Essential
Poems (To Fall in Love With)
´óÏó´«Ã½
TWO, February
This
Valentine's Day, the ´óÏó´«Ã½ celebrates the nation's love of poetry
with a season of programming to inspire lovers and poets everywhere,
together with an online competition to search out budding talent.
Essential
Poems (To Fall in Love With) uses a host of top acting talent in
this innovative five-part visual anthology of poetry for ´óÏó´«Ã½ TWO.
In
Essential Poems, writer Daisy Goodwin leads viewers on a poetic
journey through the ups and downs of being in and out of love, using
the lasting appeal of some of the world's most memorable love poems
to capture the emotions of each stage from the early, heady days
of romance to the pain of breaking up.
Filmed
in the style of a mini-drama set in a contemporary location, the
poems are recited by over 35 favourite actors and celebrities, including
Alison Steadman, Matthew Macfadyden, Christopher Lee, Damian Lewis,
Amanda Holden and Prunella Scales.
Never
before have poems been seen to be so seductive, humorous or uplifting.
To
complete the poetic experience on ´óÏó´«Ã½ TWO, poems performed by well-loved
actors and celebrities will be popping up in unusual places throughout
the schedule for the duration of the season, from William Shakespeare's
Sonnet 129 to Wendy Cope's Bloody Men.
A ´óÏó´«Ã½i
online competition launches the search for the UK's most exciting
new poetic talents. In association with Talkback, viewers are challenged
to write a poem of no more than fourteen lines on the theme of first
love.
Budding
poets have a unique opportunity to bring their work to a wider audience
with the publication of an exclusive collection of shortlisted poems;
and in a programme for National Poetry Day, 9 October, actors will
perform the ten favourite poems and the winner will be announced.
Members
of the public can enter by post or by email via a dedicated ´óÏó´«Ã½
website.
Daisy
Goodwin comments, "Great poetry is furniture for the mind.
Become familiar with the right poems and you change the way you
think for ever."
First
Flush
Flirting,
playing the dating game and the heartache of unrequited love –
the perils of looking for love. In
the first programme in the series, Daisy Goodwin examines poetry
to seduce and enchant, for the giddy first days of meeting someone
and falling in love.
Liza
Tarbuck answers the question on the lips of all single women as
she recites Nina Bourne's Where the Single Men Go
In Summer; Damian Lewis considers the joys of flirtation
in To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell; Jimi
Mistry performs Shelley's persuasive Love's Philosophy;
Margaret Atwood reveals how to be irresistible to the opposite sex
in a sultry rendition of Siren Song by Naomie Harris;
and Ioan Gruffudd is hopelessly lovestruck in the captivating First
Love by John Clare.
Wild
Nights
You've met someone
you like and who likes you back – what next? Essential Poems
gets raunchy as Daisy Goodwin leads viewers through an arousing
poetic journey of the physical manifestations of love.
From
the wild nights captured perfectly in the erotic intensity of John
Donne's The Good Morrow, performed by a convincingly
amorous Lennie James, to the morning after, be it the warm tenderness
of Saturday Morning by Hugo Williams, recited by
Andrew Lincoln, or the torture of self reproach of Shakespeares'
Sonnet 129, vividly recreated by Greg Wise. Then
there are the wedding bells of Tennyson's Marriage Morning.
The
programme has poems guaranteed to inject passion into any relationship.
Talking
in Bed
The joys and
concerns of family life have long preoccupied the world's poets.
In the third part of Essential Poems, Daisy Goodwin luxuriates in
the happiness of domestic bliss as perceived through poetry.
The
programme includes sumptuous verses about the pleasures of intimacy,
such as Gloire De Dijon by D H Lawrence, performed
by Ioan Gruffudd; it looks at poignant observations of parenthood
including Child by Slyvia Plath performed by Jo
Whiley and featuring her own child; and tries to navigate through
the often fraught relationships with in-laws when Naomie Harris
performs Father-In-Law by Paul Engle.
And
Daisy Goodwin draws on poems dealing with that perennial problem
of the difference between the sexes. Ian Hart, performing Glynn
Maxwell's Perfect Match proves football is all
he really cares about; Prunella Scales is a disgruntled housewife
awaiting the return of her partner in Home Is The Hunter
by Pamela Gillilan; and Alison Steadman reads Wendy Cope's Being
Boring.
The
Grass is Greener
In
part four of Essential Poems (To Fall in Love With), Daisy Goodwin
offers a classy alternative to weepy love songs with an examination
of poems that deal with the pain of falling out of love.
Parting
by Michael Drayton and recited by Rupert Penry-Jones and Ending
by Gavin Ewart and performed by Stephen Tomkinson are an acute reminder
of the pain of breaking up.
For
the 'tantalizing temptation' of infidelity, Sarah Parish tells the
Story Of A Hotel Room by Rosemary Tonks and Ian
Hart observes a pair of lovers in Vernon Scannell's Taken
In Adultery.
For
invaluable advice on how to act at that difficult parting, the brave
face masking the inner anguish described in Maya Angelou's The
Lie is truly something to aspire to.
And
for something to cheer the soul, the heroine of Wendy Cope's poem
bemoans the Loss of something truly terrible –
the corkscrew.
Love
in a Life
Marriage can
go up as well as down and to profit you have to be in for the long
term. In the final part of Essential Poems (To Fall in Love With),
Daisy Goodwin celebrates the power of enduring love.
Daisy
Goodwin's thematic journey considers the tenderness of the long
term relationship through to the death of a loved one.
Anna
Massey recites Mr Teodoro Luna's Two Kisses by
Alberto Rios; Prunella Scales performs In A Bath Teashop
by Sir John Betjeman; John Shrapnell recreates Love Poem
by John Frederick Nims; Robert Burns' A Red, Red Rose
is brought to life by Douglas Henshall; and Christopher Lee performs
A Marriage by R S Thomas.
And
the programme reveals poets are, like the rest of us, not averse
to the odd regret, athough few can say it as eloquently as W B Yeats
in When You Are Old performed by Matthew Macfayden.
Notes
to Editors
The
Series Producer is Alannah Richardson.
Essential
Poems (To Fall in Love With) is a Talkback Production for ´óÏó´«Ã½ TWO.
About
Daisy Goodwin
Daisy
Goodwin worked as an arts producer for the ´óÏó´«Ã½, producing programmes
such as Bookworm and The Nation's Favourite Poem.
In
1998 she left the ´óÏó´«Ã½ to join Talkback where she is now Editorial
Director. At Talkback, Daisy Goodwin has been behind series such
as Would Like to Meet, Life Laundry, She's Gotta Have It, and most
recently, Jamie's Kitchen.
Daisy
Goodwin has also published four best selling poetry anthologies.
The first two - 101 Poems to Save Your Life and 101 Poems to Get
You Through the Day (and Night), are published in America in January
2003. Her book based on her Argentinian family, The Silver River,
is also published in 2003.
Daisy
is married with two children and lives in West London.
Pictures
and preview tapes are available, for media use only, via the ´óÏó´«Ã½
Press Office.
Essential
Poems (To Fall in Love With), is a poetry anthology edited by Daisy
Goodwin and published by HarperCollins.
Also
coming up in March - Love Again
A
new drama documentary for ´óÏó´«Ã½ TWO examines the life and work of
Philip Larkin.
Using
privileged access to unpublished letters and recordings, Love Again
explores Larkin's complex relationships and how his sometimes clumsy
and cruel personal behaviour was the price to be paid for his extraordinarily
sensitive and poised poetry.
Hugh
Bonneville plays poet Philip Larkin in the ´óÏó´«Ã½ TWO film Love Again
(24.01.03)
All the
´óÏó´«Ã½'s digital services are now available on ,
the new free-to-view digital terrestrial television service, as well
as on satellite and cable.
Freeview
offers the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s eight television channels, as well as six ´óÏó´«Ã½ radio
networks.
The
soon to launch ´óÏó´«Ã½ THREE will become available as it goes on air.
|
