The Big Day Looms

BBC+Radio+4+20080308122546So here’s the big question: at a quarter of an hour after 15:30 tomorrow, when “The Amazing Arnolfini and His Wife” finishes, will there be a collective “meh” from several hundred thousand listeners? More importantly, what will everyone I’ve been bleating on about it to think? I’ve tweeted about it, I’ve Facebook’d about it, I’ve Linked In about it and I’ve Friends Reunited about it. I’ve banged on about it on every writers’ forum that I’m on.

I’ve managed to get myself on the front page of my old school website, andΒ I’ve even got myself on the front page of my old college alumni site – to put this into perspective, the last writer alumnus they had on there was one China MiΓ©ville, and the last person from my year on there was Martin Weale, CBE (hi, Martin!). I’m also on the Bristol Short Story Prize site. Closer to home, our lovely ex-neighbour who used to babysit for our kids has apparently got half her church congregation primed and ready to listen in. What are they going to think?

And what do several hundred thousand people saying “meh” together sound like?

So if you want to watch someone slowly being reduced to a gibbering wreck as the hour approaches tomorrow, follow me on Twitter. It could be quite entertaining. But not necessarily in a good way.

20 thoughts on “The Big Day Looms

  1. I’ll be listening if I possibly can, Jonathan, and will try to watch you dissolve on Twitter in the run-up. But I have no doubt that your story will be wonderful–your writing always is.

  2. Hi Jon, I loved it – seriously – and can’t see how anyone wouldn’t. A stonking premise expertly executed. And a bit of black humour – if only all short stories were like this!
    AliB

  3. Hey thanks, Mark! And thanks for the biggin’-up on Radio Verulam yesterday. Much appreciated.

  4. Hi Jonathan
    As I wait nervously for my short story, Kiss, to be broadcast in tomorrow’s Opening Lines slot, just wanted to say how much I enjoyed yours – great story, great ending. It is a hard act to follow!
    Regards

    Heather Reid

  5. Lovely to hear from you, Heather! I’ll make sure I listen to your story tomorrow πŸ™‚ Tell you what – it is VERY strange hearing your own words coming out of the radio. Enjoy the experience!

  6. Hey JP. Got your twitter and listened to Heather Reid’s piece today. Thought it was really great – got inside the girl’s head with the taste of boys and salcious blue lights! Fab – it’s a fine world of e-success and radio 4 you’ve got us travelling on.

  7. Lovely, wasn’t it? I’ve just e-mailed her to tell her how much I enjoyed it. Makes me even more chuffed to be part of it.

  8. Excellent performance and production of your brilliant story, Jon. So much more tension comes out in the reading on air than I picked up in several earlier readings ‘from the page’. Your setting up of the atmosphere and the Great A’s character by means of the communication from the rope supplier early in the story – masterful. Great stuff. In the same vein as Mark C I’ll add: If I still had a forelock I’d pull it.

    πŸ˜€ scar

  9. Just listened on iPlayer with my mum and we both loved it Jonathan. Wonderfully suspenseful and visually stunning (in my head anyway)- not a bad trick for radio!

  10. Thanks very much, Sherri! Well, as the old cliche goes, the pictures are so much better on radio …

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