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READING ROOM-JANUARY 24 · The Reading Room

0:01
Babe. Right. Well, hello, we are back. So sorry we've
0:20
been away for so long, but a lot of traveling, a lot of
0:24
personal things, but we are back and we're ready to go. Happy New
0:27
Year everyone. This is the first reading Room in twenty twenty four and we're
0:32
all eager have we missed it? First of all, i'll introduce my guests.
0:34
Actually, we've got Alan Hello, We've got Barry Hello, and we've
0:38
got Sue. Okay, so we've got Barry is he's a presenter on the
0:44
radio and he's also a very well read academic. Yeah. And then we've
0:49
got Storry. That's Alan, I'm sorry, that's Alan Barry. We've got
0:54
Barry who's a musician, he's a songwriter. He's also very well read.
0:58
And then we've got Sue who is an author, she's an actress, she's
1:02
a multi talented poet and multi talented, so welcome to the show. And
1:06
then you've got little old Me who's the traveler and the reader and the writer
1:10
sometimes. So this month's reading Room, we're going to discuss the Strange Case
1:15
of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, which is by Robert Lewis Stephenson and it
1:22
was written in eighteen eighty six, so it's classed as a Gothic novella.
1:29
He's a Scottish man, so it's based in Edinburgh. Is that right?
1:33
Am I? Right? Meant to be based basically? Say yes, all
1:36
these yeah, all these corrections, but that's fine. That's based in London.
1:38
But he was a Scottish writer. A very interesting story. I found
1:46
much more. Reading between the lines was interesting for me. Okay, but
1:51
we'll start off, we'll discuss it, and then we have got an interview
1:53
with Kate Pankhurst later on this in the hour, and she is actually the
1:59
granddaughter of Emily Pankhurst and she's a writer in her own right. Okay,
2:04
So Alan, first of all, what did you think of it? I
2:07
loved it. I'll put my castle table because we've done this at fairly short
2:13
notice. I haven't done my normal read it three times and made te lots
2:16
of notes. Will forgive you, but thank you pleasure. But I read
2:23
it when I was about eighteen, and it's the first book I've ever read
2:28
that genuinely put chills down my spine. It's I think it's a genre you
2:36
call it dualism, where the same person has got two characters, and it's
2:44
a story about good against bad and how how how good tries to subsume the
2:53
bad and for a while loses it. I dontally recommend it as a book
2:59
to anyone to read. Yeah, did you find it easy to read?
3:02
Because I didn't really find it easy to read the first time I read it.
3:07
No, But I read some books by her journalist called Gavin Young,
3:15
and he wrote one of his books was called Slow Boats Home, and a
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lot of it was a lot of it talks about his time when he was
3:24
in the Peloponnese, the Melanesian Islands. And I suddenly realized that for the
3:32
last three patients, I've been reading quotations from Robert Louis Stevenson. I went
3:38
back because I'm that kind of I had that kind of mentality. I went
3:43
back and I started reading all the stuff that I should have read when I
3:45
was at school. That's what I'm doing too, Barry. We're going to
3:49
come on to you next. So what was your opinion of the book.
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I liked it. I don't know whether I liked it quite as much as
3:54
Alan did. I'm a big fan of Gavin Young. Mind you, I'm
3:59
slow Boat. I don't know whether we've mentioned him before, but that was
4:01
a love reminder, you know. In fact, my son was named after
4:08
Gavin because of those books. But anyway, a slight digression, Yeah,
4:15
but I enjoyed it. I mean I actually listened to it just on audible
4:19
as well, read by the wonderful Michael Kitchen, who was Foil in Foyle's
4:25
War, you know, yeah, which which made it very palatable. Rather
4:30
than reading it. I found it a little bit difficult to read the first
4:31
time as well, so I didn't relish the idea of reading it again and
4:36
listened to it, and I did enjoy it. It's funny the idea of
4:42
I mean, I like the idea of a novella. But I did find
4:46
that I thought that there was unfinished business there, you know. I thought
4:51
that it was more of an outline for a novel, and I think I
4:55
would have liked to have had more information be because it was it was fairly
5:01
slight in terms of I mean people without giving away the plot, of course,
5:08
you know that Henry Jackal takes potion and becomes mister Hyde, and he
5:15
is the manifestation of the evil part of his of his character, and he
5:21
actually ends up taking another property in Soho, which is, you know,
5:30
maybe fairly significant, but then you don't actually find out what he does when
5:34
he's an evil man. There's there's only like two episodes really, one of
5:39
them is fairly significant because it's a it's a murder. But I felt that
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there was there was an awful lot more to be explored in the book.
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But so, you know, I think that there's that there was there was
5:53
scope for for a bigger novel, shall we say? Yeah, I mean
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there was rumors that actually Stevenson was on drugs. That's kind of rumors that
6:00
as well. So maybe he didn't have the time, their time, or
6:02
the ability to do that, but that is just rumors. Sue, Hello
6:09
there, what was your opinion? So this is one of the books I've
6:14
always wanted to read, and usually because of the film version and Spanish versions
6:20
I've seen. I knew the ending before I started the book, and I
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think this is a greater challenge to the long levelty of an arter skill to
6:31
maintain the suspense throughout even though you know the end. I think that I
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didn't find it difficult to read, but I do agree with Barry that I
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felt that it was the build that was very good, and I liked the
6:51
way that Stevenson had the confidence to start the novel with two respectable yet boring
6:58
gentlemen, especially when they don't speak very much. But they said below before
7:02
the storm, and I felt it was like slow Burn, as the story
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seats through before the truth dorm's on the main characters. But I found that
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the end was very condensed, very quick, and perhaps a little disappointing.
7:23
But it's interesting he mentioned Stevenson because they'd say that this is sort of conceived
7:29
in Edinburgh when Stevenson lived in Edinburgh, and it's actually based on a character
7:34
called Deacon Brod, a real man who lived in Edinburgh who was this guenior
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landlord and he would have the gentry and his pope chatting away and so on,
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and when they were all settled, he'd go over the Edinburgh rooftops and
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rob them. Now he actually was hanged for his climes, and there's still
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a Deacon Brody well this last time Led and Brother still a Brody pub,
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but that was the Deacon Brody was the junior holds, but also the evil
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seat. So there's a theory that Stevenson based to tell the story of Deacon
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Brody. But I enjoyed the book very much, and as I say,
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I was surprised to detain my attention even though I knew the end. So
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but I did enjoy it, but felt that if it was written today,
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it might have been a bit longer, and I felt that there should have
8:33
been like a second second edition with chunkier middle and end. Yeah, I
8:39
agree with that. I think with me, I enjoyed reading the notes more
8:41
because of what it stood for. So, for example, the Victorian way
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of life was all about being good, wasn't it being godly? And so
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I can see how the idea was just brilliant to think you can make something
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that's just bad and put all your bad in that one person and then you're
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pure good. And then we realized, you know, that's not going to
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happen. It doesn't work. We have to accept the dark side of everyone.
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So I thought that was really, really fascinating. Apparently, according to
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Wikipedia, Stephenson wrote the book first of all and his wife and his steps
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and didn't like it, so he rewrote it in six days. And that's
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maybe that's why it's so short. That he wanted to get it done.
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Yeah, Alan, can you add something to it? Yeah? I read
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it a spell. Teens have said. I read it as a kind of
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detective novel, and it's it starts off with the murder and crimes, and
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it's followed by false and true leads which kind of leads up the garden path.
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The The involvement of doctor Checkle's friend Hm, for me, just made
10:05
made the whole book fall into place if Hudson hadn't been included in the way
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the book was written. I've had a struggle, okay, because I found
10:16
that I found the contrary. Really, I thought, why is it focusing
10:18
on Edison? I find it quite weird. Warry, what do you think
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about that? Well, I think, you know, it's it's another one
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of these ones, a bit like the Joseph Conrad thing. Really, I
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mean, what doesn't is the narrator really? So, I mean, I
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think he has to be there. You know that somebody has to do it
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if you like. But I think, just if I can go back,
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just briefly onto onto something you just said when you started speaking there, and
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you said you know that the expectorians expected people to be godly. I found
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that that that the absence of religion in it was was marked, do you
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know what I mean? I felt that that the might have been because they
11:01
were made me more religious, that there might have been more mention of that,
11:03
but I missed that if it was there, you know, it was
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like that didn't seem to come into it at all, you know, but
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good and evil kind of as godly and yes, no, no, I
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mean I'm certainly in the abstract yes, you know, I mean I think
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that that's absolutely right. But the actual you know, thought of godly,
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you know, implies that there's some sort of religious aspect to it, and
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there didn't appear to be any religious aspect to it, which I think was
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was maybe something which was a little bit strange in the circumstances given the time
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it was written. Yeah, true, Sue. Can you add something.
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I think perhaps this was the beginning of the debate between religion and science.
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Then Jacko was taking on the role of God in a way and experimenting you
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would think for the good of mankind, but it turned out to be for
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his for him personally, the worst thing he could have he could have done.
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And I think Stephenson, probably maybe for himself, of his publisher's steer
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clear of religious theory because he didn't want the message clouded by individual beliefs,
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and it was a straight choice in ourselves without outside influences, will be good
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or are we bad? And I think he's also is how Jekyl managed to
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hide his other self for so long, and how many people out there who's
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turned out to be monsters have hidden that for so long before it comes to
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the forefront. Yeah, I agree. I think I think you can look
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at it through lots of different eyes. You know, the hell it touches
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on so much like addiction, class system, even homosexuality too because that just
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become illegal in that age, and also like Freudian so I think, and
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also good and evil. So I think it was very, very clever,
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what a great idea. You do wonder whether it was his idea or whether
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he got it, you know, from the other sources. I don't know,
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Alan, are you able to add anything to that? It's very it's
13:26
bits of academic Well you are an academic age. No, No, I'm
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just an idiot. I think the narrative was kind of it was. I
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think the word was interpolated, so there are short bits of storytelling in between
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in between the main action, but the short bits of storytelling did actually link.
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It did link with the narrative. So it was h as a as
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a thing, as a thing to read. I find I found it engrossing
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because it kept it kept you on your toes while you're reading it. You
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couldn't just you couldn't read it and just let it wash over you. You
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had to involve yourself in it. So, for example, the way the
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way the novel itself is structured, there's sort of really quite manic action narrated
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indirectly. It deals with the aftermath of events, so there's a little first
14:37
hand action in there, so I've it's good. It's yeah, researchedt an
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a plus for that say, there was little first hand action witnessed. It's
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suddenly when Utterson and Paul broke down the door that it became first head.
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The final two chapters, they're more immediate, even though it's sort of narrating
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stuff from that's happened in the past, not not in real time. Yes,
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yeah, I'll go on to Barry. Barry, can you add something.
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I'll come back to you Alan. Yeah, yeah, this is you
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know, just following on from from Alan's point that, like I said,
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you know, as far as the as the plot is concerned, Otterson is
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there, as as as the narrator and the observer. You know, none
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of the none of the action, as I said right at the outset is
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it is detailed other than the things that are already observed, like the trampling
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of the girl and of the murder of the of the of the MP.
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But which is worth for me, you know, not looking particularly for the
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the the the evil bits. I think you need to he probably, you
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know, is me criticizing Robert Lewis season, but he probably needs to develop
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that character more in terms of, you know, what actually Hide was doing,
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because if you if you're looking at it from the perspective of of of
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Jekyl, his motive may well be that, you know, he wanted to
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see what was the difference between but it may be that he just wanted to
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pursue his evil side, you know, without a sort of retribution, and
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got caught out by murdering somebody and then you know, but so it's it's
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like, you know, what was driving him and what was driving him to
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want to be Hide in the in the first place. And the other thing
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is then as as Utterson as the observer and the narrator is fascinated by Hyde
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as well, you know, And so there's there's there's there's an element of
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Utterson's character which needs to be looked at. And as much as the one
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thing which disturbed me in this day and age was that the idea that he
17:06
was evil because he had some deformity was like, isn't something that we'd go
17:11
along with today, you know? And I think that that might be a
17:15
very Victorian thing, you know. So Hide it had because he had a
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stick, well he had, I mean, the thing was that they did.
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They weren't specific about what his deformity was, but it was the idea
17:25
that he was deformed made him look evil. And that's like, you know,
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Sue, what about you? I agree with that, But I think
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although it's I mean, it's come into our languages of Jacqueline Hide it so
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powerful as the character. But I still think although it's stood the test of
17:48
time in that sense, it was written for an audience of its kind.
17:52
When people looked at him was completely differently. And I think around his time
17:59
as well, there was a perception that someone upper middle class couldn't possibly be
18:03
evil and all the crime was committed by the working classes, so I think
18:08
there's that balance as well. And there's also the lack of female characters.
18:14
The female characters are very much a saving to the housemaid. I don't think
18:21
you would actually get that today that was written today. And in the film
18:26
adaptations, particularly Spencer Tracy one, there is a high level of female interest,
18:34
whereas within the book there actually isn't. So I think with the deformity
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of agree with Barry, but I think it was Stevenson writing of his either
18:45
as opposed to what it would be today, and when you've see new adaptations,
18:52
I think a lot of what is in the book has now moved up
18:57
to the way we look at things today. I went to see a stage
19:00
version with them the Daniels in and he didn't turn horrific at all. He
19:07
wasn't deformed at all. He was just he was a different person. His
19:15
looks, the way he did is his acting skills. The whole transformation was
19:19
the way he changed, the expression on his face, the more threatening behavior.
19:26
But physically he wasn't deformed. Physically, he wasn't ugly interesting. I
19:30
think if you have an evil person that doesn't look like a monster, then
19:37
they're even more dangerous. Yeah, that's a that's a really good point.
19:40
I think that's to go at that point. I mean, you know,
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I agree entirely with that. But I think it's that sort of thing that
19:47
you know, it's like looking at a picture and saying this person's a monster,
19:52
you know. I mean, that's very unfair on the people. You
19:53
know, people are just the way they are. You know. I suppose
19:56
it's that idea that if you were sort of in some way bad, that
20:00
would actually show, you know, in that you know, Sue's point about
20:03
the you know, that we wouldn't think that the the posh people could be
20:08
evil, and you know, it's probably the opposite these you knowsions on all
20:17
posh people. But you know, yeah, it's just struck me that as
20:22
the whole I think the book is. We talked about Victorian society and how
20:27
prim and proper it was, but this book is actually a study in the
20:33
hypocrisy and double stands of Victorian society. Yeah. Absolutely, Now I did
20:41
find it difficult to read, I think because of the language. Possibly you
20:45
said you found it difficult to read too, Alan, do you agree with
20:47
me? In that way because you didn't find Sue didn't find it difficult to
20:49
read? But Alan, what do you found it difficult to read? Why?
20:52
Why was that? I found it difficult to read? Because when I
20:56
read it. When I read it, I was age where I lived in
21:03
the here and now, and you had to transplant yourself, and that transplantation
21:11
made me buy into the book because I committed to it. Yes, and
21:15
by committing to it, it was that one of the scariest books I've ever
21:19
read. Right, how old were you when you read it? If you
21:22
don't eighteen, can you remember it from all those years? No offense,
21:26
but yeah, wow, I'm really impressed. I've seen various I've seen various
21:34
film versions of it over the years. I've seen I've heard it serialized on
21:40
the radio mid twenties. Okay, yeah, yeah, because it had a
21:48
fairly profound effect on me as a person. I mean I said to you
21:52
at the south of the show that it's the first time I've ever been really
21:57
scared re reading a book. Yeah. Yeah, it did give me goose
22:03
bumps. Yeah, it is a very very scary book, very very scary
22:06
topic. Barry, So what about you? Did you find it hard to
22:08
read or did you find it easy to read? No, I did.
22:11
I'd like I say, I enjoyed listening to Michael Kitchen read it, you
22:15
know, But I mean there was there's elements of this which which again I
22:18
think it's that suit touched on really, which is like, which is you
22:25
know that there were no roles for women in here, And I'm part of
22:30
what could have been a key part of the story. Is it's a bit
22:33
like omitted brother in Heights, you know, I mean, you know,
22:38
ladies like like a bad man, you know, somewhere along the line,
22:41
you know, they like the villains. You know, that's the sort of
22:44
thing, and here you had a villain, and you know, it could
22:47
have been explored very much, you know that that story, you know,
22:51
whereas you know, there might have been the sort of that female participation might
22:56
have been that they really liked mister Hyde, you know, for whatever reason.
23:00
Well the prostitutes did, didn't they at first they were they were the
23:04
only women. So can you add to that? Yes, And I think
23:10
that the lack of writers was basically writing of the time. But I did.
23:17
I didn't find it difficult to read. But then I'm a fan of
23:21
m R James and the Ghost Stories a similar kind of writing and for me
23:29
I find it quite easy to read. But just on the roles for women,
23:34
just to digress them. In the Spencer Tracy film, there was the
23:41
prostitute and there is the gentle woman's the lady the dr Hyde so the Dutch
23:48
gentleman wants to marry and in the casting Inga Bergman was supposed to be she
23:55
always got the goody goody roles and she was cast as a lady and Rama
24:00
Turner you always got the doughter Scottish role as the prostitute. Ingrid Bergman was
24:07
tired of being led to good so she went and asked if they could change
24:11
the roles. So Ingrid Bergman went in as a prostitute and Lana Turner went
24:15
in as a lady. So you've got a role reversal again. Yeah.
24:21
Interesting, I'd like to see the film. The only one that I saw
24:23
was a black and white one with no sound. It was a nineteen twenty
24:29
film, right perfect March version C version Yeah, I think it was.
24:37
Yeah, it's on the wiki Wikipedia page the nineteen twenty film Doctor Jackal and
24:41
Mister High go on Marriage. I was just going to say sorry. You
24:44
know, in that the in the point in the story, they create these
24:47
women's roles that aren't in the book, you know, for so they had
24:52
exactly the same views as we had at the time. You know that there
24:55
was I mean, I know that they want a bit, you know,
24:59
build a story up a little bit more, but there is a lacking in
25:03
that, you know. I think that. I mean one of the things
25:04
which which I enjoyed about it, which is either I don't know whether this
25:10
is actually in the book or whether it was just in the notes that I
25:12
read that I found that it was described as scissorogitic juxtaposition, which what does
25:21
that mean? It's a good one, isn't it. I don't know.
25:23
It means it means the state of balance or union between opposing forces or elements,
25:29
you know, scissorg I mean, there can't be very many words which
25:32
you've got three whys in them. Amazing. I use it in the poem.
25:37
Don't know about you, Sue, you know, absolutely, Yeah,
25:40
we'll have to go and yeah a poem or a song. Hey, yeah
25:42
sounds good. Alan, what do you what do you any more notes than
25:45
anything else to say about it? The only thing I was going to say
25:49
is that I'm kind of going to give it a proper read after this program.
25:56
I had to rely on rely too much on memory and found a couple
26:00
of a couple of bits and pieces I could use. But my basic idea
26:08
on the book hasn't really changed. I want to get I want to read
26:12
it again deeply so I can see if see if my mindset is correct or
26:18
not. Yeah. I think it's amazing that we can read a book that's
26:21
so old and still relate to it. I think it just shows, in
26:25
a way how much society has not changed that much, even though it has,
26:27
but you can still relate. Barry, can you add anything? No,
26:30
I mean, I'm not. I think that a lot of these books
26:34
are useful me. I'm you know, one closest to my heart's Wind in
26:37
the Willows, which is written in nineteen o six. You know that far
26:41
away, you know. And also you know, stories like three Men in
26:47
a boat, you know, and three Men on the Bull and what have
26:49
you. You know, are very very prescientto what happens in society, and
26:53
then people should read them, I think, you know. But I funny
26:59
the Wind in the whillose and you know, the the Jerome J Creme judgment
27:03
ones J Jerome easy for me to say, are so much easier to read.
27:08
I think that's the point, you know. I mean, they're not
27:11
Gothic novels, so I mean they're not trying to develop that sort of atmosphere
27:15
in them. But I mean, you know, for something which is of
27:18
a fairly similar timescale, you know that, you know, they're certainly very
27:23
very useful today's society, I would think, you know, and sort of
27:27
and free from all of the mandernity and like the Internet and all of those
27:33
things that we have, you know, which is nice even prior to telephones.
27:36
You know, so it allows plots to develop an awful lot easier,
27:38
I think. Yeah. So, I think within a book by Borrowed,
27:45
there was another story by Stevenson called The Bottle Battle in which showed the diversity
27:52
of writing. And I think Jacqueline Hyde was just pure genius as an idea.
27:59
Yeah, me totally. By doing it as well, he kind of
28:03
took a chance with the society in which he lived, because I'm quite sure
28:07
there would be some kind of backlash that people can't change that much and we're
28:12
all inherently good. I know, any temptation has the potential to bring some
28:18
kind of evil out relevant today and I do think he was an excellence,
28:26
an unbelievable writer, not just in his phrasings and his talent of putting an
28:32
idea on paper, but really in the ideas themselves. And when I thought
28:37
about Seasure Island and I thought about doctor Jetleen has died, I thought that
28:41
I've saw pow apart and it shows what a good writer he was. Absolutely.
28:48
I'm just going to read out actually about the publication, so it says
28:52
the book was initially sold as a paperback for one shilling. In the UK,
28:56
these books were called shilling shockers or penny dreadfuls. The American publisher issued
29:03
the book on the fifth of January eighteen eighty six, four days before the
29:07
first appearance of the UK edition issued by Longburn's. Schribner's published three thousand copies,
29:15
only one two hundred and fifty of them were bound in cloth. Initially,
29:19
stores did not stock it until a review appeared in The Times on the
29:23
twenty fifth of January eighteen eighty six, giving it a favorable reception. Within
29:30
the next six months, close to forty thousand copies were sold. That's a
29:33
lot, isn't it. As Stephenson's biographer Graham Balfour wrote in nineteen oh one,
29:41
the book's success was probably due rather to the moral instincts of the public
29:45
than to any conscious perception of the merits of its art. It was read
29:52
by those who never read fiction, and quoted in pulpit sermons and in religious
29:57
papers in By nineteen oh one, it was estimated to have sold over two
30:03
hundred and fifty thousand copies in the United States. Now that's quite interesting,
30:07
isn't it really, You know, for a society that didn't really read much
30:11
Alan. What do you want to add something? Yeah, I'm sorry,
30:14
Sorry, that's okay, it's I was going to say that Charles dickens books
30:18
were originally serialized in the same way as Robert Louis Stevens's I'd Fasten read Robert
30:27
Louise Stevenson. This is where people can't hate me because I'd fasten read Robert
30:33
Louise Stevenson than Charles Dickens. Well, I just think Dickens would be very
30:37
difficult to read. But I love Dickens, to be honest. I watch
30:41
I've watched the films, and I do love his plots, Barry, did
30:44
you want to add something to that, not only just on that point really,
30:47
and you know, and what S was talking about, you know,
30:49
quite often, you know, the films that have been made of these stories
30:55
fill in the gaps, you know, I mean there was often these days,
30:57
you know, people criticize films for, you know, not being true
31:03
to the book or whatever. You know, and certainly you know, in
31:07
long convoluted stories that can be the case. I think in this case,
31:10
you know, it's probably been expanded to the good when it's been made into
31:14
a film, you know. I mean, I'm not as big a fan
31:17
of Dickens, I'm afraid, so you know, I struggle with that area,
31:22
but I did like this. I have to say, I'm also keen
31:26
on the idea of novella's, you know, I find them, you know,
31:32
a much easier thing to set off and do. Maybe that sets more
31:36
about me, really, but I find that I do tend to get put
31:40
off by books that are sort of a thousand pages long these days, you
31:44
know. But you know, from me, I think in a lot of
31:48
cases, the films add a lot to it, and It had only really
31:52
occurred to me just now when we were talking about it, especially with the
31:56
Spencer Tracy thing that you know that many years ago people have interpreted the book
32:00
same way and say that they need to do something else with it. You
32:01
know that there are gaps in it. Interesting point, Yeah, Sue,
32:07
Yeah. I mean I've seen two novellas and they are They're lovely to work
32:10
with. And the idea of a novella was before television and other diversions.
32:16
It could be read in one goal and very often didn't have chapters. So
32:22
I loved the novella. I like writing a novella because it isn't as demanding
32:29
as a novel, but you have more freedom than you're doing a short story.
32:37
Maybe people the same went up because people wanted to be shocked and comforted
32:43
by their own existence, because very often that's people want to be horrified.
32:50
So Beycin say, well, I'm okay, I'm quite comfortable in my world
32:54
and that could never happen to me. But I think it's you know,
32:59
I really enjoyed reading it, and I have to say, Christ people at
33:02
that Memories one of the best films, very plays I've ever seen. There
33:07
was the the Edman in Liverpool and it was called Dr jetlif Rodney Street,
33:15
having moved Dr Jettle up to Rodney Street, and you managed to it was
33:20
all set in Liverpool, and they even managed to weave in in Alavish's Hitler
33:25
as adult think his brother in law. The theory was that maybe the man
33:30
that was out all the murders was actually adult Hitler. So it was quite
33:37
it was quite different, but it was very, very clever in the way
33:39
it was gone. But I enjoyed the book and the idea that the father
33:45
someone could come up with an idea like this. I think it's amazing.
33:51
Yeah, me too. We're going to come on to the interview in a
33:53
second, my Kate Pankhurst. That's an eighteen minute interview, so we'll run
33:59
that a second. But just before we do, I just want to ask
34:01
you all, out of ten, what would you give them? What would
34:05
you read the book? Alan, I'll start with you eight, okay,
34:07
Barry, yeah, I give it seven, I think. Sue, yeah,
34:13
I think I'd give it a seven only because I loved the story,
34:16
I loved the idea. I just found it difficult. I found it slow
34:20
to get into and it was the kind of book when you know you read
34:22
a page and then you think, I better read that page over again because
34:24
I didn't really grasp what that was about. So just remember that it's scis
34:30
agit juxtaposition. I'll have to run you spell it. I'll have to write
34:37
that down. But yeah, that's a great thing. I'm going to start
34:37
using that in conversations to be very intellectual. Okay, So we're going to
34:43
come back after the interview and we're going to decide on the book for next
34:46
month, which is very exciting. But we'll just play the interview by Kate
34:51
Pankhurst, Steve's interviewing her, and then we'll be back, so don't go
34:54
away. So today we've got an interview with an author called Kate Pancast,
35:01
who's probably best known for fantastically Great Women who changed the Whale books. Kate,
35:07
it's good to speak to you. Hi, nice to speak to you
35:10
as well. You were just saying you were brought up not far from the
35:14
radio station in Wavertree, So yeah, yeah, that's where I lived when
35:22
I was a bit younger, and I went to school, grew up in
35:24
formby, so it's easy to easier to sort of explain to people. Isn't
35:32
he just said Liverpool? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, so living Leeds now,
35:37
but if you want I come back to Liverpool. I still feel that
35:39
that's coming home. This is sol Sole places that might be called it anyway.
35:46
Yeah, So how did you how did you get involved in writing books?
35:52
What was the what's the pathway from you know, from source of education
35:55
today? When I was so I got into writ in through illustrating, so
36:01
like since I was in primary school, like, drawing was always my thing.
36:07
So I loved the beano, like reading comics and books like Fingers the
36:13
bogey Man, which was basically like a big fun It was like laid out
36:17
like comic strips, ps, likeographic novel. But yeah, I just loved
36:22
like how easy to read they were, how funny they were, and they
36:25
inspired me to make my own comics when I was younger, And I think
36:30
that's where it all began. That's kind of where what type of drawing I
36:34
fell in love with. I loved telling stories with pictures, yeah, and
36:38
I just stuck with it because I enjoyed it. I don't think I had
36:42
too many ideas about like what you could do a job to do with drawing
36:45
was all I had in my head. But yeah, I kind of like
36:49
stuck with it, and that kind of love drawing just kind of led me
36:52
through to doing illustration at university, and I got into writing my own books
36:59
after I was commissioned to illustrate for other authors. So I illustrated for lots
37:04
of authors, and there had loads of different types of children's books, and
37:07
then that eventually brought me around to the fantastically great women books. The publishers
37:16
saying I could do that when I was younger. I don't this sounds like
37:22
ridiculous, but I don't think I realized. Obviously I read illustrated books,
37:27
I read things like The Bino, but I don't think because I didn't know
37:29
anybody who did that job, I don't think I realized, you know,
37:34
specifically, like what I could do with my art skills, or like where
37:37
that would leave. But when I went away to UNI to study illustration,
37:42
one of my tutors was a children's book illustrator, so she was like,
37:45
you know, your works a perfect fear you should like because you doing that.
37:50
And my foot in the door came from entering a competition while I was
37:53
at UNI. That was run by a publisher to illustrate an idea for a
37:59
picture book. So did this book. It was like cats who don't like
38:02
dogs and dogs who don't like cats? And I came second in that competition.
38:07
But I've got like my first combetition contract with through that competition, really,
38:10
which I think things like competitions are really good. Yeah, in the
38:15
door especially because like this was like twenty years ago, so it was all
38:20
very like London based. You had to like go down there to show your
38:22
portfolio. Yes, it was my first like put in the door, and
38:27
then that led to me gradually building up to have been my full time job.
38:30
So what's what's the sort of I'm going to say trick there. It's
38:35
the wrong thing really because people imagine children's books to be easy, especially the
38:39
ones for you know, for smaller kids, where you just got a couple
38:43
of words on the page and everything, and it's like, oh, I
38:45
could do that, you know, sort of I don't. I think this
38:49
is a common misconception because I think even like the most simple, like seemingly
38:54
simple children's books, it involves like so much craft and cleverness to kind of
39:00
just get a really wonderful story summed up in only a few words, like
39:06
sometimes with simple illustrations. So yeah, I don't think. I think a
39:09
lot of people say like, oh, would you would you like to write
39:13
a book for adults. Now I'm like, no, it's not a profess
39:16
that is. My thing is writing to children, and it's sort of I
39:21
think, yeah, that kind of And then also we don't give I think
39:27
a lot of the times people think, oh, it's for children, so
39:28
it's going to be simple, but like, they're not an easy audience.
39:31
You can like underestimate. You say, oh, that will really make them,
39:35
you know, the children will find that funny, and then you say
39:37
it in an assembly in front of two hundred cans of stare at you like
39:40
what you know. You've got to know your audience and remember a little bit
39:46
what it was like. So, so, how did the fantastically fantastic I'll
39:52
just call fantastically fantastic book stars. They started through a conversation I've done like
40:02
a doodle of a character that based on Amelia Earhart, who's the first woman
40:09
to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. I used her as inspiration for a
40:15
fictional character for a book I was working on so I kind of got to
40:17
know Amelia Earhart a little bit. I was like, gosh, she's really
40:21
intriguing, isn't she That she's kind of just like visually to look at and
40:25
araviated jacket. And then she did this incredible thing at a time where women
40:30
shouldn't have been going off having adventures. That's what everybody thought, And a
40:35
conversation with somebody else actually prompted me to think about, well, in a
40:38
minute, you've done some doodles of Amelia air Heart, but you're a pancurs.
40:46
When I was young, it was lost in the midst of time that
40:51
my family is distantly connected to Emmeline Pankhurst, the Suffragettes family, And I
40:57
found out in my twenties my auntie, who lived in Liverpool, did some
41:01
research into our family tree and she found a connection back to Emily and Pankhurst.
41:07
So I think it took me a lot of books until I was a
41:10
bit older to sort of put the bits of the jigsaw together and be,
41:15
oh, hang on a minute, like Emmeline's story would be perfect to tell.
41:19
And I think often if you've got an idea for a book, the
41:21
best ones are when you have you know, things that you've got a connection
41:24
to that you want to tell the story about. So yeah, that's how
41:29
it came about, really, and I started exploring my ideas for like what
41:31
would Emiline's page in the book look like. It'd be an edual keeper and
41:36
will tell the story of what she did with suffragettes for a younger audience.
41:40
And then Amelia Earhart's page ended up being a map with her flying, like
41:45
charting the course of her journey acrossic longtercation and talking a bit like about what
41:50
it was like in the past for women and why it's so incredible that they
41:53
achieved what they did. Yeah, so when when you got that idea so
41:58
to work, how did you go to a public shouldn't say this is you
42:00
know? Yeah, yes, I worked out with a lot of illustrators and
42:05
writers will have an agent, so it was the agent that I discussed the
42:07
idea with. They I kind of did a sample Emelia Heart's page from the
42:17
book with the text on it, like just to give a flavor of what
42:21
the whole book would be and the book cover. So to begin with,
42:24
it was a called fantabulously great women, You changed the world. And then
42:30
the publishers. Could I change it to Fantastically Great Women? But a lot
42:32
of book projects go to If you've got an idea or a proposal, you
42:37
can send it straight to a publisher. But there's a really big children's book
42:42
fair in Italy called the Bologna Children's Book Fair by a really great place to
42:47
like if you can get there, show your fold. There's loads of different
42:50
publishers because they're all they're trying to sort of share book projects with each other.
42:54
So yeah, with the project were seen by Bloomsbury who published it at
43:00
Bologna the Blondie Book Fair. My agents shared it to them, and yeah,
43:04
the rest's history. Really, they picked it up and then there's been
43:07
four picture books. There will be three chapter books in the series as well.
43:12
So it's like taken me on the journey that I never expected over the
43:15
past few years. Oh now musical as well, a musical version of Fantastically
43:20
Great Women. So did the musical come about? Because it's sort of you
43:22
know, it's it's a it's a it's a bit of a leap, really,
43:27
isn't it. You know, did you think al Let's have a musical?
43:29
Did someone say, you know, I think like, never in my
43:32
wildest dreams I have thought, oh, this will be adapted for the stage,
43:37
because when I did the book, I was very much kind of like
43:38
working on my own. It's just like brilliant, really want to tell these
43:42
stories. I think it's an important book to make. But yeah, I
43:45
never imagined that so many people would read it, and I never imagined that
43:50
I get contacted by the producer who've made the the theater show to say that
43:57
I always seen your picture book. We've got some ideas about have given those
44:00
messages about women in history and empowerment and finding your place in the world.
44:07
We've got some ideas about how to adapt that for the stage. So that
44:10
I've kind of They put together a team, a really amazing all female team
44:15
of like director Amy Hodge, Miranda Cooper wrote the music the songs for the
44:22
show who She's written songs for Girls Aloud, so they're like really amazing,
44:27
catchy pop songs that will stick in your head. And Chris Bush wrote the
44:32
words as well, wrote the wrote the script. Yeah, and then they
44:37
spoke to Amy Hodge, the director, in detail about what was important to
44:42
me about the book, like what messages I want, wanted to get across,
44:46
and they then took that away and worked their magic with it. Because
44:51
they're in the theater world, they know how that works best. Yes,
44:54
it was great to be part of the process and watch kind of how these
44:58
things are put together, which is a massive learning curve for me because I
45:02
work in children's books, so it's different to the theater. But yeah,
45:07
they've Like Amy Hodgeman, I spoke to her. She was talking about what
45:13
was the most important messages I wanted readers to get from the book. So
45:17
respect to her about how at the end of the book there's a page called
45:21
the Gallery of Greatness, So rather than have the whole book be about other
45:25
women from history, it is about that, and we can learn about these
45:30
women from history and how they achieved what they did and how they made the
45:34
most of their talents. In the Gallery of Greatness, the great women from
45:37
history give a bit of advice back to readers. So things like Amelia her
45:43
Heart says like make life an adventure. I think Evelyne Panka says something like
45:47
stand up for what you believe. Yes, I just wanted to kind of
45:51
young readers to kind of see a bit of themselves and be able to,
45:54
you know, take away a bit of inspiration to use in their own lives
45:58
to change the world a bit themselves. I suppose that's really translated into the
46:01
play. I suppose when you're going from my as you say, working on
46:06
your own, you know, in the studio, writing and drawing to something
46:10
that's obviously it's going to be collaborative, isn't it doing stage work? Was
46:15
it a bit of a bit of like, you know, this is this
46:19
is my this is my baby. You know. Fortunately, I've like really
46:24
loved absolutely and you know, the first time I saw the musical that was
46:29
like wow, It's like if I could have imagined in the wilder streams,
46:34
this would be like this, this is it. This is great. Yeah.
46:37
And then the way the theater, like I work with an editor and
46:42
a designer at the publisher, so I'm quite used to I'll put an idea
46:45
out there and it might not be the final idea that ends up in the
46:50
book. That you do have to sort of like let go of things that
46:52
you thought were great they don't quite work in that particular book. Yeah,
46:58
and then I think the things that are change for the stage show, I
47:00
can see why they've done it. That way, like it just works.
47:04
But it's a different form of storytelling, different medium, isn't it. Yeah,
47:07
it's different from the book, but you know, it was really interesting
47:13
to sort of like watch how that's all put together. Yeah, as long
47:16
as you're happy at the end, I suppose. Yeah, you get the
47:21
rubber stamp. Well, let's just talk. It was on in Liverpool,
47:24
wasn't it. Was it earlier this year or last year? I can't remember
47:27
what it was now, was it this year and then beginning of twenty twenty
47:31
two. Yeah, it's great to come back play it with all my family.
47:36
While it was on there, yeah, still outside the playhouse, I
47:38
remember seeing it was going past the that I'm quite sign them. So just
47:45
let get into the secrets. It's it's it's it's not it's not aimed specifically
47:52
a kids is it's it's a family family show, isn't it. Yeah,
47:57
it's definitely. It's been made with a younger audience in mind. So it's
48:00
made by the same theater company that made the musical Six, which is about
48:05
the Six wives. Oh yeah, yeah yeah, And it's been described as
48:08
I think the quote with six is little Sister, So it's like with a
48:14
younger audience in mind. But you know, I've been to see it and
48:15
there groups of women there together. People have gone with their partners, you
48:22
know, taking their sons and daughters to see it. So I think it
48:24
has got, you know, a really nice wide appeal. Like I think,
48:30
whoever you are, you're going to go and see it and take something
48:31
from it. Definitely a little taller in your seat, and yeah, yes,
48:37
I think you've got to do something that everyone does want to go and
48:40
see. And I think there's no arm in sort of like it's like a
48:45
lot of like you know these sort of c GI animated films, you have
48:47
the moment, there's always a sort of a there's an obvious plus, and
48:52
then there's a bit where there's you know, there's things for adults to get
48:53
you know. Absolutely, yeah, it kind of works on lots of levels.
48:58
Isn't it a really good story? Retalian? I think does do that,
49:00
doesn't it? Yah? Yeah, definitely. So the nearest it's coming
49:07
to Sonny Liverpool, Sonny Kensington, it is Sulford Keys. I think it's
49:10
in It's from the fifth of December to the seventh of the first seventh of
49:15
January, so it's it's it's filling the Christmas void with some other than He's
49:22
behind you, you know. It's it's it's if you want to not take
49:25
your kids to see a panto but see something that's that's probably going to be
49:30
more informative and educational and maybe a bit more entertained as well. And I
49:36
think it's it's great because it was on in Salford when it did the run,
49:42
when it was on in Liverpool as well, and it's all the dates
49:45
sold out, so yeah, it's on for like a longer amount of times,
49:47
you've got more chance to see it. And yeah, I'm definitely going
49:52
to be going to see it at various intervals over the Christmas period for different
49:54
friends and family. But yeah, I guess that's like coming together and doing
49:59
something as a family Christmas. Like the theater is a really popular option,
50:02
isn't it. It's just great it's been giving that chance to shine all over
50:07
Christmas in Salford. Case I've got to say, what's next? Have anything
50:15
in the pipeline? Where'd you go? Yeah? You know? Yeah,
50:20
yeah, Well fantastically great women's books they're they're carrying on. So I've got
50:23
a new fantastically Great Women's Sports Stars is out next year, so that's like,
50:29
yeah, women in Sports, so featuring kind of female footballers that have
50:32
done amazing things and pioneers of women's sport. And then got a new pitch
50:38
book series that I've been working on. So I've got one book that's just
50:42
been published called We're All Astronauts, and that was inspired a little bit by
50:47
somebody I found out about while I was researching the Great Women Books, and
50:52
her name was Wally Funk. So she was an astronaut, a trainee astronaut
50:57
in the nineteen sixties, and she's part of a great of women called the
51:00
Mercury thirteen and they got told that they did all their astronaut training and then
51:06
were told that space was no place for women, and of course girls couldn't
51:09
go into space, so they had their missions scrapped. But while we never
51:14
gave up trying to get into space, and she became the oldest woman to
51:17
go to space twenty twenty one. So she inspires the granny character that's in
51:23
that book, And there's a little girl who wants to be an astronaut and
51:27
her granny takes her on a journey learning everything you need to know about space,
51:30
and there's lots of stories about women who've helped get humans into space and
51:36
kind of done the science behind the rockets for the Apollo thirteen missions and things
51:42
like that. Yeah, they carrying on in a similar theme but a different
51:45
a different feel to this book. Ye. I've got a grand daughter who's
51:53
eighties, who's as clever as a whip, really, you know, and
51:58
it's the type of book she consume with glean. Yeah, there's loads of
52:02
spacey facts in that one as well. And I should say I thought that
52:06
was also inspired by the planetarium at Liverpool Museum, which I used to go
52:10
to with my dad when I was younger, used to go there into the
52:14
Walker Art Gallery. But yeah, the planetarium really captured my imagination. So
52:17
I wanted to do a book club space for ages. So it's nice to
52:22
finally fulfill my space dreams with that book. OK, it's been great talking
52:27
to you today. We're going to use this in two places. We have
52:29
a we have a a a book club called the Reading Room, so and
52:35
we always have an author in that interview of the author, but we'll also
52:37
played in our lunchtiin program in the next couple of days. Oh fantastic.
52:42
Thank you for that, brilliant. It's really good to chat to you.
52:44
Thanks for when you're going to do a book about you, because you're fantastic.
52:49
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I don't know about that
52:55
one. But yeah. It's good to be like exploding in all these things
53:00
in my books. Okay, Case, let me talk to you. Today.
53:05
They were feature okay bybe Case Babe. Okay, that was a great
53:10
interview Steve and Kate Pankhurst, and that was recorded and to play on the
53:19
reading room. This month, we've been discussing The Strange Case of Doctor Jackal
53:23
and Mister Hyde by Robert Lewis Stevenson, which was published in eighteen eighty six,
53:30
and we've all given it quite a good review. We're at that time
53:35
now and we actually choose the next book for next month. So I'm going
53:39
to just shake the tambourine. We have all our options in the tambourine,
53:45
and I'm going to get Alan to pick it out because he's first in the
53:47
alphabet. That's purely the only reason why, and I'm going to make sure
53:52
he doesn't cheat. It's high up you pick one out, Alan de du
53:57
Okay, here we go. I hate can you read it in the I
54:05
hate to say this, but I've actually picked my own. Yeah, that's
54:10
absolutely fine. All depends what it is exactly. Snow Goose Okay, never
54:16
heard of it, but I'm looking forward to read. Have you heard of
54:20
it? Barry? That was my choice as well. Is that sort of
54:25
synergy or that's so weirdooky? But that was my choice. I was talking
54:30
before about Novella's you know, Paul Gallico The Snow Goose. That is so
54:35
weird. It's one of the one Poor Ganicoat book that I've never read.
54:38
Yes, that is so weird. So both Alan and Barry chose The Snow
54:44
Goose Paul Gallicoat. Yes, The snow snow Goose by Paul Gallico. I've
54:55
read that book. Okay, that's good to know, so I like it.
55:06
It's funny. I suppose the reason being is when we look at the
55:08
booklist, you and you scan down them and you see something, and then
55:13
it may be that you see a book that you've read and you think,
55:15
well, I really like that. You know, I'd like to do that
55:17
in more detail. So let's say, there you go. But how interesting
55:22
though, I think that's fascinating, amazing and gobsmackingly incredible that Alan, after
55:27
out of all those books, chose the same one. So they're a happy
55:30
little edge you mighte aren't they They're both happy, which is a nice way
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of ending the first reading room. I guarantee you like if you haven't read
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it, christer, I guarantee you love it. I'm excited. We just
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have to find out whether Sefton Parker Library, which i'd like to thank because
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they supply us with all the book copies. Let's hope that they have the
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copies in but I will find out today and let you know. So that's
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the end of the reading room for this month. I just want to Alan,
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thank you, and Barry thank you. I've enjoyed it, thank you,
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and Sue thank you. Thank you. We'll be back next month,
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so don't forget to listen them. Bye for now,