NARRATOR:
When London socialite Flora Poste is orphaned at 19, she's horrified at the thought of finding her own keep. She decides instead to impose on her unruly cousins — the Starkadders from Cold Comfort Farm. It's not long before Flora, armed with her handbook, The Higher Common Sense, begins her good-natured meddling into their shambolic affairs, eventually confronting the source of all their woes — cranky old aunt Ada Doom, driven mad by something nasty she saw in the woodshed.
JENNIFER BYRNE:
OK, Jason, I've already told you I made an absolute spectacle of myself laughing in the…
JASON STEGER:
Quite right too.
JENNIFER BYRNE:
..in the bus the other day over this.
JASON STEGER:
I'm delighted to hear that.
JENNIFER BYRNE:
Tell us.
JASON STEGER:
Look, the thing I like about Cold Comfort Farm is that it is, as you said, funny. I think it's very rare for a book to make you laugh, make you laugh out loud, make you chuckle inwardly. But this does in a number of ways. It does through the actual writing of the book. Again, we were talking about tone earlier on. The narrative voice is brilliantly sort of tart and witty and the characters that Stella Gibbons has created down on Cold Comfort Farm are wonderful. There's these funny, rural people who are completely absurd but entirely believable, presided over Ada Doom, who is the…
JENNIFER BYRNE:
I loved…
JASON STEGER:
..grandmother who has seen something nasty in the woodshed. I mean, it's not… There's very few writers…
JENNIFER BYRNE:
And we never find out what.
JASON STEGER:
No, no, no, you don't. But there are very few writers, actually… I mean, you can think… Alright, Shakespeare — 'To be or not to be'. In Casablanca — 'Play it again, Sam.' Stella Gibbons — 'I saw something nasty in the woodshed.' I mean, this is on a par.
JENNIFER BYRNE:
This is the first time. It's the first time it was ever used, and it's…
JASON STEGER:
It's a delici… Anybody who's read it will recognise that — anybody. The thing is, as you say, it was a parody. It was a parody of these curious English novels — Mary Mann, to some extent Thomas Hardy, to some extent Lawrence, a parody of these books, but it actually transcends its own motive by becoming a terrific novel in its own right, I think.
JENNIFER BYRNE:
Marieke, what did you think?
MARIEKE HARDY:
I loved it.
JASON STEGER:
Glad to hear that.
MARIEKE HARDY:
I could eat it. I just lov… I don't know how much more to love it without actually physically ingesting it. But it is so funny and so sharply written and the jokes, comedically, feel very modern. It's like Dorothy Parker being entertainment editor for New Weekly or something because the story itself enters a lot of melodrama. It's ludicrous in parts.
JENNIFER BYRNE:
You said the characters are believable. I didn't think they were one jot, but I didn't care.
MARIEKE HARDY:
The whole thing is ridiculous, but it's so delightful.
JASON STEGER:
Yeah, they are, but you just go along with it.
MARIEKE HARDY:
Yeah, you do.
JASON STEGER:
Of course they're not… If you take them in isolation…
JENNIFER BYRNE:
Urk who speaks to water voles?
JASON STEGER:
Well… Oh, I was talking to some water voles only the other day, as one does.
WOMAN:
They speak very highly of you too.
JASON STEGER:
(Rural accent) On the farm, you know. I was down there with my water voles. We were having a lovely conversation.
MARIEKE HARDY:
Well, I'm so glad you did your accent. I was hoping that you were going to. In less capable hands, it would be merely that. It would be merely fluff and ridiculous. But she's just deft and her comic timing is unbelievable. And you don't often laugh out loud at a book.
JENNIFER BYRNE:
As I say, I was in the bus.
MARIEKE HARDY:
Sharp, short blasts…
JASON STEGER:
It's very difficult.
JENNIFER BYRNE:
People were staring.
MARIEKE HARDY:
..of laughter. Yeah.
JENNIFER BYRNE:
People were staring at me.
MARIEKE HARDY:
My dog gave me some very peculiar looks.
JENNIFER BYRNE:
Michael.
MICHAEL ROBOTHAM:
I think it's absolutely charming as a book. And it reminded me, you know, it's interesting, of Evelyn Waugh, and some of, you know, some of his great comedies. Although, there were times… I think some of the set pieces are absolutely hilarious, and some of the observations. Although at other times… If you don't know the novels that she's parodying, maybe you don't quite grasp how clever she is. But I sort of imagine Richard Curtis when he did Vicar Of Dibley. Almost every character could have come straight out of Vicar Of Dibley. It was like a 1930s version of The Vicar Of Dibley with Flora Poste arriving in this little town and sort of sorting everyone out. And she slightly irritated me — Flora.
JENNIFER BYRNE:
Really?
MICHAEL ROBOTHAM:
Yeah. Just…
MARIEKE HARDY:
She's a bit Julie Andrews at times.
JASON STEGER:
She is. That adherence to common sense.
MICHAEL ROBOTHAM:
Yeah, a bit too perfect. Everything… You're waiting for her to slip up. It's a bit like Emma Woodhouse in Emma. You knew she was gonna fall on her face at some point, whereas Flora, just everything works out beautifully for her.
MARIEKE HARDY:
She's Mary Poppins. She just ran her finger over things and then just flew off in her umbrella.
MICHAEL ROBOTHAM:
Magic.
JENNIFER BYRNE:
But any book where the creator's first word to you, virtually, is, 'My parents had died, I didn't really care much, there was no money, it was impossible that I'd be sent down to work, so I just had to sponge on my relatives.' I mean, you like that woman!
