A previously unknown work by Shelagh Delaney has been unearthed and transformed into an audio drama more than a decade after her death. While Delaney is best remembered for A Taste of Honey, which secured her reputation as one of Britain's most distinctive playwrights, she also penned the screenplays for Charlie Bubbles and Dance With a Stranger, among other credits. The rediscovered piece, Catch Me Who Can, a 30-minute study, has been released as a fully dramatized audio production featuring distinguished actors Toby Jones and Rita Tushingham, and proves to be a minor masterpiece in its own right.
The play was uncovered by Delaney's daughter Charlotte following her mother's death in 2011, and draws upon Charlotte's own experience of absconding from both home and school at the age of 14 in 1978. Charlotte has undertaken the adaptation herself, revealing that the piece imagines her final hours on the run before being discovered. The narrative centers on a tense exchange between the runaway, Hattie, and her maths teacher, whom she encounters in a park where he is out jogging due to strike action. He represents the forces of order and social convention, while Hattie embodies the impulse toward liberation and self-determination.
Delaney infuses the work with her celebrated gift for naturalistic dialogue, Hattie peppering her interlocutor with questions much as Jo does in A Taste of Honey. The celebrated Rita Tushingham, who originated the role of Jo in Tony Richardson's acclaimed 1961 film adaptation, appears as an itinerant bag lady whose presence adds further texture to the piece. Set against the backdrop of late-1970s London, the drama incorporates oblique references to the IRA, Vietnamese refugees, and the Rock Against Racism movement. Expertly produced by Polly Thomas, the recording demonstrates Delaney's remarkable facility with language and her sympathetic appreciation of both the value of education and the restless energy of adolescence, leaving listeners with a renewed sense of her considerable gifts.