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Sixty-Six Books - 21st-Century Writers Speak to the King James Bible
By Sixty-Six Authors
Oberon Books £14.99
158 pages
Dateline: 30th November, 2011
Whether on stage or page, this is a mighty work. When it played at the new Bush Theatre and Westminster Abbey, the "evening" lasted a full 24 hours. Read on the page, it will give an equal quantity of enjoyment.
It is inevitable that with 66 different writers from a variety of genres, quite often working against type, there will be some hits and misses. The good news is that the former far exceed the latter.
The nature of the commission by Josie Rourke, her successor Christopher Haydon, Rachel Holmes and Ben Power was wide-ranging. The authors are asked to write responses to each of the 66 books of the King James Bible.
This means starting with Genesis, expertly and wittily introduced by Godblog, a piece written by novelist Jeanette Winterson that fully lives up to its title, and finishing with Endpapers, and other novelist Kate Mosse's reflections inspired by Revelations.
In between, there's a great deal that will give pleasure and every reader will have his or her own favourites. While old reliable friends of the Bush such as Neil Labute, Jack Thorne and Nick Payne deliver fine pieces, much of the fun comes in unearthing previously unknown writers or those working far from their comfort zone.
For example, the two Chronicles are provided by Salena Godden and Sir Tim Rice as respectively a study of literature down the ages with lots of begetting and a jaunty song. Poet Yemisi Blake perceptively and movingly looks at 7/7 through the medium of Joel.
Mandla Langa's Nehemiah/When He Had Been Loved ... set in South Africa and Botswana is a gem, closely followed by Jackie Kay's Hadassah in which a modern day Esther ends up in a London brothel.
Wena Poon tells a lovely story about Sino-Americans in The Wood Orchid, linked to Corinthians 2 and another American Christopher Shinn also looks at fractured relationships in Falling Away.
The Brits are also well represented. Without knowing too much about Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, youthful poet and comedian Molly Naylor’s response When You Left I Thought I’d Die But Now I’m Fine is a superb triptych of a short story about contemporary loneliness, viewed across generations.
David Eldridge's Something, Someone, Somewhere takes on similar themes viewing a deep love that was side-lined for decades due to lack of communication.
James Graham sensitively but wittily takes us into the equally lonely world of Pauline, who became a web entrepreneur after the literal loss of her daughter to heroin.
This massive volume calls on the talents of many playwrights but also others who might be more surprising. In addition to Sir Tim, those from other fields include Toby Litt, and Michaels, Stella Duffy, Andrew Motion, Michael Rosen, Billy Bragg, Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran and appropriately Archbishop Rowan Williams.
Overall, the pleasure to be derived from the good pieces overrides some that will not be to everybody's taste making this a good read and in terms of play script pricing, excellent value for money.
Philip Fisher
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