As you’ve probably noticed from previous weeks’ entries in this strand, such as Scum, Contact and Penda’s Fen, director Alan Clarke was responsible for many of British TV’s finest – and toughest – plays. BBC2 Playhouse‘s Diane, starring the then 20-year-old Janine Duvitski (Waiting For God, Abigail’s Party) whom Clarke more or less plucked straight out of drama school to play the 13-year-old protagonist, is one of Clarke’s toughest, dealing with incest on a council estate.
Written by ‘David Agnew’ (actually Clarke using a BBC pseudonym after re-rewriting Anthony Read’s initial script), it’s harrowing, subtle but still humane, and still packs a punch.
I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.
