Criticism, journalism, rhetoric and advertising of an imaginative dramatic art

by Tim Crook

Monday 21st August 2006 - BBC Radio 4 FM only Afternoon Play: The Memory Experience: The Recall Man
Episode Two of Two. 'Can't See for Looking'.
A witness to an arson attack thinks she saw a rhinoceros throwing a petrol bomb. Forensic psychologist Dr Joe Aston tries to discover what she really saw. By David Napthine.

Cast
Dr Aston: Jeremy Swift
DC Patten: Paul Brennen
DI Reynolds: Janet Dibley
Donna: Sharon Percy
Billy: Michael Imerson
Alison: Colleen Prendergast
Steve: Wayne Foskett
Asif: Shiv Grewal
Mickey: Michael Hodgson
Producer: Toby Swift
Director: Mary Peate

The Afternoon Play on Radio Four used to be the network’s Achilles Heel in radio drama: uneven scripting and production values; unfashionable and stereotypical story conventions and a tedious representation of British middle-class angst. But the repeat of ‘The Memory Experience: The Recall Man’ demonstrates that all has changed. Again the quality of editing and production at BBC Radio Drama has ensured that listeners missing episode 1 were neatly and effectively rooted into the full storyline.

This is achieved with a taught, crisp opening of the dramatic actuality of an apparently racist petrol bomb attack on an Asian shop and intense and effective introduction of the characters, plot crisis and mystery issue - in this case how does a forensic psychologist Dr Joe Aston unravel a central witness’s recall being distorted by the surrealistic substitution of the assailant with the image of a rhinoceros, dinosaur, or unicorn. The script by David Napthine was sophisticated, enticing, and contemporary giving authenticity and a cutting edge for the performances by a brilliant cast of young actors. Throughout the production language and performance maintained an impressively high standard of naturalism. Credit must be given to the producing and directing team of Toby Swift and Mary Peate.

The play was brilliantly cast and directed. Sharon Percy’s Donna was magnificent in the way she brought the character alive with all her nuances of self-deception, attitude and vulnerability. She offered a tour de force in expressing vocal personality, particularly in the scene where she articulates the combustion of petrol in the word ‘whooooshhhhhh’ while interrogated by a radio Cracker that a younger generation of radio listeners can believe in - particularly university students enrolled on increasingly popular forensic science and criminology undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Jeremy Swift as Dr Aston and Janet Dibley as DI Reynolds lived, breathed, and psychologically grounded the realism of the crime investigation centred in Teesside, North East England. The actors seemed confident and relaxed in what seemed to me authentic Teesside accents. The production also benefited from a filmic quality sound design so that every location offered a further qualitative dimension of realism from the police station, nightclub, to the council estate. The characters moved within the dynamism of their environment and the microphone captured the depth of emotion and frustration in the twists and turns of plot.

Modern crime drama in film and television quickens in the pace of suspense, cutting between points of view, subtly mixing non-diagetic bridges of electronic music that chime atmospheres. Toby Swift’s role as producer succeeds in establishing the professionalism of the television filmic genre in afternoon audio-drama. He certainly demonstrates a creative and intuitive understanding of the potential of sound perspectives through the technology of police interrogation. Aston hears Donna’s recall from police cassette interview tapes, and then in conference with the police detectives evaluates and argues over recordings of his own attempt at forensic questioning.

Donna’s eye-witness fixation with seeing a rhinoceros leads one of the detectives to quip that that would make ‘an interesting identity parade’ because as Donna had been told ‘You don’t get rhinos in the Boro.’ So is Donna ‘living in lala land’ or can Dr Aston turn her into a credible witness ‘in between teaching and making a living’ and all the other problems of being a deadbeat, underpaid and overworked university psychologist. They may be several degrees apart but mentally Donna begins as Aston’s equal. She measures him for our imagination: ‘You being a doctor and that but you don’t seem like one. Doctors are better dressed, clean shoes and that….You’re not like other doctors are you?’

Aston takes her back to the scene of crime where she had stopped in the street because she ‘wanted a kebab or something’, was ‘eating chips and garlic sauce’ and ‘nearly crapped myself.’

Writer David Napthine has a beautiful grasp of writing radio dialogue. During a Donna/Aston interview reflecting on the impact of seeing petrol bombs thrown into a shop there is silence, directed properly by Mary Peate and then followed by Donna’s ironic refrain to Aston: ‘You alright?’ The script gives space to the actors for effective sub-text. When the rent man, Jason, arrives to interrupt them all she has to say is: ‘The thing is Jo. Well you know’. Napthine keeps up the quality of his writing when a police officer has the opportunity to describe Donna’s estranged husband Mickey: ‘scratched his tattoos, farted and then lit a Lambert and Butler.’

Aston diagnoses in Donna a dysfunctional recall condition, a confabulation precipitated by high blood pressure. In a way the doctor is both forensic investigator and therapist. At the scene of crime she is forced to admit: ‘Well it wasn’t really a rhinoceros. Not really’.
The suspense is tightened as we learn more about Mickey spending more money on tattoos than the kids and the significance of her hooking up with Jason, the rent man. The trauma of recognizing one of the attackers has plugged Donna’s memory with a unicorn. ‘Tell me about the Unicorn?’ asks Aston. Donna continues to conceal a coming to terms with reality: ‘I saw it all didn’t I, Jo?…I’ve seen a unicorn before, in the streets of Middlesbrough.’

Eventually she is able to see and recognize a face in the image of the unicorn. This play is another sign that BBC Radio Four afternoon drama has grown up, allowing the use of realistic language: ‘Paki’s shop’ and ‘Piss off’. The drama turns on the discovery of a racist group active in the area using the symbol of the unicorn, spotted by Aston as a tattoo on Jason’s left buttock as he disappeared into Donna’s kitchen. In curing Donna’s memory blockage, he dumps her into the focus of police suspicion.