Lolly Willowes (audio drama)

Sylvia Townsend Warner's debut novel, 'Lolly Willowes; or The Loving Huntsman', is the story of Laura Willowes, who, following the death of her father, is torn from her idyllic existence in the countryside she loves and subsumed into the restrictive, self-satisfied, humdrum town life of her oafish, domineering brother and his family, almost becoming lost in her new, imposed, identity as 'Aunt Lolly' until she finally manages to break away to a new life in the village of 'Great Mop' where she pledges herself to the Devil and becomes a witch.

'Lolly Willowes' is a comedy of manners that soon reveals it's true colours as a satirical meditation on life in the early twentieth century, particularly on the lives of women in a society that refuses to value them...

"Women have such vivid imaginations, and lead such dull lives. Their pleasure in life is so soon over; they are so dependent upon others, and their dependence so soon becomes a nuisance."

... and on the appeal of a life lived beyond the confines of conventional social and religious mores, as offered here in the form of Satan and the lure of witchcraft.

"But you say: 'Come here, my bird! I will give you the dangerous black night to stretch your wings in, and poisonous berries to feed on, and a nest of bones and thorns, perched high up in danger where no one can climb to it.' That's why we become witches: to show our scorn of pretending life's a safe business, to satisfy our passion for adventure. It's not malice, or wickedness—well, perhaps it is wickedness, for most women love that—but certainly not malice, not wanting to ​plague cattle and make horrid children spout up pins and—what is it?—'blight the genial bed.' [...] One doesn't become a witch to run round being harmful, or to run round being helpful either, a district visitor on a broomstick. It's to escape all that—to have a life of one's own, not an existence doled out to you by others"

The version below featuring Louise Brealey as Laura and Sam Dale as Satan was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Halloween 2021, a choice no doubt inspired by it's subject matter but 'Lolly Willowes' is a story more interested in sharing it's message through humour than through horror a fact that playwright, Sarah Daniels emphasises in her joyous, deeply sympathetic and entirely lovely interpretation of this neglected classic.

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The Death Watcher

Shadows Of Fear was an early 70s anthology series of ten hour long thrillers and one thirty minute one revolving around notions of 'fear'.  Strangely for the time it was made and with such an apt core concept and such a supremely creepy animated opening sequence featuring Roger Webb's terrifying theme music only one of the eleven episodes had a supernatural theme, episode four, 'The Death Watcher'

Psychologist, Emily Erikson (Judy Parfitt), riding high on the publication of her book, accepts the invitation of a Dr Pickering (John Neville) to visit with him to observe his experiments. There she discovers his work is far further out there than she anticipated and finds herself held hostage by the deranged Doctor and his unwitting assistant Dawson (Victor Maddern) and destined to be not just an observer but his subject. 

Screened on January 26th 1971 there are shades of Nigel Kneale in the melding of science and the supernatural but Pickering always feels more bonkers than brilliant with his botched together death trap and half baked theories, reminiscing about ballroom dancing as he becomes increasingly deranged, leading to a chilling denouement. 

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The Judge's House (audio drama)

Nigel Havers stars in this quick and effective BBC Radio adaptation of what is perhaps Bram Stoker's second most famous story.  Originally publised on December 5th 1891 in Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News it's the story of a student who takes on an old house, previously the home of a sadistic judge, to study for an exam.  Unfortunately the "absurd prejudices" the locals hold regarding the house soon prove themselves true.

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The Curse Of The Mummy's Tomb

Having located the lost tomb of Ra-Antef the team of archaeologists and Egyptologists (Jack Gwillim, Ronald Howard & Jeanne Roland) bring the plundered remains back to Britain where their brash American financier (Fred Clark) plans to exhibit the mummy as part of a touring show.  Unfortunately there is the inevitable curse and their journey home is dogged by murder, mayhem and an enigmatic stranger (Terence Morgan) all of which they seem to take entirely in their stride.

By the mid 60s Hammer Films were releasing around half a dozen movies a year so it's inevitable that there's some slippage in quality amongst them.  The studio's second mummy movie, bereft of Hammer's A-team of Cushing and Lee who've been replaced, for the most part, with a cast of unremarkable, jobbing actors, is a mess of cliches and contrivances that bumbles along entirely forgetting to unleash the Mummy until well over halfway through the film.  Indeed, 'The Curse...' is such a stinker that the absurdity of the revelation in the final act is entirely predictable and it almost never fails to make me laugh every tme I get to it but it has some nice set pieces and the finale in the sewers is effectively done offering an unusual grandeur and a much needed change of setting.  

Mummy movies are a tricky prosect to pull off - implacable, shuffling, encroaching murder monsters work so much better as a zombie hoard - and it takes some real filmic flair to pull it off which this movie has very little of as it's as slow, lumbering and wheezy as its monster but still, for all it's many faults, I like it and it's long been a rainy day movie at Wyrd Manor. 

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Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

55 years ago today, on the 13th February 1970, a former car horn tuner, a sheet metal worker with half his finger tips missing, a Butler and a drummer named Bill released an album that was to define an entire genre of music.  

Naming themselves after a Boris Karloff movie and taking lyrical inspiration from Dennis Wheatley novels and musical inspiration from the Devil's interval the band produced a debut album that still sounds every bit as good today as it did back then even though initial reviews were scathing...

From Wikipedia...

"Rolling Stone's Lester Bangs described the band as, "just like Cream! But worse", and he dismissed the album as "a shuck – despite the murky songtitles and some inane lyrics that sound like Vanilla Fudge paying doggerel tribute to Aleister Crowley, the album has nothing to do with spiritualism, the occult, or anything much except stiff recitations of Cream clichés". 

Robert Christgau, writing for The Village Voice, panned the album as "bullshit necromancy" He later described it as a reflection of "the worst of the counterculture", including "drug-impaired reaction time" and "long solos"."

The reviews certainly didn't hurt any as the album went on to sell almost 5 million copies worldwide and it's influence can still be felt today.

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Cronenberg, Moore and Campbell on Horror in the 1980s

In 1986 in the wake of the release of David Cronenberg's reimagining of 'The Fly' the BBC Two show Saturday Review sent Charles Shaar Murray out to interview authors Ramsey Campbell and Alan Moore to find out about the enduring appeal of horror.

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Daemon

Young Nick Foster (Arnaud Morell) has a lot on his plate what with his parents being in America, moving into a new house, being the new boy at a posh new school, an occult obsessed R.E. teacher (Bert Parnaby), an incompetent au pair, two sisters (Donna Glaser & Sadie Herlighy) with terrifying hairdos, a bedroom that sounds like it's falling apart and a computer that keeps asking for help so it's little wonder that he's seeing a psychiatrist (Susannah York) and his new classmates are plotting to kill him because they think he's possessed. 

Made by the Children's Film Unit - a charity that enabled young people to train in and experience all aspects of film-making - and screened on Channel Four in December 1985, 'Daemon' is a fun little creeper that doesn't quite make the best use of it's generous runtime and makes a vague, clunky, stab at some social commentary about the furore over video nasties but the kid actors are pretty solid, there's a nicely sympathetic performance from York - a patron of the charity - who genuinely seems to be enjoying herself and a suitably manic one from Parnaby and it all builds to a solid conclusion.

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John Baker

John Baker, who died 28 years ago today at the far too young an age of 59, was a musician and composer most readily known for his 11 year stint (1963 - 1974) at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.  His work, with it's combination of traditional instrumentation with more unusual musique concrète techniques and sound sources -twanged rulers, pouring liquid, etc - is amongst the most easily identifiable of all the Workshop composers as, with Baker's jazz sensibilities never far from the surface, his compositions are often significantly lighter, catchier and more playful than those of his colleagues.

After leaving the Workshop in 1974 Baker never composed again and lived quietly until his death from liver cancer in 1998 which makes the body of work made in those 11 short years all the more remarkable. 

The album below - along with Volume 2 which featured his soundtrack, library and advertising work - was released by Trunk Records in July and August of 2008 having been compiled by Alan Gubby of the great Revbjelde, head honcho of Buried Treasure where he released another album of Baker's music, 'The Vendetta Tapes' which I heartily recommend tracking down.

For those that would like to learn more about this fascinating composer the release page for the two Trunk albums features a lovely little biography written by Baker's brother, Richard that shines an illuminating light on the man behind and beyond the music.

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