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Atlas Pool

a new film

The working life of playwright Nick Darke

About The Film

Nick Darke (1948-2005) was born in Cornwall and achieved international success as a playwright with plays performed in major theatres. He was a prolific writer of passion and originality, both political and inspirational. His work is about community and corruption, centred on the lives of ordinary people in difficult situations, and the natural world.

He was the son of a farmer who made 8mm films about wildlife and one of these, called The Food Chain, is threaded through the film. Nick had his first boat when he was ten and small-scale fishing for lobsters also figures in the film. Nick also lived off grid with his family for a while, on the edge of London.

Nick wrote from first-hand experience whether it was dodging bullets in Nicaragua or using his intimate knowledge of lobsters and the seabed near where he lived on the Cornish coast.

Just before he died, aged 56, he and Jane Darke made the documentary film The Wrecking Season, broadcast BBC FOUR 2005, about the Atlantic fishing community and seeds which wash across the Atlantic from the Americas. Extracts from this film are also included.

Performances of his plays are used to express his views on subjects such as our loss of contact with nature through industrial farming, the invasion of a small nation by a superior force, love and marriage, loss of culture through ‘over tourism’, the nuclear issue, Greenham Common Peace camp, war, lies and fishing. The filmmakers had unprecedented access to archive material.

There are interviews with people he worked with such as Roger Michell (theatre and film director Blackbird, The Duke), Peter Cheeseman (theatre director and originator of documentary theatre), Mike Shepherd (founder and director Kneehigh Theatre), Mark Jenkin (film director BAIT), the actors Tilly Vosburgh and Phil Jackson.

Enduringly relevant, since his death his influence has continued to grow. Integrating filmed performances, archive and interviews with his collaborators and those who were inspired by his work, this film is a celebration of Nick’s legacy.