JOHN WYNDHAM: NO PLACE LIKE EARTH

I wrote and presented a documentary for Radio 4 about the British science-fiction writer John Wyndham. It includes interviews with David Ketterer, Adam Roberts, a horticulturist at Kew Gardens, the manager of the Penn Club, and the librarian and headmaster of Bedale’s School. There were further interviews conducted with Christopher Priest, Sister Bede and the archivist of the Wyndham Archive, but I wasn’t present for those.

I was asked because of my adaptation of The Midwich Cuckoos for BBC Radio 4. When writing that adaptation, I thought the book was rather more subtle than had been noticed, with a complicated use of a fallible narrator that deepened and enriched the sexual politics of the book. The argument of this documentary is that Wyndham is a more complicated and ambiguous writer than is generally recognised. It’s produced - which means she set up all the interviews, ordered the material and edited it - by Nicola Swords. I contributed to the planning, the ideas and wrote and recorded the linking narration. So really Nicola deserves the real credit...

You can listen to it below.