By Elizabeth Cowley
Daily Telegram
December 12, 1994
DEFIANTLY enthusiastic, independent series producer Ingrid Lewis almost dares us not to like the four 20-minute plays we are about to see. She needn't worryBBC2's Siren Spirits two on Christmas Day(9:45 pm), one on December 29(7:00 pm) and one on New Year's Eve (7:05 pm) stand out like wicked fairies on the TV Christmas tree.
These small gems have been written and produced by the all-woman black and Asian company Leda Serene. Ms Lewis talks of her 'hunger' for original material by black artists: "In this country whites tend to look at blacks and think "okay we know your story. We'll put it right." Siren Spirits does that for them." Each story is, roughly speaking, both feminist and ghostly. 'They express the fears and taboos behind the mask we present to the outside world' says Lewis. Her company sifted through more than 100 submissions to make the final selections. 'One of the major challenges was convincing some writers that we were not looking for simple ghost stories rather the use of extraordinary and fantastic as a way of expressing something intangible about the human spirit.' The two strongest plays begin the series: in Bideshi, by Tanika Gupta, Roshan Seth enjoys a surreal out-of-death experience. A tale-with-a-twist. Memsahib Rita by Kumari Salgado, follows.
