Popular marriage
Today (BBC Radio 4); These Are the Times (BBC Radio 4)
The two of them are sweeping through those early-morning airwaves like a blast of sea air straight from the coast, slightly salty but with a westerly softness and depth.
On Saturday afternoon, I dutifully tuned in to the new two-part play about Tom Paine, These Are the Times, after being repeatedly persuaded that I should by a trailer which bludgeoned me into thinking it would be good for me. It had a brilliant cast, with Jonathan Pryce as Tom Paine, the Englishman who fought in the American Revolutionary War, wrote Common Sense, justifying American independence, and later The Rights of Man. Paine was an extraordinary character and a great writer. I really, really wanted to like this. But it was just so difficult to follow what was happening and why; so many characters, so little explanation for their thoughts and behaviour. The writer, Trevor Griffiths, has been trying for 20 or more years to tell Paine’s story in a film; the radio production was by an independent company that usually makes films. It was proof, if proof were still needed, that radio is a far more subtle medium and that you can adapt radio for the screen but it’s far more difficult to do it the other way round.
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