English playwrights and the bomb

Abstract

The Manchester Exchange's production of Riddley Walker which opened in June, 1985 is probably the darkest view of the post-nuclear landscape which has appeared in the English theatre. Adapted for the stage by Russell Hoban from his 1980 novel, Riddley Walker is set on a barren East Kent terrain which is dominated by mud, darkness and almost constant rain. Tribes of spear-carrying survi valists spend the day excavating iron machine relics and battling roving packs of wild dogs. Treachery is rampant; beheadings, rou? tine. Traces of religion mix freely with Punch and Judy lore in a society ruled by a blind oracle called the "Ardsips of Cambry" and a ruthless "Pry Mincer" named Goodparley. The hydrogen holocaust which created this landscape is a distant memory and part of the fascination of the novel and the play is the way in which the descendants of "Bad Times" piece together the events of the past. At one point the survivors uncover the description of a famous painting at Coventry depicting the life of St. Eustice. In their semi-literate, quasi Chaucerian language they attempt to decipher the meaning of the words just as they have tried to under? stand how the former residents of the place were able to send ships into the air and transmit pictures on the wind.