Too Much of a Good Thing (radio play) on:
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''Too Much of a Good Thing'' is a radio play, recorded entirely on location, as if it were a film, by
Mike Leigh
Mike Leigh (born 20 February 1943) is an English film and theatre director, screenwriter and playwright. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and further at the Camberwell School of Art, the Central School of Art and Design ...
. Liane Aukin, the 'midwife' of the project, a
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
radio producer, knew Leigh through her brother David, the general manager at
Hampstead Theatre
Hampstead Theatre is a theatre in South Hampstead in the London Borough of Camden. It specialises in commissioning and producing new writing, supporting and developing the work of new writers. Roxana Silbert has been the artistic director since ...
. She had initially asked Leigh to revive ''
Abigail's Party
''Abigail's Party'' is a play for stage and television, devised and directed in 1977 by Mike Leigh. It is a suburban situation comedy of manners, and a satire on the aspirations and tastes of the new middle class that emerged in Britain in the ...
'' on the radio, but he preferred to supply an original piece.
Ronald Mason, the head of radio drama, was enthusiastic and allocated £5000.
Leigh rehearsed the play for three weeks with the three actors -
Lesley Manville
Lesley Ann Manville (born 12 March 1956) is an English actress known for her frequent collaborations with Mike Leigh, appearing in the films '' Grown-Ups'' (1980), '' High Hopes'' (1988), '' Secrets & Lies'' (1996), ''Topsy-Turvy'' (1999), ''A ...
,
Philip Davis and Eric Allan. In the fourth week they went out and 'shot' the radio play as if it were a film. It was completed in May 1979. Ronald Mason was pleased with the result, but
Ian McIntyre, controller of Radio 3, censored the broadcast, claiming the play was 'boring' and 'not good enough'. The play was finally broadcast in July 1992.
The critic
Michael Coveney
Michael Coveney (born 24 July 1948) is a British theatre critic.
Education and career
Coveney was born in London and educated at St Ignatius’ College, Stamford Hill, and Worcester College, Oxford.
After graduation, he worked as a script re ...
has described the radio play as "probably the least-known example of Leigh's best work, a script of unremitting black and greasy grottiness." A fat girl, Pamela, (Lesley Manville), who works in an estate agents and lives with her equally fat, widowed father, Mr Payne (Eric Allan), in
Barking
Barking may refer to:
Places
* Barking, London, a town in East London, England
** London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, a local government district covering the town of Barking
** Municipal Borough of Barking, a historical local government dist ...
, east London, loses her virginity to her driving instructor, Graham (Phil Davis). "Above all it's the realism that is so startling, the actors really are ''in situ'', and not skilfully turning pages in front of a microphone..the fifteen minute seduction scene was done, for almost absolute real, with Manville and Davis stripping down naked by night in an
Islington bedroom wired for sound, and Leigh lurking outside with his sound recordists in the van...Manville recalls that the foreplay was enacted, on the take, right up to the moment of penetration, when it was decided that Davis would grab a little cushion which he placed between the two of them so he could, as Manville says, 'do the thrusting and carry on'."
[Coveney, p.137]
References
{{Mike Leigh
Plays by Mike Leigh