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I’m not usually a fan of horror. There is enough in real life to sate any appetite I have for being scared stiff. Yet horror can be cleansing, even cathartic. How else to explain our feelings at the end of Coriolanus or even King Lear? My first introduction to horror was BBC TV’s Quatermass and the Pit which quite put me off ever wanting to visit London, where the pit was located. Later, I found the daleks in Dr Who pallid in comparison.
Quatermass and the Pit - The Martian monster hovering over the Haunted House in Hobbs Lane
Hammer horror I found more interesting for the décolletage on display from the likes of Barbara Shelley and Ingrid Pitt than for the gallons of tomato sauce poured over Dracula’s victims.
My scariest theatrical experience was sitting in a very small theatre in Covent Garden almost 30 years ago watching Ian McKellen and Judi Dench in Macbeth. There was a single light bulb illuminating the stage, the cast were all in black, and shadows were all around. When the witches appeared beside me I almost jumped out of my skin. Even they, however, were not as scary as Ms Dench. Up until then I had seen her as a brilliant comedienne, radiating goodness. As Lady Macbeth she was the devil incarnate, an erotic nightmare.
I did not have any great hopes for Radio 4’s recent production of The Exorcist. Why do it when the film starring Linda Blair was still available on DVD? Some listeners shared my scepticism – beforehand. Afterwards, however, we received many plaudits to pass on. It was indeed scary, and also had some very explicit language. Not the sort of thing Radio 4 normally transmits just before midnight. Is this the start of a new trend?
In Feedback this week I talked to Jeremy Howe, the Radio 4 executive who commissioned the play of Exorcist, and to the producer who also directed it, Gaynor MacFarlane.
Here is our feature:
This week we also talked to the Editor of Woman’s Hour, Alice Feinstein, about her programme’s new Power List, and a 21-year-old Feedback listener took advantage of Radio 1’s open door policy to look inside that multi-media station.
This weekend I am going backstage at Broadcasting House on Sunday morning to try and discover whether listeners really do affect that programme’s content. I do hope the croissants aren’t stale.
Roger Bolton
Roger Bolton presents Feedback on Radio 4.
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