WHEN DEAD TALES START TO SHOUT...

It's a weird thing when something that was dead and buried in the back of your mind, comes suddenly kicking and screaming to life...

An old short story that died on the page, started talking a little while back. Shouting infact.

I've been working on ideas for Radio drama, since the trailer/snippet that I wrote and then recorded with Dan Smith has been finding favour with some folk on the inside.

They all seem to really like it. But don't quite know where to place it. But we should be meeting with a production company who makes drama for Radio 4 in March, so fingers crossed.

In the mean time my head has been playing with lots of ideas, trying to make sure we have a few other thigns in hand to talk about with the producer, but also to pitch towards the contacts we've been making, who all say 'Yes, please let us know any other ideas you have'. Strike while the iron's hot and all that.

So - in this frame of mind - I suddenly heard the voice of one of the characters in the shrot story that died start talking. Shouting at me infact - and ggrabbing a pen, I scribbled down the entire ending of the story as it might work on radio. Two intercutting, interlocking Voices, telling a single tale, sort of a contemporary reworking of 'Little Red Riding Hood', but also sort of an amalgam of other 'Wolf' based fairy tales too, reset on contemporary urban streets and pushed headlong into the darkness and with a healthy dose of the grotesque and dreamlike added to the mix.

It's coming along quite nicely. I like the oddity of it. And grimmness and the sexuality. And I particularly like that - for all the dark ickyness of it, I think the end manages to be uplifting. I think...

Lots of good squelchy noises in it. It if works it should be creepy, disturbing, maybe make you squirm, but ultimately lift you up, transcend. Or it might just freak you out. Depends on who you are I suppose.

Either way, I'm grinning. Because, if nothing else, I'm know that it will get a reaction.