Category: Radio, TV, Film, Video, Internet

Rosemary Sutcliff early book research in University of Southern Mississippi de Grummond Collection

Anthony Lawton3 Comments

Before my mother stopped her (to keep all her papers in one place), Rosemary Sutcliff happily responded ad hoc to speculative letters asking for research notes and other papers connected with her historical novels and children’s books. So this collection at the University of Southern Mississippi includes notes in her trademark red notebooks. Interestingly the reference refers not only to The Lantern Bearers, but to notes for books called The Red Dragon and The Amber Dolphin, as well as notes on several other topics. There never were published books with those titles. The collection also contains a manuscript and two typescripts for the radio play The New Laird. The programme was taped on April 4, 1966, and broadcast from Edinburgh on May 17, 1966 as part of the Stories from Scottish History series. (I note that the library has not bothered with making accurate and up-to-date their brief paragraphs on her life … )

Source: USM de Grummond Collection- Rosemary Sutcliff papers

Rosemary Sutcliff historical novel Brother Dusty Feet on BBC Radio

Anthony Lawton1 Comment

Brother Dusty Feet historical fiction by Rosemary Sutcliff original UK coverRosemary Sutcliff‘s Bother Dusty Feet is coming to radio in the UK and on the internet. Along with his faithful dog Argos, eleven-year-old orphan Hugh Copplestone decides to leave his Aunt and Uncle’s house after one beating too many, and marches off to Oxford to seek his fortune and the New Learning. When he meets a group of strolling players along the way, Hugh joins them and becomes part of their acting troupe. He walks “with his legs straight and his shoulders back as the Players taught him”. Or as The Radio Times says:

Set in the days of the first Queen Elizabeth, Rosemary Sutcliff’s children’s novel, written in 1952, has more than a touch of ‘lashings of ginger beer’ and Wizard of Oz innocence about it. Young Hugh, an orphan, is bound for the dreaming spires of Oxford, with only his beloved dog and the stars for company, when he meets a kindly band of travelling  players, and joins them on a series of adventures and derring-do. Shaun McKenna’s adaptation is full of fanciful myths, legends and encounters with historical heroes. The whole family will be eager to find out if young Hugh finds his rainbow, somewhere along the dusty roads of southern England.

To discover what the New Learning was Read More »

Rosemary Sutcliff’s Blood Feud historical novel was TV series The Sea Dragon

Anthony Lawton1 Comment

Blood Feud coverI have been researching the Rosemary Sutcliff  historical novels and retellings for children’s books which have been turned into TV and radio programmes. Sea Dragon was a version of Blood Feud made for TV in 1990. The TV series gets an average  8.1 (of 10) rating from users at ImDB. The essence of the plot is this: sold into slavery to the Northmen (Norsemen) in the tenth century, a young Englishman becomes involved in a blood feud which leads him to Constantinople and a totally different way of life.

The United States newspaper the Washington Post commented, when the book was first published in 1976, that:

Sutcliff’s gift is to recreate an era, in this case the 10th-century voyages of the Northmen and the rise of Byzantium, so convincingly that her readers accept without question the different mores of another time. The violence of the blood feud between two families set off by an accidental killing seems inevitable. No writing down here, no anachronisms, just a glorious sense of history, a sense of knowing how it was.

The Director of the TV film was Icelander Ágúst Guðmundsson; the adaptor David Joss Buckley. The lead actors were Graham McGrath (as Jestyn), Bernard Latham (as Gyrth) and Janek Lesniak (as Thormod). Other cast members were: Baard Owe as Haki; Øystein Wiik as Thraud; Pat Roach as Aslak; Trine Pallesen as Ayrun; Lisa Thorslunde as Thormod’s Mother; Eiry Palfrey as Sister Gytha; Holly Aird as Ffion; Lasse Spang Olsen as Herulf; Martin Spang Olsen as Anders; and  Anna Massey (who sadly died  in 2011) as the  Prioress.

Rosemary Sutcliff fan posts coronation stone photo from The Mark of the Horse Lord on Facebook

Anthony Lawton1 Comment

Royce Watson posted at the Rosemary Sutcliff page on Facebook a picture he took a few years ago when he was on holiday in Scotland. He wrote:”It’s the footprint on the coronation stone at Dunadd Fort, as mentioned in the book  (The Eagle of the Ninth). Enjoyed the book, big fan.” Eagle eyed Anne, who is, to my shame, much sharper-eyed and more knowledgeable than I on most matters Rosemary, corrects us both, that it’s in The Mark of the Horse Lord  in a Dal Riada coronation ceremony.

BBC – Desert Island Discs – Castaway: Rosemary Sutcliff

Anthony LawtonLeave a comment

In conversation with Roy Plomley, on October 1st 1983 Rosemary Sutcliff talked on the famous Desert Island Discs radio programme about her career and about the difficulties caused by arthritis since she was a child. She chose the eight records that she would take to the mythical island.

She also chose her book: Kim by Rudyard Kipling. And her luxury:  flowers delivered daily by bottle.

All this courtesy of the new BBC Desert Island Discs archives – but sadly not (yet?) the archive of the programme itself.

via BBC – Desert Island Discs – Castaway : Rosemary Sutcliff.