In my dream, I was involved in a complex game of cat-and-mouse, being chased through the grey streets of South London which were also the black-and-redbrick backstreets of W. At one stage I thought I could shake off my pursuers by taking refuge in a small Catholic church, and I reflected on the mysterious Hitchcockian allure of these places in countries where Catholicism has sometimes been proscribed. A little later, one of the inspectors on the case pointed to a gay man, who was giving a quick peck on the cheek to his 'lover boy', as the inspector growlingly called him. I felt responsible for the film, aware that this kind of typecasting might seem offensive - and yet I also wanted these sometimes flamboyant characters to be kept in. They were true to life, after all: I had known people like them, and could with advantage draw on my experience to make the film more realistic.
Simon Armitage's translation of Gawain and the Green Knight includes the world 'allack' (the Green Knight says: 'It's not my nature / to idle or allack about this evening', lines 256-7).
Simon Armitage's translation of Gawain and the Green Knight includes the world 'allack' (the Green Knight says: 'It's not my nature / to idle or allack about this evening', lines 256-7).
