'O Whistle and I'll Come to You My Lad' Performed by Robert Lloyd Parry

Robert Lloyd Parry as M R James

One of the genuine pleasures of life, and an often forgotten one in a world of instant gratification and increasing self centredness, is having a story read to you. Robert Lloyd Parry knows this - he's also a great storyteller.

Fresh from a one man show realising HG Wells's The Time Machine, Parry has returned to his first love - a performance of one of the stories of perhaps the greatest English writer of supernatural fiction, M R James, which has been filmed for viral release on 31st October (see details at the bottom of this piece).

Parry, as James, performs one of the author's most famous stories, the 1904 tale "O Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad." Those familiar with James will know that many of his stories originated via Christmas recitals to pupils of the schools where he was provost, and it is this intimate setup, illuminated only by a solitary candle, that Parry recreates here.

We may not fully know the accuracy of Parry's lively creation of James - records of his style of storytelling are scant - but visually he is strikingly Jamesean. The story, about an academic who finds a whistle in an isolated coastal location and, blowing it, summons a dark something that stalks the scholar for its return, is familiar James territory, although less layered than some of the author's later stories. Parry is the voice of all - James himself, Parkin the academic, various pompous dinner guests and even a maid at the hotel where Parkin lodges. The gentle humour in the observation of humanity, an often overlooked aspect of James's writing, is beautifully rendered in this performance, but what everyone anticipates is the slow creep of unease as the academic, previously a denier of anything vaguely supernatural, gradually realises to his mounting horror that he is being stalked by an otherworldly entity.

"O Whistle" has televisual broadcasting pedigree: the 1968 BBC adaptation by Jonathan Miller with Michael Hordern as the wordless, bumbling academic (and arguably the scariest use of bedsheets ever on screen, although Parry stages an effective recreation of this in his performance); and more straightforward readings by Robert Powell and Christopher Lee in 1986 and 2000 respectively (I'll draw a a veil - pun slightly intended - over the 2010 adaptation with John Hurt as Parkin). But there's something about Parry's obvious love of James as a writer, his reverence for the material and enthusiastically theatrical performance which makes this version a worthy addition to the canon. And I defy you not to look over your shoulder at least once as the tale is told.

"O Whistle and I'll Come to You My Lad" will be available to download from midday 31st October (UK time) and for the first 12 hours will cost £2.99 to buy here:

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/whistle

The Time Machine - a play based on the novella by H G Wells, adapted and performed by Robert Lloyd Parry - Old Red Lion Theatre, London: 5 October 2016

First time posting here for a play review, but the subject matter's very in keeping with DEoL, so it fits in comfortably with the 'anything else that fits the bill' part of the site's strapline.

Robert Lloyd Parry's one man revisioning of H G Wells's novella 'The Time Machine' is a triumph of physicality and, if you'll pardon the use of the word, invention.

Wells's original text was the somewhat cool and rational account of an unnamed time traveller's journey into the distant future and his encounter with two races (the placid Eloi and the troglodytic Morlocks) - it's the author's contribution to the 'what if?' literature of the end of the 19th century.  Parry's re-telling is a far more visceral rendition, and while the vigorous and abhorrent descriptions of what he sees maybe more frantic than the source text, his excitement is entirely understandable. Parry's talent easily allows the audience to conjure up the (invisible) cast of Eloi, Morlocks and otherworldly shapes that the time traveller encounters in the course of his adventures - it's effective and imaginative storytelling.

Parry breaks the narrative in two. In the first act he describes his first forays into time travel (wisely skipping any description of his machine, which as I recall from the text is basically a complex bicycle), his arrival in A.D 802,701 and his account of the insidiously harmless Eloi. In the much darker Act 2 he introduces the Morlocks, the attempts to recover his time machine, his relationship with Eloi Weena and the traveller's ultimate return to the 19th century via a trip even further into the future, in which he witnesses, very impressively and with only a fading light for company, the end of all living things.

Parry in action as the time traveller

Dressed only in a Victorian 'onesie,' distressed socks and unkempt beard, Parry's characterisation of the time traveller depicts him as eccentric and irascible, a scientist whose attempts to remain rational are ultimately scuppered by the sensory experience he undergoes and his own innate sense of curiosity. His excitable performance is part Brian Blessed, a little bit of the modern world confounded Catweazle (and I mean this in a good way) and, towards the end, a soupcon of Charlton Heston playing George Taylor at the finale of the 1968 movie Planet of the Apes (an ending which is indebted to the Victorian 'dying earth' story). He plays it, if not exactly fast and loose with the source material, then generously, introducing some modernisms (it is after all an acting performance), great humour and some literary in jokes: at one point he refers to himself as 'The Chronic Argonaut' (referencing the title of a similarly themed short story written by Wells in 1888), and when wandering around the disused library he states "No Homer, no Virgil, no George Gissing" (which is undoubtedly a nod to the at-the-time extremely popular Victorian author who is practically forgotten today, never mind eight thousand years in the future).

The production is a stripped-down one. Apart from a garden chair, a lantern and a cucumber, the main prop is a specially designed large faux-Victorian metronome-styled structure which acts as Parry's activity centre, allowing him to scale its sides, crawl within it and generally utilise various parts to help bring the world of the future to life. Ashley Summers' sound design is similarly spare; I liked the sped up clock chimes signifying the time traveller's journey to the future, but it seemed a little underused in the more dramatic second act.

This is a bold and enthusiastic performance from an actor more usually associated with sedate readings of the ghost stories of M R James, but he is to be congratulated on bringing a classic slice of Victorian degeneration fiction to rude life.