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BBC Radio 4, 3 December 2008
This dramatized version of Housman's famous poem combined lengthy extracts
read by Simon Russell Beale, with comments from local Shropshire residents and literary critics, explaining
why 'A Shropshire Lad' still retains its importance in the modern era. We learned how the poem evokes a prelapsarian
world prior to 1914, when everything seemed perfect in rural Britain - the fields, the farms, and the people pursuing the
kind of life that seemed impervious to change. This picture is imaginative rather than factually based,
as Housman tries to come to terms with life after the end of the First World War, and his own position in it. His basic argument
is that the War led to Britain's loss of innocence.
As one of the eye-witnessed pointed out, however, 'A Shropshire Lad' also represents
Housman's attempt to understand himself as a homosexual and an outsider, who failed to complete his university education and
remained entirely self-taught. The poem represents his attempt to make use of his learning; to draw a link between the classical
era of Greece and Rome and the contemporary world. On this view the poem becomes a kind of verbal performance - something
emphasized in Russell Beale's mannered delivery - as well as a series of meditations on post-1918 life. The director was Steven
Canny.
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