Wordsmiths at Gorsemere

'The Wordsmiths at Gorsemere' was a comedy programme broadcast on Radio 4 between 1985 and 1987 as 'an everyday story of towering genius'. Written by Sue Limb, the two series featured characters that parodied the poet William Wordsworth, his sister Dorothy Wordsworth and many of the Romantic poets, some anachronistically. An unsurprising regular at the Wordsmiths' humble 'Vole Cottage' throughout the two series was 'Cholericke', the comedy version of Wordsworth's collaborator on the Lyrical Ballads, Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Lord Byron appeared in the first series as 'Lord Biro', Percy Shelley as 'Mr Jelly' and William and Mary Lamb as the 'Lumps'. 'De Quinine', 'Sir Walter Sprott', 'John Sheets' and 'William Bloke' are central characters in the second series, recalling de Quincy, Sir Walter Scott, John Keats and William Blake.

The cast includes many of the finest comic actors of late 20th century British theatre. Simon Callow is Cholericke, Denise Coffey Dorothy and Geoffrey Whitehead William Wordsmith. Miriam Margolyes played the family's Westmorland servant, 'Stinking Iris', standing in for de Quincy's actual working class wife.

References

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