Forgotten now by us all, his work was always diamond sharp
About people, even if the diamond’s been blunted and discovered
By dust, it shines still. And there must be someone else,
Not just me sat here now thinking of him; having rewatched
His seismic Talking to a Stranger, one can see that its Strindberg
With all of its suburban set call to kill. Better than Bond –
By which I mean James and Edward – Hopkins’ first assassins
Rose up from within families. As played by a pre-Dame Judi Dench,
Michael Bryant and Maurice Denham, here, the unremarkable
Startle as each, love’s cost squandered, afford Death itself homily.
Margery Mason as Mum, seemingly emotionless, is soon riven,
And as these four plays unravel, Rashomon like, she’s the star,
So soon snuffed by Deep Space, and by the relative values
Vacuum, which spreads, spills and surrounds her as blood
And soul seep from heart scars. This early television series
Astounds for its scope and scale, its sheer vision, as the truth
Held within it is not one most can bear. That there is in those
That we love, as opposed to those we choose to love;
Opposition, and that one can resent their own child
Or parent, and fall prey to the chaos caught inside
Natural care. A mother’s self sacrifice in order to cater
For her two kids and husband ruins the world and house
She is keeping for some (still unopposed) societal rule
Or cause. One for which many fight, and one in which countless
Suffer, just as the Stevens family suffer, when exposed
To the empty items listed within familial speech, scream and pause.
Dench’s daughter, Theresa’s tenancy is fraught, short, as she avalanches
Abortions, looking for love from bad partners to assuage
The distance defined and provoked. While Denham’s doting Dad,
Ted knows that his wife’s insecurities make her victim,
His own weakness prevents him for unleashing the bind
That can choke. Bryant’s Alan at first appears diplomatic,
And stoic, but soon, his searing resentment of his sister’s
Command on all love Torquemadas him to become
His Mother’s scourge and Confessor, and so the stone
Woman shatters, like her tragic wrist cutting glass,
While above, her ignorant husband waits for his own date
With death, unable to cope with his wife Sarah’s struggle;
His increasing abstraction and pre-dementia state operas.
Mason’s Sarah Steven’s soul cannot breathe and in a sudden
And final chilling crawl round the sofa, we watch dry land
Drowning with no-one there stopping her. From posed
Photographs of prized pasts to the concluding stills
Sequence, in which pain and estrangement are a monochrome
Horrow show, John Hopkins’ writing reveals what the very
Best can do: murder mirrors. In showing ourselves
We fall open. Feel you own fragile heart. Then you’ll know.
And this is just one of his plays. This Story of Yours burns
And blisters. The play became Sidey Lumet’s film The Offence,
An exposure of a paedophile’s capture and the police abuse
Dealt upon him as rage and revenge and fear grow.
Humans housing the hurt that howl, Hell and Hackney
And Hampstead give birth to, as Hopkins moved
From Mrs Dale’s Diary to Z-Cars, he epitomized what was epic
Within the English intimate. Horror of Darkness, pre-Wolfenden,
If after Bogarde and Basil Dearden’s film Victim, homed
Homosexuality on the telly, and made it legitimate.
As did Find Your Way Home, While Next of Kin Harold Pinter
Directed; housing Hopkins once more at the forefront
Of mainstream accolade and acclaim. He even co-wrote
Thunderball. But like the swimming pool water in which
He would later drown, such shallow tides can tear people,
And despite Divorce His, Divorce Hers for the Burtons,
And (for God’s sake!) Smiley’s People John Hopkins’ name
Fell from fame. He was married to Shirley Knight,
A well known American Actress, but in leaving England,
This Raynes Park schooled writer was seemingly spurned
Through scored silence after so much industry,
And was quickly swallowed by theirs, which too often
Victimizes versed voices, by plucking the poetry from them.
In a near limerick age, who can see the former rhythms
Devised by such sage like writers, including Bond, Pinter,
Potter, Hopkins, Livings, Rudkin, Mercer, Wesker, Kops;
Plays as song; also sung by NF Simpson, Charles Wood,
Peter Nichols, John Osborne, Simon Gray, Trevor Griffiths,
And the others still with us (save dear Snoo) writing on.
But where have they all gone? Would they be commissioned now?
Its unlikely. Naturally, they would be different writers,
But I believe that those primal poems from which their worlds
Were made would survive. Watch Talking to a Stranger
On the BBC iplayer to know that there was a familiar friend
Fighting for you. And for your hidden heart.
Hopkins housed it. Now 27 years dead, he’s alive.
David Erdos 16/12/24
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