Following on from how much I got hung up on a 1984 radio production of Dangerous Corner, I did take some steps to continue by J B Priestley experience by listening to a 1994 production of Time and the Conways, another of his 'Time Plays'. I spotted this one on the wiki and managed to find it at Radio Echoes. It had Stella Gonet, Amanda Redman & Toby Stephens in it, and it was adapted and directed by Sue Wilson, who did at least two of the Christmas at the Wells installments I thought were so good.

(There's also a 1984 version here starring Zena Walker; and a 2014 version here with Harriet Walter. Apparently the BBC are only permitted to perform it in years ending with a -4?? ;-p)

Anyway, generally, I'm not regretting my decision to continue, but right at the end of the second third (Act?) of it, two characters had a conversation that included this:

"...it’s hideous and unbearable. Remember what we once were and what we thought we’d be... Every step we’ve taken, every tick of the clock — making everything worse. If this is all life is, what's the use? Better to die... before you find it out, before Time gets to work on you. I’ve felt it before, but never as I’ve done to-night. There’s a great devil in the universe, and we call it Time.... We've seen it to-night. Time beating us."

and: "No, they're real and existing, just as we two, here now, are real and existing. We're seeing another bit of the view – a bad bit, if you like – but the whole landscape's still there."

And I was just... omg, J B Priestley effectively laid out part of the premise of Sapphire and Steel right there in 1937.


I haven't stopped listening to Crown House; I was just interspersing the odd SNT in between. I am about to get back to it, as we left it at a point where Richard Pasco might even possibly be persuaded to leave the roses alone and have some plot, but I don't count on it. XD


(I did distract myself a bit because Welcome to Our Village Please Invade Carefully s2 is now on BBC Sounds again, after them repeating s1 in the autumn. So a head's up, anyone listening to it that way and left hanging for s2. It's here! And obv. could not resist listening to "Tempting Fete" and now the next episode is up... and a person can't help but press that play button every now and then. (It's the pub quiz one now.) It is such a cheering thing. <3<3<3)