Penda's Fen (🇬🇧 1974). Alan Clarke directed this BBC television play about a teenage composer in the Malvern Hills exploring questions of faith, sexuality, and English identity 🎬

#PendasFen #BBCPlayForToday #AlanClarke #BritishTelevision #arthouse #cultcinema #1970s #moviesky #piano #closeup

Penda’s Fen reinvents Mercia for the modern age How an experimental British 1970s television play pioneered a folk horror revival

Eric spoke to Samuel McIlhagga at @birminghamdispatch.bsky.social for this brilliant article on the seminal Penda's Fen and its impact today.

www.birminghamdispatch.co.uk/pendas-fen-r...

#pendasfen #birminghamdispatch #penda #pinfin #pinvin #worcestershire #midlands #midlandshorror #folkhorror

I should also say, as ever with @greavesian.bsky.social’s work, it’s playful and amusing at times. A pleasure to read, and grateful how much of David Rudkin’s early drafts survive. #PendasFen

Penda's Fen: Scene by Scene Penda’s Fen, a film for television by David Rudkin, tells the story of a boy obsessed with the music of Elgar. Through a series of visitations —...

After my first viewing of #PendasFen in ages, spent much of the weekend with @greavesian.bsky.social’s
Scene by Scene on the film. Remarkable levels of writing and research. No stone unturned and another triumph from @tenacrefilms.bsky.social. tenacrefilms.bigcartel.com/product/pend...

Close detail of part of a page of an issue of the comic Doom Patrol by Grant Morrison: speech bubbles in which a character quotes Penda's Fen by saying "I am nothing special, nothing pure. I am mud and flame."

Penda's Fen is also just one of the wonderful things about Grant Morrison-era Doom Patrol. #pendasfen

A shot from Penda's Fen: the sun over the Malvern Hills.

A shot from Penda's Fen: close detail of musical notation that resembles the shot I posted of the sun over the Malvern Hills.

This rhyme is just one of the wonderful things about Penda's Fen. #pendasfen

Very, very recommended. #pendasfen

I love #PendasFen #folkhoror #tvsky #playfortoday #BBC

I love #PendasFen and this is calling my name #folkhorror #horrorsky #films #UK

FLA 12: Ian Greaves (28/08/2022) Fifteen years ago, the writer and editor Ian Greaves and myself were going mad. We were spending most spare minutes of our lives researching and eventually writing a 700-page book about the long-ru…

My guest in ep 12 of my #FirstLastAnything music textcast was the writer and researcher Ian Greaves (@greavesian.bsky.social), whose book on the 1974 Play for Today, #PendasFen, is out this month. Back in Aug 2022, we discussed The Fall, FGTH and Derek Bailey. firstlastanything.co.uk/2025/05/20/f...

#PrideMonth be all about that YEARNING.
#letterboxd #pride #supportqueerfilms #swallowed #pendasfen #folkhorror #bugcrush #CarterSmith #gaydirector

Landscapes in Alan Clarke’s PENDA'S FEN (1974):
DoP Michael Williams, camera operation Ken Morgan

#folkhorror #filmsky #PlayForToday #PendasFen #DavidRudkin #AlanClarke #filmphotography #landscapephotography #horrorsky

Hastings Electric Palace cinema setting the tone for Hastings' Jack-In-The-Green festival with The Wicker Man, Pendas Fen and The Lair of the White Worm. Saw #PendasFen for the first time Quintessentially 1970's but also seemed to address issues ripped from this week's headlines.

Fairly posh people being generally miserable, and unable to share - and relieve - their inner distress (approximately). But there’s an utterly compelling ‘strange old England’ quality to this stuff (IMHO), like an early #Genesis album cover, or even #PendasFen and suchlike. Love it. #VirginiaWoolf

I return to a place with WiFi to wish you fair days in the New Year.
#NewYear2025 #AuldLangSyne #HappyNewYear #PendasFen

#PendasFen