Robert Macfarlane Profile picture
Oct 20, 2022 11 tweets 8 min read Read on X
Hello -- some news!
I've adapted Susan Cooper's cult-classic novel, The Dark Is Rising, for a 12-part audio drama/podcast on @bbcworldservice.
Dir. & co-adapted by @SimonMcBurney.
Starring Toby Jones, Harriet Walter.
Music by @JohnnyFlynnHQ & more.
#TheDarkIsRising
Brief 🧵 Image
The Dark Is Rising is straight up the eeriest novel I know. I first read it when I was 13, & it gripped me then -- as it's gripped millions of people around the world since it was first published in 1973...
economist.com/1843/2014/08/0… Image
...with its story of young Will Stanton, who turns 11 one Winter Solstice, only to find that in the landscape around his quiet English village, something is very wrong. Rooks are behaving oddly, a blizzard's building, "the Walker" is abroad––& the power of the Dark is surging. Cover of The Dark Is Rising...
5 yrs ago, I co-led a Midwinter Twitter read-along of Susan's novel, & 1000s of people from dozens of countries shared thoughts & stories abt the book.
We even trended on Twitter with #TheDarkIsReading!
Susan wrote us a memorable letter when it was over:
So when a year ago my friend @SimonMcBurney -- the legendary director, theatre-maker & actor –- suggested that we might adapt it for radio, *really* adapt it...well, I couldn't think of anything more exciting.
I sought Susan's blessing, which she kindly gave, & we set to work... Image
...wonderfully supported by commissioner Simon Pitts at @bbcworldservice, the pioneering theatre company @Complicite (which Simon co-founded), producers @tmebell & Catherine Bailey, & an incredible ensemble of actors. We rehearsed & workshopped intensely...
[📷Camilla Adams] ImageImageImage
...& meanwhile @JohnnyFlynnHQ, Luisa Gerstein, Heloise Tunstall-Behrens & I began work on the music/songs for the adaptation -- for Susan's is a deeply, intricately musical novel, filled w/ songs & chants (an EP of the music will be released by @transgressiveHQ this Midwinter)... ImageImage
...& then Toby Jones agreed to play "the Walker" & Harriet Walter & Paul Rhys came on board, & we began recording partly binaurally, using a Neumann "dummy head" microphone, which means when you listen with headphones, the voices & sound *surround* you, move 360 *around* you... ImageImage
...The Dark Is Rising begins on Midwinter Eve, 20 December, and then unfolds over the following days, at roughly a chapter a day.
The first episode of our adaptation will be broadcast on 20 December, and go out for 12 days, so you'll listen in the 'real time' of the novel... ImageImage
...as well as being able to catch up on podcast.
I knew when we began work on this last November, that I wanted to honour Susan -- now 87 -- & her incredible novel, which has shaped so many people's imaginations over four decades...
theguardian.com/books/2012/dec…
...and I truly hope we've done that.
I know I've been lucky to work on this with extraordinary people.
Can't wait for you all to hear it & to read/talk along with the broadcasts.
Pls help spread the word & build anticipation!
#TheDarkIsRising
Full details: bbc.com/mediacentre/20… Image

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More from @RobGMacfarlane

Dec 9, 2023
A short🧵on prose-poetry:
This is a page from proofs of JA Baker's The Peregrine (1967), marked up by Baker himself.
It's an extraordinary self-analysis.
He marks & counts stressed (\) & unstressed (u) syllables: 57.8% stressed!
He tallies metaphors, similes & verbs: 15.7% verbs! Image
Studying the data Baker provides helps us understand what lies under the bonnet, as it were, of the 'magnesium-flare intensity' of his famously dynamic prose.
On this page, the count is 20 metaphors vs 2 similes; metaphor's explosive energy-release vs simile's hinged joints. Image
This overwhelming preponderance of metaphor vs simile is consistent throughout (20 metaphors to 1 simile below), as is the very high verb count. There are 50 verbs in the page below describing the peregrine's 'soaring stoop', as Baker calls it in the margins. Image
Read 7 tweets
Oct 6, 2022
Hello -- 5 years ago today, a book called The Lost Words by me & @JackieMorrisArt was published.

Here we are, nervous & young(er), on that day.

In our wildest dreams we couldn't have guessed what the planting of that acorn would cause to flourish.

Thread...🧵🪡 ImageImageImage
The Lost Words was created in response to the removal from a widely used children's dictionary of everyday nature words, from "Acorn" to "Wren" by way of "Bluebell", "Otter" & "Kingfisher"––& their replacement with tech words inc. "Broadband" & "Chatroom".
theguardian.com/books/2017/oct…
It's not that tech = bad (it's wondrous!), and it wasn't the dictionary's fault, but it seemed to Jackie & me that the disappearance of a common language of nearby nature from the lives, stories, songs & conversations of children––no, of all of us––was something to be resisted. ImageImageImageImage
Read 24 tweets
Dec 26, 2020
Barry Lopez passed away yesterday evening, making his last great journey.
His work –– graceful, meticulous, ethical, compassionate, from Arctic Dreams to Common Ground to Horizon & far beyond –– shaped & will go on to shape countless lives, hearts & landscapes...
1/9
Barry knew that no landscape speaks with a single voice; that place is always polyglot.
His writing recognised this, speaking w/ the energy & variety of a braided river, picking new courses & channels through archaeology, geology, oral history & natural history...
2/9
"Stories people tell have a way of taking care of them", he wrote, "If stories come to you, care for them & learn to give them away where they're needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That's why we put these stories in each other's memories."
3/9
Read 9 tweets
Apr 11, 2020
I want to end our #CoReadingVirus journey together by gathering & celebrating some of the creative work that's arisen in response to Nan's work/the Cairngorms. Please do add to this thread with anything you think relevant, including your own writing, art, music! Here goes...
...there's @Jenny_Sturgeon's forthcoming album The Living Mountain, inspired by Nan's work, out in autumn this year: Jenny's put two *beautiful* tracks (recorded in the Cairngorms) up for the group to listen to here (one arising from the 'Man' chapter)...
soundcloud.com/hudsonrecords/…
...then there's @NapierHamish's beautiful album The Woods, with Somhairle MacDonald. Just released. I've been listening to a lot in these hard weeks, and it's transported me to the Caledonian pine forest & the Cairngorms. You can listen too, here: hamishnapier.bandcamp.com/album/the-woods
Read 14 tweets
Apr 6, 2020
Lastly for this evening, my now-traditional enquiry as to which phrases, images & sentences you found most resonant & why? These chapters are, to my mind, absolute treasure-houses in terms of one-liners:
"Life, it seems, won't be warned off."
"I like the unpath best"
...
"Knowledge does not dispel mystery"
"You wait, & soon the birds forget you"
I could go on & on. But I'd rather hear from you, of course. Meanwhile, if you'll forgive the indulgence, here's me & my younger brother on the plateau, back in the days of cagoules.
As for next time...
...I suggest we meet again *for the last time* at 8pm BST, Sat 11 April, having read Chapters 9-12 (i.e. to the end of #TheLivingMountain). I want then to grow a resource list of the wondrously rich & diverse creative responses that the Cairngorms & Nan's work have inspired...
Read 4 tweets
Mar 22, 2020
The Nan Shepherd/The Living Mountain #CoReadingVirus Book Group: as promised, some Sunday thoughts about how it might work. If you're new to the plan, the tweet below should help explain the idea; do join us!
Otherwise & anyway, read on & RT.
[Thread...]
...People around the world are getting hold of copies of Nan's wonderful book, written in a time of world crisis (1940s). They're buying them, borrowing them, being given them by strangers (see tweet below if you want to give or be given a copy)...
...acquiring audio-copies/e-books. It's been heart-lifting to see the global response to the idea; I've spoken about it on Canadian, New Zealand & British radio & we've participants from dozens of countries. Really, how it might work is mostly up to all of you...
Read 14 tweets

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