Opening Lines

Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, published in 1719, is one of the most well-known and influential pieces of writing in Western literature. Initially presented as a true account, this tale of adventure, desert island shipwrecking and survival has been re-told and re-packaged for different audiences, different generations and different times - rom The Swiss Family Robinson to Lost In Space, and Lord of the Flies to Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway. The term ‘Robinsonade’ was even coined to identify the many books that followed the desert island template.

John Yorke examines what makes the story work, unpacks Daniel Defoe’s skill as literary pioneer, and asks how we should view the book today.

John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and he shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatized in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. From EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless, he has been obsessed with telling big popular stories. He has spent years analysing not just how stories work but why they resonate with audiences around the globe and has brought together his experience in his bestselling book Into the Woods. As former Head of Channel Four Drama, Controller of BBC Drama Production and MD of Company Pictures, John has tested his theories during an extensive production career working on some of the world’s most lucrative, widely viewed and critically acclaimed TV drama. As founder of the hugely successful BBC Writers Academy John has trained a generation of screenwriters.

Set in the turbulent years of 20th century India, Anita Desai’s novel Clear Light of Day brings us a story of family and political upheaval in the blistering heat of Old Delhi. John Yorke unpicks the threads that hold both family and community together until they fray and fall apart. From an opening in the 1980s we are taken backwards and forwards in time to find loyalties and tensions amongst siblings set against the backdrop of India’s turbulent history.

The most significant event for India was Partition, when India became an independent country and Pakistan was created as a homeland for the Muslim communities. The divisions and ethnic violence unleashed run through the country and the Das family. In the second of two episodes, John Yorke reveals the importance of the historical and political background to the novel. He introduces us to a significant character, Aunt Mira, who symbolises all that has gone wrong as we see the contrast between her strength and resilience in youth to a state of alcohol-induced confusion and despair.

John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and he shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatized in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. From EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless, he has been obsessed with telling big popular stories. He has spent years analysing not just how stories work but why they resonate with audiences around the globe and has brought together his experience in his bestselling book Into the Woods. As former Head of Channel Four Drama, Controller of BBC Drama Production and MD of Company Pictures, John has tested his theories during an extensive production career working on some of the world’s most lucrative, widely viewed and critically acclaimed TV drama. As founder of the hugely successful BBC Writers Academy John has trained a generation of screenwriters.

Includes archive clips of Anita Desai from The View from Here, BBC Radio 4 - 18.02.95

Contributor : Kamila Shamsie, author

Researcher: Nina Semple

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4

Set in the turbulent years of 20th century India, Anita Desai’s novel Clear Light of Day brings us a story of family and political upheaval in the blistering heat of Old Delhi. John Yorke unpicks the threads that hold both family and community together until they fray and fall apart. From an opening in the 1980s, we are taken backwards and forwards in time to find loyalties and tensions amongst siblings set against the backdrop of India’s turbulent history.

The most significant event for India was Partition, when India became an independent country and Pakistan was created as a homeland for the Muslim communities. The divisions and ethnic violence unleashed run through the country and the Das family.

Clear Light of Day presents us with two sisters, Tara and Bim, meeting back at home after Tara has returned from Washington DC. One has chosen a path abroad, the other to stay at home and look after her brother who needs constant care. The family is Hindu, but another brother has left to live hundreds of miles away having married into a Muslim family. It’s when we are taken back to their childhood lives that we come to really understand who they are and what binds them together.

John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and he shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatized in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. From EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless, he has been obsessed with telling big popular stories. He has spent years analysing not just how stories work but why they resonate with audiences around the globe and has brought together his experience in his bestselling book Into the Woods. As former Head of Channel Four Drama, Controller of BBC Drama Production and MD of Company Pictures, John has tested his theories during an extensive production career working on some of the world’s most lucrative, widely viewed and critically acclaimed TV drama. As founder of the hugely successful BBC Writers Academy John has trained a generation of screenwriters.

Includes archive clips of Anita Desai from The View from Here, BBC Radio 4, 18.02.95

Contributor : Kamila Shamsie, author

Researcher: Nina Semple

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4

John Yorke looks at the first in Donna Leon’s hugely successful Venetian police series. Death at La Fenice introduces Leon’s likeable Commissario Guido Brunetti, and establishes the recipe that has made Leon one of the world’s best-loved crime writers, and Brunetti one of the most popular fictional detectives.

Death at La Fenice was published in 1992, and opens with a dramatic interruption to a performance of La Traviata at Venice’s famous opera house. The death of a world-renowned conductor is an embarrassment for the Venetian police department, and the city’s politicians are anxious for a speedy result. As Brunetti embarks on his investigation, he navigates his way around Venice’s high society and its murky alleyways with intelligence and integrity, asking searching questions about the much-romanticised city and its inhabitants. Brunetti struck an immediate chord with readers, who warmed to his basic sympathy and decency, as well as his successful detective work, all set against an atmospheric Venetian canvas.

John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and he shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatized in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. From EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless, he has been obsessed with telling big popular stories. He has spent years analysing not just how stories work but why they resonate with audiences around the globe, and has brought together his experience in his bestselling book Into the Woods. As former Head of Channel Four Drama, Controller of BBC Drama Production and MD of Company Pictures, John has tested his theories during an extensive production career working on some of the world’s most lucrative, widely viewed and critically acclaimed TV drama. As founder of the hugely successful BBC Writers Academy, John has trained a generation of screenwriters.

Producer: Laura Grimshaw

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4

John Yorke takes a look at Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus.

Mary Shelley began the short story that would develop into her Gothic novel in 1816 while she was still a teenager. It was published two years later when she was twenty. Despite her young age the book has mature themes: the perils of unregulated scientific experiment, the responsibilities that come with parenting, how society treats the vulnerable and outcast, and man’s role in the universe. Written at a time when women were largely denied an education, this was an extraordinary feat. At the time the fashion was for novels with prescriptive moral lessons; yet Mary created complex characters and storylines that allowed readers to draw their own conclusions.

The daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, both literary celebrities, Mary should have had the best start possible for a writer. But her mother died a few days after giving birth to her and soon afterwards her father remarried, leaving the education of his daughter neglected. That Mary had the resourcefulness to educate herself, and then to go on to write such a groundbreaking novel was a testament both to her talent and determination.

John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and he shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatized in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. From EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless, he has been obsessed with telling big popular stories. He has spent years analysing not just how stories work but why they resonate with audiences around the globe, and has brought together his experience in his bestselling book Into the Woods. As former Head of Channel Four Drama, Controller of BBC Drama Production and MD of Company Pictures, John has tested his theories during an extensive production career working on some of the world’s most lucrative, widely viewed and critically acclaimed TV drama. As founder of the hugely successful BBC Writers Academy, John has trained a generation of screenwriters.

Contributor: Dr Anna Mercer, Cardiff University

Researcher: Nina Semple

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4

John Yorke takes a look at Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.

Mary Wollstonecraft was a trailblazer, a human rights champion whose personal life defied convention and whose ideas changed the world. Born at a time when girls were encouraged to do needlework and prepare for marriage rather than being sent to school like their brothers, Mary rebelled against the notion and educated herself. As her ideas developed and she found her place among radical Dissenters, she fought for women to be treated as human beings rather than objects for men to admire and own – ideas viewed as outrageous at the time. She travelled to Paris at the height of the Revolution and took her baby around Norway in search of lost treasure. Unlike most 18th century women, Mary’s life reads like the script of a blockbusting Hollywood movie. She left an enduring legacy, not least in the shape of her daughter, the subject of our next episode, Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein.

John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and he shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatized in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. From EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless, he has been obsessed with telling big popular stories. He has spent years analysing not just how stories work but why they resonate with audiences around the globe, and has brought together his experience in his bestselling book Into the Woods. As former Head of Channel Four Drama, Controller of BBC Drama Production and MD of Company Pictures, John has tested his theories during an extensive production career working on some of the world’s most lucrative, widely viewed and critically acclaimed TV drama. As founder of the hugely successful BBC Writers Academy, John has trained a generation of screenwriters.

Contributor: Bee Rowlatt, author of 'In Search of Mary' a travelogue about following in Mary Wollstonecraft’s footsteps and founding Trustee of the human rights education charity in her name, The Wollstonecraft Society.

Researcher: Nina Semple

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4

John Yorke explores Franz Kafka's first and unfinished novel The Man Who Disappeared. Kafka's re-imagining of an innocent's arrival and adventures in New York is, at first glance. the classic tale of rags to riches. Teenage Karl Rossman has been exiled by his parents to a fate unknown across the ocean with just a trunk of mementoes and a slowly smelling sausage.

Millions of Kafka's fellow Czechs had also made that journey but Kafka only ever made his voyage of exploration on the page and in his head. It is a strange America he gives us at once both familiar and utterly strange.

John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and he shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatized in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. From EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless, he has been obsessed with telling big popular stories. He has spent years analysing not just how stories work but why they resonate with audiences around the globe and has brought together his experience in his bestselling book Into the Woods.

As former Head of Channel Four Drama, Controller of BBC Drama Production and MD of Company Pictures, John has tested his theories during an extensive production career working on some of the world’s most lucrative, widely viewed and critically acclaimed TV drama. As founder of the hugely successful BBC Writers Academy, John has trained a generation of screenwriters.

Contributors:

Readings from Amerika: The Missing Person by Franz Kafka trans. Mark Harman (Schocken Books, 2008)

Reader: Jack Klaff

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4

John Yorke explores the enduring mystery and power of Franz Kafka's novel The Trial.

All Joseph K was expecting when he awoke was breakfast. Instead he is arrested for a nameless crime and finds his life gradually, utterly consumed by the process. Set in a nameless city very like the twisting alleyways and cramped confines of Kafka’s Prague, the book was only published after the writer’s death. Since then, it has become a world famous tale of unending, indefinable bureaucratic unease.

John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and he shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. From EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless, he has been obsessed with telling big popular stories. He has spent years analysing not just how stories work but why they resonate with audiences around the globe and has brought together his experience in his bestselling book Into the Woods.

As former Head of Channel Four Drama, Controller of BBC Drama Production and MD of Company Pictures, John has tested his theories during an extensive production career working on some of the world’s most lucrative, widely viewed and critically acclaimed TV drama. As founder of the hugely successful BBC Writers Academy John has trained a generation of screenwriters

Contributors:

Readings from The Trial by Franz Kafka trans. Mike Mitchell (Oxford World's Classic 2009)

Reader: Jack Klaff

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4

In the series that takes a look at books, plays and stories and how they work, John Yorke explores S R Crockett’s forgotten bestseller, a swashbuckling adventure story set in his native Galloway in south west Scotland.

Written in 1894, The Raiders is part romance, part action thriller, and part historical fiction. The action takes place in 1715, during the reign of George I, a time when Galloway was awash with pirates, smugglers, cattle rustlers, gypsies and bandits. John suggests it was the Mission Impossible, if not the Fast and Furious, of its day.

In this second episode, John considers Crockett’s writing career, and tries to find out why an author who was on the bestseller lists for a decade at the turn of the 20th Century has almost completely disappeared from view.

John is joined by Cally Phillips, the founder of the Galloway Raiders website, the home of all things Crockett, and Clara Glynn who has adapted The Raiders for BBC Radio 4. Together they explore how the history of early 18th Century Scotland informs the novel, and how Crockett fits into the wider tradition of Scottish adventure writing.

John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and he shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. From EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless, he has been obsessed with telling big popular stories. He has spent years analysing not just how stories work but why they resonate with audiences around the globe and has brought together his experience in his bestselling book Into the Woods. As former Head of Channel Four Drama, Controller of BBC Drama Production and MD of Company Pictures, John has tested his theories during an extensive production career working on some of the world’s most lucrative, widely viewed and critically acclaimed TV drama. As founder of the hugely successful BBC Writers Academy, John has trained a generation of screenwriters.

Reading by Kyle Gardiner

The Raiders by S R Crockett, from The Galloway Raiders website https://www.gallowayraiders.co.uk/

Produced by Jane Greenwood

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4

In the series that takes a look at books, plays and stories and how they work, John Yorke explores S R Crockett’s forgotten bestseller, a swashbuckling adventure story set in his native Galloway in south west Scotland.

Written in 1894, Crockett’s novel is part romance, part action thriller, and part historical fiction. The action takes place in 1715, during the reign of George I, a time when Galloway was awash with pirates, smugglers, cattle rustlers, gypsies and bandits. John suggests it was the Mission Impossible, if not the Fast and Furious, of its day.

In this first episode, John considers how Crockett’s engaging, humorous, pacy style of writing drives the adventure on, and the appeal of his unusually feisty female characters.

John is joined by Cally Phillips, the founder of the Galloway Raiders website, the home of all things Crockett, and Clara Glynn who has adapted The Raiders for BBC Radio 4. Together they discover that, beneath the fast-paced action, Crockett is shining a light on bigger issues - how a young man tests his mettle, the meaning of leadership and how it is possible to life a moral life outside the law.

John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and he shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. From EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless, he has been obsessed with telling big popular stories. He has spent years analysing not just how stories work but why they resonate with audiences around the globe and has brought together his experience in his bestselling book Into the Woods. As former Head of Channel Four Drama, Controller of BBC Drama Production and MD of Company Pictures, John has tested his theories during an extensive production career working on some of the world’s most lucrative, widely viewed and critically acclaimed TV drama. As founder of the hugely successful BBC Writers Academy John has trained a generation of screenwriters.

Reading by Kyle Gardiner

The Raiders by S R Crockett, from The Galloway Raiders website https://www.gallowayraiders.co.uk/

Produced by Jane Greenwood

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4