Carol Naylor's REVIEW it...

                          An Inspector Calls by J.B.Priestley. BBC1 Drama. 2015. "There are millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths, still left with us, with their lives and hopes and fears, their suffering and chance of happiness all intertwined with our lives and what we think, and say, and do." I feel as if I've grown up with Priestley's play and it's not just my northern roots. When I went into teaching in the 1970s it was on the syllabus and it was a good choice to cover in our limited time for O level and GCSE. It is, after all, a short play, easy to read and study so not a particularly great challenge for most students.  It's now 2015 and Priestley's play is still on the literature syllabus and I still come across it in my capacity as an examiner. This adaptation was by playwright Helen Edmunson who develops the character of Eva Smi...

        A Song for Jenny. T.V. Drama. Based on the memoirs of Julie Nicholson. "I am no bird and no net ensnares me. I am a free human being with an independent will." Jane Eyre was Jenny Nicholson's heroine so it was fitting that quotations from Charlotte Bronte's classic novel and Shakespeare should be printed on the funeral pall of this beautiful 24 year old whose life was tragically destroyed in 2005. The drama was based on Julie Nicholson's memoirs bearing the same title, written in 2010 as a tribute to all of the 52 victims as well as her eldest daughter Jenny who was killed in the Edgware Road suicide bombing incident ten years ago on the 7th July 2005, a day permanently etched in the dark recesses of the Nicholson's memories. Adapted by Frank McGuiness, it's a deeply emotional journey in an attempt to come to terms with the tragic loss of such a young life for a family that would be permanently traumatised by it. "Our family is a ...