When Covid stalled his film work, the writer took revenge on the virus in the form of a poem about Britain, Brexit and the pandemic – exclusively extracted here
Where do you start with the pandemic? It may have been one of the most universally shared moments in history but that collective experience was instantly refracted into billions of entirely unique memories. How also do you address the weird paradox that for many the pandemic was an uncomfortable blend of positive and negative? “Me being at home was great for the children, but we’ve had to close our business.” “It was nice to spend more time with the family, but we lost my uncle.” It’s a mesh of contradictions; the cheerful banging of pans mingling with the distant screech of an ambulance siren. The pre-pandemic era feels both a long time ago and yesterday. As we emerged from lockdown, everything was both totally different and kind of the same.
And how do I respond to the pandemic as a writer and a director? Like many working in film and television, I had mixed fortunes. My film, The Personal History of David Copperfield, never made cinemas around the world, but it got shown on streaming platforms. As a writer, I’m used to working at home anyway, and, though work slowed, it never went away. I’m currently starting up a shoot we shut down eight months previously and I feel both blessed and guilty to have been one of the lucky ones. Strangely, although I thought about it often, my response to the pandemic won’t be a film or TV show. Unexpectedly, it’s emerged spontaneously as a poem.
