Nicola Sturgeon spreads calm after alien attack in BBC Radio 4 adaptation…
Scottish first minister and SNP leader will play herself in crime writer Val McDermid’s take on John Wyndham’s science fiction novel The Kraken Wakes.
Val McDermid, the Scottish independence-supporting author, has put Scotland in charge of the remains of the UK in a new adaptation for the BBC which gives first minister Nicola Sturgeon a role playing herself.
It’s a wee bit of fun, but it’s rooted in the reality of the situation
Val McDermid
Crime writer McDermid moved the action of John Wyndham’s classic 1953 science fiction novel The Kraken Wakes from North Yorkshire to Scotland and gave Sturgeon a part calmly broadcasting instructions to the survivors of an alien invasion in her adaptation for Radio 4.
The BBC insisted that the dramatisation of The Kraken Wakes was delayed until after the Scottish parliamentary elections on 5 May as it feared accusations of bias.
Orkney mobile library returning to Kirkwall. Photograph: Orkney Library & Archive
Val McDermid and Ann Cleeves join JK Rowling to defend award-winning mobile library facing £25,000 cut
Major writers from Val McDermid to Ann Cleeves are lining up to fight for Orkney’s threatened mobile library, which brings books to readers in some of the UK’s most remote locations.
behind the scenes the service is being eroded
Travelling to the islands of Stronsay and Shapinsay, Longhope and Westray, and a host of other locations across Orkney’s mainland and isles, the mobile service is facing a reduction in funding of £25,000, after Orkney Islands council agreed to find £1.4m in savings following its own drop in funding. The council said today that this could mean “reducing visits to each destination served by the mobile library service to once every two months, rather than once a month as at present”.
Author Alison Miller, who grew up in Orkney, has launched a petition protesting against the cuts and calling on Orkney Islands council to maintain the service at its current level. It has already drawn the support of the writers McDermid, Cleeves, Louise Welsh and Lin Anderson, as well as hundreds of readers.
Pointing out that Orkney library has won both library of the year and librarian of the year, as well as landing a recent surprise visit from JK Rowling, who dropped in on its crime book club Saturday Slaughters, Miller writes in her petition that “behind the scenes the service is being eroded”.
PHIL MILLER / 00:07 Thursday 25 February 2016
Herald Scotland
She has obtained sweeping new powers for Scotland, leads a party poised to dominate Holyrood for years – and is now set to restore order to a UK invaded by aliens.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is to make first foray into radio drama – playing herself as a calming voice of authority as Britain is besieged by extra-terrestrials.
Ms Sturgeon appears in the BBC Radio 4 production, The Kraken Wakes, a modern retelling of John Wyndham’s classic 1953 apocalyptic novel, which has been adapted by the Scottish crime writer and dramatist Val McDermid.
The two-part drama stars Tamsin Greig and Paul Higgins as reporters Mike and Phyllis Watson, who are on a honeymoon cruise when they see strange red lights falling out of the sky and into the sea.
The lights are aliens who are invading the earth and destroying its environment by raising sea levels.
“There’s chaos in London, there’s no police force, and the British Government has collapsed, but its the Scottish government that survives and tries to re-establish civic order,” said Mr Higgins.
The lights are aliens who are invading the earth and destroying its environment by raising sea levels
“So mine and Tamsin’s characters are always twiddling with the radio, trying to get a signal, and they hear Nicola Sturgeon saying the Scottish Government is going to take control.”
Val McDermid, who is a fan of Wyndham’s works, retells the story “in the light of contemporary fears of climate change”.
PHIL MILLER / 00:07 Thursday 25 February 2016