Harold Wilson, the hero of Dog’s Mercury, is a history teacher who shares a name with the Prime Minister of 1970s Britain. The quiet amusement this causes is the only constant in Harold’s life as he gradually abandons his secure professional and domestic existence and becomes, by choice, a homeless person and then, as twenty years go by, a drifter along the roads of East Anglia, a voluntary mute living in a silence of his own making. One summer night, dozing beside a clifftop path overlooking the sea, he witnesses a murder, and is seen by the murderer. During the following weeks their lives become entangled, and Harold’s solitary exile is broken off for ever.
Dog’s Mercury, due from Dr. Cicero Books in 2015, has in the course of its completion also morphed – with a number of changes – into a stage play, Hedgerow Specimen, premiered in 2012 by The Woodstock Players, and a radio play, Woman on the Road, for German radio.
Of Hedgerow Specimen, writers and critics wrote:
Sparrow: “The thing about Harrison’s plays is that they’re REVOLUTIONARY. The latest one is a triumph.
Mark Kanter: “A marvelous theatrical experience, intimate in every way: internal and external realities, warp and woof, blended to make a third thing – a strange family tartan woven in a dream.”
John Farrell: “The play deals with mysticism, phenomenology and the acts (and arts) of creation itself, a masterful working of some very complex and nuanced thoughts, arresting in its explication.”
Mikhail Horowitz: “A fine, rich, poignant play…the text is a little miracle.”
Terri Mateer: “Very inspiring, imaginative, the writing superb.”
Dog’s Mercury is published by Dr. Cicero Books.
