Archive for June, 2007
I love words. Words can be rapiers ("No one likes you.") They can be cudgels. ("You bastard, **** off.") They can caress, they can excite, they can provoke, they can appal.
And I love writers who love words. William Shakespeare. David Mamet. Robert Towne. Cole Porter. Ira Gershswin. Frank Loesser, who wrote the music and lyrics of Guys and Dolls. Damon Runyan, who wrote the stories which inspired Guys and Dolls, and who pioneered a baroque form of urban New York gangster speech which turned everyday dialogue into poetry. And David Milch, who stole from Loesser and Runyan profligately and superbly when he wrote the dialogue for his series NYPD Blue, in which Sipowicz's ornate and syntactically challenged version of English became known as Milch-speak, and was for many years the default dialect of the show.
And, of course, Aaron Sorkin, whose series The West Wing was the wittiest and most well written show on television for many years. Half the time, I have no idea what they are saying - but they say it so well.
Captain Jack Sparrow also loves words. He uses words the way he walks, with bizarre arm-flapping feminine grace. He oozes words, he spits words, he lobs words with his tongue. And he is from time to time given some of the best dialogue ever to grace a major studio blockbuster.
These thoughts are prompted by a Sunday afternoon visit to see the third in the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, At World's End. These movies are of course critically reviled (although my agent John Jarrold includes the first Pirates film in his all time Top Ten - and John really knows his movies.) But I find them hugely diverting, visually exhilarating, and very funny, despite the rambling and sometimes incoherent narratives of the last two films. (I suspect two runners carrying differently dated drafts of World's End collided in the corridor and mis-collated their scripts - this is the only way to explain some of the narrative oddities in this film.)
But the dialogue! It's delightful. In one scene, being asked to betray his friends and crew, Sparrow uses the word 'divulgatory'. Is there actually such a word? I neither know nor care. But in context, it's perfect - it's a word that slimes out of Sparrow, and the soft 'g' at its heart perfectly resonates with the 'ch' in 'treachery'.
Then, later, Sparrow has a great line - I haven't got the script so have to quote from fallible memory - when he describes a woman as 'the fury like which Hell hath no.'
The writers, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, have two tongues each, firmly in their respective cheeks. Their approach to the screenplays is to concoct a period piratical tone that absorbs every conceivable cliche, but is handled with zest and wit and is a joy for actors to speak. In the first Pirates movie, Gibbs (the bosun with the preposterous sideburns), hears Elizabeth Swann singing, and speak to Norrington:
GIBBS
She was singing about pirates. Bad
luck to sing about pirates, with
us mired in this unnatural fog --
mark my words.
NORRINGTON
Consider them marked. On your way.
With 'us mired in this unnatural fog?' No wonder this character manages to steal his every scene; it's poetry, by the sloppy bucketful.
And later, Barbossa (original captain of The Black Pearl, played at pantomime pitch by the extraordinary Geoffrey Rush) has another lovely speech, after being spoken to patronisingly by Elizabeth.
BARBOSSA
There was a lot of long words in
there, miss, and we're not but
humble pirates. What is it you
want?
ELIZABETH
I want you to leave. And never
come back.
Barbossa and the pirates laugh.
BARBOSSA
I am disinclined to acquiesce to
your request.
(helpfully)
Means 'No.'
Words.
Let's respect them.
Monday 18th June
I've spent the weekend avidly reading the newspapers, and one story has me totally transfixed - the armed rising by Hamas in Gaza. On Monday morning I read the daily papers, absorbing the various stories that will dominate the week - Glastonbury, an EU conference, Blair and Brown, and so forth. My job this week is to write a 15 minute play based on one of these stories - but I don't yet know which one...
Then, when I arrive at Bush House, temporary home of BBC Radio Drama, I see a cluster of people on the pavement in a weekly vigil in honour of BBC journalist Alan Johnston, who is being held captive Gaza. It is a touching, and quietly shocking sight.
Inside Bush House, I'm involved in a brain-storming session with the creative team who currently run the innovative BBC show, From Fact to Fiction. Their brief is to create dramas inspired by current stories - and each of their dramas is conceived, written, recorded and broadcast in a week. By the end of Monday afternoon, we have resolved to write about a) Russia b) Gaza or c) something else...
Tuesday 19th June
I've been given an office in Bush House, in the palatial, luxurious radio drama offices overlooking the bins. I'm suddenly acutely aware that no one can do any work until I come up with an idea. Executive Producer Eoin O'Callaghan has a disarmingly laidback style ('No pressure, then,' he says, gripping my hand in a vice-like grip and staring ominously into my eyes.) The producer is the delightful energetic Sasha Yevtushenko, of Russian origin, and the composer-in-residence is Nicolai Abrahamsen. I lobby hard for the Gaza story, which I find has entered my blood. It's a tragic dilemma of a people divided by civil war, when they should be united in a common cause.
I spend the day researching on the web, and phone a Palestinian academic to get a potted history of the conflict. His cynicism is palpable; did Hamas jump, or were they encouraged to jump? I've spent all my life being hostile to conspiracy theories; now, in these troubled times, I will always tend to believe the worst of any global conflict. It's always about money, and power, and the needs of the very powerful; and the rest of us are pawns.
Wednesday 20th June
I write a 15 minute drama - it comes in a single burst, and I'm about a few hundred words short. My approach to the time constraint is to have as much story as I would put into a feature script. I have three entire storylines, interwoven, but with no action climaxes...these are brief snapshots of people in crisis.
The joy for me is that two of the actors in the Radio Drama rep company - John Dougall and Simon Treves - are already familiar to me, because they were in my play Breaking Point.
Thursday 21st June
This is the day I really started getting tense. What if the play doesn't work? What if my stories are glib, or untrue? I spend the day obsessively learning all I can about Gaza, downloading maps and imagining walks and learning what Gazans eat. I listen to a remarkable radio play called The Arab-Israeli Cookbook, which analyses the conflict by asking Israelis and Palestinians to cook a meal. And I read the blog of a Palestinian journalist trying to raise a child in a hell-zone. (Raising Yousuf, Unplugged.)
Ideally, I'd like to go to Gaza, spend months researching, and live and breathe the people and the place before putting pen to paper. But this kind of drama is all about immediacy....And it's fast, fast, fast.
Friday 22nd June
I meet the cast in the Green Room, opposite the legendary Studio N41. Simon seems genuinely pleased to see me; having been cast as an evil interrogator in the last play, it's a relief for him to be cast as an evil MI6 agent...
Jasmine Callan has a double role as a little girl, and the girl's Palestinian mother. And Souad Faress is compelling as the mother-in-law, based on all the mother-in-laws I know and have heard about.
The three stories seem to intertwine pretty well, and John and Simon savour every last vicious insult in their scenes together. Half way through recording Nicolai strolls in carrying a CD with the music he has been recording...it's that tight. Colin Guthrie and Keith Graham run the tech side of things - rather to my surprise, they seem to have swapped jobs since the last time I worked with them. Instead of being the Spot, Colin is operating the Panel and doing the Grams (sound database), while Keith is now the Spot, ie doing the spot effects such as rustling clothes, or cocking a rifle ominously.) These are multi-talented individuals....I leave at lunchtime, while Sasha sits down to do the edit.
Saturday 23rd June
It's 6.45pm and I'm in a taxi on my way to a party when someone remembers the play is being broadcast...the taxi driver kindly turns on the radio and I manage to catch the last few minutes of the play in real time. To my delight, the taxi driver laughs at the jokes...
Sunday, 25th June
And finally, I listen to the whole play, in an afternoon repeat...normally it takes 12-18 months for a radio play to go from commission stage to broadcast stage. With screenplays, it can take 5-10 years to get the script made. So it's a unique experience for me to go from 'haven't got a clue what to write about' to hearing the finished play, in just 6 days....
Friday, 18th May. I am in Bush House, temporary home of BBC Radio drama, waiting for the actors to arrive. This is the readthrough of my new piece Breaking Point, a Friday play about military interrogation. I've been researching and writing intensively for several months, and I am anxious to find out if the damn thing actually works.
The first actor I meet is Simon Treves, playing Colonel Reynolds in the play. Simon likes the piece, and is pleasingly flattering in the nicest kind of way, then asks if I've been in the Army. The answer - good heavens, no, they'd never have me! I have two left feet, two cack hands, no sense of direction, and I'm a snivelling coward. But it's reassuring to know that the story feels real.
The rest of the cast arrive - Naomi, Bertie, John and Elliot. John is a mild mannered man with an English accent who, once the readthrough begins, immediately reverts to his native Glaswegian and chills my bones with his portrayal of SAS man Danny.
The play is read, in a little room off the main offices, in a relaxed but committed way, and all goes well. I think back to the most embarrassing readthrough I ever experienced, for my play Rubato, when Nicholas Farrell was absent and I had to read in his role. I did so, giving, I felt, rather a decent performance till I reached the last section of the script when I remembered I had to sing three verses of a Destiny's Child song. I th0ught about ducking out, but chose to carry on, belted out the song with huge energy - and the actors fell about laughing. Oh boy.
On this occasion, blessed relief, I don't have to sing.
Saturday 19th May. We are in Studio N41 - an airless room in the bowels of Bush House. The process is, as always, efficiently, cheerful, and astonishingly fast. Two days to record a one hour play. It would take Francis Ford Coppola three months to cover the same amount of material. Toby, the director, is a hawklike, calming presence, and he gently talks the actors through the text and their approach until every line, every beat has a meaning for them. His great talent is not to impose an approach, but to coax the actors to imbue every moment with meaning.
Elliot, as Captain Starkey, is a cheerful, big man, brimming in testosterone and charm. His idea of relaxation is to cycle to Agincourt, as preparation for playing Henry V (later this year at the Royal Exchange). And as the day progresses, Elliot becomes increasingly scary and deranged; in his performance, I hasten to add, rather than in real life. John Dougall blasts through his role and suddenly, he's gone. He only has one scene; his part is played.
Sunday 20th May. And amazingly, we are half way through. Everyone is more relaxed, and I'm starting to feel that 'one big family' feeling which I find so totally addictive.
The play is about psychological manipulation, and how to 'break' people in interrogation. It's a subject I've researched thoroughly, and though I've invented elements of story, everything in the play is based on truth. And in the course of a day, Richard shows me a newspaper article about a German who lost his mind after experiencing US interrogation methods over a period of 5 months. As the play makes clear, this is not torture; it's far worse.
The last part of the day features long long scenes between Eliot and Naomi. They kiss, they quarrel, they experience post coital bliss; and at the end of the day they go home to their different families. This is the part of the process of writing I most love; seeing words become flesh, seeing the actors become the characters I created.
Toby points out that I've given this play exactly the same structure as our previous radio play, Blame (about industrial manslaughter.) In other words, there's a series of short scenes leading up to a very long climactic scene full of huge speeches. This is the great indulgence of radio; unlike cinema, where 'less is more' and the picture is worth more than a thousand words, the radio dramatist can write and write and write...
At 6.05 pm, the recording ends. The play is done. These are my favourite days in the year - after months of lonely slog, I get to sit on my backside and watch other people make the words come alive.
On the way home, I have a new idea for a radio drama...
Photos of the actors and technicians involved in the recording of Breaking Point can be found here.
Scripts of several other broadcast radio plays by Philip Palmer can be found in this other place.