DEAD SOULS

On the outskirts of a nameless Russian town in the middle of the nineteenth century, a carriage is flying through the night...​

Chichikov is a man with a plan. If he can persuade landowners to transfer to him ownership of all the serfs who have died since the last census, he will look on paper like a very wealthy man. As he rides in his carriage from estate to estate, encountering ever more absurd characters, his greed and ambition grow - but so too do the suspicions of those he meets.

This was a two-part adaptation of Gogol’s novel for the Radio 4 ‘Classic Serial’ slot. It starred Mark Heap as Chichikov and Michael Palin as the Narrator. It also featured David Fleeshman, Judith Davis, Wyllie Longmore, Toby Hadoke, and Graeme Hawley. It was directed by Polly Thomas.

The production was first broadcast on Radio 4 in April 2006; it was repeated on the World Service in February 2007 and on BBC7 in December 2010 and again on Radio 4 Extra in August 2012.

The adaptation emphasised the comic aspects of the book. In particular, re-reading it, I noticed that when the book was written, the classic nineteenth-century omniscient narration had not been fully settled; in Gogol’s novel sometimes the narrator knows too much (he tells us what the furniture is thinking at one point) and sometimes too little (admitting to be baffled by people’s expressions and behaviour). At one moment, the narrator narrates quietly so as not to wake the person he is narrating about. This was my keynote for the adaptation; Palin’s narration is audible to all the characters in the room, often to their annoyance.

Dead Souls exists in two volumes; the first is the most famous and the second is incomplete (Gogol destroyed it believing it immoral having come under the influence of a religious fanatic). I restructured the second book, making it more firmly Chichikov’s attempt to better himself and the world, while also ramping up the sense that he is being pursued. Many of the ‘chase’ scenes are entirely invented. The first part is more faithful to the book, though still necessarily selective. I moved the famous conclusion to the first volume - Chichikov in his coach, fleeing the town, dementedly and blindly driving his coach onward, ever onward - to the end of the second novel.

This was a kind of dream come true. Often when you write a radio play, you are invited to suggest your cost. Often this means you just say some ludicrous and impossible figure for each character. For the narrator, I had very much in my head Michael Palin; I grew up with Monty Python, listened to the records, watched the programmes, watched the films, read the books; I had recordings of lateral projects (Ripping Yarns, Secret Policeman’s Balls etc.). I have loved Michael Palin’s comedy and his voice most of my life. So he was my top choice as narrator.

And I still remember the moment Polly called me to say Michael was interested in being narrator. As I remember, because he loved the book. I could hardly speak. I didn’t believe it.

Nothing was fixed of course. But we managed to get some money to do a read through of the first draft of episode one. I forget why, maybe I didn’t know why: it might have been my producer’s scheme to get buy-in from our cast. But we had a read-through in Bush House, which was, at that point, still the BBC World Service. And Mark Heap turned up and Burn Gorman read a part and then… Michael appeared, And we had a gap before the room was ready so Michael, Mark and I had to go to a coffee shop and chat for a while. I was, frankly, shaking with excitement. Mark was hilarious. Michael was sweet and warm and reassuring. In fact, as we crossed the road from Bush House into Kingsway, he said to me - and I will never, ever forget this - ‘I did enjoy your script - I laughed myself sick reading it’. I thought I’d never be happier.

But then, in the recording, which was really going well, there was a moment when Michael and another member of the cast - probably Mark Heap - were left in the studio while we were figuring something out in the control room. I am pretty sure that Michael didn’t know we could hear what they were saying in there. But at one point he said - and I remember this verbatim - “I am enjoying myself. I haven’t had this much fun since Python’.

I can die happy.

You can read my adaptation here: 

• Part 1

• Part 2

​You can listen to both parts below: