 has the look of a project commissioned in lockdown. The simplest of formats places a lone performer in front of a camera and gives them an hour to read an abridgement of a novel. It has the extra merit of being inexpensive, without particularly looking it. The titles are selected from (it says here) 'iconic British novels' though not all the quartet in last year's first series quite merit that status. There's no such quibble with the first pick from the new batch. A Kestrel for a Knave is the canonical novel of Barry Hines that tells of Billy, a boy in a South Yorkshire mining town who discovers hope and meaning when bonding with a hawk. Published in 1968, its fanbase widened a year later through Ken Loach's film Kes. So Christopher Eccleston had his work cut out to carve a space for himself as its narrator. But as soon as the music of Hines's prose flowed through him, the shadow of the film faded. This was perhaps helped by that Mr Sugden, the larger-than-life PE instructor played so indelibly by Brian Glover in the film, didn't make the cut. Eccleston's relish for muscular northern language had plenty to play with here. 'Every time she brushed her palms down the front,' he read of Billy's indifferent mother, 'her breasts flubbered underneath.' A Jackanory for adults, a Book at Bedtime for viewers, The Read is far longer than either. An hour is quite some time to watch one face, however mesmerising the story. To break things up, there was ornamentation, such as a hawk's silhouette flitting across the screen. Music swelled as the hawk took to the sky for the first time, 'primaries quivering to catch the currents, tail fanned, it hovered then dropped vertically'. A story which exhilaratingly takes wing resolves into a quiet domestic tragedy which ends with Billy, fantasising about the father who has long since left home, breaking into the town's beautiful but disused cinema. 'The forthcoming attractions board advertised nothing.' Poignantl){kind=link}
The Salford actor shook off the shadow of Ken Loach’s Kes with this mesmerising reading of A Kestrel for a Knave
The Read (BBC Four, Sunday) has the look of a project commissioned in lockdown. The simplest of formats places a lone performer in front of a camera and gives them an hour to read an abridgement of a novel. It has the extra merit of being inexpensive, without particularly looking it.
The titles are selected from (it says here) “iconic British novels” though not all the quartet in last year’s first series quite merit that status. There’s no such quibble with the first pick from the new batch. A Kestrel for a Knave is the canonical novel of Barry Hines that tells of Billy, a boy in a South Yorkshire mining town who discovers hope and meaning when bonding with a hawk. Published in 1968, its fanbase widened a year later through Ken Loach’s film Kes.
So Christopher Eccleston had his work cut out to carve a space for himself as its narrator. But as soon as the music of Hines’s prose flowed through him, the shadow of the film faded. This was perhaps helped by that Mr Sugden, the larger-than-life PE instructor played so indelibly by Brian Glover in the film, didn’t make the cut. Eccleston’s relish for muscular northern language had plenty to play with here. “Every time she brushed her palms down the front,” he read of Billy’s indifferent mother, “her breasts flubbered underneath.”
A Jackanory for adults, a Book at Bedtime for viewers, The Read is far longer than either. An hour is quite some time to watch one face, however mesmerising the story. To break things up, there was ornamentation, such as a hawk’s silhouette flitting across the screen. Music swelled as the hawk took to the sky for the first time, “primaries quivering to catch the currents, tail fanned, it hovered then dropped vertically”.