Life is too short to listen to dull plays on Radio 3, or so I thought.
That’s why I missed Bacon in Moscow in January, an omission rectified over supper last night thanks to iPlayer. It reminded me of the film about Coral Browne touring Russia in 1958 and meeting Guy Burgess in Moscow. Written by Alan Bennett, directed by John Schlesinger, with Alan Bates as Guy Burgess and Coral Browne playing her younger self An Englishman Abroad is a gem and not too long at one hour, on the nose.
I have got a new MacBook with a slightly bigger screen and more pixels; it is a skinny, super model and as a result there is no room for a DVD player, so I bought that as an extra to plug in. I know it would be cheaper to buy a TV but I couldn’t bear to have a microwave and a TV cluttering up the kitchen. So that’s how I will re-watch An Englishman Abroad.
But I digress, the radio play originated as a book by James Birch, the gallery owner who arranged the Bacon exhibition in Moscow. Birch gave Grayson Perry his first exhibition in 1983 and put on Gilbert & George shows in Moscow and Beijing, so he’s no slouch. He first met Francis Bacon when he was a child on holiday in a cottage at Fingringhoe in Essex (where I have been bird watching) which explains the connection. Bacon was visiting friends who lived nearby.
If you hear the play you will be struck by Bacon’s affected, strangulated voice and imagine it to be a bit OTT. Timothy Spall plays Bacon and actually gets Bacon’s voice pitch perfect because of many afternoons in the 1970s spent drinking with him at the Colony Room. Bacon was brought up in Ireland where his father was an unsuccessful trainer. In the play he remembers shadowy figures of IRA men flitting through the woods and his mother’s refusal to sit with her back to a window. I remember my grandfather having the same aversion. If you use BBC iPlayer it is ninety minutes well invested.