Saturday, 15 October 2016

Penda's Fen (Play for Today) 1974


Penda's Fen is a British television play which was written by David Rudkin and directed by Alan Clarke. It was commissioned by BBC producer David Rose, and first broadcast on 21 March 1974 as part of the corporation's Play for Today series.


Set in the village of Pinvin, near Pershore in Worcestershire, England, against the backdrop of the Malvern Hills, it is an evocation of conflicting forces within England past and present. These include authority, tradition, hypocrisy, landscape, art, sexuality, and most of all, its mystical, ancient pagan past. All of this comes together in the growing pains of the adolescent Stephen, a vicar's son, whose encounters include angels, Edward Elgar and King Penda himself. The final scene of the play, where the protagonist has an apparitional experience of King Penda and the "mother and father of England", is set on the Malvern Hills.



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