My passion for radio goes back to a time when RTE was the official and only voice of Ireland, a time when all our televisual and audio needs were serviced by one station - one voice, one nation. Back then RTE was like a corner shop. It opened in the morning, shut at night, took a half day on Good Friday and when things were slack, there was always plenty of time for window dressing.
This epoch can be encapsulated in a memory of rolling mists creeping up the valley, the shimmering shadow of a fuchsia bush projected by a handsome moon, the warm glow of dying embers picking out life lines on our faces. Me, my Auntie Julia and Pangur Rua, her cat, being carried away by the sheer magic of Radio Drama. Voice tones and sound effects bouncing pictures around my head, transforming the darkness of Auntie's cottage into a rainbow of sound.
Sitting there, ears cocked while watching the silhouetted puppetry of Auntie Julia; her arms rising above her head as she methodically twisted and turned each bouncing lock of hair around a sponge roller. Then, removing a clip held gently between her raspberry lips, she would skewer it secure. And following the final encore, Auntie would lead the way to the bedroom, hot water bottle under elbow. And there we would cuddle up between bumpy mattress and bulky eiderdown; me, Auntie Julia and Pangur Rua - as snug as three bugs.
A final review of the evening's entertainment, peppered with Auntie saying things like " . . . that Johnny fella was a right blackguard," or "you'd think he'd have married her before she went and threw herself offa that cliff". Then heavy eyelids would surrender to timelessness. And maybe that's why - in fact that is why - I found myself spending most of the 1990s writing radio drama.
As you can imagine, it was really touching when Jerome dropped by last Saturday with a present of Aunt Julia And The Scriptwriter. "It's either made for you or about you," he said, as he handed it to me. No doubt a gift of conscience, following last week's fiasco when I was inadvertently drafted into his little menage a trois, as the fourth official - but let bygones be bygones.
One would think that any scriptwriter worth his salt would have at least given this film a cursory glance at this stage. Maybe I was afraid that another man's fiction might overshadow this man's facts. Every Tom, Dick and Harrietta, once they realise I'm a scriptwriter, ask me what I think of it. My vacant expression always invites the double whammy of, "Have you read the book?" followed by, "Ah; the book is better than the film!". You know the type - don't get me started. But last Saturday afternoon, brain dead from Friday's debauchery, my resolve dissolved with the Solpadeine, I slapped the cassette into the machine and threw myself down on the couch.
Aunt Julia And The Script-writer is set in the 1950s, the era of the Radio Star. It explores the manipulation of an affair between a young, idealistic journalist [Keanu Reeves], and his twice-divorced, more mature aunt [Barbara Hershey] by an old hack of a radio scriptwriter [Peter Falk]. It would be pointless for me to even try to explain the plot - unravelling a Brillo pad would be easier. The real strength of this film is in its blending of magic realism with the surreal. The impact of radio drama on the listener of the 1950s is stylised to such an extent that the lives of soap characters become interwoven with those of the real-life townspeople. This is further complicated by the scriptwriter's practice of regurgitating overheard conversations as fictional dialogue for his characters, thus creating a bizarre scenario in which art becomes life.
The film is based on a novel by Mario Vargas Llosa, who, I am reliably informed, was a recent Peruvian Presidential candidate. An interesting insight, considering that the scriptwriter in the book vents a blind hatred of his neighbours the Bolivians (special attention given to Bolivian milkmaids). This, I'm sure, would generate a certain amount of humour down in ol' Peru. But, although the film comfortably relocates to New Orleans, the decision to transfer the scriptwriter's invective from the Bolivians to the Albanians is, to my mind, ineffective. Surely an American scriptwriter berating his northerly neighbours the Canadians would be a more natural interpretation of the text?
Then again, what I see as a translation blunder may also be interpreted as a skilful act of surrealism. Anyway, all that aside, let's not allow the anal retention of a trivia queen get in the way of enjoying what is a superb film; skilfully edited and highly entertaining. And it certainly brought me back to a special time in my life. When you reach a certain age, nostalgia becomes the way of the future.
If video killed the Radio Star, then Aunt Julia And The Scriptwriter immortalised them for posterity. Don't wait for a hangover: check it out now.
