Critical Response
Critics have noted that the play stands apart from Clarke's other, more realist output. Clarke himself admitted that he did not fully understand what the story was about. Nonetheless it has gone on to acquire the status of minor classic, and has been rebroadcast several times on the BBC.
Following the original broadcast Leonard Buckley, The Times wrote:
Make no mistake. We had a major work of television last night. Rudkin gave us something that had beauty, imagination and depth.
In 2006, Vertigo magazine described Penda's Fen as “One of the great visionary works of English film”.
In 2011, Penda's Fen was chosen by Time Out London magazine as one of the 100 best British films. They described the play as:
A multi-layered reading of contemporary society and its personal, social, sexual, psychic and metaphysical fault lines. Fusing Elgar’s ‘Dream of Gerontius’ with a heightened socialism of vibrantly localist empathy, and pagan belief systems with pre-Norman histories and a seriously committed – and prescient – ecological awareness, ‘Penda’s Fen’ is a unique and important statement.
It has yet to receive a DVD release.
Read more about this topic: Penda's Fen
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