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Authors: Nicola Barker
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living wage out of your own pocket to take care of it. I don’t know. But either way… etc.).
May I now just say – to start my letter, proper – that I enjoyed the four books in your ‘Sky Turns Black’ series a great deal, although I thought the last book,
Chute to Kill
, took some of the ideas and themes explored in the earlier novels a stage too far – into the realms of the surreal in some instances, e.g. the girl, Lola, who dressed and acted like a circus poodle (to try and exorcize her experiences of childhood abuse at the hands of her dog-breeder uncle) was stretching a point, I felt, but the boy who spoke only in garbled rhyme? Way too much! I realize that he served as a kind of modern-day Greek Oracle figure, but I found both his use of the vernacular and his ability to conveniently pop up (muttering a tired, little ‘rap’ – apparently to order) whenever a new corpse was unearthed from one of the various high-rise blocks’ many rubbish chutes a tad unconvincing, to say the least.
The book just didn’t hang together as well as it might have – and I’d guessed the final twist by chapter four (having said that, I
am
very quick on the uptake. It sometimes drives my wife Moira around the bend when I leap up, ten minutes into a film or television drama yelling, ‘The transvestite did it! He killed his father to fund his breast surgery…’ etc. etc. I just can’t help it. It’s simply a knack I have).
But all credit to you for trying something different. A lot of young(er) writers don’t seem to have the gumption for that,nowadays – especially after a period of success (when a sense of complacency often tends to set in, and they end up churning out any old trash).
Of course like most people I came to your work through the TV series, which – to be frank – I thought was arty-farty and over-directed. I only watched it because my daughter, Elise, who was visiting us at the time, twisted her mother’s arm into giving it a go.
That said, I did rate Kenneth Hursley’s cartoonish portrayal of Tim Trinder, the failed private investigator turned estate manager, solving crimes on the job (while a group of idiotic coppers and social workers weighed in with their size twelves, making the already delicate racial and social relations on the estate in the swinging sixties/early seventies even more parlous than they already were!).
As a matter of interest, I saw Hursley in the new Kenneth Branagh vehicle recently and thought he looked strangely out of his depth rubbing shoulders with more ‘established’ actors (which was a shame for the poor lad. The conclusion I was forced to reach was that he was one of those actors who performs at his best when playing a role very close to his own personality – not that this is entirely a bad thing: it’s always worked for Scotland’s Sean Connery).
Now I hear they’re toting his name about as the new Dr Who! Who’d have thought it?
I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see what he comes up with for the role; although he’ll have his work cut out to do a better job than Christopher Eccleston, who brought a much needed measure of northern grit to the part (he’d be hard pressed to do a worse one than the effeminate boy they’ve had in the role since!).
In truth, I’ve never really made much of a habit of watching the show, myself. My wife watches it, on occasion. The BBC love to over-hype it – but it’s just for kids, really, isn’t it?
The TV series of
Sky Turns Black
was filmed in Coventry,whereas the location of the original books was Manchester’s Hulme estate. Presumably this change was necessitated by the demolition of Hulme’s (by then) notorious crescents in 1993. As a Coventry lad, born and bred, who later lived in Manchester for some years, I was naturally keen to see if this drastic southward shift would prove successful. In the end, sadly, I felt it wasn’t.
I read in a question-and-answer slot (in the
Radio Times
, I think it was
May I now just say – to start my letter, proper – that I enjoyed the four books in your ‘Sky Turns Black’ series a great deal, although I thought the last book,
Chute to Kill
, took some of the ideas and themes explored in the earlier novels a stage too far – into the realms of the surreal in some instances, e.g. the girl, Lola, who dressed and acted like a circus poodle (to try and exorcize her experiences of childhood abuse at the hands of her dog-breeder uncle) was stretching a point, I felt, but the boy who spoke only in garbled rhyme? Way too much! I realize that he served as a kind of modern-day Greek Oracle figure, but I found both his use of the vernacular and his ability to conveniently pop up (muttering a tired, little ‘rap’ – apparently to order) whenever a new corpse was unearthed from one of the various high-rise blocks’ many rubbish chutes a tad unconvincing, to say the least.
The book just didn’t hang together as well as it might have – and I’d guessed the final twist by chapter four (having said that, I
am
very quick on the uptake. It sometimes drives my wife Moira around the bend when I leap up, ten minutes into a film or television drama yelling, ‘The transvestite did it! He killed his father to fund his breast surgery…’ etc. etc. I just can’t help it. It’s simply a knack I have).
But all credit to you for trying something different. A lot of young(er) writers don’t seem to have the gumption for that,nowadays – especially after a period of success (when a sense of complacency often tends to set in, and they end up churning out any old trash).
Of course like most people I came to your work through the TV series, which – to be frank – I thought was arty-farty and over-directed. I only watched it because my daughter, Elise, who was visiting us at the time, twisted her mother’s arm into giving it a go.
That said, I did rate Kenneth Hursley’s cartoonish portrayal of Tim Trinder, the failed private investigator turned estate manager, solving crimes on the job (while a group of idiotic coppers and social workers weighed in with their size twelves, making the already delicate racial and social relations on the estate in the swinging sixties/early seventies even more parlous than they already were!).
As a matter of interest, I saw Hursley in the new Kenneth Branagh vehicle recently and thought he looked strangely out of his depth rubbing shoulders with more ‘established’ actors (which was a shame for the poor lad. The conclusion I was forced to reach was that he was one of those actors who performs at his best when playing a role very close to his own personality – not that this is entirely a bad thing: it’s always worked for Scotland’s Sean Connery).
Now I hear they’re toting his name about as the new Dr Who! Who’d have thought it?
I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see what he comes up with for the role; although he’ll have his work cut out to do a better job than Christopher Eccleston, who brought a much needed measure of northern grit to the part (he’d be hard pressed to do a worse one than the effeminate boy they’ve had in the role since!).
In truth, I’ve never really made much of a habit of watching the show, myself. My wife watches it, on occasion. The BBC love to over-hype it – but it’s just for kids, really, isn’t it?
The TV series of
Sky Turns Black
was filmed in Coventry,whereas the location of the original books was Manchester’s Hulme estate. Presumably this change was necessitated by the demolition of Hulme’s (by then) notorious crescents in 1993. As a Coventry lad, born and bred, who later lived in Manchester for some years, I was naturally keen to see if this drastic southward shift would prove successful. In the end, sadly, I felt it wasn’t.
I read in a question-and-answer slot (in the
Radio Times
, I think it was
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