Enid

"Lashings of Ginger Beer"

ENID celebrates the life of Enid Blyton, who remains one of the most recognised and best-loved storytellers of all time.  Her charming characters and classic tales have enchanted generation after generation of children all over the world for almost eighty years.

To date she has sold an astonishing 500 million books in forty countries and this film examines the woman who created such enduring and compelling stories such as the beloved Famous Five, Secret Seven, Malory Towers and the unique and timeless Noddy series.  Enid Blyton was recently voted the UK's best-loved writer, according to a survey conducted for the Costa Book Awards.  Half a billion books sold helped her to beat Roald Dahl, Jane Austen and even JK Rowling to the top spot.

But behind the extraordinary success and positive image lies a darker and more conflicted story.  This film sheds light on the ambitious and driven, but as yet unpublished young woman.  We follow her from the development of her wonderful rich imagination against the adversity of a less than perfect childhood, through two World Wars and a first marriage that ended in divorce, to household name – and a place in readers’ hearts that survives to this day.  For the first time on screen, we see how the orderly, reassuringly clear worlds she created within her stories contrasted so dramatically with the complexity of her own personal life.

Joining the Oscar-nominated Helena Bonham-Carter are Matthew Macfadyen (Frost/Nixon, Pride & Prejudice, Little Dorrit, Spooks) as Hugh Pollock, Enid’s publisher, first husband and father of her two daughters, and Denis Lawson (Bleak House, Holby City, Star Wars, Local Hero) as Kenneth Darrell Waters who became her second husband.

Airing on BBC Four on 16 November 2009, ENID continues BBC Four’s tradition of examining the inner lives of 20th century icons from Steptoe to Thatcher, and is a candid and revealing portrait of someone who remains such a revered part of our culture. 

Of her iconic role, Helena Bonham Carter said, “It’s a long time since I have read such a well-written script with as complex and fascinating a character as Enid ... And I hope I get to drink lashings of ginger beer.”