Interview: Robbie Hudson and Marie Phillips – Warhorses of Letters

Stephen Fry and Daniel Rigby star in Radio 4′s adaptation of Warhorses of Letters. Photograph by Siddharth Khajuri, courtesy of BBC Radio Comedy.

Letters have long been the foundation of great storytelling. The device is used  to great effect in Lionel Schriver’s We Need To Talk About Kevin (now a feature film), and even in pop music – Eminem’s ‘Stan’, anyone? But where it really comes to its own is in a love story, and what better story than that of two star-crossed lovers engaged on opposing sides in a war. Oh, and the lovers are warhorses – Napoleon and Wellington’s warhorses in fact. That’s the premise of Marie Phillips and Robert Hudson’s Warhorses of Letters, currently airing on Radio 4 on Tuesday nights and soon to be turned into book in time for Christmas.

Hudson explains how such an extraordinary idea came about: ‘I was on the platform in Kilburn Station in the sun and pretty much the first letter popped into my head, fully formed. That was pretty much it. I wasn’t sure whether Copenhagen [Wellington’s horse] and Marengo [Napoleon’s pony] were both male – I didn’t know – but I wrote a fan letter from Copenhagen to Marengo.’

And that nearly was it. ‘I just thought: “This is a funny idea; I don’t know if it’ll go anywhere.” You have lots of ideas; I’ve got lots of things written in my thing–’ (‘in your notebook’, corrects Phillips). And there it remained, for nearly a year and a half, until Hudson was setting up a new comedy storytelling night – Tall Tales – in Kilburn. They needed 10-15 minute pieces and Phillips thought this would be the perfect opportunity to use the horses. ‘I said, “Oh, we should write those letters between the horses and do it as a series.”  And then it was so easy; it was like ridiculously easy.’

They took a horse each: Hudson continued as Copenhagen, and Phillips took Marengo and they began writing each other letters. ‘We write the back-and-forth as letters,’ says Phillips, ‘so I’ll just be checking my email and suddenly there’ll be an email from Copenhagen, and it’s really fun.  And it’s a lovely way to write because you have the real intimacy of writing letters. Although I’m ultimately writing them to be performed, really in the moment I’m just writing them to Robbie, or Robbie as Copenhagen.’

Hudson agrees: ‘One of the things that gives it a certain liveliness is that we really don’t know what’s coming.’

They both admit to a lot of raised eyebrows when they explained the ideas to people. ‘I’m not a total moron,’ says Hudson. ‘I know why people say, “This is crazy!” On the other hand, I can’t imagine anyone actually listening to it or reading these letters and not being able to follow absolutely the simple story and drama of what the hell’s going on.’ Phillips feels the themes are universal: ‘Loneliness is universal, pride and wounded pride are universal, having a crush on someone is universal, trying to impress but giving away too much about what’s going underneath is universal. And okay, fine, they’re Napoleonic horses but actually, once you get onto a character level, that’s what’s really going on.’

Hudson (l) and Phillips.

Whilst it was purely accidental that the horses had to be gay (it is matter of historical fact that the two horses were male), the authors were both pleased. ‘It’s a relationship story’, says Hudson. ‘There’s nothing tricksy about it. I was talking to someone earlier today, and the sudden realisation that this wee, comfortable, fun story would’ve been un-broadcastable 25 years ago – that’s extraordinary.’

But why horses? ‘I ultimately think we could’ve written exactly the same thing with Wellington’s valet and Napoleon’s valet, but it just wouldn’t have been as funny,’ claims Phillips.

On stage Hudson played Marengo, with Radio 4 regular John Finnemore as Copenhagen, but for the radio series they were replaced with Stephen Fry and Daniel Rigby respectively. Did he Hudson feel slighted? ‘Yes, I’m enraged,’ he jokes. ‘You’ve got more or less the same profile so I can’t see why’, teases Phillips.

Ahead of tonight’s third episode, it’s clearly been a hit for the BBC: a second series is on the cards. But as soon as it was bought, Hudson and Phillips both knew it would make a great book. ‘There’s so much scope to do extra stuff’ says Phillips. ‘What’s lovely about the radio series and the initial performance is that you’ve got that lovely serial quality and you kind of play with things like cliff-hangers, and so on. But when you have a book you can start thinking about, “Well, what else can we put in here that wouldn’t work in radio?” So we have all these ideas for extra letters: Marengo writing to an old flame, or Copenhagen’s correspondence with his parents, and that sort of thing. And there’s stuff we’ve dreamed up that we can’t do in radio but we can very, very easily do in the book. We can flesh out the characters – and also, of course, we plan to add hoof notes to the text.’

The authors wanted to get a book published as quickly as possible, but publishing can take a long time. This was where Unbound came in – a method of publishing where the authors can pitch the books directly to the readers, and if enough readers order the book it gets published. For the writers, this also meant they could get a cult following while the book was still in production. Fans can email questions to warhorses@unbound.co.uk, and they’ll answer it – some fan mail may even make it in to the book. Phillips explains the advantages: ‘That allows the fans to actually have a say in what the content of the book is going to be, and I just know that the kinds of questions they come up with would not be stuff that you and I would come up with, so it actually will take our writing in a new direction. That’s really fun.’

Unbound lets people offer different levels of support. On the Warhorses of Letters website you can pre-order the e-book for just £4, but for £9 Copenhagen and Marengo will send you a Christmas card to go with it. Hardback copies are available too, and you can even pledge £1,000 and get yourself immortalised as a character in the next book. They do warn that this will be easier if you are already a horse – but it’s not compulsory.

And what next for Hudson and Phillips? Would they consider lesbian cats? ‘If we had a good lesbian cat story line-up, absolutely!’ laughs Phillips. They are already planning further talking animal series and she promises that ‘A full lexicon of species and sexualities will be represented.’ We can’t wait.

You can follow Robbie Hudson and Marie Phillips on Twitter @roberthudson and @mpphillips.

Warhorses of Letters airs on Radio 4 on Tuesdays at 11.00pm; for more information, and to catch-up using the BBC iPlayer, visit the programme’s website. You can find out more about Warhorses of Letters on the series’ own official Unbound website.