Short & sweet
Great stories don't have to be War & Peace...
It’s that time of year when time is of the essence: the start of that panic to clear the decks at work, get the presents bought & wrapped, the tree up, people to see, places to go, carols to sing… Still nice to have a bit of a sit though and maybe a read or a watch of a thing. Or a listen to a thing while you’re running around? So for a bit of a change, rather than suggesting what to read, what to watch & what to listen to based on a common theme, this week everything is short & sweet. Just like me; well, not really. I think I’m average height.
TL;DR
Watch Staged, listen to Uncharted with Hannah Fry & Bodies in the Garden: The Wycherley Murders, read Foster by Claire Keegan & Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez and watch The Wonderful Life of Henry Sugar.
WATCH
It can be absolutely toe-curling and cringe-inducing when actors pretend to be the best of pals on-screen.
When Staged kicked off back in the depths of 2020 and lockdowns (remember them?), I was sceptical about the camaraderie between David Tennant & Michael Sheen, but it transpires they really are friends. And they really are lovely. Oh and they really are brilliant actors. Each episode is only about 15-20 minutes long, every one is hilarious & there are some of the most spectacular & unexpected cameo appearances I’ve ever come across. I bloody love a cameo. Tuck in one evening and you’ll easily binge at least one series before bedtime.
(I’ve shared with Apple TV link above for non-UK residents, but anyone in the UK can watch for free on BBC iPlayer here)
LISTEN
Dr Hannah Fry is an absolute legend: she knows so much interesting stuff and how to share that stuff without boring the pants off you, an incredible skill. I have watched a whole hour of her talking about how microwaves work for God’s sake, that takes some talent.
She shared a wonderful story on Instagram a few days ago about missing out on studying mathematics at Cambridge after her A-Levels & has now returned to those hallowed university halls as a professor of mathematics. Mic drop or what?! Her podcast Uncharted with Hannah Fry is about data and the people who dig into it. It sounds dull as dishwater but it really isn’t. And the episodes are a mere 15 minutes long, the stories zip along & actually wind up leaving you wanting more.
Available on both BBC Sounds and Spotify - BBC Sounds & its content is available outside the United Kingdom (unlike BBC iPlayer)
A rather different kind of story is Bodies in the Garden: The Wycherley Murders.
Given my truly insatiable appetite for true crime, it amazes me that I’ve managed to hold off on overwhelming you all with nowt but gruesome stories of murder from all over the world. (I’m watching a true crime documentary as I write this - never one to miss the opportunity to double screen, me)
This short series has only six episodes; the shortest of which is 7 minutes and the longest is 25 minutes. It begins with a police tip-off leading to the discovery of two bodies in the back garden of a very ordinary-looking house in Mansfield - what follows is a bizarre tale of obsession, in a way laziness & greed. It’s also been made into a TV show starring Her Royal Highness Olivia Colman and David Thewlis called Landscapers - though I don’t think the show is particularly short, so please consider that a freebie of a recommendation. A recommendation deviation, if you will.
READ
Claire Keegan is best known for her 2021 book Small Things Like These - a small but perfectly-formed novella about the horror of Magdalen laundries in Ireland. (It’s recently been released as a movie starring Cillian Murphy) She is the queen of small but perfectly-formed stories and her previous book Foster also deserves attention.
When Foster was published in 2010, it was described as a ‘long short story’ and won the Davy Byrne’s Irish Writing award before it was even published. It is gentler than Small Things Like These but it still has a strong sense of foreboding leading up to the revelation of a secret and Keegan’s infamous sparing approach to storytelling paired with powerful prose.
I first studied Chronicle of a Death Foretold in university &, as I laboured my way through it, I was unaware what a literary powerhouse I was dealing with in Gabriel García Márquez.
But even though I was the most indolent student in the history of universities, I could tell that this little book was clever. Loathe though I was to admit it at the time. (On the point of my academic inertia at the age of 19 though, it should be noted that I probably only wound up reading it as it was so short.)
It tells the tale of the murder of Santiago Nasar - everyone in the small town where the crime takes place, knows it is going to happen before it does (including the victim) but no one does anything to stop it. Given it is so short, García Márquez’s world-building sucks you in & creates incredible tension in spite of, no, because of everyone knowing what’s going to happen.
WATCH
I’m not terribly well versed in short films as they don’t have the same marketing budgets or big releases as Hollywood blockbusters so I don’t come across them that much. But anything that Wes Anderson does, I will run towards open-armed. When I heard that he was teaming up with Netflix to bring The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar & Six More by Roald Dahl to the small screen, I was thrilled.
Anderson teamed up with Bendydrink Cramplesnartch, sorry, Benedict Cumberbatch, to bring the eponymous story of the collection to life: it’s weird and it’s magic. And whilst it’s not quite what I had in my mind from when I first read the story collection as a child, it manages to be so delightfully ‘Wes Anderson’ that rather than supplant my version of Sugar & his wacky ways, it harmoniously co-exists alongside.