Beautifully done. It took me a while to get my head around that this place is so small, so isolated, that there was literally nothing to do ... I still have trouble with that actually, since I'm always able to find something to do. But the idea was heartbreakingly tragic. Paulie just needs to find someone who isn't hopelessly vacuous I suppose.

domino wrote:

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Hi Melody, her name was Patsy... did anyone else keep thinking how Being Human Patsy would never have turned Paulie down? (he would probably have fled from the hills himself if that Patsy followed him!)

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 Probably.  But she would have been willing to help out on the farm.  No waiting at home whitewashing walls for her. 

I've just finished re-reading this story...and it's interesting how much Paulie's reasons for returning to the hills differs from the radio play.

 

In the drama, even before he has gone back for the funeral, he seems to assume that it is going to happen.  When he is talking to Pasty there is a real longing and wistfulness as he reels off the place names (I presume they're all the names of the hills?) of his childhood.  He does it 'for the family'...because it is in his blood, not because they have asked him to.  On the other hand he seems settled and there is passion in his voice when he tells Patsy how much she means to him, which seems to contradict the repeated assertion that he has nothing to give up.  He makes a choice between his new life, and his family's heritage.

In the story there is little to suggest that Paulie is settled - there is no 'little house', and although he changes his mind and tells her he'll stay, it is the fact that he has "mentioned marriage" to Pasty which scares her away, not just the idea of moving to the hills.  She is already seeing someone else by the time he has finished working his notice.  I get the impression that his family are unaware of Patsy's existance....he tells his mother about her later in the story.  There isn't the idea of returning for 'the family' - and, although he certainly steps easily into his dad's boots....he ultimately decides to go back to the hills because he has nothing to stay for......both he and his mother are alone. 

The end result is basically the same, but it's a different motivation....

thank you fifi, I keep meaning to read it again, couldn't resist reading it when we first heard the rumour at the beginning of the year, but since have actually tried to forget it so I could come at the adaptation afresh.

I felt in the drama there was still some ambiguity about Patsy - which I liked. Agree that the story seemed more of a family obligation vs personal ambition dilemma.

the bleakness ...and emptiness almost.. was conveyed by the drama really well though i thought, more by what was inferred than the dialogue itself, and that all consuming vastness of the hills, like a black hole that everything seemed to fall into...