Of Mud and Flame: The Penda's Fen Sourcebook

by Matthew Harle (Editor), James Machin (Editor), Spencer Banks

Exploring Penda's Fen, a 1974 BBC film that achieved mythic status.

In 1974, the BBC broadcast the film Penda’s Fen, leaving audiences mystified and spellbound. “Make no mistake. We had a major work of television last night,” The Times declared the next morning. Written by the playwright and classicist David Rudkin, the film follows Stephen, an 18-year-old boy, whose identity, sexuality, and suffocating nationalism unravel through a series of strange visions. After its original broadcast, Penda’s Fen vanished into mythic status, with only a single rebroadcast in 1990 sustaining its cult following. Penda’s Fen has now become totemic for those interested in Britain’s deep history, folklore, and landscape.

Of Mud & Flame includes insightful essays by scholars across a range of disciplines including television history, literature, theatre, and medieval studies. It also contains a wealth of creative contributions from contemporary writers and poets inspired by this unique cornerstone of Britain’s uncanny archive, as well as recollections from actors Spencer Banks and Christopher Douglas, and reflections from Rudkin himself. Together with this breadth of commentary, Of Mud & Flame also includes the full revised screenplay of Penda’s Fen, its first time in print since 1975.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction

368 pages, Unknown Binding

First published October 31, 2019

Reviews

[Alex Sarll]

Nearly 51 years ago, a Play For Today was aired which has defied the title of the strand. Yes, it took in the issues of the day, censorship and sexuality and strikes – but in place of the flat social realism in which so many of its brethren traded, it reached back into England's lost pagan past, and half a century on, with Corporate Man rushing ever more blindly and determinedly towards destruction, it only feels more relevant. Hell, even among the good Plays For Today it's an outlier; I have it on a disc with Robin Redbreast, and that's still well worth watching, but I doubt it could sustain a whole volume of exegesis like this. The beauty and the near-failing of Penda's Fen is that it packs so much in as to give dozens of contributors different threads to pull on; an element like the military facility feels underdeveloped when you watch, but it's precisely that sort of gap that leaves space for a kind of academic fanfic – or, in at least one entry, just plain fanfic. Inevitably there's overlap too, not to mention pieces which are pompous, overwritten or unhelpful; it's particularly unfortunate that the last essay proper is on parallels with the films of Carl Theodor Dreyer, yet offers few sops to those of us, and I can't be the only one, who've never seen a frame. But even those will normally nurse an insight somewhere, like the flame in the fen – and the good ones buzz with possibilities. The book also includes interviews with people involved in the film, and concludes with the script, which is interesting not least for how few decisions writer David Rudkin seems to have left to director Alan Clarke – something that surprised me, as I'd always assumed the brilliance of Penda's Fen must be rooted precisely in the collaboration of one man whose other work tends towards the impenetrable with another more usually prone to the lumpen and obvious, each of them bolstering the other, nothing pure.

[Richard Clay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been asked to interview Martin Wall (writer of The Magical History of Britain and West: Tales of the Lost Lands, among other things) at the Bewdley Festival on 15th October this year. A key theme will be the enormous influence Penda's Fen has had upon his thought. It was an atypical piece from BBC1's Play for Today slot - there was more of the Kenneth Anger about it than of the Ken Loach. Until comparatively recently, not much had been written about it but this book goes a long way towards changing that and I have found it tremendously useful and fascinating. Of course, the pieces are of varying depth and quality but I found all of them had something of interest to say. I was particularly fascinated by the piece linking PF to Raymond Williams and the one detailing the important similarities - and differences - between it and 'folk horror' films like The Wicker Man and Witchfinder General (some doe insiste upon adding Blood on Satan's Claw to that list but they be silly fellowes).

If you have seen and loved PF, you'll want this book. If not, go and get the Blu-ray or the DVD - then you'll want this book.

[Sophy H · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well this was a major disappointment. I don't know what it is about some of these books that delve into certain films/plays/pieces of work, the writers seem to feel the need to get overly cerebral about the whole thing. Penda's Fen is taken apart, scrutinised and critiqued to within an inch of its life, thereby taking all the fun out of it. I get that the writers of these essays are fans of the work but their critiques and reviews end up coming across as incredibly dry, almost like reading a PhD dissertation.
I read one after the other where the author seemed to have swallowed a thesaurus before beginning their work, like big words win prizes!

Ultimately this was a dried out husk of a collection of pieces and I was completely disheartened in its reading.

1 star fodder!

[Ned Netherwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute treasure trove. A diverse range of intriguing essays on this timeless work followed up by Rudkin's screenplay makes this essential reading for all strange, dark, ungovernable children

[Graham]

I recieved this book as part of a bundle with Severin Film's folk horror box set. It's really interesting as a supplement to the film. I sampled a few of the essays and hope to read more after I've rewatched the film.