Gruts - Ivor Cutler
Although Ivor Cutler has long been a favourite of mine it has been of his recordings rather than the written versions of his work. When I saw this in the children's section of a local Oxfam store for €1.50 I had to have it. The pieces within it are the scripts for radio broadcasts from 1959 to 1963.
And I was not disappointed. These pieces work just as well, if not better, on the page. Cutler's quirky, sinister, humourous flights of fancy beguile in both formats.
No matter how strange these stories get, whether it is the cold potato man throwing his goods to a woman at a window on the twelfth floor or a man leading another to the top of a hill to show him the way, waving his arms and taking off, the stories all have a conspiratorial tone that seems to say "They won't believe it was like this, will they? But you and I know better."
