A Vision of Loveliness

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The Read is a series of creative performance readings of iconic British novels for BBC Four. Each episode is directed by emerging talent from the New Creatives scheme. This episode features A Vision of Loveliness by Louise Levene and be performed by BAFTA nominee Liv Hill. Jane James knows that she must have been born to better things than a dingy bedroom in her Aunt Doreen's house in Norbury and evenings spent eating gala pie and Heinz tinned potato salad in their 'sitting-cum-dining room'. So, armed with her well-thumbed copy of Lady Be Good, she practises her French turns, her killer smile and precisely how much thigh to show when crossing her legs, and dreams of a time when she can be a part of the world she glimpses through the Mayfair windows of the cashmere shop where she works. Directed by Alice Johannessen, the ghosts of Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies inevitably haunt proceedings, but this is a story with a style and substance all of its own. So good, reader, I bought the book.

Aside from Deloume, most of the narrative voices belong to the road's residents, during a late summer in the 1990s. Initially their lives seem unconnected – a Ukrainian butcher who struggles both with English and his eyesight, an ageing Native American artist, a pregnant Korean widow, and a mentally disabled young boy. But history brings them together. When she finds a crocodile handbag left in a pub, it leads her to Suzy St John, a girl-about-town with the glamour, the confidence and the irresistible allure that Jane has been practising for so long. Suzy takes Jane under her wing, and Jane becomes Janey, a near carbon-copy of her new best friend and a delighted adventurer in an easy, sleazy, sixties West-End world of part-time modelling and full-time man-trapping. Through James and David, Gillespie explores the chasm between how children and adults perceive the world, and the devastating consequences of falling through this gap. It's a parable with echoes of the case of James Bulger – only the families are middle-class, so what goes awry cannot be blamed on violent films or poverty. Although the adult characters are somewhat two-dimensional – James's mother is obsessed with rearranging cupboards and serving tea and cake – this is more than compensated for by the complexity of James's inner world. And if the last act is predictable, it's all the more moving and disturbing for it.To audiences the club was sold as a product of the women’s liberation movement. Women who worked all week could now follow the example of the men and go out in groups to have a good time, no harm done. This is biting social satire, drenched in extravagant shoes, jewellery and clothes. Levene has a pitch-perfect ear for dialogue, and while her two young heroines are vain, materialistic and manipulative, she deftly illuminates the psyche of this era – when women who wanted to "better themselves" had to make themselves appealing to men, married or otherwise.

Money was rolling in, more so when the parade of random strip acts was ditched in favour of a Broadway-style show, complete with a story. But the business was growing too far, too fast and bigger personalities than even Banerjee wanted in on the action. This was not going to end well for some. I raced through A Vision of Loveliness, taking great delight in its sharply resurrected period detail... It's a delight - funny, sad and clever' Barbara Trapido Louise Levene’s cinematic satire brings sunshine and glamour … There’s pace and plenty of wit to keep you entertained until the credits roll’ Western Mail Levene’s prose is so fresh, so enjoyable that you can’t help reading snippets out loud' Daily TelegraphLouise Levene is the author of A Vision of Loveliness, a BBC Book at Bedtime, which was also longlisted for the Desmond Elliott first novel prize, Ghastly Business and The Following Girls. She was the dance critic for the Sunday Telegraph for sixteen years and before that a dance writer on the Independent, but now works for the Financial Times. She lives in London with her husband and their two children. There’s a certain seediness wafting around A Vision of Loveliness: The Read (BBC4, Sunday, 8pm). If you haven’t come across The Read series before the idea is wonderfully simple. It’s one actor reading one story over one hour, in this case an adaptation of Louise Levene’s 1960s-set novel. Think Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads with sound effects, illustrations and short filmed scenes. When Amanda Baker was 14 she found a letter written by her runaway mother to her unborn child: 'Dear Jeremy' it began 'or Amanda...'