BBC R4 - Stevie Smith's 'The Holiday'
Adapted by Michelene Wandor
Directed by Janet Whitaker
Broadcast August 18, 2001
Coded from tape at 128/44.1

Stevie Smith [1902-1971] is best known now for a single poem,
'Not Waving, But Drowning' [see below] but she published nine
volumes of poetry and three novels, and made a living being
[what would now be called] a performance poet.

Her politics were radical. Her first novel was about unrest
in the UK during WWI. News of this was suppressed during
the war. It had been largely forgotten until her book was
published in 1936.

'The Holiday' was published in 1949. It's set in the immediate
post WWII period. Summer is turning to autumn. A group of people,
some made poor by the war, are revisiting their pre-war lives
trying and failing to pick up their relationships where they'd
left off at outbreak of war. The underlying theme seems to be
that we'll just have to learn to get along without Empire.

It's a well made dramatisation that throws light on the period.

Cast
Lucy Whybrow
Andrew Wincott
Janet Henfry
Gordon Reid
Roger May
Philip Joseph
Rachel Preece

Not Waving But Drowning

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.
 
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=7089
.