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WOL favourite adapts Rabelais for Radio 4

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Prolific Radio 4 playwright, Lavinia Murray - known to her friends on Write Out Loud via her Moxy Casimir persona - has adapted Francois Rabelais’ most famous work, Gargantua and Pantagruel, as a two-part series, starting this Sunday, 11 December. Lavinia tells me she would be delighted to know that some of her Write Out Loud friends were able to listen and enjoy the piece as “it's likely to get a lot of complaints because it's rather bawdy. And bonkers”.

Lavinia’s Moxy Casimir persona delighted the Write Out Loud online community for years with her surreal brand of hilarious poems, asides, and comments; her erudition, her encyclopaedic knowledge and obscure literary references; as well as her unstinting warm support for other poets on the site.

The BBC describes the play as the bawdy, exuberant adventures of medieval giants in a dizzying blend of fantasy, comedy, philosophy and scatological humour. Episode 1 depicts the young life of the giant Gargantua, who is reduced to laughable insanity by an education at the hands of paternal ignorance, old crones and syphilitic professors. The work was frequently banned and poor old Rabelais branded a heretic.

And, of course, he has added to the English language (for all that he was French) the words, Gargantuan and Rabelaisian; all of which reminds me that you really must get yourselves to Write Out Loud Wigan this week. See other news entry.

Gargantua and Pantagruel, dramatised by Lavinia Murray and produced by Gary Brown, both of whom were my tutors on the Salford University MA in TV and radio scriptwriting, is the BBC radio classic serial. Episode 1 Gargantua, Sun 11 Dec 2011, 15:00 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0183r3q

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Comments

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winston plowes

Tue 13th Dec 2011 22:16

"I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do". (HAL 9000)

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Dave Bradley

Tue 13th Dec 2011 15:24

Bawdy and bonkers it is. But it did pass the time pleasantly while ironing and between you and Rabelais, there were a few nuggets worth scribbling down between the shirts -

"Life is not for the easily offended"

"mesmerised by the volume of oddity that has come to rest in a man"

"you can tell an idiot by the company he keeps and the thoughts he dismisses"

"friendship - what a ship of fools it can be".

I'm looking forward to the second half

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Dave Bradley

Thu 8th Dec 2011 18:45

Hurray, she's back! And quoting boy's comic characters. Why does Minnie the Minx come to mind?

And 2001 - Top film. Sheer genius from Kubrick. the scene in which Hal is slowly disabled and starts singing Daisy is unforgettable.

How did I get on to that?

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Ann Foxglove

Thu 8th Dec 2011 17:43

Moxy Moxy Moxy - I love you! We need you! Hello! :)

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Dave Bradley

Wed 7th Dec 2011 15:59

Thanks for letting us know Julian. Moxy is missed. If you're reading this Moxy, why not pay us one of your flying visits?

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