Ten Acre Films

Penda’s Fen (12*) + ScreenTalk with Spencer Banks, Ian Greaves and Gareth Evans | Barbican David Rudkin’s mystical TV film on paganism, and a discussion with actor Spencer Banks and writer Ian Greaves, whose new book reveals how the masterpiece was made.

Barbican is selling well. Tickets are available here. Having it on the Cinema 1 screen will be a dream and blow your eardrums probs. www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/202...

Penda's Fen: Scene by Scene Penda’s Fen, a film for television by David Rudkin, tells the story of a boy obsessed with the music of Elgar. Through a series of visitations —...

After my first viewing of #PendasFen in ages, spent much of the weekend with @greavesian.bsky.social’s
Scene by Scene on the film. Remarkable levels of writing and research. No stone unturned and another triumph from @tenacrefilms.bsky.social. tenacrefilms.bigcartel.com/product/pend...

Unbound successor Boundless 'goes into administration' after months of financial uncertainty Boundless – the publishing company formed after its predecessor Unbound went into administration in March this year – along with its imprint Neem Tree Press have entered administration and ceased trad...

Sur-fucking-prise.
www.thebookseller.com/news/unbound...

Toby Hadoke's Quatermass Experiment making-of book that I posted a picture of two days ago. It's designed to resemble the original Quatermass Experiment scriptbook but in the later vertical orange band style used for the scriptbooks for Quatermass II and Quatermass and the Pit.

Really enjoyed this. Andrew Pixley is the eminence grise of these "paperwork into a book" things but Toby Hadoke has the superpower of getting on with people and there's more personal memories in here than just dry paperwork.

Recommended.

Current bedtime reading is Ian Greaves’ book on Penda’s Fen

This is a very bad choice as I keep becoming so fascinated by the details revealed in each chapter that I think ‘I’ll just read a little more…’ and then somehow it’s 2.30 AM

Bad @greavesian.bsky.social / Good book

Cover design for Biddy Baxter: The Woman Who Made Blue Peter

Back in stock, a new printing of Biddy Baxter: The Woman Who Made Blue Peter. An intimate portrait of a TV pioneer written by Richard Marson, available now from tenacrefilms.bigcartel.com

Cover art for Penda's Fen, directed by Alan Clarke, written by David Rudkin

britain used to be a proper country (would air hallucinatory queer antifascist folk horror on the BBC at primetime)

“It's sometimes said that Terrance Dicks, who wrote more than 200 books for children, taught a generation to read,” says author Simon Guerrier. “I don't think that's quite true. Instead, he taught us to love reading – passing on to us his own passion for books."

Terrance Dicks.

We’re pleased to announce that we will be publishing the first full-length biography of prolific Doctor Who writer and script editor Terrance Dicks, written by Simon Guerrier with the cooperation of Terrance’s family. Written by Terrance Dicks is provisionally scheduled for publication in 2026.

72 years today, Nigel Kneale's landmark serial The Quatermass Experiment made its debut as a live broadcast on BBC Television. Read the inside story in @tobyhadoke.bsky.social's in-depth book about the making of a sci-fi classic. 🚀

Cover of Ian Greaves’ book on writer David Rudkin’s Play for Today ‘Penda’s Fen’, directed by Alan Clarke. A demon in cerise against a pale green graded to pink background. Penda’s Fen, Scene by Scene and author’s name in black.

Finished this gem of a book today. Essential read for those interested in how TV drama was written and made in the 1970s. Producer David Rose was pretty unique, allowing writer David Rudkin to push boundaries and have such close involvement in production. Back in the day, they actually gave a shit.

Penda's Fen: Scene by Scene. Out now and on the shelf.

Spotted: in the wilds, at the mighty @cafeotodalston.bsky.social . Proud to have them as a stockist.

A good read and with some commentary on our new book Penda's Fen: Scene by Scene.

What has it been like shifting from reporter to media executive, managing a staff instead of filing stories yourself? And do you write any of the jokes at The Onion? Or are you strictly managing the business? The Onion’s process is deeply, beautifully inefficient. Every day, our writers take 150 headlines into a physical writers room in Chicago and whittle them down to maybe one or two. These people throw away the funniest sentence I will ever write in my life six times by noon every weekday. The point of taking over this place was to preserve this process, which I learned this week is almost assuredly more rigorous than The New York Times. That’s why I don’t touch any of it. I just try to get more people to pay attention to the output, and get our work into different mediums and new places. We brought back the paper, reinvested in the Onion News Network, bought a full page ad in The Times for something they were going to write anyway. The role is to make the world-class work they’re already doing seep into everyday American life more frequently, and that’s working. You actually can do this, you know. You can just try to highlight the beauty of things you like and not try to vampirically extract value at every step. If people get one thing out of this whole Q&A, I hope it’s that. You do not have to make an A.I. version of your own employees that operate at 1.5x speed but produce purely iterative garbage, especially in media and journalism. People don’t actually want that shit. Make a good, human thing and people will bend over backwards to support you. This is a valid way to run a company.

Also talked about The Onion being inefficient on purpose.

www.status.news/p/the-onion-...

Just finished "Scene 1" of Penda's Fen: Scene by Scene by Ian Greaves and am about to delve into an Elgar intermission.
Greaves already showing what an astute guide he is to the landscapes and layers of the play, the BBC of the 1970s and the text. @tenacrefilms.bsky.social

An excellent book I heartily endorse: brave, detailed and above all fair to all parties, sometimes beyond the point you could reasonably ask of an author talking (in part) about his own life.

Cover design of Totally Tasteless: The Life of John Nathan-Turner

Good news, we've been persuaded to reprint. New copies of Totally Tasteless: The Life of John Nathan-Turner are on their way, exploring the complex and story of the 1980s Doctor Who producer. Available from tenacrefilms.bigcartel.com/products/

What a prospect! What a publisher! Promises to be another must-read from Ten Acre. I love their portfolio.

We've been persuaded to stay! On the latest #DoctorWho @Toohotfor_TV I am joined by Liam to look at 4 releases about JNT.

www.buzzsprout.com/864883/episo...

Box of Delights will be released in October in trade paperback and limited edition hardback. Look out for more updates in the coming months.

Tony Robinson and an elephant in Maid Marian and Her Merry Men.

Work continues on our next book project, Box of Delights: The Story of BBC Children's Television – 1967-1997, written by Richard Marson. Drawing on over 170 candid interviews and clocking in at over 500 pages, the book promises to be the definitive account of the department's extraordinary output.

IAN GREAVES PENDAS FEN SCENE By SCENE - photographed overlooking an urban stretch of canal

The same image, but the book is out of focus, the background, including distant hills, now in focus.

- overlooking the canal in Worcester, with the Malvern Hills in the very far distance, my newly-arrived copy of Penda’s Fen: Scene by Scene by @greavesian.bsky.social

Ian Greaves’ Penda’s Fen: Scene by Scene book. Picture of a red hued demon in profile against a pink to green gradient.

Plunged in. What’s not to love, Rudkin, Clarke, Elgar, King Penda and the mysteries of the British landscape. Even got a rewatch in tonight cos my old brain will need it, judging by what I’ve read so far. 50 pages in and it’s already rather essential work from @greavesian.bsky.social

A thumbs up next to Ian Greaves’ Penda’s Fen book.

Nothing pure’s just been dropped through my letterbox.

During my signing at the Who Shop yesterday I spotted a copy of @tobyhadoke.bsky.social's exceedingly long-awaited first volume in his massive series about Nigel Kneale's Quatermass. Originally conceived as a single volume work, this is now projected to be, I believe, a head-spinning five volumes!

The opus has arrived. If you pre-ordered, then your copy is on the way. Thanks for buying and I hope you enjoy it. Johnny-come-slightly-latelies can head here: tenacrefilms.bigcartel.com/product/pend...

Cherish the flame… 🔥 Good news, all pre-orders of Penda's Fen: Scene by Scene have now been dispatched. Get yours from tenacrefilms.bigcartel.com

2 volumes related to 80s #DoctorWho just arrived from @tenacrefilms.bsky.social. They look delicious! I can recall watching this show on my little B&W TV on Sunday nights from a NC PBS station across the mountains. I think I had to tape a coat hanger to the antenna to get better reception.

My hand holding THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT THE MAKING OF TV'S FIRST SCI-FI CLASSIC By TOBY HADOKE

A signed page in the book.

I’ve just finished this.

Meticulous and evocative.

An unexpected & lovely element of the book: the words from Kneale’s family- particularly the letters from his Dad, who comes across as so supportive and justifiably proud.

Thank you to
@tobyhadoke.bsky.social
&
@tenacrefilms.bsky.social