REYNARD

Dear listener, 

I’m the executive producer of ‘My Name is Swan’, the 2023 Winner for ‘Best Narrative’ at the LA International Poetry Film Festival and prequel to poet Jan Noble’s latest work ‘Reynard’.

‘Reynard’ picks up where ‘My Name is Swan’ left off. If ‘Swan’ was a city lament then ‘Reynard’ is a bucolic pastoral, its sumptuous language given further elevation by a legacy performance from veteran actor John Nettles. Jan Noble was poet in residence at the East End Film Festival during my tenure as director and he has continuously sought new and diverse platforms for his work, engaging in collaboration with filmmakers and actors to create poetry in formats beyond the page. 

Be it on film, record or stage language is always the primary driver in Noble’s work and coming in at 40 minutes there is plenty of it to unpack in ‘Reynard’ Essentially a retelling of the medieval tale of trickery and deception this contemporary interpretation explores the language we employ to describe migration as it follows young Reynard from rural idyll into the city. It also questions our fascination with and our exoticising of the ‘other’.

Told in three acts, it is the rich lyricism of this piece that propels the narrative; a chase, a hunt, a quest for identity, for sanctuary, for harmony. And the poetry is as persistent as it breathlessly relentless. Nettles, at 80 years old doesn’t miss a beat and reminds us that language, in an age of polarising headlines and Twitter speak is something to savour, taste and genuinely relish.

Alison Poltock, Winter 2023