In March Kenith Trodd died – unmourned? No, not unmourned,
Just unnoticed. He was Dennis Potter’s producer as well as so many
More: a full force who blew through Wood Lane in the days when
Its studios sounded dramas which ‘timbered’ England from first
Foundation to glass house skyscraper; his quests and quarrels
With the status quo sought the source of where the idea is found
And of how it can change everybody, from the Wednesday play,
Loach and Garnett, Jean-Luc Godard, Simon Gray;
Here was a man who respelt his name to reflect the word zenith.
He became the page from which Potter hands dipped in brimstone
And oil wrote each play. I used to see him around Ealing, often
And he always made me feel shy for some reason; that bifid tip,
Eyebrow forest and shining stare, Pinter black were a dare
From the dark into which fashion condemns generations of lost
Names of culture whose pens and poise staged attacks
On all that was dull, or wrong, or accepted. These days we need
Potter, Mercer, Jim Allen and Loach all the more. We require
Simon Gray for the wit and the for the sheer elegance of him,
Pinter of course for his power and Edward bond to rip shores
From a founding sense of the sea and the enveloping evils
Before us. Kenith worked indeed at the zenith where each
Bright and burning world was begun. I imagine his offices
As I write, fag burning low, fingers yellow, as his passion brailled
Across pages, to be fed through to the skin as spells spun.
He was both mendicant and unkempt, with the look of a comic
Book villain and yet imbued with the softness and a thoroughly
Feminine feel to his face. There are no lasting effects of his life.
No widow, child, or spurned mistress. There has been no sense
Of a partner of any particular type, sex or race. But that isn’t
Really the point, or much of our business, for the Trodd in this
Tribute is one of those long surrendered names of the past,
Who were one part essence and sense of what was possible
Within drama, and of what it meant. Plays were mirrors, storing
As the myth says each reflection while mounting enchanted galleries
From each cast. From Potter’s Dreamland, Christabel and naturally,
The Singing Detective. To Blue Remembered Hills, Eyre’s Past Caring
And Gray’s Femme Fatale. Through Unfair Exchanges, Old Flames,
Caught on a Train, Cold Lazarous/Karaoke, For The Greater Good,
Needle, and Shadows on the Skin, his cabal of quality fed
This barren land with word rivers. With Pennies from Heaven,
Taking Leave, he revealed how the producer becomes by association
A poet, arranging shoots, crews and funding and making a fragile
Art appear real. His was a mad merlin air. He was a ramshackle mage
Who’d been margined. Mumbling along Broadway, Ealing that is,
At that time, he was a remnant perhaps, which is a glorious thing,
And a relic and all that remains of discernment and for when art
Had a chart we’d all climb. By releasing the song, sung from within,
Seeking surface. Kenith trod that long journey from heart into hope
Where the rhyme is not so much in the words as in the intention.
Good man, or bad man, rude man, or wise, what’s sublime
Is the world he produced along with all the others he worked with.
They have been leaving fast now for decades. Not many are left,
Treasure them. As I stand on these West London streets, I doff
My spiritual cap to you, Kenith, and to Dennis and Simon, Harold,
Of course. David M. And to all of those none now know. But I am here
And remember everyone you supported. And while we prize flowers
We should not forget they die daily. To me we must measure
The special forces beneath them which in fair weather or foul,
Fed the stem.
David Erdos 28/5/2026
.