R2OK!

becky sharp · Joined: 01 Dec 2008 Posts: 6814

A friend brought this to my attention. I missed it at the time. Not on BBC Sounds anymore (It was on Radio 4) but it has found it's way on to Youtube.

I came away from the film (Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll)about Ian Dury not liking him at all.

Whilst I haven't been converted by this play I did find it an interesting listen.

In 1987 the legendary singer and songwriter Ian Dury and actor Jane Horrocks began a relationship while working together on the Jim Cartwright play Road. It was at turns loving and acrimonious as it switched quickly from light to darkness and back again

This is the story of their love affair told through recently re-discovered letters from him, her diary entries of the time, and specially commissioned music by Micky Gallagher (Ian Dury and The Blockheads, The Clash)

Jane Horrocks' diary details the relationship through a conflicted lens - beautiful and direct descriptions of joy and heartache, romance, fear, boredom and comedy. Some of Dury's letters to Horrocks read like a song chorus or a poem

Ian Dury's letters are read by Jud Charlton in an uncanny facsimile of the late singer's voice and character, and Jane Horrocks reflects on bringing her memories, the letters and her diaries together after 35 years, concluding that here was a friendship trampled by a sometimes toxic love affair.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtUP0na2AdY