The sun is going down and the Society is again paying a visit to Escape, this time to peruse their adaptation of John Collier’s short story, “Evening Primrose.” A strange journal is scribbled on a notepad found on a shop shelf. This journal tells the tale of a young poet who abandons society only to discover a strange nocturnal world within a department store. Would living in a department store be idyllic or nightmarish? Can love flourish in such a bizarre place? Was this story actually adapted as a musical for television, with music by Stephen Sondheim, now available on DVD? (Yes, it was.) Listen for yourself and find out! (Also, don’t forget to check out thewallbreakers.com for a fascinating history of radio drama!) Then vote and let us know what you think!
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I loved this episode! “Evening Primrose” would be great fun to teach in a literature class.
I would love to take that class! I’m currently reading Collier’s short story collection, Fancies and Goodnights. It’s very hard to put down. One dark, strange little story after another.
I got a copy of “The John Collier Reader” out of our library. It contains a lot of stories as well as “His Monkey Wife,” which I’ve read about a third of. It starts out pretty slow, but has some funny moments. I’m hoping the weirdness will built in the rest of the book.
I was reading more Collier stories last night, and was surprised to discover that he also wrote the story that the classic radio episode “Back for Christmas” is based on!
Yeah, I like that one a lot. Suspense also adapted “Wet Saturday” and NBC Short Story featured “De Mortuis”. I have a vague recollection of another version of “Evening Primrose”, but I can’t remember the series.
I love the trope of : Alice In Wonderland, except Wonderland is coexisting with the real world. Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere is another example of this trope. It is one of the reasons I love learning about subcultures. In Minneapolis, there are Those who Walk Among Us, who we think are living in our world, but all they are doing is mentally reviewing their lists of seven letter words containing TISANE and getting ready for the next Scrabble Tournament, and they only really are themselves when they are in that alternate world of double-clocks and cloth bags that stand up and… Read more »
Argh! I can’t believe I didn’t make the Neverwhere connection!
This is a fantastic episode. The only reason that I didn’t rate it as a timeless classic is the setting in the department store. It seems to me that as time goes by fewer and fewer listeners will be able to relate to the setting.
I can picture the scene starting with “Hey kid, go put this in cassette player.” “What’s a cassette player Gramps?” Then poor old gramps trying to explain a department stores & wax dummies to Skippy Snotnose.