A BBC Radio 4 dramatisation

The Need For Nonsense

Andrew Sachs stars in this BBC Radio 4 'Afternoon Play' about painter Edward Lear.

Julia Blackburn is an author and scriptwriter whose radio plays include A Good Death, Betsy and Napoleon, The Need for Nonsense and The Spellbound Horses.

Julia Blackburn's play captures the warm, heartfelt and comic story of the Victorian poet and painter Edward Lear's lifelong friendship with his eccentric Greek servant, Giorgio, who inspired him to address the painful truths in his life while making us laugh. Stars Andrew Sachs as Edward Lear and Alexi Kaye-Campbell as Giorgio Kokalis. Also featured in the cast are Mark Meadows, Ross McKendrick, James Rastall and Kim Hicks. Directed by Mary Ward-Lowery. The Need for Nonsense was originally broadcast on 9 February 2009, and repeated on 17 January 2011.

Julia Blackburn

Diana Quick

David Troughton

Martin Bonger

Sally Orrock

Jacqueline Tong

Brian Bowles

A BBC Radio 4 drama of mesmerising delicacy from Julia Blackburn, winner of the Pen Ackerley prize for memoir 2009, and daughter of poet Thomas Blackburn. Originally broadcast as the 'Afternoon Play' on 29 March 2011.  Thomas Blackburn was an alcoholic before he became a poet, but in spite of his drunken rages, his erratic behaviour and his crazy obsession with death, Julia always knew that he loved her. She learnt the transforming power of words from him, and she clung to them, a life raft in a stormy sea. 'Find the metaphor, darling!' he'd say, 'and when you've got that, you're on the way towards facing whatever it is that needs to be faced!'  Julia is older now than her father ever became, and here is her son Daniel, about to get married. She worries about the impression she has given Daniel of his grandfather. There are no aunts or uncles to give a different twist on Thomas' life so it has all come from her: stories of bad behaviour and drunken excess, told to make Daniel laugh with disbelief but not to bring him closer to the man who was his grandfather. And what has Daniel inherited as well as that lanky body and those bushy eyebrows? Could there be a locked box of trouble somewhere inside him, a smouldering present from the past?  'The Spellbound Horses' stars Diana Quick as Julia, David Troughton as Tommy and Martin Bonger as Daniel. Also featured amongst the cast are Sally Orrock, Jacqueline Tong and Brian Bowles.

Julia Blackburn

Books by Julia Blackburn

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