This sounds like a first: the BBC will soon announce plans to dramatise a poem. They have also landed some stellar actors in the shape of Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman. The narrative poem being dramatised for television is Christopher Reid's The Song of Lunch, which tells the story of a book editor (failed writer, getting old, hates his job) meeting an old flame (successful writer, radiant, known internationally) for a nostalgic lunch in Soho. Of course it quickly goes from bittersweet to boozy and bitter. Commissioned to mark National Poetry Day on 7 October, BBC2 controller Janice Hadlow says she hopes it will inspire people to get writing themselves.
On paper, it sounds terrific; Niall MacCormick (Wallander and Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley) will direct, while Pier Wilkie (Criminal Justice) will produce. Reid, of course, won this year's Costa Book award for his incredibly moving collection A Scattering, poems written in memory of his late wife.
