Time for movie about the Edwardian David Bowie?
IT was the 90th anniversary of the death of Arnold Bennett last weekend. As a prolific novelist, playwright, journalist and critic of international standing, Bennett still sets the bar for Potteries literature.
Bennet was dubbed the ‘Tolstoy of the Potteries’ and proclaimed as an influential literary genius, with Gyles Brandreth arguing that his ‘wonderful capacity as a storyteller and a stylist put him in the forefront of the first rank of English writers.’
To commemorate this latest anniversary, BBC Radio 4 broadcast three online recordings on Monday 29 March, the date inaccurately recorded on the Burslem cemetery gravestone of the city’s most famous literary son – he actually died two days earlier.
First aired in 2014, I enjoyed listening again to Samira Ahmed’s documentary in which she reveals insights about the ‘man of many worlds born in 1867 amidst the roar and industry of the Potteries.’
With a little help from experts and local friends including Fred Hughes, Peter Coates, Deb Mcandrew and Mel Sherratt, the documentary examined why despite a reputation for being the ‘JK Rowling of his day’, Bennett remains ‘probably the most successful and famous British celebrity you’ve never heard of.’
I wasn’t surprised to hear the young people interviewed saying they were unaware of Bennett or his books which transformed the raw material of the pottery towns into ‘irresistible, transcendent and fascinating’ works of great fiction, as local-born culture writer Charlotte Higgins once wrote.
On his famed English Journey in 1933, J. B. Priestley couldn’t recall hearing Bennett’s name mentioned once which led him to provocatively ask, what single man in our time did more to make the Potteries known to the rest of the world than Bennett did?
Similarly, following his elegiac travels around Everyman’s England in 1936, Victor Canning reflected: “Anyone in the Potteries can tell you about the Wedgwood family. Ask them if they have ever heard of Arnold Bennett, and do not be surprised if they look at you with polite blankness.”
The Arnold Bennett Society have consistently celebrated and promoted the life, works and times of the literary hero who put the Potteries on the world map of literature.
The Bursley trail around Burslem’s fictional locations, the commissioning of a central ring of blue plaques marking the places and characters depicted in his novels, and making an archive of short films freely accessible have all helped to reignite pride in Arnold of the Five Towns. He’s even been forgiven by Fentonians!
And although getting his books back onto school reading lists remains a challenge, some schools such as Our Lady’s Catholic Academy draw upon the city’s culture and heritage through inspirational city-born figures such as Bennett to illuminate the national curriculum as part of its ‘Stoke Curriculum’ approach.
The unveiling of a bronze statue of Arnold reading from a copy of The Card outside the Potteries Museum in 2017 – home to the acclaimed Bennett archives – has also done much to engage more people with the vast heritage creatively chronicled by the acclaimed poet of the Potteries.
However, I believe that it is high time the city capitalises on its heritage by raising the profile of Arnold Bennett as a literary tourism lodestone.
Defined as visiting places associated with writers and their writings, literary tourism is an important and growing market.
When authors like Bennett locate their fictional stories, imagined places or landscapes in an industrial context, literature-induced tourism can be used effectively as a magnet or catalyst to help regenerate urban destinations.
In this respect, Bennett’s books are as good as any map or ‘Stokecation’ guidebook for literary pilgrims, serendipitous cultural tourists and more generalist visitors seeking to explore and experience the authentic sense of place, evocative atmosphere and Potteries’ personalities embodied in his legacy.
And who knows, in the same way that a single image of Clarice Cliff inspired scriptwriter Claire Peate to write the plot for The Colour Room film to be released in cinemas later this year, the remarkable story of the ‘Edwardian David Bowie’ might yet become the big screen adaptation needed for Arnold’s literary flame to burn brightly.