''Jack Flea's Birthday Celebration'' is a television play written by
Ian McEwan
Ian Russell McEwan, (born 21 June 1948) is an English novelist and screenwriter. In 2008, ''The Times'' featured him on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945" and ''The Daily Telegraph'' ranked him number 19 in its list of th ...
and directed by
Mike Newell, part of the ''
Second City Firsts
''Second City Firsts'' is a British drama anthology series of single plays, broadcast by the BBC, all lasting thirty minutes. Recorded at BBC Pebble Mill in Birmingham, or sometimes filmed on location, the series was broadcast between 1973 and 19 ...
'' series recorded by the BBC at
Pebble Mill
Pebble Mill Studios was the BBC's television studio complex located in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England, United Kingdom, which served as the headquarters for BBC Birmingham from 1971 until 2004. The nine-acre site was opened by Princess Anne o ...
and broadcast on 10 April 1976. McEwan wrote the play in 1974, just after completing his first book, ''
First Love, Last Rites'', a collection of short stories and he regards it as belonging to that collection.
[Ian McEwan ''The Imitation Game: Three Plays for Television'', London: Picador, 1982 ]
Plot
David lives with Ruth, a woman nearly twice his age. It is his birthday and he invites his parents to dinner to meet Ruth for the first time. After much wine has been drunk, David pretends to read a chapter from his autobiographical novel, in which the 'stifling, sinister attractions' of his mother drive the protagonist, Jack Flea into the arms of Hermione, an older woman who turns David into her fantasy child. When Mrs. Lee grabs the piece of paper from David it is blank. Ruth and David then act up the fantasy of being mother and child; Ruth and Mrs. Lee vying for possession of David. But is this just drunken fantasy?
[Sebastian Groes (ed.) ''Ian McEwan: Contemporary Critical Perspectives'', London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013, p.28]
Cast
*
Sara Kestelman
Sara Kestelman (born 12 May 1944) is an English actress. She is known for her role as Lady Frances Brandon, Lady Jane Grey's mother, in the 1986 film '' Lady Jane'', as well as for providing the voice of Kreia in '' Star Wars Knights of the Old ...
as Ruth
*
Eileen McCallum
Eileen McCallum, MBE (born 2 December 1936) is a Scottish actress who is best known for playing the part of shopkeeper Isabel Blair through the complete run of soap opera '' Take the High Road'' from 1980 to 2003, and as Liz Hamilton from 2005 ...
as Mrs Lee
*
Ivor Roberts as Mr Lee
*David Wilkinson as David Lee
Reception
Peter Buckman
Peter Buckman is an English writer and literary agent. He has been involved in the publishing industry for many years; he was on the editorial board of Penguin Books, and a commissioning editor for the New American Library in New York City. He ...
in ''
The Listener'' wrote of the play "tension well beyond breaking point...a half hour I shall not easily forget".
[
]
Inspiration
Writing in 1980, Ian McEwan reveals, 'My intention was to take a television cliché - a kind of family reunion, a dinner party - and to transform it by degrees and by logical extension to a point where fantasy had become reality. The self-reflecting fiction at the centre of the play is perhaps one of those conceits that many writers new to the form are tempted to exploit. As it turned out it was not, as I had feared, too literary or undramatic. It simply became a feature of David Lee's illusory sense of control'.[
]
References
External links
*
Ian McEwan writes about his television plays · LRB 5 February 1981
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1976 television plays
Films with screenplays by Ian McEwan
Self-reflexive plays