William Ivory, who along with Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone will co-lead the Creative Writing Workshop at the Festival 2012, is the author of the BBC’s television drama Bert and Dickie which will be screened on BBC1 at 8.30pm on Wednesday 25th July 2012.
The story is located at the time of the preparations for the Summer Olympic Games, also known as the Austerity Games, in London 1948.
Thrown together just five weeks before the final of the 1948 London Olympics, Bert Bushnell and Dickie Burnell defied all the odds and achieved gold in the double sculls. This is the story of how they did it - not only by pushing physical and emotional limits, but also by confronting and overcoming their vast professional and personal differences.
A boat builder's son from Wargrave, Bert Bushnell might be under six foot and slight, but he knows that he's got what it takes to represent his country in the single sculls. When he does win a place on the British team, however, he's shocked to discover that it's not in the event for which he has trained. Instead the selecting coach, Jack Beresford, has decided that Bert will partner Dickie Burnell in the double sculls.
An Eton and Oxford educated "Blue" from a family of rowing royalty, six-foot four Dickie couldn't be more different to Bert. Unable to hide a chip on his shoulder about the upper classes, Bert is openly hostile to Dickie and their first outing on the river is a disaster - as each tries to out-scull the other. As they struggle exhausted from the water, Beresford is forced to face up to the fact that his gamble - just five weeks before the Olympic final - may have been a foolish one.
Bert’s and Dickie's personal battle reflects a much greater struggle, as London prepares to host the Olympic Games. In 1948, just three years after the end of the second world war, London is half-destroyed and its people are starving. Thus the ‘Austerity Games’ were born, and the film portrays just what was achieved with a post-war mentality characterised by the slogan ‘Make do and mend’.
Bert and Dickie also begin to realise that they share more in common than they ever would have expected. Both have the same determination and drive and, on a personal level, both have been shaped by complex relationships with their fathers. As they realise that their big opportunity has come, they finally start to work together.
Set against the backdrop of a country on its knees, Bert and Dickie is an uplifting, warm-hearted and celebratory story about how two men rose above differences of birth and class to become Olympic gold medallists - and how London did achieve a brilliant and triumphant Games.
William Ivory (screenwriter for BBC TV and film and playwright) and Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone (novelist and short story writer) will lead a newly devised and practical one-day course on the relationship of character and plot in Prose Fiction and Screenplay at the Graham Greene International Festival in Berkhamsted (Hertfordshire, UK) on Saturday 29th September 2012.
This event includes the announcement of the titles for the GGBT Creative Writing Awards for 2013, breaks for tea or coffee and attendance at the Interview with Sir Derek Jacobi at 16:15.
Advance booking is essential to guarantee a place on the Creative Writing Workshop.
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