Tim Key Delves Into Daniil Kharms and That's All
Seriously...
BBC
4.1 • 885 Ratings
🗓️ 15 March 2016
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Daniil Kharms (1905-1942) is one of Russia's great lost absurdists - a writer whose world still alarms, shocks and bewitches more than half a century after he died in prison during the siege of Leningrad.
In his short, almost vignette-like writings, nothing is sacred or as it seems. His narrators dip in and out of moments, describing curious, often disturbing events before getting bored and leaving his characters to their fates. Old ladies plummet from windows, townsfolk are bludgeoned to death with cucumbers, others wander around in search of glue, sausages or nothing. By turns pointless and harrowing, they are funny. Very funny. And they are funny now.
Comedian, Russophile and crumpled polymath Tim Key has been entranced by Kharms' beautiful, horrible, hilarious world for years. But is there more to Kharms than a series of curious happenings cooked up by an eccentric mind in a troublesome world? Key suspects there is. And he's prepared to delve.
As he delves, he encounters Noel Fielding, Alice Nakhimovsky, Matvei Yankelevich, Peter Scotto, Tony Anemone and Daniil Kharms.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Seriously. I'm Fermi Martin. Writer and |
| 0:10.5 | public Tim Key has a fascination with Russia. |
| 0:14.0 | Check out his amazing documentary Gorgal's overcoat. |
| 0:17.3 | It's in the seriously archive and well worth a listen. |
| 0:21.3 | Tim is drawn to Russian culture from its music and art through to its absurd literature. |
| 0:27.0 | That's not me being mean. I'm talking about absurdism in the philosophical sense. The exploration of the conflict |
| 0:35.1 | between the human tendency to search for the meaning and value in life coupled with |
| 0:39.8 | the inability to find any. Uplifting stuff then. |
| 0:44.0 | In this program, we joined him as he explores the lost world of one of Russia's posthumously treasured |
| 0:50.4 | absurdist. This is Tim Key delves into Daniel Holmes and that's all. |
| 0:56.0 | Oh I would imagine he was very unhappy. What might make him happy? |
| 1:01.0 | It was an era of great tension of the possibility of being arrested at any moment, which was ultimately realized. |
| 1:08.0 | I don't know what was going on in his mind and I don't know that anybody does. What would you like to make your documentary about? |
| 1:19.0 | I came across a story not too long ago. |
| 1:22.0 | This is a reenactment of a meeting I had with the man at |
| 1:26.4 | Radio 4. He was drinking vinegar out of a small glass Wellington. I was leaning forward over his desk and talking directly |
| 1:36.4 | into his ear. |
| 1:37.4 | What's this story you speak of? It's called The Plomiting old women. I slid it across to him and as I |
| 1:46.1 | slid it I caught a glimpse of a couple of lines. I smirked. I love this story. |
| 1:55.0 | Hmm not heard of it. It's lush. |
| 1:57.0 | What's in the suitcase? |
| 1:59.0 | It's my favorite story by a distance. It's only half a page long. He looked at me through his |
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