CASTING THE RUNES
[SHORT-STORY]
Famous story by Montague Rhodes James, filmed in 1957 as Night of the Demon…
[CHRONOLOGY]
ESCAPE (KNX, HOLLYWOOD—CBS)
[
??? ??, 1948 “Casting the Runes”
THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO
[NOVEL]
The 17?? novel by Horace Walpole which kicked off the Gothic movement in British literature was
adapted for radio in 1996 by award-winning dramatist Michelene Wandor.
“Walpole wrote The Castle of Otranto between June and August of 1764. He tried to pass it off as
an actual translation, from the original Italian, of a medieval text written by ‘Onuphrio Muralto’.
The first edition of five hundred copies soon sold out, and Walpole admitted, in the second
edition, published the following year, that the work was his own. The book has rarely, if ever, been
out of print since. The Castle of Otranto is often called the first Gothic novel. It contains almost all
the classic elements: a foreign setting, walking skeleton, haunted castle, long-lost child identified
by his birthmark, ominous threats and events leading to a dénouement that seems unavoidable
because it is the logical conclusion of all the converging, providential actions in the plot. The
Castle of Otranto wonderfully combines the inner turmoil of a most demonic villain — one can
almost see the toasting-fork tail under his fine clothes — a valiant hero, whose strength lies in his
innocent willingness to go along with his fate; ineffectual, well-meaning friars, a psychic hermit
and virtuous maidens. All the internal struggles are played out against the most dramatic
landscape of snaking dungeon passages, lightning-struck battlements, thick woods and huge
supernatural coats of armor waving giant black plumes at castle windows. The inner and outer
aspects of the story are so perfectly matched that it is hard to know which is having most effect
and driving the plot. There is, for the listener, a satisfying inevitability that gathers force as the
story unrolls, that comes from being caught up in something much larger than the mere mortal.
This illuminates the action as dramatically as lightning hits the castle, and makes it as fresh and
thrilling today as when it was first devised. The Gothic novel has been extensively parodied. Here
is the real thing — larger-than-life emotions that have a power and intensity overwhelmingly their
own. Notes by Lesley Young”
[CHRONOLOGY]
(RADIO 4, LONDON—BBC)
[
Circa 1997 “The Castle of Otranto”
SCRIPT: Michelene Wandor (adapted from the novel by Horace Walpole).
PERSONNEL: Andy Roberts (music), Chris Wallis (director).
CAST: David Burke (Father Jerome), Susanah Corbet (Matilda), Alfonsia
Emanuelle (Hippolyte), David Fleisham (Federico), Sylvestra Le Touzel
(Isobella), Gerrard Murphy (Prince Manfred), Catherine Pampridge (Bianca),
Patrick Robinson (Theodore), Robert Wheelan (Iago).
(RADIO 4, LONDON—BBC)
[Tuesday—11:30-
March 16, 2010 “A Guided Tour of the Castle of Otranto”
[BBC RADIO: “…With echoing dungeons, sighing ghosts, terrified virgins
and a giant helmet falling from the sky, Rory McGrath guides us round
first gothic castle in English fiction…”]
[J. F. WAKEFIELD AT AUSTENONLY.COM: “…This is a fun semi-serious
look at Horace Walpole’s Gothick novel The Castle of Otranto, written
anonymously in 1764 and the first of the Gothick novels, setting the tone
for the whole genre… I really enjoyed the approach of Rory McGrath
and found it a fascinating journey around the ‘Castle’ itself, which was
partly based on Walpole’s home at Strawberry Hill and many other
places including colleges in Cambridge…”]
PERSONNEL: Rory McGrath (host).