Short Cuts - In Colour
BBC Sounds
Short Cuts on the radio presented by Josie Long is the best of creative radio – always a true adventure in sound.
A short documentary called Autism Plays Itself is based on an old black and white medical film about autism.
We are talked through the pictures; we see in colour.
A small blond boy swipes at a light bulb above his head repeatedly - pokes his tongue out, spins around. Watching are people who understand.
“The movement is relaxing... it’s difficult to not want to start stimming almost in solidarity,” says one.
A girl wrapped in a blanket has it taken away by an adult – she retrieves it and wraps it around herself, she rocks back and forth in the corner of room, she is distressed.
A child is mesmerised by a mirror and a woman, watching, says she has always liked looking into mirrors – it’s something to do with the comfort that stimming brings.
Flapping hands, stimming, spinning – here are the traits of autistic behaviour.
For those of us on the sidelines, this was a window into a strange world with its own rules and its own particular joys.
“Autistic people are natural dancers and sometimes it is easier to express your emotions through movement,” someone explains.
Words will not do: “To get that energy out, dance is the best way to do it for me,” says one woman.
Flapping hands, stimming, spinning – here are the traits of autistic behaviour
There is energy and even more wonder in the story of the Green Flash – an unexpected beautiful flash of colour seen rarely and fleetingly at sunrise or sunset.
Beautifully written by Joe Dunthorne, his search for the Green Flash has more than a hint of droll humour.
That green might be the green of an emergency exit sign or an unhealthy green as though the sunset got queasy at all the marriage proposals, he says.
In our third short cut, for Phoebe McIndoe, it’s the colour red and the coming to terms with sexual assault as a child by a school doctor.
Her school pinafore was red - she had to remove it for the doctor. This was a heartbreaking but courageous and beautiful response to what happened.
To heal, she tried painting herself red and repeating out loud: “That is not my shame.”
In Colour is only what you’d expect from Josie Long and from Falling Tree Productions – the best of creative radio.
