#even though a lot of it is retelling the game events with slight changes. i just have so much fun writing it?

[gothamcityneedsme]

ok. I feel pretty good in saying that I don't feel good about FLED until around the middle-ish of chapter 3. But that was out of necessity. The first three chapters are already 18k words, and it's a LOT of set up for the time loop premise. Even back when I was starting it in 2018, I knew I was rushing the beginning and trying to condense it as much as I could so I could move on.

The place I wanted to go was the stage right before Flynn is kidnapped, and then TO that point, because Flynn getting kidnapped is the real point of rising action.

I won't consider editing/rewriting FLED (and tbh actually editing FLED was always on my radar, I was writing it in part planning to use it to practice editing) until the story is finished. So obviously not on my docket right now.

Anyways. There are only a few scenes in the early part that I think are pretty strongly defined and that I wouldn't touch much--the scene with Lucifer in chapter 2, and the second half of Nanashi and Flynn's conversation in chapter 3. The first half needs some work, it is burdened down by the utter clunk that the rest of chapter 1-2 are as well.

Getting rid of that clunk though would require a lot of restructuring, although I already have ideas on how I'd do it, but as I said, it would extend the word count by a LOT, even though I would also be removing a lot of parts, I would be largely restructuring them into the new context. Touching the same themes in different ways. etc.

It's interesting to think about and revisit. I am considering trying to get the next chapter out, so I'm revisiting it as a whole to remember where I was.

Just, whew. I wouldn't say it 'gets good' until that halfway-ish point in chapter 3. Chapter 4 on though I'm confident I'll be fairly happy with even now, because that was when I finally wasn't rushing and only working on setup--that's where the story actually is, lol.

[hellzabeth]

i have opinions about The Prince of Egypt musical adaption and you’re going to listen to them: An Essay

So, quick disclaimer: The Prince of Egypt is one of my favourite movies of all time. The casting, the music, the animation, I think it’s one of the top-tier movies that have ever been made. I went into seeing the London West End production of PoE with a full expectation that nothing I saw on stage would ever live up to how much I love the movie. I was fully aware there are plenty of limitations to what can be shown live on a stage with human actors and props.

That being said, I was enormously disappointed with how the whole thing was handled.

The Good

Now before I launch into a whole tirade of what I didn’t like about the production, it does behoove me to say what I think they did do well. 


The casting of the role of Moses was done fantastically, as was Miriam, Tzipporah, and Yocheved. The swings and the ensemble were really engaged and well placed, going through lots of quick changes to go from Hebrews to Egyptians to Midianites and back.


The two Egyptian queens, wifes of Seti and Ramses, are actually given names, lines, and character beyond being simply tacked onto their respective kings. We get to see how they feel about the events happening around them, and there’s even a scene where Ramses meets his wife and courts her, whereas in the movie, she stands in the background and says nothing. This is one of the areas I was hoping the musical, which would naturally have a longer run-time, would expand on, and I was pleased to see the opportunity was taken.

Light projections on enormous curtains were used to very good effect, taking us instantly inside the walls of the palace and then out to the desert. 


Over all, the work was really put in to be engaging and emotional, and the orchestra really worked to deliver the right musical beats.


One of two stand out scenes as being done very well was the opening “Deliver Us”, which included a bone-chilling moment of Egyptians separating a mother and her baby, with her screams as she’s dragged off-stage, and the blood on the guard’s sword. It really brings home the fear as Yocheved tries to lead Aaron and Miriam to the river with her, not to mention Yocheved’s actress nailed the lullaby. 


The second was at the other end of the show, “When You Believe” was beautifully performed by the whole cast, though it was somewhat stunted by what came before...

The Bad

Oh boy.

So the main problem with this show is not the music, not the staging, not even that sometimes the ensemble was a little off-beat (the lai-lai-lai section in Though Heaven’s Eyes comes to mind). Any mistakes there can all be forgiven, since sometimes things just happen in live performance, someone’s a bit off or something’s just not possible to do on the budget allotted. 


The problem is in the script.

The Prince of Egypt movie is a story that stands not only on the shoulders of its fantastic music and visuals, but also on its emotive retelling and portrayal of the characters within - mainly Moses and Ramses. And while the stage musical does spend a lot of time with the two mains, it neglects two other, incredibly important characters.

Pharaoh Seti, and God. 


In the movie, Seti strikes an intimidating figure. He is old, hardened, and wise in the ways of ruling his kingdom - and is voiced by Patrick Stewart, who brings his A-game to the role. Both Moses and Ramses admire him and look up to him immensely as young men, and the relationship he has with both of them deeply informs their characters as the story progresses. It’s from Seti that Moses learns that taking responsibility for your actions is the respectable thing to do (and later, the true horror of having your idol turn out to be not what you think), and it’s from Seti that Ramses takes a huge inferiority complex.

There are two lines that Seti gets in the movie, one spoken to Moses, and one to Ramses. These two lines define Moses and Ramses’ actions later on in the story:

To Ramses - “One weak link can break the chain of a mighty dynasty!” To Moses - “Oh my son... they were only slaves.”

Guess which two lines are absent from the musical?

One Weak Link is turned into an upbeat song, rather than shouted at a terrified and cowed young Ramses. Instead of being openly a traumatic, internalised moment of negative character development for Ramses, it’s treated as a general philosophy that Seti passes down to his son. Instead of a judgement that is hung over Ramses’ head like a sword of Damocles, lingering in his mind through the whole story and coming up in a shouted argument with Moses later, it’s said and then moved on from. 


The “they were only slaves” comment, on the other hand, is absent entirely. This changes Moses’ relationship with Seti enormously, as well as his relationship with the Hebrew people. Upon finding the mural depicting the killing of the slave children, Moses is appropriately horrified, and Seti shows up to comfort him and defend his terrible actions. Moses leaves this interaction... and then sings about how this is indeed all he ever wanted! He has no moment of horrific realisation that his father thinks of the slaves as lesser, as lives that can be thrown away. This means that the scene where he kills the guard doesn’t lead into a discussion of morality with Ramses as he runs away, but rather Moses breaking down about his heritage as though it’s a negative, instead of something he’s realised is just as valuable as his life as an Egyptian. Instead of Moses being shown as having a strong moral core that protests against the idea of any life being lesser, he bemoans his Hebrew blood loudly, and makes little mention of the man he killed. His issue that causes him to run away is being adopted, rather than his guilt that he’s a murderer, and nothing Ramses can say will change it.

Later on, we don’t see Ramses express this opinion either (in the movie - M:”Seti’s hands bore the blood of thousands of children!” R:“Hah, slaves!” M:“My people!”) so it seems the core reasoning for the necessity of the extremes God had to go to in order to convince Ramses to let the Hebrews go is completely gone.

Which leads us into God Himself, as a character. 


God is a tricky topic in general. He is hard to talk about as a concept and as a character, and even harder to depict in a way that won’t offend someone. The Prince of Egypt movie always struck me as a very good depiction of the Old Testament God - vengeful and strong-willed, commanding and yet nurturing, capable of great mercy and great cruelty in one fell swoop. God is incredibly present in the story, a character in and of Himself, speaking with Moses rather than simply commanding him. The conversation at the Burning Bush is bone-chillingly beautiful. Moses is allowed to question, he’s allowed to enquire, he’s allowed to express how he feels about God’s choice, and God is given the chance to respond (and reprimand, and comfort).

In the musical, the Burning Bush scene lasts all of two minutes, during which God (the ensemble cast, acting as one moving flame, speaking in unison) monologues to Moses, and Moses is not given room to question, talk to, or build a relationship with God. Later on, once some of the plagues have gotten underway, Moses rails against God, flinches in his resolve, and tries to back out... and God says nothing. It’s Miriam and the spirit of Yocheved that convince Moses to keep going. As a character, God is nearly absent. Even when it comes to calling upon the Plagues, or parting the Red Sea, God’s voice is absent. Moses does not pray. He does not even use the staff that God encouraged him to pick up as a symbol of his becoming a shepherd of the Hebrews out of Egypt. 


It’s these little changes, these little absences of such vital lines and presences, that ends up changing the whole vibe of the show. Seti is more like a dad than an emotionally distant authority figure, and God is more like an emotionally distant authority figure than a character at all. Ultimately, the whole feeling that one is left with at the end…

The Ugly

… is that the script doesn’t like God, or religion in general.

A bold statement to make, considering the source material is one of the central biblical stories in EVERY Abrahamic religion. Moses as a figure is considered so important and close to god, that The Prince of Egypt, even with its sensitive portrayal, cannot be aired in a number of Islamic states, because it’s considered disrespectful to depict any of the prophets, especially an important one like Moses. Moses is arguably the MOST important prophet in the Jewish canon.

However, I haven’t highlighted one of the most noticeable script changes - the elevation of Hotep, the high priest, to main antagonist.

In the original movie, Hotep is a secondary villain, a crony to the Pharaohs, bumbling and snide and two-faced. He and his fellow priest Hoy are there primarily to juxtapose how charlatans can control power through flattery and slight of hand, reassuring Ramses that Moses’ miracles are merely magic the same as what they can do. They even get a whole villain song, “Playing With The Big Boys” which is a lovely deconstruction of lyrics vs visuals, where while the priests boast that their gods and magic are much more powerful, in the background the staff, transformed into a snake by god, devours and defeats the priests’ snake handily. The takeaway from the song is that God’s power is true, and doesn’t need theatrics.

It’s a good little nugget of wordless world building. And it is completely absent from the stage musical, with only a vague reference to the chant of all the gods names.

Hoy is gone, and Hotep is the only priest. He actively speaks out against the Pharaoh, boasts about having all the power, and is played as bombastic and proud. He’s a wildly different character, even threatening Ramses at one point. In the end, it’s shown that Ramses won’t let the Hebrews go not because he has inherited his father Seti’s cruel attitude towards the lives he considers beneath him, but because he is being actively bullied by the priest, and will lose his power and credibility if he doesn’t do as he’s told. Ramses is even given a whole song about how little power he really has. The script desperately wants us to feel sorry for Ramses’ position and hate the unrepentantly, cartoonishly evil priest.

That’s another matter as well - a LOT of time is dedicated to making the Egyptians more human and sympathetic, portraying them as largely ignorant of the suffering beneath them, rather than actively participating in slavery. Characters speak out of turn without regard for formality and class, even to the royal family. They are casual, chummy even. And this would be fine - in fact, it’s good to have that sort of third dimension to characters, even ones who are doing reprehensible things, to show the total normalcy and banality of evil - if it were not for the fact they still include a completely open-and-shut case of evil right next to them.

Hotep has no redeeming features. And on the other side, God is barely present, certainly not in a relatable context. Moses has several lines about how cruel and unnecessary God’s plagues are - and you know what, in this version, they are unnecessary! Ramses is not the stone-hearted ruler that his movie counterpart is, he has no baggage over being a potential failure, because it was never really given to him in the same way! By taking away Ramses’ threatening nature, numbers like the Plagues lose half their appeal, as the back-and-forth ‘you who I called brother’ lines between Moses and Ramses are completely absent. Moses is faithless, and is less torn between the horror of what he’s doing and the necessity of it for the freedom of his people, and more left scrabbling for meaning that he doesn’t find. And the only thing hanging over Ramses is Hotep nit-picking everything he does and threatening him, which is considerably less compelling than the script seems to think it is.

This is best exemplified at the end, when all the issues come to a head. The angel of Death comes and takes the Egyptian first borns (which was actually a well done scene), and the Hebrews leave to a rousing rendition of When You Believe. But then we cut to Ramses and Hotep, with Hotep openly threatening to revolt against the Pharaoh - whom was believed, especially by the priesthood, to be a living god! Hotep is so devoid of redeeming features he cannot even be trusted to stand by his beliefs! - unless Ramses agrees to chase after the Hebrews. Reluctantly, Ramses is badgered into the attempt.

Back with the Hebrews, Moses parts the Red Sea… not with his faith, not by praying to God for another miracle, not even by using his staff as in the most famous scene of the movie… but by holding out his hand and demanding the ‘magic’ work. Setting aside the disrespect of Abrahamic religions to call one of the most famous miracles “magic” (and my oh my, if there was a fundamentalist of any religion in the audience they might have gasped to hear it), it again belittles the work of God, and puts all the onus on Moses, not as a conduit for God’s work, but as the worker himself. Then, the Egyptians arrive in pursuit, lead by Hotep, not Ramses. Moses sends the Hebrews through first, lead by Miriam, and stays behind with Tzipporah… to offer his life in penance to Ramses! The script has completely stripped both Ramses and Moses of their convictions towards their causes, and Moses cannot even stand by his decision to lead his people.

Then, in a moment of jarring melodrama, Moses has a sudden vision that Ramses, his brother, will one day be called Ramses the Great (an actual historical Pharaoh who reigned 1279-1213 BCE). There is no historical evidence that this was the Ramses that ruled over the Hebrews (there are 11 Pharaohs called Ramses through the history of Ancient Egypt), and maybe if the scene was acted a little better, it wouldn’t have been so sudden or jarring. Even more jarring, is that then Hotep arrives with the rest of the army, and Ramses refuses to lead the charge into the parted sea. Hotep does so himself, and is the one to have the final dramatic moment, being crushed under the water.

The Takeaway

After watching the show, I’m afraid I could never recommend it as either a play, an adaption, or even as a faithful retelling of a bible story. Its character drama isn’t compelling enough to be good as a standalone play, with it two main characters declawed and their core motivations reduced to a squabble between brothers rather than a grand interplay between two cultures and ideas and trauma handed down from their father. As an adaption of the movie it’s upsettingly bad, with grand numbers like the Plagues rendered piecemeal and fan favourites like Playing With The Big Boys missing entirely. As a retelling of the bible story, it’s insulting, completely cutting God out of the equation, taking no opportunity to reintroduce Aaron as an important character (which he was, in the bible, as Moses was a notoriously bad public speaker, with a stutter, and Aaron often interpreted for him) and more importantly, completely erasing God’s influence from the narrative.

I don’t know who this show was… for, in that case. If it wasn’t for drama lovers, movie fans, or people of the faith, then who the hell was it for? Why change such a critically acclaimed and well-beloved story? Why take away all these defining moments? If you wanted to tell a story about how religion is the true evil, how God can command people to do terrible things, and how those who uphold organised religion like Hotep are unrepentant, one-dimensional monsters… why would you tell that through the Prince of Egypt?

Underwhelming at best, infuriating at worst… just watch the movie. Or read Exodus. At least the Bible’s free.

[elizadoolittlethings]

Toby Hadoke’s adaptation of Nigel Kneale’s The Road aired on October 27 to great acclaim. Here, Hadoke talks about the necessary alterations for the story, as well as its tributes to the first production…NB This portion of the interview contains major spoilers for The Road. If you’ve not heard it yet, do so now!

Do we know if Nigel Kneale ever considered The Road as a radio script? It’s clear that what Brian Hodgson and the Radiophonic Workshop did back in 1963 was what he was after from the start – it was never going to be a big visual thing.

One of the big comments I got back from [Radio 4 Commissioning Editor] Jeremy Howe when we first pitched it was: “How is this going to work with the climax relying on a juxtaposition of the sound that we can hear and the visuals of the characters in the time period they are in, and the incongruity of hearing those sounds laid over the image of the people in that period clothing?”

He was quite right about that. Charlotte Riches who’s produced it has been a great advocate of mine and done pretty much everything I’ve done for radio; she’s an extremely experienced producer, and is brilliant and very hot on scripts. She said that the edit on the final five minutes of the play was the biggest and hardest job she’d had, and she’d produced hundreds of hours of radio drama. She gave herself a five-day edit on this because she knew this was going to be a biggie.

When you can see the pictures, you know where you’re supposed to be looking; when you’re listening on radio you have to create the points of view and it’s difficult to go, “Are we now with the haunting, or are we still in the woods, and those in the woods can hear the haunting?” On telly, we can see the people who can hear the haunting listening, so we have an anchor. On the radio, you go, “Why are we suddenly with the haunting?” It was really confusing to work out where the listener’s point of view was.

They say the pictures are better on radio – but when you need to create a very specific one, it has to be much harder. I think it works – there’s a lot of very clear audio cues placing us in the period before we get the stuff that’s out of place. Therefore we know the juxtaposition has to be doing something. In the radio version you’re giving us all their reactions through the haunting…

We had to keep cutting back to them. In the original, the haunting is just a series of fractured sounds, whereas in ours, it was Charlotte’s idea that we needed a narrative in the haunting to follow. We have a mother and a lost daughter character in the haunting who are entirely our invention, so we have a little mini story to follow within the haunting itself, otherwise we weren’t quite sure if it wasn’t going to be too fragmented and too confusing to follow.

All the dialogue in the haunting is entirely new, and we planned that quite hard… apart from the object that you can hear that is taken from the original BBC tapes. Although the play doesn’t exist, I had a bit of a brainwave. I dropped Mark Ayres an email and said, “I don’t suppose in your hall of records for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop the sound effects for The Road exist?” and he said, “I’ve got a tape here that says The Road.” He’s a superstar and sent me what was there, and we seeded a couple of bits in just because it’s a play about sound travelling through time, so why not have sound from the original play travelling through time to us? I thought that was nicely appropriate and a nice nod to the great people who went before us.

The original version was post-Cuba with the threat of nuclear holocaust very present – did you consider changing what the tragedy was that caused the haunting or did you want to keep it as close to the original as possible?

Unfortunately Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un came along and Putin as well in a sense – so I think a nuclear holocaust is something that’s still possible, and I didn’t think there was anything else it could be. It needed to be the present day, sure, but although we’ve got them listening to the news on the car radio, I didn’t want it to be too specific. Although it’s intended very much that the day of the haunting is the day that we’re listening to it – it’s happening to us – I thought it would sound a bit hokey if I embedded it too much in the very present in terms of our immediate references.

I think it would have worked in the 1980s when the BBC very kindly did a nuclear holocaust season and they showed The War Game, and Threads was on. I remember it was the first nightmare I ever had – I slept in my sister’s room because I watched The War Game and it scared the shit out of me. It was a real threat – I lived in the countryside, and my mum still lives there; there was a radar dome on the hill and we’d always talk about that if there was a nuclear attack, they’d take out that radar dome so we’d be in the fallout anyway. We wouldn’t escape by being in the country.

It definitely was a present and terrifying threat and I just think there’s nothing else that would quite match it. The world could be wiped out by flood or famine, but I don’t think that gives you as visceral a kick.

The big difficulty we had was with one of the sounds: I thought we should have one of those nuclear sirens going off, but I made some enquires. I asked a couple of MPs and Andrew Smith (who wrote Full Circle for Doctor Who and is a former police officer), as well as Tom Harris, the former MP, about what would happen in the event of a nuclear holocaust, and the consensus was that sound is now outmoded. That alarm wouldn’t happen.

The argument, though, was people still associate it with a nuclear attack, and we should use it but in the end Charlotte made the decision not to. I would have been comfortable using it, because it’s a really useful shorthand. We didn’t, and I think that helped to divorce ourselves from the 1960s setting, but it did mean we did not have available to an aural shorthand that says immediately, “There’s a nuclear bomb!”

So you have to find a way of doing it in the dialogue without having someone say, “I always thought I’d die in a nuclear war!” Or, “Look Jane, here’s a warhead!”

The mother and daughter bit sells that – as they’re describing the cloud. The bit that’s haunted me [and still gives me goosebumps when I transcribe this a few weeks later] is the mother saying, “Close your eyes and make a wish.”

That’s the bit that Charlotte really loved; she said when she read it she got chills down her spine. That’s nice because I wrote that bit!

The actors in the haunting include some quite well known actors, and the girl is the daughter of the producer. Nigel Kneale’s biographer, Andy Murray, is in there somewhere – he lives round the corner from me.

How much of the 40 minutes up to the haunting did you have to rework for radio, and how much could you keep scenes intact?

Unlike [Matthew Graham’s radio play of] The Stone Tape – which I thought was very good, but was a very different retelling of the story with new characters etc. – I felt we had a slight responsibility to present the play that we cannot experience because the tape was destroyed. In the shadow of Nigel Kneale I am humbly shrouded – I had no desire to go, “And what is Hadoke’s take on Kneale’s work?” This is very much my attempt to bring the brilliance of Nigel Kneale to a current and wide audience.

There are some brilliant lines in there, but by the very nature of radio, there are changes. On telly, if you have someone talking to somebody else for two pages, you can keep cutting back to the other person for their reactions to remind you they’re in the scene. You can’t do that on radio. Some of Charlotte’s notes would be – “Jethro speaks here, he hasn’t spoken since page 32, we need to bring him in beforehand, even if it’s to drop off a drink or cough, or something.”

There were various practical things: when we get to the woods, the cart gets stuck on a knot, and that’s just to bring us into the scene. A lot of that is Charlotte’s producing experience, creating the picture for the listener.

The big thing that we brought in to it was because the scenes were quite long – which they can be on television, and certainly could be on television in 1963. For this we needed all the stuff in the woods between Big Jeff and Lukey. In the teleplay it starts off with them setting up and then they bugger off pretty quickly. In this, the stuff with Big Jeff and Lukey and Tetsy that we keep cutting back to is largely mine, setting up the ghost story and having more of the history of the haunting cut with the philosophical discourse. It was felt that we needed to have a bit more toing and froing and to get in the wood location, where the climax takes place, quite a lot earlier. Most of the stuff between those characters, and the stuff about the bones, was all new just to have a bit of a mystery around the haunting.

I had fewer characters at my disposal so I had to roll a couple into one. In the original there’s a character called Sam, played by Rodney Bewes, who is Tetsy’s sweetheart and they’re in the woods. I think it was Charlotte’s idea we roll them into one, and Sam’s the dog now!  And it gives Tetsy a bigger role now.

There was a whole big team of guys helping the Squire and in my first draft I’d written lots of grunts, and cries of “You up there!” We just pared that down to Big Jeff and Lukey who do all the factotuming, because a big load of extras grunting is great on television to fill the picture but on radio it’s not particularly helpful.

In terms of the characters and the main thrusts of their arguments, the dialogue has been tweaked here and there, but large chunks are 100% Kneale. It was already great, so why mess with it?

How involved with the casting were you?

This is the great relationship I have with Charlotte – she knows I’m an acting geek. I didn’t know you could do this until we first did a play together; she said, “Who do you think?” and I suggested a few names… and they were all in it!

We were originally going to do this in Manchester and we were going to use all local actors for the supporting parts, which I’m passionate about because I think the BBC should use more local actors when they’re recording in a place. But because we’d got Mark Gatiss it looked like we’d have to do it in London, and if we were going to be in London, and it’s only a day [recording], we decided to aim high!

We batted a few ideas back and forth. I suggested Hattie Morahan straightaway just because 1) she’s a brilliant radio actress and 2) her dad directed the original which again I thought was a beautiful tie in to the past. Charlotte knew Hattie because she’d done loads of radio. I hadn’t known their connection. Hattie was a yes pretty quickly.

Mark I mentioned was a fan in the pitch – but I didn’t ask him if he’d be in it until we got the go ahead. He was definitely the first person to be contacted, before I’d written the script but after the commission. It then depended on his availability. We were on standby for quite a while – you can’t cast until you’ve got a date – but then we got a date finally from Mark and we moved pretty quickly.

Knowing we had Mark early on we knew would bring people to it – audience-wise and cast-wise. Actors know they’re going to be in a production that people are going to want to take some notice of and if it’s got the nod from somebody who can pick and choose their work, that helps.

I wasn’t 100% certain Mark would want to do it, because he tried to remake it and wasn’t successful so I thought he might be pissed off that somebody else had. He’d also done a readthrough of it on stage a few years ago, so maybe he’d played the part and got it out of his system. He’s always been very nice to me when I met him, so the approach wasn’t totally out of the blue and I thought he wouldn’t tell me to piss off, he would let me down gently. That’s the fear when you get in touch [with actors] out of the blue: you don’t want them to be rude to you, but I knew from my limited experience that Mark wouldn’t be mean, so I went for it.

Francis Magee is a brilliant actor and an old mate of mine and I wanted to give him a job – not that he needs one! He never stops working! I love him to death and I could just imagine him as Lukey so I suggested him.

I worked with Colin McFarlane years and years ago; he’s got a brilliant voice. I suggested him.

We had a few names in the frame for Big Jeff and then Emily, the production assistant, suggested Ralph Ineson because she always wanted to work with him. I said, “Go on offer it to him. It’s a little role at the bottom of the credits, he’s not going to go for it…” and he said yes. I wasn’t going to argue with that – he’s got the perfect voice for a tall Northern man.

Tetsy was quite hard to cast – Susan Wokoma was the only part I didn’t cast. I’d not worked with her before but she’s very much of the moment and brought a very different energy to it. She was Charlotte’s suggestion.

Then Adrian Scarborough – we had loads of ideas for Sir Timothy and there was an actor in the frame who couldn’t do it. It’s a potentially very boring part because he’s slightly stiff and credulous. I needed somebody who was able to bring a slightly different energy to it. I thought of Adrian whose work I’d always liked – I’ve seen him on stage a lot. He’s an interesting left field idea so I suggested him and Charlotte went, “ooh let’s try him”. I thought he’d be good but he’s even better than I thought. It’s a tricky part and he’s made it really sing. I’m  really happy with what he did with it.

Has this whetted your appetite for more Kneale adaptations?

It’s really helped me with my Quatermass book because [Nigel Kneale’s widow] Judith Kerr came to the recording. I’d been trying to get in touch with her to talk about the Quatermass book, but I’d never been able to get past the agent. She came to the recording of The Road, she was delightful, I chanced my arm and said I’m doing a book on Quatermass. I took her for dinner, and she took me round to the house. She’s got the Thing from The Quatermass Experiment out of a plastic bag in the corner of the office; she took me up to Nigel’s office where there’s a Martian sitting in the corner and gave me access to stuff I had no idea existed.

[Added October 29] Have you been pleased with the play’s reception?

I’m staggered – the response had been amazing. I mean, I knew there’d be a small coterie of people like me who would be keen on it (but then they might have hated it because it’s not 100% the original, so even they were a worry!) but the response has been huge. We trended on Twitter! And loads of people who knew nothing about the play before have got in touch to say how great it was an how floored they were by the ending. Someone even Tweeted to say it’s got his 11 year old son into radio drama which has made me overjoyed!

And then last night I got an email from Judith Kerr saying how much she enjoyed it and that “Tom would have loved it.” I’m not afraid to say that got me a bit emotional. So job done. It’s been a totally thrilling experience from start to finish and I’m very lucky to have had this opportunity.

The Road is available to listen on iPlayer. Read our review here

The first, spoiler-free, part of this interview explains how Toby came to adapt The Road

Photos from the recording (c) Toby Hadoke and used with kind permission.

[punderfulowl]

10 Anime Series That Could Pull Off a Live-Action Remake

What’s more shocking than me actually updating?  Why, the fact that the live-action Ghost in the Shell adaptation wasn’t complete garbage!  I mean, it wasn’t the greatest movie I watched, but it sure wasn’t the worst especially in terms of adapting from anime.  Despite having so much against it, the film, overall, was fine.  Simply fine.  But because the bar has been set so low, “fine” is actually a positive step forward for adapting anime, which is kind of bittersweet because that’ll probably hurt the chances of anything original getting on the big screen, but it’s still a positive step for the anime community. After all, there’s a live-action Death Note series for Netflix on the horizon so there still must be demand for it. Of course, it wasn’t long after I saw the new GitS movie that got me thinking about what anime series could have a legitimate chance of having a live-action movie or show.  

First off, these will not be in any particular order.  Second, these are hypothetical movies based off of TV series only.  Third, the series I mention must not have any prior adaptations already (which means I had to do some research, oh boy).  Fourth, each of these ideas must be strong enough for a stand alone movie, so if I thought an adaptation could work with a couple of sequels, it’s not on this list.  And finally, these are WESTERN adaptations with a Western audience in mind, so my ideas are going to come with some tweaks to certain details of the original source material.

With all that out of the way, here are my nerdy opinions movie and series pitches.

- Baccano

Remember when after the show LOST was over and everyone tried to make a show like that?  You know, like, every trailer for these knock offs tried to make their shows out like they were SUPER important while trying to ride the wave of momentum LOST created?  Those shows didn’t last long, did they?  The problem was that they tried to do too much too soon.  LOST didn’t start out like that, but as the show went on it played up to it’s mystery and deserved its important-sounding teasers for the next episode.  Since then, there hasn’t been a lot of shows like that and it’s a shame when you think about how a mystery element can be quite a lot of fun if done right and “fun” is the keyword for a live-action Baccano.

Like I said, FUN is the key for a live-action series of Baccano and it would be what separates itself from those other shows that have tried and failed.  As long as you have fun in the forefront, you already of a decent foundation to reel in and hold an audience.  

Another key is to be faithful to the source material and that is obvious enough, you already know that, but it’s especially important to be faithful on the very first note of mystery.  You see, where LOST slowly introduced you to the possibility of mystery or supernatural elements, Baccano didn’t mess around and showed you something to ponder within the first five to ten minutes.  

Something else that Baccano shared with LOST is the times skips, but don’t worry, the former does a lot better job than the latter as it contains the events within three years.  A cool thing Baccano did with skipping around was each period time had a different feel as well as using different lighting and color which would let the viewer know, visually, that this is sometime else.  Not to mention that the story of Baccano takes place during the Prohibition period in New York which would help an American audience connect with what’s going on.

All in all Baccano is a great time with a cast of colorful characters and couple layers of mystery.  As long as you keep its spirit, an adaptation could work wonders.

- Zoids 

If you just put Zoids in a nutshell, it’s basically people piloting giant robots in the likeness of various animals fighting other people piloting giant robots in the likeness of various animals.  Okay, it’s not exactly “complex,” but there’s enough to work with for a fun, live-action, summer blockbuster.

Now between Chaotic Century or Century Zero (I haven’t seen Genesis and I refuse to acknowledge Fuzors) I think Century Zero would work the best considering that giant animal robots fighting each other in a grand tournament would sell better than having a story about two factions using them as instruments of war.  Because Century Zero revolves around a tournament, it gives characters a goal and a competitive setting gives the audience something to be excited about.  All that doesn’t matter compared to how much merchandise this movie would sell, but I believe I’m getting ahead of myself.

The story for this adaptation is interesting because I can see it going one of two ways.

Option 1: Tell a new story with new characters while using the setting of Century Zero as a template.

Option 2: Take on the task of retelling the story of Century Zero while making a few tweaks to fit into a two hour movie.

Like I said, both are good options and if someone decides to make a live-action Zoids movie, it would be a huge draw for kids and adults alike.  After all, who wouldn’t want to pilot a mechanical animal?

- Canaan

It’s a story about a hero that is fighting against a terrorist group that’s using deadly virus.  Seems like a basic action/thriller that’s been done before, but this time the cast is mostly women.  Not only that, the characters are actually taken seriously.  No joke, Hollywood, if you make this with the intent of giving these characters the proper respect they had in the anime, you will not fail. 

- Eden of the East

Imagine yourself coming into a large sum of money, let’s just say, 10 billion dollars in electric currency found on your phone, and with all that you’re tasked with “saving the country.”  Not only that, there are eleven others (one of which is the mastermind of this whole thing) that have been given the same task as you and thus you have been thrown into a game of life or death.

There are two reasons why this could work really well as a live-action Netflix or HBO show.  First, because it started as an anime, we learn about what a Japanese perspective on this situation would be, which then asks what a Western take would look like.  Second, it was interesting to see the variety of characters.  Each person involved in this game had a different background, social standing, personality.  Given that a Western society like America is a melting pot, I can’t help but think of what different kinds of people would do with all that money to throw around.  It’s a show I would definitely binge.

- Psycho-Pass

In my humble, honest opinion, this would be THE easiest anime to adapt.  You don’t need to add anything, the narrative is fine by itself.

Anyway, Psycho-Pass takes place in the near future where a system dictates most things like what job you’re going to have via aptitude tests.  It also keeps track of your mental well-being which then predicts the likelihood of you committing a crime. If your mental state reaches a certain level, you’re hauled off to jail till your level goes down.  However, there’s a mysterious individual that has a rare mental state that bypasses the system no matter what heinous acts he commits.  If his mental state can’t change, then this new system sees no reason to arrest him.  

There are other pieces to the plot I’m leaving out, but go and see the anime for yourself, that way you can see why this would make a cool live-action sci-fi movie. 

- Desert Punk

I’ve been pretty serious with these ideas, so why not include something a bit more silly?  

Desert Punk is a show that follows the life of a bounty hunter named Kanta. His reputation may lead most to thinking he’s a man of a mercenary, but actuality, he’s quite the shrewd and skilled teenager with average teenager, um, “urges.” That last part doesn’t become known until he’s bested by another mercenary who just so happens to be a grown woman.  Hijinks, as they say, ensues.

The anime is a action, comedy show with a raunchy side to it.  Personally, this can work well as a movie that’s directed by someone like a Shane Black or Quentin Tarantino.  This would most likely be a hard PG-13 to light R, but it would still be pretty entertaining.

- Mobile Suit Gundam 

Despite me thinking this idea could work, this would be the hardest anime to adapt.  Why?  Because there are so many different Gundam series out there and I’ve only seen three or four of them!  If you want a rundown of most Gundam series, here it is: War is happening with robots that involves young pilots controlling more special robots (for any big Gundam fans reading this, I’m sorry).

I always thought of the Gundam franchise as a property that floats idly by waiting for someone to make a live-action adaptation of it.  Like, it’s just there, waiting!  But alas, it has yet to happen.  If I were to make a live-action Gundam movie, it would be similar to the Wing series, only because of the cool designs and weapons of the main Gundams, but I would make up a new story.  I don’t know, other than that and having a guy wear a cool mask, I don’t have much, unfortunately. 

- Yu Yu Hakusho

Except I would call it something else like “Spirit Detective,” just so we don’t have a title that would scare off possible viewers, but I digress (even though this is a new thought and didn’t stray away from anything).

Despite having to change the name of the show and even some of the character names, I would make this live-action series follow the adventures of a character named Yusuke Urameshi.  I would make the slight tweak of Yusuke’s family being Japanese-American immigrants.  The setting would still be American, but it would still be cool to have an action/adventure show led by an Asian actor.  

I would make the first season be based on the first episode all the way to the Saint Beast arc.  It would be mostly be beat for beat with the anime, but with the addition of Yusuke’s family moving to America and because he was an immigrant he got bullied in school which then started his delinquency that we all know.

This could be good, but it HAS to be a project of passion. 

- Kino’s Journey

You know what I learned from projects like Stranger Things and Logan?  Little girls can freakin’ act, man!

I would definitely make this a series that carries the same laid back atmosphere like the anime did.  Each episode of the anime was basically Kino going through a town or city that acted as a parable of sorts and I think that’s pretty doable.  Like I mentioned before, I’ve been wildly impressed by young acting talent (boys and girls alike) and I can see both young and old audiences appreciate the mood the storytelling comes with despite the age of the actors.

- Sword Art Online

Anyone that has followed for awhile knows that I have a few issues with SAO.  I have had my fair share of criticisms and jokes toward SAO.  But with all that aside, I can’t help but acknowledge that a live-action movie would actually be pretty decent.  HOWEVER!  However, some things need to be done to make this adaptation not only bearable, but BETTER than the anime.

To start things off, we need to keep run time in mind so in that case I would only focus on the movie being about the first story arc of the first season, cut out the episodes with Lizbeth and Silica, and you got yourself enough for a two hour movie.  Even though the ending of that arc transitions into the next one, the ending was satisfying on its own.

Next, and it goes without saying, to understand the source material proper, you have to watch the show.  After that, watch the abridged series by Something Witty Entertainment.  Watch the original for the basic concept, but watch the parody for characterization.  Combine the two, and you got yourself a movie with a really cool idea that’s not full of itself.

That’s all I got, what anime series can you come up with that could have a legitimate shot at live-action?