7.4 /10 1 Votes
Directed by Alan Clarke Edited by Henry Fowler Release date 21 March 1974 Director Alan Clarke Cinematography Michael Williams Written by David Rudkin | 7.4/10 IMDb Starring Spencer Banks Distributed by BBC Country United Kingdom Running time 1h 30m Produced by David Rose Cast Spencer Banks | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Similar Just a Boys' Game, Nuts in May, Robin Redbreast, Scum, To Encourage the Others | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Penda's Fen is a British television play which was written by David Rudkin and directed by Alan Clarke. It was commissioned by BBC producer David Rose, and first broadcast on 21 March 1974 as part of the corporation's Play for Today series.
Contents
Plot summary
Set in the village of Pinvin, near Pershore in Worcestershire, England, against the backdrop of the Malvern Hills, 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 past. All of this comes together in the growing pains of the adolescent Stephen, a vicar's son, whose encounters include angels, Edward Elgar and King Penda himself. The final scene of the play, where the protagonist has an apparitional experience of King Penda and the "mother and father of England", is set on the Malvern Hills.
Original cast
Spencer Banks starred as Stephen, with a cast including Jennie Hesselwood, Ian Hogg and Georgine Atkinson. Music was by Paddy Kingsland of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
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, win awards and has been rebroadcast several times on the BBC.
Following the original broadcast Leonard Buckley, The Times 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."
A Limited Edition Blu-ray and DVD is finally due for release on 23 May 2016.