Penda's Fen

During the last summer of his boyhood, Stephen has a very clear and intense view of the world. Awakening a buried force in the landscape around his home, he finds it trying to communicate some warning, a peril he is in; some secret knowledge; some choice he must make, some mission for which he is marked down. In one young man’s search for his sense of self, writer David Rudkin takes us on a magnificently ambiguous metaphysical journey quite unlike any other TV play. The cult status of Penda’s Fen is no doubt due to its potent mix of mysticism, music and landscape which taps into an elemental truth about who we are and our pagan past. Directed by Alan Clarke, Penda’s Fen is widely considered to be writer David Rudkin’s finest work. (British Film Institute (BFI))