Today, in Caithness, the sun is shining and the air is clear. I'm sure it will come as no surprise to anyone reading this blog that, certain weathers and certain times of the year ignite certain music in me. And, on late winter days which are filled with sunshine, I am usually to be found singing the songs of The Spinners . Inevitably, I start humming different ones of their songs (and of course adapting them to be about Orlando and Jess) as I go around doing different things. But I remember almost all the words to them. I haven't heard a lot of them in years, but they are all there, rooted in my memory. It is truly fascinating to think about how these songs have passed through history. They are part of my own nostalgia, which is why crisp sunny mornings make me incapable of ignoring the temptation to sing them, but they are part of something much bigger. There are songs amongst them which are a newer step in the folk music movement. Songs like Silver in the Stubble are amongs...
I'm quite confident that, if I start this blog with "remember the scythe?", most people reading it are going to immediately know where I'm pointing you to!
That's right: Poldark. Now, I know that the series with Aidan Turner and his famous scythe was actually a remake of an earlier programme, but let's just focus on this more recent iteration of Winston Graham's novels about the eponymous Cornish hero.
One of the things which is so wonderful about Poldark as a series - not only onscreen but even more so in the novels - is that it covers such a vast period of time. Because of the time in which it is set, there are huge local and global changes taking place around the characters and, when you have been invested in them for so long, you can really experience the upheaval alongside them.
This is something I attempted with (what I hope) was a reasonable degree of success in my Early Story of the Rite trilogy. If it ever actually appears on bookshelves, it won't be called that, but it's still very much in the early stages. I love that one character appears in all three books: main character, supporting character, bit part*...
In Poldark, this is represented not only by his screen time (which decreases sneakily as the series progresses and we become involved in the stories of Morwenna, or Doctor Enys) but also by the subtle fading of that significant scar which stretches down his face. If there's one thing that Poldark reminds us as viewers, it's that scars fade but never fully disappear.
Poldark is a great opportunity to lose yourself in the story of one person and, even as we start to move away from Ross's story (there is only so much happily-ever-after that tv is willing to show us), there is still a sense of the ripple effect: everything we are seeing as part of the story results from either a decision Ross made or else something which happened to him.
So, it's a great one for watching to immerse yourself in characterisation: to notice how one character can impact on the lives of so many more. And this is something which I thoroughly enjoy developing as an author, and experiencing as both a reader and a viewer.
*this breakdown will never not make me think of the original lordoftherings.net, which convinced me that the cast list for every film was split into "The Fellowship, Supporting Cast, Bit Parts"
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