Five studies in talent and perversity
1: Baron Corvo - Fr Rolfe
'I cultivate the gentle art of making enemies. A friend is necessary - one friend; but an enemy is more necessary. An enemy keeps one alert.'
Frederidk Rolfe managed to turn most of his friends and would-be helpers into implacable enemies. He was capable of immense and sustained malevolence. He spent his last years in Venice, living in poverty and squalor, writing pornography, and engaging in an exhibitionist and sexually dissolute existence.
Ane yet this priest manque was a dedicated artist, a writer of near genius. Alec McCowen reads from his works, and Julian Symons (whose brother wrote Questfor Corva), Donald Weeks and Peter Luke (who dramatised Rolfe's novel
Hadrian VII) help
Margaret Howard trace the tragic life of this greatly talented, deeply flawed man.
Producer GRAHAM TAYAR
0 HEAR THIS! page 16 and WODDIS ON: page 79