Zola Rising

The third season of Emile Zola: Blood, Sex & Money, our epic adaptation of Zola’s 20 ‘Rougon-Macquart’ novels is being repeated on Radio 4 next month:

Saturday, 9 October, 3pm: Crash (based on Money)
Sunday, 10 October 3pm: Massacre
Monday, 11 October 2.15pm: Trapped (based on Germinal)
Tuesday, 12 October 2.15pm: Swindle (based on The Bright Side of Life)

Monday, 18 October 2.15pm: Inheritance
Tuesday, 19 October 2.15: Reap (based on The Earth)
Wednesday, 20 October 2.15: Fate (telling the prelude to the Franco-Prussian War through characters from the saga)

Saturday, 23 October 2.45pm: Apocalypse (based on Earth)
Sunday, 24 October 3pm: Ghosts (based on Doctor Pascal)

I wrote the first and last episodes. I like them all but I really love Inheritance and Reap written by Lavinia Murray and Fate is fascinating, in which Olly Emanuel basically adapted a non-existent Zola novel. I’m also very proud of both my scripts but I particularly commend Crash to you.

This was a complicated season because there is a season arc that involves the narrator, Aunt Dide (played by Glenda Jackson), who is almost entirely non responsive in the books but is the all-observing, constantly-commenting figure in our adaptation. In the books she also dies halfway through Dr Pascal, but in ours she is sprung from the madhouse by the eponymous doctor and plays a significant role in the final episode. It took quite a while to get agreement about that arc for various annoying reasons. Making the revised plot work this had to be sorted out in about six weeks rather than the usual twelve months. I’m pleased with the result, happily, and it makes a satisfying end to the whole saga.