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John Yorke looks at Peter Benchley’s environmentally themed novel The Girl of the Sea of Cortez.

Peter Benchley is best known for his debut novel Jaws which become a huge global bestseller when it was published in 1974 and was further seared into the public consciousness by Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation the following year. His next two novels – The Deep and The Island – were also thrillers set at sea.

However, Benchley’s attitude to the oceans and the creatures that live in them underwent a transformation in this period due to the diving trips he’d started going on. He became acutely aware of the fragility of marine environments and how human activity was endangering them. When The Girl of the Sea of Cortez was published in 1982, it was a significant departure from his previous work, clearly informed by his growing environmental awareness.

John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years and shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in Â鶹Éç Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of Â鶹Éç Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. As creator of the Â鶹Éç Writers Academy, he's trained a generation of screenwriters - now with over 70 green lights and thousands of hours of television to their names. He is the author of Into the Woods, the bestselling book on narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of narrative - including many podcasts for R4.

Contributor:
Anita Sullivan, playwright who has adapted The Girl of the Sea of Cortez for Radio 4

Readings from The Girl of the Sea of Cortez by Peter Benchley (Ballantine Books, 2013)
Peter Benchley interview from the archives of the LBJ Presidential Library, University of Texas at Austin

Reader: Torquil MacLeod
Production Hub Coordinator: Nina Semple
Sound: Sean Kerwin
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Executive Producer: Sara Davies

A Pier production for Â鶹Éç Radio 4