I Never Killed My German (winner. Giles Cooper Award for Best Play on Radio 3), The Anatolian Head, and On the Levitation at St. Michael’s. Broadcast as a trilogy on BBC Radio on three consecutive Sundays in November 1980. Published by Oleander Press, 1982.
Some years after its first broadcast in 1979, I Never Killed My German was given the all-but-unknown honour (radio drama’s supreme masterpiece, Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood, is the only other instance that comes to mind) of a second production, with a new cast, under the direction of Gordon House. The original, no less excellent production was by Shaun MacLoughlin, author of Writing for Radio.
Critical reviews:
The London Sunday Times: “Penetration of character, social atmosphere and psychic response to landscape are the foundations of the play’s architecture. Set in East Anglia, I Never Killed My German concerns a retired registrar, Willy, whose footloose daughter Juliet has sent him, as an unwanted guest, Melchior, Bishop of Frankfurt, a 60-year-old agnostic who is in love with Juliet…”
The Listener: “I Never Killed My German is a superb mix of slapstick, surrealism and tragedy… Harrison has a real gift for dramatic description as he weaves us through Willy’s vivid fantasies. But he never gives us angst neat: it’s always diluted with black humour and irony. The murder of the bishop is a beautiful piece of writing, richly imaginative, verbally dexterous.”
The London Sunday Times: “The Anatolian Head is superb. If any feminist writer really believes that men can’t understand a woman’s mind, they should listen to this play.”
