P.Viktor

Sylvia Plath | Poet's Guide to Britain, BBC4

Sylvia Plath was featured on last night's BBC4 series Poet's Guide to Britain, places as seen through the poetic works of major poets. The series is presented by Owen Sheers, himself a poet and author. The episode on Sylvia Plath concentrates on her poem Wuthering Heights and her relationship to the Yorkshire Moors. What is particularly refreshing about this programme is that it focuses almost entirely on Plath's poetry, rather than the tawdry details of the breakdown of her marriage, and her suicide, which are both only mentioned in passing. The only biographical detail included is here to help us understand the poet and the poem in question.

Although I know little about Sheers' own poetry, it is obvious that he has a real appreciation for Plath's work and the intellectual tools to unearth its imagistic jewels (it is also refreshing to see a male poet talking about Plath's work without the usual cliches and accusations of hysteria). The programme is well-made (good old BBC) and well-balanced, and it is great to see Plath's earlier work being unearthed and reassessed. It was also very to see Heptonstall again, a place I visited in my early twenties to see Plath's grave - it is still as bleak and beautiful as I remember it.

From the programme notes:

"A rich and important area of her work that is often overlooked is the wealth of landscape poetry which she wrote throughout her life, some of the best of which was written about the Yorkshire moors. Sheers explores this rich seam, which culminated in a poem called Wuthering Heights. It takes its title from Emily Bronte but the content and style is entirely Plath's own remarkable vision of the forbidding Pennine landscape.

Sheers visits the dramatic country around Heptonstall where the newly-married Plath came to meet her in-laws, a world of gothic architecture and fog-soaked landscapes, where the locals have a passion for ghost stories that connect directly with the tales that were told in the kitchen of the Bronte parsonage. His journey eventually leads out onto the high moors and the spectacular ruin known as Top Withens. Here amongst the wind and sheep 'where the grass is beating its head distractedly', Plath found the material for some of her most impressive writing".

You can watch this programme on the BBC iPlayer here.
Read the text of Sylvia Plath's Wuthering Heights.
Owen Sheers' Official Website

The Kenneth Williams Diaries

“The preoccupation with diary writing is caused by various things: the desire to keep a record which can be useful later, and committing to paper what can’t be communicated to a mentor… oh! all kinds of reasons, but fundamentally it is about loneliness”. Tuesday, 8 March 1988.

In February I saw the BBC3 drama Fantabulosa, a portrayal of Kenneth Williams based on his diaries. Michael Sheen’s performance is quite spectacular – he manages to capture the man without imitating or caricaturing him. Throughout the programme Sheen narrates directly from the diaries, and it so it gives the whole affair a very intimate, personal feel, and offers a picture of William’s rarely seen before. I bought the diaries some years ago, I think after I had seen a documentary about William’s life, which was one of the first to change the popular perception of the comic actor. At eight hundred pages I left it on the shelf gathering dust, perhaps never having enough time to do them justice. After seeing Fatabulosa my curiosity led me back to them. I wanted to know more about this man who I had always had huge affection for and laughed and giggled with in my childhood during the Carry Ons, Jackanory, and Willo’the’Wisp, the man who brought laughter to so many but who had very little for himself. 

Kenneth Williams is widely known for his comic performances, his high camp, his outrageousness, and his forgivable rudeness. He had excellent comedy timing, and in the Carry Ons he was the one actor you often looked forward to seeing. But the man, like many comics seem to be, was a deeply unhappy individual. He was a gay man caught in a time when homosexuality was still illegal, and even though times moved on and homosexuality was decriminalised, he still met with great disdain and reproach in a Britain that was still largely racist and homophobic. He was extremely religious and had a fervent belief in god, and this was also at odds with his homosexuality. It is widely believed (and the diaries support this) that he remained a virgin his whole life. His relationships, if one could ever call them that, were brief misunderstandings and humiliations, and yet ironically, the one thing he always wanted was a partner that he could love and who could love him. But, because of these conflicts within him, and his inability to commit emotionally and sexually, it never happened, and that does seem the greatest tragedy of his life.

Nicholas Hughes - Death of a Son

Read in the Times today the desperately sad news that Sylvia Plath's son, Nicholas Hughes, has committed suicide. It is believed that, aged forty-seven, he hanged himself after a long battle with depression. Sylvia Plath of course killed herself from gas poisoning when Nicholas was only one years old, and one can only guess that such a long shadow was cast over his life, perhaps becoming unbearable with the occurrence of Mothering Sunday (though this event often occurs in May in the US). The Plath-Hughes family have endured a great deal of sadness and tragedy, their lives seemingly blighted by depression and suicide. It is not surprising that neither Nicholas, nor his sister Frieda Hughes (the only remaining family member) have had no children, as though they have somehow unconsciously wished to stamp out a dark legacy. No doubt his death will add to that tainted, tragic glamour of a story which sees no signs of abating.

The Huffington Post has a detailed article of Nicholas Hughes' life.
Joe Saxton, a close school friend, remembers Nicholas in The Times.

In Memoriam: Sylvia Plath reads Nick and the Candlestick:

Nick and the Candlestick

Let The Right One In, Review

Let The Right One In (2008) is a Swedish horror film that you may not have heard of. Although being very successful in its native country, the film has only had a limited release in the US and I believe won't be receiving a UK cinema, although some art house cinemas have shown it. This is something of a travesty, because it is without doubt one of my favourite horror movies (a list I have since needed to revise after seeing this film). Let The Right One In is beautiful, bold, intelligent, and horribly creepy, and if you are as much a horror connoisseur as I am, you will undoubtedly love it.

Adapted from a novel by the Swedish author Tomas Alfredson, LTROI is exceptional because it takes the tired genre of the 'vampire movie' and completely reinvents it. No sleeping in coffins, no tricks with mirrors, no garlic, no stakes through the heart, no creepy mansions, no capes, and no Christopher Lee. This is a modern vampire-shocker for a modern, knowing audience. Set in the eighties, it tells the story of Oskar, an alienated boy – a troubled, intelligent loner - bullied by the popular kids, who lives with his mother in a small apartment. He soon befriends the mysterious girl Eli who moves in next door, and it’s not long before he realises that Eli is more than just a little girl.