The Larkin Family (June 2022)

Tiny In All That Air

This is the King Henry VIII School, Coventry takeover! Led by the school's Librarian and Archivist Helen Cooper, and introduced by former Head of English Sheila Woolf, the pupils of Larkin's former school in Coventry have recorded a fascinating short fictional play written by Fred Holland that explores the Larkin family during Word War II. Helen Cooper and Phil Pullen (Chair of Larkin100 and Larkin researcher) join Lyn to discuss the writing and performance of the play, as well as exploring the play's many themes- family life, gender identity, jazz music, the destruction of Coventry, the rise of fascism and pre-war Germany. The performance also includes full readings of three very relevant Larkin poems.

Also profound thanks to Dan Balcam, the School’s Performing Arts Technician who recorded the performance and added the sound effects, and Sheila Woolf for her help with the adaptation of the play and her introduction explaining its history. Most of all, however, thank you very much indeed to the cast of Year 12 and Year 13 pupils who found time in their busy schedules to perform the play:

Clemi Andrews: Eva Larkin

Leong Yi Au: Narrator #2

Ben Cartwright: Philip Larkin

Simran Cheema: Narrator #1

Aston McKeown: Captain Stanley Hector, Chief Constable of Coventry

Ocean: Sydney Larkin, Coventry City Treasurer

Adam Price: Roger Smythe

Poems: Ultimatum, This Be the Verse, Snow In April, For Sidney Bechet

Other texts and references:

Sir Oswald Mosley, Sir Barry Domvile, Diana Mitford, Peaky Blinders (2013-2022 BBC), James Booth Life, Art and Love (2014, Bloomsbury), Trouble at Willow Gables and Other Fictions (Faber & Faber 2015), Andrew Motion Philip Larkin A Writer's Life (Faber 1993)

Selected letters of Philip Larkin (1993, Faber & Faber) Barbara Pym Some Tame Gazelle (1950, Virago Modern Classics), Julia Boyd Travellers in the Third Reich (2018,Elliott & Thompson Limited)

John Kenyon's article about Philip Larkin can be read here

https://philiplarkin.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/larkin_at_hull_jkenyon.pdf

This podcast is one of the many Centenary events that celebrate 100 years since the birth of Philip Larkin, run by the Philip Larkin Society and Larkin 100.

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Presented by Lyn Lockwood.

Theme music: 'The Horns Of The Morning' by The Mechanicals Band. Buy 'The Righteous Jazz' at their Bandcamp page: https://themechanicalsband.bandcamp.com/album/the-righteous-jazz

Audio editing by Simon Galloway.

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Find out more about the Philip Larkin Society here - http://philiplarkin.com/