Pilgrim by Sebastian Baczkiewicz

Pilgrim by Sebastian Baczkiewicz (pronounced "bunch-key-a-vitch") is a distinguished series of supernatural thrillers which have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 over the last seven years. The concluding mini-series has now gone out and the entire range of episodes were available online for a while here.  

Sadly these have now expired, but some of the adventures are available for download, and the whole thing will soon be available on CD (here and here).

I'm going into such detail about where you can hear these dramas because they're genuinely terrific and well worth searching out. 

They tell the story of William Palmer (superbly played by Paul Hilton), a stone mason in the 12th Century who was on a pilgrimage to Canterbury when he inadvertently offended the king of the Grey Folk (the fairies), who cursed him to life eternal. In the succeeding centuries Palmer has become a kind of fixer in conflicts between the Grey Folk and the Hot Bloods (humans). (Incidentally, Palmer is often referred to as 'Pilgrim', or Billy, suggesting that Baczkiewicz might be a Kurt Vonnegut fan — Billy Pilgrim.)

The series is made distinctive by its emphasis on regional locations and accents, and also its great use of popular music — usually to eerie or unsettling effect. Baczkiewicz is very talented indeed and has clearly learned from Harold Pinter in the way he writes taut dialogue which he pointedly invests with the jaunty menace of everyday cliché. 

I'd heard bits and pieces of Pilgrim over the years, but thanks to the recent BBC bonanza I was able to enjoy a week-long blitz of listening to all seven series (29 episodes), at a length of over 20 hours. The downside of this kind of 'boxed set' approach is that one detects certain element of repetition (people kept saying "What's that when it's at home?"); the much more substantial upside was seeing subplots slot neatly together and vivid minor characters recur in a welcome fashion.

My favourite episodes include Lyall Park, which combines elements of the Shining with the Lord Lucan case; Daventree Mansions, in which a magician disappears into a painting, and St Lewin, which features the priceless Mister Truffles.

Pilgrim is full of wonderful characters, like the were-fox Handley played by Joel MacCormack, the vivaciously dangerous Coral (Cassie Layton), and the seductive and lethal Mirabella (Janice Acquah). Baczkiewicz has a particularly strong line in villains including the aforementioned demon cat Mister Truffles (Zubin Varla) and the delightfully evil Birdie (Kate Fleetwood) who describes Pilgrim as "raggedy but kissable". 

In that regard the German CD cover is more accurate than the BBC ones — which stupidly seem to assume that Palmer is still wandering around dressed like a 12th century pilgrim. He isn't. Palmer's very modern in some ways, and the clash between the old and the new, and our hero's long-term world view, make for some interesting observations — he casually mentions that Picasso was a messy eater — and some keenly amusing dialogue: "What did your last slave die of?" "Dysentery."

Or, when Palmer describes a troubled spirit he found inhabiting a well: "Inhabiting it how?" asks a sceptical young woman."Well, he didn't have a fitted kitchen," says Palmer.   

Baczkiewicz writes great dialogue: "If that face could talk..." "That face can talk." And I admire his descriptions of supernatural beings: "...a giant." ... "What kind of a giant?" ... "An I-smell-the-blood-of-an-Englishman kind of a giant." 

I loved listening to this entire saga. Or, as one of Baczkiewiecz's sinister grey folk puts it, "A sausage dancing in a frying pan could not be happier."

My only regret is that it was over so soon. I feel it could have easily run for ten or twelve seasons instead of seven. There is a ray of light, though. Pilgrim hasn't been as emphatically concluded as Sherlock Holmes was when he went over the falls. And, like Holmes, I hope he'll be back by popular demand.

The Pilgrim dramas were directed by Marc Beeby or Jessica Dromgoole (a great name for this material.) 

(Image credits: .The groovy tree monster is from Rare Share. The cave is from the episode Jackson's Mill at the BBC. The wonderful cat Mr Truffles is from a gallery at the BBC. The 'Complete First Series' is from Audible. The rather cool painted cover of the 3-CD set, and the two images derived from it, are from the German publisher Christoph Merian.)

Dune — the Folio Society Edition

Dune is one of the great science fiction novels. Many people would maintain it's the greatest. It's certainly one of my favourites, and I've written about it before.  What has prompted me to return to it is the release of a beautiful new version from the Folio Society.

With original first printings of the hard cover selling for $10,000, I'm always up for deluxe new editions of Dune at a more reasonable price. A few years ago the American bookstore giant Barnes & Noble added it to their range of collectible editions in a leather bound, illustrated hardback. This goes in and out of print, with the price fluctuating accordingly. But when it's available at the standard rate of about twenty bucks it's a tremendous bargain.

However, the Barnes & Noble Dune has been trumped by the gorgeous Folio Society edition, published in 2015. Far from cheap, with a retail price of seventy five quid, this is nevertheless the definitive hardcover version of Frank Herbert's 1965 masterpiece to date, and if you can afford it you ought to splash out.

The illustrations by Sam Weber are impressive — which is far from always the case with Folio Books, which suffer from wildly erratic art direction. Weber's style is sympathetic to the story and there are 12 full colour plates. The Barnes & Noble Dune had no plates, just illustrated endpapers, rather classily using the work of John Schoenherr, the greatest Dune illustrator. The endpapers of the Folio volume are devoted to some very nice maps. And Weber's embossed cover is just a beauty.

But where this edition really scores is with its excellent supplementary text. Michael Dirda has provided a notably perceptive introduction in which he talks about the sand worms surfacing in the desert "like Moby Dick rising from the depths." He correctly observes the parallels with Lawrence of Arabia and notes both are stories of "a young man caught up in a myth." And he makes a fascinating — and fresh — comparison between Dune and Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword.

Dirda is amusing on the "idiotic misjudgements" of the 23 publishers who turned down Dune, is insightful on Herbert's prose style and the way his short paragraphs drive the narrative; he sensibly equates the Bene Gesserit witches with the Jesuits (even the name is an echo) and makes an effective point about a single-product economy when he says "for 'spice' read 'oil'."

I'm seriously impressed by Dirda and I am going to seek out his Conan Doyle biography (a winner of the Edgar Award).

The Folio edition also features an afterword by Brian Herbert. I have the traditional suspicion of a son cashing in on father's writing (Brian has co-written a horde of Dune sequels) but he, too, has some compelling observations. He says his father "spent more time with Paul Atreides than he did with me", suggests that the Beast Rabban Harkonnen is "essentially a fool" archetype and finds an intriguing comparison with Beowulf.

Importantly both foreword and afterword make clear that science fiction writer Sterling Lanier is the unsung hero of the Dune saga. 

As an editor at the publishing house which finally accepted Dune, he was absolutely pivotal in the book getting into print at last. 
 
Without Sterling Lanier there might not be a Dune for us to covet in deluxe editions today.

(Image credits: The Folio images are from Gizmodo where you can find an excellent appreciation of this edition. The picture of the Barnes & Noble Dune is from a thread on NeoGAF.)

Bone Tomahawk by A. Craig Zahler

The horror-western is an interesting hybrid, and one with considerable potential. So it's surprising how rare examples are. Of course, there's the proverbial — and silly —  Billy the Kid vs Dracula, but serious attempts at cross-splicing the genres are few and far between.

The best examples which come immediately to mind are a Harlan Ellison script for a 1968 episode of the TV show Cimarron Strip, called A Knife in the Darkness, which explored the idea of Jack the Ripper relocating in the Old West. 

And then there's a Richard Matheson novel called A Shadow on the Sun. Matheson was a specialist in horror who also wrote a considerable number of Westerns, so he was ideally situated to explore this specialised territory.

Well, sadly Richard Matheson is gone and Harlan Ellison largely inactive now, but a guy called A. Craig Zahler has fashioned an excellent film with the evocative title Bone Tomahawk (though I must admit that at first I thought it sounded like a porno comedy).

Without giving too much away, the premise of Bone Tomahawk is that a clan of highly primitive cave dwelling proto-Native Americans (referred to as "troglodytes") are discovered. They're ferocious and cannibalistic... and they've kidnapped the hero's wife. A posse sets off to rescue her, and a great deal of satisfying mayhem ensues.

The movie is a kind of cowboy take on The Hills Have Eyes... which is actually a great idea. Zahler does a commendable job of directing, but the strength really lies in his script. He's obviously done a lot of research, and his dialogue has an unerring sense of the period. Also, it's just good dialogue: "What's the time?" "It's about nine, but it feels like next week."

The characters are imaginatively conceived and well rounded, with a good cast to bring them to life, notably led by Kurt Russell as the sheriff, with Patrick Wilson as the aggrieved husband, Lili Simmons as his wife the local doctor and Matthew Fox as a gun-slinging dude. The music, by Jeff Herriott and Zahler is also memorable.

Zahler is a talent to watch. This film is extremely well made — and well worth checking out — assuming you don't have an aversion to westerns, or horror movies.

(Image credits: The posters are from Imp Awards.)

Hail, Caesar! by Ethan & Joel Coen

I've long had my doubts about the Coen Brothers — ever since their first film Blood Simple, in fact, I seemed to be immune to their charms. People loved their stuff, but it didn't float my boat. I especially disliked Raising Arizona and Barton Fink. However, no one could deny that True Grit was a tremendous movie.

And now we have the delightful Hail, Caesar! This is a flawless satire of Hollywood in the 1950s, which has a lot of interesting overlap with the excellent Trumbo, including a major plot concerning communist screenwriters. It even features a Hedda Hopper style gossip columnist, again wonderfully played by a British actress, this time the sublime Tilda Swinton.

Swinton is just part of a fabulous cast, all doing splendid work — Scarlett Johansson as an aquatic siren, Ralph Fiennes confirming the gift for comedy he displayed in The Grand Budapest Hotel, Josh Brolin as the studio fixer. 

But particular credit must go to those who are willing to undermine their usual image  — Tatum Channing of Magic Mike fame, doing great work in a camp sailor-suit dance sequence and most of all George Clooney sending himself up as a commie-stooge catamite.

Above all, however, kudos must go to Alden Ehrenreich who seems to have learned how to do tricks with a lasso and acrobatics on horseback for his role here as an amiable singing cowboy star forced into a tuxedo in a spectacular bit of miscasting by Brolin's studio boss.

Beautifully written by the Coen brothers, Hail, Caesar! is a terrific comedy with great parodies of vintage Hollywood output, especially the titular biblical epic, which is nailed with uncanny and hilarious precision. (There is also a priceless scene with religious leaders invited into the studio to argue about the script — and the nature of the deity.)
I only noticed one slip up in evoking the era: Lockheed Aircraft Corporation is trying to poach Brolin and we get a shot of a letter from their "Human Resources" department. In fact "human resources" is a trendy modern term for what would have been called the Personnel Department back in the 1950s. Let's get these period details correct, folks.

Pedantry aside, this movie is faultless, charming and huge fun. Who knows, maybe I should even take another look at Barton Fink.

(Image credits: all the posters are from Imp Awards, where shamefully there was none featuring Ehrenreich, who has a far greater and more important role than, for instance, Jonah Hill, who gets a great big poster all his own.)