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The Curious Room: Collected Dramatic Works
Encompassing radio plays, and pieces for stage and screen, this volume explores familiar Carter preoccupations: myth and fairy tale; domestic murder and the violence underlying everyday life, and the rebellious victims of the repressive society.
It includes the screenplays for "The Magic Toyshop" and "The Company of Wolves"; a draft for an opera of Virginia Woolf's "Orlando"; and reworkings for radio of "Puss in Boots" and "Dracula".
It includes the screenplays for "The Magic Toyshop" and "The Company of Wolves"; a draft for an opera of Virginia Woolf's "Orlando"; and reworkings for radio of "Puss in Boots" and "Dracula".
510 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1996
3 people are currently reading
175 people want to read
About the author
Angela Carter
213 books3,749 followersBorn Angela Olive Stalker in Eastbourne, in 1940, Carter was evacuated as a child to live in Yorkshire with her maternal grandmother. As a teenager she battled anorexia. She began work as a journalist on the Croydon Advertiser, following in the footsteps of her father. Carter attended the University of Bristol where she studied English literature.
She married twice, first in 1960 to Paul Carter. They divorced after twelve years. In 1969 Angela Carter used the proceeds of her Somerset Maugham Award to leave her husband and relocate for two years to Tokyo, Japan, where she claims in Nothing Sacred (1982) that she "learnt what it is to be a woman and became radicalised." She wrote about her experiences there in articles for New Society and a collection of short stories, Fireworks: Nine Profane Pieces (1974), and evidence of her experiences in Japan can also be seen in The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972). She was there at the same time as Roland Barthes, who published his experiences in Empire of Signs (1970).
She then explored the United States, Asia, and Europe, helped by her fluency in French and German. She spent much of the late 1970s and 1980s as a writer in residence at universities, including the University of Sheffield, Brown University, the University of Adelaide, and the University of East Anglia. In 1977 Carter married Mark Pearce, with whom she had one son.
As well as being a prolific writer of fiction, Carter contributed many articles to The Guardian, The Independent and New Statesman, collected in Shaking a Leg. She adapted a number of her short stories for radio and wrote two original radio dramas on Richard Dadd and Ronald Firbank. Two of her fictions have been adapted for the silver screen: The Company of Wolves (1984) and The Magic Toyshop (1987). She was actively involved in both film adaptations, her screenplays are published in the collected dramatic writings, The Curious Room, together with her radio scripts, a libretto for an opera of Virginia Wolf's Orlando, an unproduced screenplay entitled The Christchurch Murders (based on the same true story as Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures) and other works. These neglected works, as well as her controversial television documentary, The Holy Family Album, are discussed in Charlotte Crofts' book, Anagrams of Desire (2003).
At the time of her death, Carter was embarking on a sequel to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre based on the later life of Jane's stepdaughter, Adèle Varens. However, only a synopsis survives.
Her novel Nights at the Circus won the 1984 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for literature.
Angela Carter died aged 51 in 1992 at her home in London after developing lung cancer. Her obituary published in The Observer said, "She was the opposite of parochial. Nothing, for her, was outside the pale: she wanted to know about everything and everyone, and every place and every word. She relished life and language hugely, and reveled in the diverse."
She married twice, first in 1960 to Paul Carter. They divorced after twelve years. In 1969 Angela Carter used the proceeds of her Somerset Maugham Award to leave her husband and relocate for two years to Tokyo, Japan, where she claims in Nothing Sacred (1982) that she "learnt what it is to be a woman and became radicalised." She wrote about her experiences there in articles for New Society and a collection of short stories, Fireworks: Nine Profane Pieces (1974), and evidence of her experiences in Japan can also be seen in The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972). She was there at the same time as Roland Barthes, who published his experiences in Empire of Signs (1970).
She then explored the United States, Asia, and Europe, helped by her fluency in French and German. She spent much of the late 1970s and 1980s as a writer in residence at universities, including the University of Sheffield, Brown University, the University of Adelaide, and the University of East Anglia. In 1977 Carter married Mark Pearce, with whom she had one son.
As well as being a prolific writer of fiction, Carter contributed many articles to The Guardian, The Independent and New Statesman, collected in Shaking a Leg. She adapted a number of her short stories for radio and wrote two original radio dramas on Richard Dadd and Ronald Firbank. Two of her fictions have been adapted for the silver screen: The Company of Wolves (1984) and The Magic Toyshop (1987). She was actively involved in both film adaptations, her screenplays are published in the collected dramatic writings, The Curious Room, together with her radio scripts, a libretto for an opera of Virginia Wolf's Orlando, an unproduced screenplay entitled The Christchurch Murders (based on the same true story as Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures) and other works. These neglected works, as well as her controversial television documentary, The Holy Family Album, are discussed in Charlotte Crofts' book, Anagrams of Desire (2003).
At the time of her death, Carter was embarking on a sequel to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre based on the later life of Jane's stepdaughter, Adèle Varens. However, only a synopsis survives.
Her novel Nights at the Circus won the 1984 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for literature.
Angela Carter died aged 51 in 1992 at her home in London after developing lung cancer. Her obituary published in The Observer said, "She was the opposite of parochial. Nothing, for her, was outside the pale: she wanted to know about everything and everyone, and every place and every word. She relished life and language hugely, and reveled in the diverse."
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 23, 2018
From BBC Radio 4 - Drama:
The world premiere of Angela Carter's unmade screenplay, based on the real life murder that took place in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1954.
Two teenage girls, Lena Ball and Nerissa Locke become passionate friends after meeting at the local Girls' Grammar school. Enchanted with each other and disillusioned with their lives, they plan to run away to Hollywood. Only their parents stand in the way of their happiness.
An impressive, lost masterpiece from 1988 offering an opportunity to experience the author's vision in an unsettling, visceral radio drama.
Cast:
Angela Carter - Fiona Shaw
Mary Locke - Nancy Carroll
Colin Locke - James Wilby
Douggie Quinn - Adrian Lukis
Nerissa Locke - Dolores Carbonari
Lena Ball - Erin Wallace
Mrs Ball - Julia Deakin
Mr Ball - Gerard McDermott
Jean Ball - Acushla-Tara Kupe
Bobbs Ball - Thomas Meeson
Ollie / Man - Rex Duis
Mrs Graham - Kirsty Gillmore
Miss Johnson - Sara Lynam
Miss Ferguson / Nurse - Dianne Weller
Detective / Doctor - Eddie Mann
Grammar School Girls - Niamh Blackman, Julie Gilby, Lucy Mangan, Rosina Fielder
Written by Angela Carter
Adapted for radio by Robin Brooks
Sound Design - Lucinda Mason Brown
Director / Producer - Fiona McAlpine
An Allegra production for BBC Radio 4.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bk...
The world premiere of Angela Carter's unmade screenplay, based on the real life murder that took place in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1954.
Two teenage girls, Lena Ball and Nerissa Locke become passionate friends after meeting at the local Girls' Grammar school. Enchanted with each other and disillusioned with their lives, they plan to run away to Hollywood. Only their parents stand in the way of their happiness.
An impressive, lost masterpiece from 1988 offering an opportunity to experience the author's vision in an unsettling, visceral radio drama.
Cast:
Angela Carter - Fiona Shaw
Mary Locke - Nancy Carroll
Colin Locke - James Wilby
Douggie Quinn - Adrian Lukis
Nerissa Locke - Dolores Carbonari
Lena Ball - Erin Wallace
Mrs Ball - Julia Deakin
Mr Ball - Gerard McDermott
Jean Ball - Acushla-Tara Kupe
Bobbs Ball - Thomas Meeson
Ollie / Man - Rex Duis
Mrs Graham - Kirsty Gillmore
Miss Johnson - Sara Lynam
Miss Ferguson / Nurse - Dianne Weller
Detective / Doctor - Eddie Mann
Grammar School Girls - Niamh Blackman, Julie Gilby, Lucy Mangan, Rosina Fielder
Written by Angela Carter
Adapted for radio by Robin Brooks
Sound Design - Lucinda Mason Brown
Director / Producer - Fiona McAlpine
An Allegra production for BBC Radio 4.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bk...
September 29, 2018
22 SEP 2018 - a recommendation through Dear Bettie. Many Thanks! I will listen to this one over next week's lunch breaks.
Listen here - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bk...
24 SEP 2018 - a lunch-time listen-to.
Listen here - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bk...
24 SEP 2018 - a lunch-time listen-to.
September 23, 2018
Listen hereDescription: The world premiere of Angela Carter's unmade screenplay, based on the real life murder that took place in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1954.
Two teenage girls, Lena Ball and Nerissa Locke become passionate friends after meeting at the local Girls' Grammar school. Enchanted with each other and disillusioned with their lives, they plan to run away to Hollywood. Only their parents stand in the way of their happiness.
An impressive, lost masterpiece from 1988 offering an opportunity to experience the author's vision in an unsettling, visceral radio drama.
Cast:
Angela Carter - Fiona Shaw
Mary Locke - Nancy Carroll
Colin Locke - James Wilby
Douggie Quinn - Adrian Lukis
Nerissa Locke - Dolores Carbonari
Lena Ball - Erin Wallace
Mrs Ball - Julia Deakin
Mr Ball - Gerard McDermott
Jean Ball - Acushla-Tara Kupe
Bobbs Ball - Thomas Meeson
May 1, 2009
This collection of Carter's dramatic works includes a radio play version of both her "The Company of Wolves" and "Puss in Boots". It also includes the screenplay for "The Company of Wolves" as well for her novel The Magic Toyshop. She also did a screenplay called "The Christchurch Murders" based on a murder in New Zealand, the same murder that Jackson centered his Heavenly Creatures on.
The works are good and showcase Carter's style. It is interesting to see the changes made from short story or novel to screen or radio play. All the works are entertaining to read.
The Vintage edition inclues notes at the end with perfomance history of each play.
The works are good and showcase Carter's style. It is interesting to see the changes made from short story or novel to screen or radio play. All the works are entertaining to read.
The Vintage edition inclues notes at the end with perfomance history of each play.
October 9, 2017
I've been working my way through everything Angela Carter ever wrote and was excited to find this rarity on a friend's bookshelf recently. She leant it to me, and I spent quite a few weeks working my way through its 500ish pages. I would say that, overall, pieces of the book are great, but this would not be my recommendation for the best way to get into Carter's writing. For Carter completists, I think it offers some interesting insights into the themes that recur over and over again in her work.
The radio plays are for the most part fabulous - Carter's slightly ironic playfulness comes out well in that genre where spoken words and sound effects can combine or clash to great effect. Most of the radio plays are re-tellings/first tellings of stories that Carter also published as short stories. The two that are not are bios of obscure literary and artistic figures that are quite interesting to read, and the idea of trying to disentangle the many voices in each by sound alone somewhat blows my mind.
There are two finished screenplays (The Company of Wolves and The Magic Toyshop), both of which illustrate the complexity of bringing visuality into Carter's stories: so much of her power comes through the imagined, through the magical, and the the juxtaposition of both within mundane settings. The Company of Wolves comes off well, but The Magic Toyshop lacks the building intensity of the slow burn that is the novel. Perhaps this is because so much of the novel is driven by a tension between the magical, real and imagined, and literalness of the screen just can't do that justice.
There are also a bunch of first drafts, notes and other in progress pieces which vary in quality and completeness. These were interesting to me because they provided further angles for understanding the themes that drove Carter's writing, but they weren't very much fun to read, to be honest. That said, sometimes valuable lessons - in life and in art - are not fun.
The radio plays are for the most part fabulous - Carter's slightly ironic playfulness comes out well in that genre where spoken words and sound effects can combine or clash to great effect. Most of the radio plays are re-tellings/first tellings of stories that Carter also published as short stories. The two that are not are bios of obscure literary and artistic figures that are quite interesting to read, and the idea of trying to disentangle the many voices in each by sound alone somewhat blows my mind.
There are two finished screenplays (The Company of Wolves and The Magic Toyshop), both of which illustrate the complexity of bringing visuality into Carter's stories: so much of her power comes through the imagined, through the magical, and the the juxtaposition of both within mundane settings. The Company of Wolves comes off well, but The Magic Toyshop lacks the building intensity of the slow burn that is the novel. Perhaps this is because so much of the novel is driven by a tension between the magical, real and imagined, and literalness of the screen just can't do that justice.
There are also a bunch of first drafts, notes and other in progress pieces which vary in quality and completeness. These were interesting to me because they provided further angles for understanding the themes that drove Carter's writing, but they weren't very much fun to read, to be honest. That said, sometimes valuable lessons - in life and in art - are not fun.
June 25, 2021
What a shame this was never filmed prior to her death ... chilling.
November 24, 2016
Luscious, intelligent and great fun. Keep your Stephen King garbage: Vampirella is a masterpiece.
June 30, 2017
Exquisitely lush imagery and use of language, scrumptious beauty with humor and intelligence. Heroines and their men have very cavalier attitude toward violence.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews