming from a family of strict evangelical Christians, Rudkin was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham and read Mods and Greats at St Catherine's College, Oxford...
and directed by Alan Clarke
Alan Clarke
Alan Clarke was a television and film director, producer and writer, born in Wallasey, Merseyside, England.Most of Clarke's output was for television rather than cinema, including work for the famous play strands The Wednesday Play and Play for Today...
. Commissioned by BBC producer David Rose
David Rose (producer)
David E. Rose is a retired television producer and commissioning editor.Following war service as a RAF pilot of Lancaster Bombers on 34 missions, he trained as an actor at the Guildhall School of Drama, but following graduation pursued a career in stage management...
, it was transmitted as part of the corporation's Play for Today
Play for Today
Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted...
series.
Plot summary
Set in the village of PinvinPinvin
Pinvin is a village in Worcestershire, England, a little to the north of Pershore, about 7½ miles south-east of Worcester, and about 6 miles north-west of Evesham and is in fact the location of Pershore railway station. The name is thought to come from 'Penda's fen' after the Mercian King Penda...
, near Pershore
Pershore
Pershore is a market town in Worcestershire, England, on the banks of the River Avon. Pershore is in the Wychavon district and is part of the West Worcestershire parliamentary constituency. At the 2001 census the population was 7,304...
in Worcestershire
Worcestershire
Worcestershire is a non-metropolitan county, established in antiquity, located in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire" NUTS 2 region...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, against the backdrop of the Malvern Hills
Malvern Hills
The Malvern Hills are a range of hills in the English counties of Worcestershire, Herefordshire and a small area of northern Gloucestershire, dominating the surrounding countryside and the towns and villages of the district of Malvern...
, it is an evocation of conflicting forces within England past and present. These include authority, tradition, hypocrisy, landscape, art, sexuality, and most of all, its mystical, ancient pagan
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
past. All of this comes together in the growing pains of the adolescent Stephen, a vicar's son, whose encounters include angels, Edward Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
and King Penda himself. The final scene of the play, where the protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
has an apparitional experience
Apparitional experience
In psychology and parapsychology, an apparitional experience is an anomalous, quasi-perceptual experience.It is characterized by the apparent perception of either a living being or an inanimate object without there being any material stimulus for such a perception...
of the "mother and father of England", is set on the Malvern Hills.
Original cast
Spencer Banks (TimeslipTimeslip
Timeslip is a British children's science fiction television series made by ATV for the ITV network and broadcast between 1970 and 1971. The series centres around two children, Simon Randall and Liz Skinner who discover the existence of a strange anomaly, known as the “Time Barrier”, that enables...
) starred as Stephen, with a cast including Jennie Hesselwood, Ian Hogg
Ian Hogg (actor)
Ian Hogg is a British actor.- Early life :He is the son of a doctor and was educated at Durham School, Durham University and the Central School of Speech and Drama...
and Georgine Atkinson. Music was by Paddy Kingsland
Paddy Kingsland
Paddy Kingsland is a composer of electronic music best known for his incidental music for science fiction series on BBC radio and television whilst working at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Educated at Eggars Grammar School, Alton, in Hampshire, he joined the BBC as a tape editor before moving on to...
of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
BBC Radiophonic Workshop
The BBC Radiophonic Workshop, one of the sound effects units of the BBC, was created in 1958 to produce effects and new music for radio, and was closed in March 1998, although much of its traditional work had already been outsourced by 1995. It was based in the BBC's Maida Vale Studios in Delaware...
.
Critical response
Critics have noted that the play stands apart from Clarke's other, more realist output. Clarke himself admitted that he did not fully understand what the story was about. Nonetheless it has gone on to acquire the status of minor classic, and has been rebroadcast several times on the BBC.Following the original broadcast Leonard Buckley, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
wrote:
Make no mistake. We had a major work of television last night. Rudkin gave us something that had beauty, imagination and depth.
In 2006, Vertigo magazine described Penda's Fen as “One of the great visionary works of English film”.
In 2011, Penda's Fen was chosen by Time Out London magazine as one of the 100 best British films. They described the play as:
A multi-layered reading of contemporary society and its personal, social, sexual, psychic and metaphysical fault lines. Fusing Elgar’s ‘Dream of Gerontius’ with a heightened socialism of vibrantly localist empathy, and pagan belief systems with pre-Norman histories and a seriously committed – and prescient – ecological awareness, ‘Penda’s Fen’ is a unique and important statement.
It has yet to receive a DVD release.
Further reading
- David Rudkin: Sacred Disobedience: an expository study of his drama 1959-96 by David Ian RabeyDavid Ian RabeyDavid Ian Rabey is a Professor of Drama and Theatre Studies at Aberystwyth University. He is also the Artistic Director of Lurking Truth Theatre Company for which he has written several plays including:...
, Oxford, RoutledgeRoutledgeRoutledge is a British publishing house which has operated under a succession of company names and latterly as an academic imprint. Its origins may be traced back to the 19th-century London bookseller George Routledge...
, 1998 ISBN 9057021269 - Rolinson, D. Alan Clarke Manchester University Press, 2005 ISBN 0719068304