Play for Today S2E04 O Fat White Woman.avi

O Fat White Woman (1971) is an 80-minute television play produced for the series Play For Today. The play was written by William Trevor and directed by Philip Saville.

I remember Delia very well. She created a wonderful music/sound to 'Oh Fat White Woman'
-- Philip Saville, personal communication

The title of the play is taken from Frances Cornford's poem:

To a Fat Lady Seen From the Train
O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
Missing so much and so much?
O fat white woman whom nobody loves,
Why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
When the grass is soft as the breast of doves
And shivering sweet to the touch?
O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
Missing so much and so much?

and the play is a “dark and unsettling drama focussed on the world of a sadistic Headmaster, his neglected wife, and the vulnerability of the children in his care"
while the play's narrative is “sharpened with Delia Derbyshire's radiophonic raw-nerve noises".