John Yorke takes a look at Transcription by Kate Atkinson.

First published in 2018, Transcription tells the story of three different time periods in the life of our protagonist, Juliet Armstrong. The interweaving timelines take us from 1940 to 1981, telling of her experiences working in wartime for MI5, working in peacetime for BBC Radio, up to the end of her life in the moments between life and death.

Transcription is a spy novel but it’s the work’s thematic depth that raises it above standard fare. There is gripping action but it’s a trojan horse for wider, darker themes. Each chapter is an item on a ledger, leading to a final adding up of the full cost of guilt and betrayal.

There’s one other element that adds to the book’s power - It’s based on a true story. So while the events in Transcription are very much rooted in real life, reality doesn’t lend itself to Atkinson’s thematic concerns. It's in the way that she takes the raw material and manipulates it that the real strength of the book lies.

In the author’s notes at the end of the book, Atkinson says that she became ‘obsessed’ with the nature of historical fiction while researching the story in the National Archives. She says that “roughly speaking, for everything that could be considered an historical fact in this book, I made something up.” Transcription is a real moment from history, taken on an extraordinary flight of imagination.

John Yorke has worked in television and radio for over 30 years and shares his experience as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. He created the BBC Writers Academy and trained a generation of screenwriters - now with thousands of hours of television to their names. His acclaimed books Into the Woods and Trip to the Moon explore the structure and power of narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of storytelling, including many podcasts for R4.

Archive

Written and presented by John Yorke

Executive Producer: Caroline Raphael