Penda’s Fen – Film Screening at Bidston Observatory

Join us for a special screening of Penda’s Fen at the iconic Bidston Observatory, as part of this years Wyrd Wyrale Festival 2026—a new arts and culture festival celebrating the strangeness, creativity, and mythic spirit of the Wirral.

First broadcast as part of the BBC’s Play for Today series in 1974, Penda’s Fen is a visionary and haunting exploration of identity, landscape, spirituality and Englishness. Mixing folklore, dream logic and radical political inquiry, it has become a cult classic and a defining work of British folk-horror and visionary cinema. The film follows a young man’s awakening to transformative possibilities, guided by angels, demons and the last pagan king of England.

Directed by Wirral-born filmmaker Alan Clarke, Penda's Fen is a visionary and unsettling exploration of identity, landscape, spirituality and Englishness. What begins as a seemingly realistic coming of age drama about Stephen Franklin, the son of a pastor proud of his conservative beliefs, quickly fractures into something stranger and more radical. Angels, demons, the ghost of King Penda of Mercia and dreamlike visions erupt into the narrative, transforming the quiet pastoral countryside into a site of haunting, heresy and revelation. The film dismantles rigid notions of purity, nationalism, masculinity and Christian orthodoxy, ultimately embracing hybridity, uncertainty and the necessity of questioning received truths. One of its most famous declarations, “I am nothing pure… I am mud and flame!” captures its challenge to fixed identity and the myth of a stable, singular English past.

The landscape in Penda’s Fen is not a passive backdrop but an active, uncanny force, a place in which ancient histories, buried beliefs and suppressed identities break through the surface. Often described as a form of pastoral horror or visionary folk mysticism, the film reveals the countryside as layered, restless and politically charged. It is a work about awakening, about seeing the land differently and about the “wyrd,” the old word for fate and strangeness, running beneath everyday life. In rejecting comforting nostalgia and confronting both the sacred and the national, Penda’s Fen offers an alternative vision of England: plural, unsettling, rebellious and alive with hidden energies.

This screening invites audiences to reflect on the “wyrd” nature of place, how the land shapes imagination, and how creativity emerges from landscape and community.

It marks the beginning of Wyrd Wyrale's celebration of Wirral’s artists, creatives, writers, filmmakers and cultural innovators.

Alan Clarke, director of Penda’s Fen, was born in Wallasey, Wirral, and went on to become one of Britain’s most influential and uncompromising filmmakers. Known for fierce social realism and radical experimentation, Clarke created some of the most powerful television drama of the late 20th century, including Scum (1979), Made in Britain (1982), Christine (1987) and The Firm (1989). His work confronted systems of power, youth culture and social struggle with bold cinematic honesty.

Although celebrated for gritty realism, Penda’s Fen stands apart as a poetic, mystical work deeply rooted in landscape and folklore—revealing Clarke’s extraordinary range and enduring influence.

The Wyrd Wyrale Festival is proud to honour Clarke’s Wirral origins and his legacy as a pioneering artist who reshaped British cinema and television.

Situated high above the river's Mersey and Dee with sweeping views across the Wirral peninsula, Bidston Observatory has long been a site of scientific inquiry, experimental practice and alternative thinking. Its unique position, both geographically and culturally, makes it an ideal setting for a film that explores visionary connections between land, history and imagination.

The screening of Penda’s Fen is hosted within this historic builidng and supported by Bidston Observatory Artistic Research Centre (BOARC), a self-organising study site dedicated to research, communality and creative experimentation. Operating as a not-for-profit organisation, BOARC offers low-cost workspace and residency opportunities for individuals and groups to develop their practices without pressure, expectation or hierarchy. Stays range from day use to month-long visits, with no formal application process and no requirement to produce or present work. All forms of practice are welcomed and valued.

Located within the historic Observatory building and surrounded by woodland, BOARC brings together a broad spectrum of disciplines, from art, music and theatre to philosophy, activism, environmental research, science and technology. It is a space where conversations move easily from kitchen to studio, and where ideas can travel from the domes to the basement workrooms. Inspired by the Performing Arts Forum in France, BOARC continues to explore new models of shared space, community and creative infrastructure. The project is stewarded collaboratively by a small team who work collectively to guide and sustain the centre.

Bidston Observatory is a historic building with some accessibility challenges. We are committed to ensuring everyone who wishes to attend can do so, and we will do everything we can to accommodate individual access needs.

If you have any accessibility requirements or questions, please contact us in advance and we will work with you to arrange appropriate support.

Tickets on sale now for £5.

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