Screening exactly 50 years to the hour since its pioneering first broadcast as part of BBC TV's hugely influential stand-alone drama series 'Play for Today', and directed by the fiercely committed film-maker Alan Clarke, Penda's Fen fuses a multi-layered interrogation of social, political, familial and religious forces with a queer, pagan and radically subversive understanding of place, culture and history, to chart a singular rite of passage into adulthood for its protagonist Stephen. Recognised at once for its visionary imagination, and an enduring influence on generations of writers and artists who witnessed that original transmission, dramatist David Rudkin's remarkable work has become one of the most enduring and rewarding touchstones of post-war British culture.
In Rudkin's own words: 'In the pastoral landscape of Three Choirs England, a clergyman’s son, in his last days of school, has his idealistic value-system and the precious tokens of his self-image all broken away – his parentage, his nationality, his sexuality, his conventional patriotism and faith… Below the slopes of the Malvern Hills he has encounters with an angel, and with a demon, with the ghost of Elgar, the crucified Jesus, and with Penda, England’s last pagan king. In the final image, he turns away from his idealized landscape, to go into the world and adulthood with a value-system more anarchistic now, and readier to integrate the contradictions of experience.'
In a pre-recorded filmed conversation made especially for this evening, Rudkin himself will discuss the film and its long afterlife with the event host Gareth Evans.
Following the screening, there will be a Q&A with William Fowler, co-editor, The Edge Is Where the Centre Is: David Rudkin and Penda's Fen, and James Machin, co-editor, Of Mud and Flame: The Penda's Fen Sourcebook.
Thank you to Matthew Harle, Harriet Waller (BFI) and David Rudkin.
Cast:
Spencer Banks, Ian Hogg, John Atkinson