Next Tuesday BBC Radio 4’s Afternoon Play is The Three Knots. This atmospheric drama is set against the backdrop of the “Disruption” during which Scotland’s church split in two. It’s inspired by a real community who, having been refused any land to worship on by the laird, commissioned a floating kirk which they harboured in Loch Sunart.

Afternoon Play: The Three Knots
By Linda Cracknell; Performed by a full cast
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 / Afternoon Play
Broadcast: December 22, 2009 @14:15-15:00
Drama about faith and the supernatural by Linda Cracknell, set in 19th-century Scotland. Two men stranded on a mountain on a stormy December night meet a mysterious old woman who believes she can control the elements.

Cast:
Angus …… Finn den Hertog
Thomas …… Robert Jack
Old Woman …… Gerda Stevenson
Elizabeth …… Hannah Donaldson
Minister …… Jimmy Chisholm

Directed by Kirsty Williams

Sez the author, Linda Cracknell, on her blog:

I spent two days at the end of last week at the BBC in Glasgow to sit in on the recording of my new play The Three Knots. It was great fun to return to that world after several years away. I heard the words I had hounded down and harnessed through numerous drafts springing into new life, was awed that they could mobilise five actors, a Director, three audio staff, an administrator and a whole world of electronic sound effects into a collaborative act of creation. To witness the nuances of meaning and subtext teased out through the sensibilities of the actors and Director; to remember that fewer words often mean more power; and to find that a terrifying storm can be invoked by layerings of sound, is a huge privilege. For the solitary fiction writer, this is a radically different, and a most exciting way of working.

The Three Knots is the realisation of an idea seeded at least three years ago when, while looking through back copies of the Scots magazine in the National Library of Scotland for something else, I stumbled upon an engraving of a remarkable vessel arriving on Loch Sunart in the West Highlands in 1846. It remained anchored there for ten years, and played a highly significant role in the spiritual and political life of the local community. I was intrigued. I have written about how it captivated me before, here. I walked the hills there, and started to inhabit the place with my imagined characters, until they grew, gathered to themselves relationships, conflicts, mythical associations, and so shaped a story.

Sounds like it might be good eh?

[Thanks Roy!]

Posted by Jesse Willis