BAD HARE DAYS

A new town of the future holds ancient secrets in Harland, Lucy Catherine’s folk horror thriller

- IAN BERRIMAN

MILTON KEYNES IS, it’s safe to say, not exactly a cultural lodestone –particularly in the horror sphere. But the home of concrete cows and franchise football did play a part in sparking the imagination of Lucy Catherine, writer of Harland, a five-part drama for Radio 4/BBC Sounds concerning what its author describes as “weird shit, with weird paranormal things happening” in a new town.

“I was brought up on the west coast of Scotland, in the middle of nowhere, in a place that felt really infused with Celtic mythology,” the writer tells SFX. “Then I moved when I was 16… to Milton Keynes. Harland isn’t about Milton Keynes, but those towns which were built to erase the past and be the shiny, happy future are fascinating. I’ve been trying to find a way to put those two worlds together, and it occurred to me: Milton Keynes was built on an ancient village.

“So my town, Harland, is built on an ancient village as well. The town is really the central character. It’s about how this materialist world that we live in connects to this ancient folklore just beneath our feet.”

This isn’t a ’60s new town though, but one founded in 2000 by a “Steve Jobs type” tech billionaire, which is now gearing up to celebrate its 50th anniversary via a festival. Yes, Harland (whose events take place over the course of five days) is a near-future tale. “It’s everything we could identify with now, but slightly heightened,” Catherine explains. “So a world run online, where there’s electric, driverless cars, and people are disconnected from their roots and the land.”