Sunday, October 24, 2010

Adrian Mole and The Prostate Years

I should say something about Adrian Mole's Medieval play. It was unfortunately abandoned once the cancer treatment started because Adrian simply could not direct a play with a large cast and go through chemo.
However, the play was going to be called Plague and it was going to be about the Black Death of course. Although the Crusaders are said to have brought the plague back to Europe and John's brother was the one of the biggest Crusaders of all time, Richard the Lionhearted, there is a problem. Problem is that Adrian was setting his play in the time of King John I's death (in 1216)and the bubonic plague did not reach England until the 14th century. You would not find a bishop giving a hug to a plague victim who feels marginalized because of his disfiguring lesions. He probably would not have lived long enough to whine about the isolation and he would have been lucky not to have people throw things at him to keep him away from them.
We may never know what he intended with his play. Another would be classic has gone the way of the comedy about a serial killer, that Adrian failed to produce, called The White Van.

3 comments:

Anachronist said...

Has Adrian ever managed to do something in the right way?

Tracy said...

Well, you should never let historical accuracy get in the way of a good story!

The Red Witch said...

Yeah! Art has it's own imperative. I can't help but wonder how a monk wandering around looking for a place to bury John's anus would fit into a plague story. Perhaps we shall never know. The author dedicated the book to a renal team so I suspect she is not well.