I was delighted to note the other day that Radio 4 are broadcasting yet another Elizabeth Jane Howard adaptation. As tradition, and latterly legislation, requires, it was narrated by Penelope Wilton, the thinking-man's vocal dominatrix of choice.
If you're not familiar with EJH's oeuvre, her prose concerns itself with the dramatic comings and goings of a cadre of oh-so-posh English men and women, who seem to gad about the place with scant regard for the historical epoch each was born into.
The style is sufficiently literary to convince one that something significant is going on. This effect is bolstered in the radio dramatisations by Penny W's fruity hectoring vowels. But actually, when you scrutinise the (ahem) action, Lizzie's stories seem to consist of nothing more than people eating and drinking.
In last night's instalment, for example, one of the identikit ingenues made cheese on toast. (Phew) Later she, or possibly one of the others, was forced to ingest a heavy meal at a fraught dinner party, the subsequent indigestion providing the chapter's gripping denouement.
I suspect that Penny's voice could make the most prosaic tale sound compelling. Ideally I'd like her to read a passage in which Billingsgate Fish Market porters drink snakebites and light and lagers in Browns in Shoreditch. This should make or break the hypothesis.
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