Caligari - Amanda Dalton

Amanda Dalton is a poet and playwright. Her radio adaptation of the classic silent film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, produced by Sue Roberts, was broadcast on Sunday 26th October on Radio 3. You can listen to Caligari for seven days after broadcast on the BBC iPlayer.

Where did the idea to adapt a silent film for radio come from?

I've always loved silent movies and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari is one of my all-time favourites. The idea of doing a version of, or response to, this film probably came from that concept of a new "take" on an old film - as did my desire to work with a composer on it.

I know that the idea of silent film on radio is a bit like a bad joke, but I'm really interested in how radio can be, in imaginative terms, a very filmic, very visual medium. And I'm interested in translations across art forms - how one medium can be explored through another.

What made you want to tell this particular story?

I think I'm often drawn to the misunderstood monster in film. King Kong and Frankenstein's monster, for example, are both very sad characters - heartbreaking! And they're two of my favourite films. (The originals, of course!)

The making of this film is also fantastically interesting. The ending as written by the writers was changed - a framing device was added which totally changes the meaning of the film, and makes it much more conventional. I'm interested in exploring that aspect of the film as a theme in the telling of this story. Also, it's partly a film about madness - the perceived madness of the individual and the madness of society - and the politics of madness have always interested me. It's a serious film, I think, and I was also interested in it as a film which came out of Germany straight after the First World War.

All that aside, it is in any case a fantastic early horror film with this wonderfully crazy visual landscape in the form of painted, non-naturalistic sets. It's generally recognised as the first Expressionist film and I was very drawn to the challenge of finding a way of exploring this visual world - and its relationship to the themes of the film - through words.

Can you describe the script development process?

For me, watching the film a billion times - and lots of other German silent movies too - and reading lots of books about Germany after the First World War and about the film and its making. That was in the early stages. Then, writing a bit and sending it to Sue and to Olly, the composer. Then writing a whole first draft. Then meeting again and starting to get music bits through from Olly... staying up late... losing faith... regaining faith... writing a second draft.

When did you start writing, and how did you get into writing for radio?

I started writing poems after going on an Arvon Foundation course in 1994. I'd never written before then. A couple of years later I'd written a narrative sequence of 20 poems called Room of Leaves and I read it at a poetry reading. Sue Roberts was in the audience - I didn’t know her then - and suggested it could work well on the radio. I did nothing, but I met Sue again a few months later and she was still talking about it and really encouraged me to put in a proposal which I did, and it was bought. So Room of Leaves became an afternoon play, thanks to Sue's encouragement (and nagging!). Since then, I've published poetry with Bloodaxe Books, and written for theatre, and had another ten or so plays and adaptations which have been broadcast on Radio 3 and Radio 4.

What's your writing routine?

I don't really have one. I should, but I don't. I work as an Associate Director at the Royal Exchange Theatre, heading up the Education Department. It's a job I really love but I'm always in conflict over it as it inevitably means I have very little time to write. Writing is the most important thing for me but at the moment it happens round the edges, up against a deadline, usually in a bit of a sweat. Sometimes I think it'll kill me; sometimes I think it's the only way I can write.

What keeps you inspired?

One of the reasons I like having my job is that it connects me with so many different kinds of people and lives. I have a dread of sitting at a desk writing about sitting at a desk writing - a dread of starting to find myself fascinating.

Really, and this is honestly true, I think everything inspires me. I don't have a problem with lack of inspiration - it's more that I have too many things and people and interests and books and films and images and conversations racing round in my head and not enough time to process most of them.

How do you develop ideas for radio?

I might start with something very small - a way of working or concept, or a character or situation, or a juxtaposition of ideas. By the time I start talking to Sue, that has to have become something I'm hooked on, but not necessarily a fully mapped out idea. In order to write an offer - or for Sue to write an offer - I would then have to be really clear about that idea - no room for woolliness!

I think at this stage I stop thinking like a writer, and think more in the way I think at work if I'm trying to get funding for a project. It's about being creative, but in a fairly hard-nosed way - asking myself tough questions and answering them sharply. What's at the heart of this? How can I sum it up in two lines? Is this interesting? Am I interested in it or is it just that I think someone else might be (which is hopeless)? Is there a concept or central idea here that feels fresh and alive to me, and that I can communicate in a few sentences? I ask myself those questions and write down the answers to get it clear in my head.

I think it's sometimes hard to avoid putting forward ideas that you think are "the kind of thing you hear on radio". That's a disastrous thing to do, I think. Your idea will be indistinguishable from hundreds of others, and you probably won't be able to write it very well. I think I was lucky in that Room of Leaves was quite bold - a strong story (I can say that because it was a true story, not one I made up) and told in a slightly unconventional and hopefully fresh way (mainly through poems). It gave me the courage to keep trying to come up with fairly bold ways of telling stories.

How does the relationship with your producer work?

Sue and I will be in email contact and probably meet up once through this process - and she'll ask me tough questions and I'll groan. Obviously, unless your producer really understands and gets your idea, it's impossible for her to sell it.

From the ideas stage, through managing the script development process, to casting, recording, and post-production, the producer is there at every stage, and the relationship is - well - it's everything, really.