大象传媒

Episode 2. The Winner Takes It All.

Elvis is persuaded, much against his will, to engage with society's apparent mania for competitions. The opportunities are legion: karaoke, writing in to magazines, the competition for best kept caravan park and a local poetry slam

Producer: Frank Stirling
A Unique production for 大象传媒 Radio 4

Written by Elvis MacGonagall, with Richard Smith, Helen Braunholtz-Smith and Frank Stirling.

Stand-up poet, armchair revolutionary, comedian and broadcaster Elvis McGonagall (aka poet and performer Richard Smith) is determined to do something about his bitter, dyspeptic and bloody minded view of contemporary life. There are good things out there, if he could only be bothered to find them. From his home in the Graceland Park near Dundee, the Scottish punk poet goes in search of the brighter side of life. With the help of his dog,Trouble, his friend, Susan Morrison, and his own private narrator, Clarke Peters, Elvis does his very best to accentuate the positive - he really does. Recorded almost entirely on location, in a caravan on a truly glamorous industrial estate somewhere in Scotland.

As Elvis, poet Richard Smith is the 2006 World Poetry Slam Champion, the compere of the notorious Blue Suede Sporran Club and appears regularly on 大象传媒 Radio 4 ("Saturday Live", the "Today Programme", "Arthur Smith's Balham Bash", "Last Word", "Off The Page" and others as well as writing and presenting the popular arts features "Doggerel Bard" on the art of satiric poetry and "Beacons and Blue Remembered Hills" on the extraordinary resonance of A.E. Housman's 'Shropshire Lad', which was recorded on location as well.
(further info at www.elvismcgonagall.co.uk).