Category: Entertainment

Happy Christmas TV!

So, what will you be watching on television this festive season? Or rather, what won’t you be watching? It occurred to me while browsing the upcoming TV highlights yesterday that, in these days of digital enlightenment, the second of these two questions is the easier to answer. To explain, let me go, as I often do, back a few years…

Who can recall those bygone days when you generally had to be at home to receive a phone call? Or when you wanted to gather some random tidbit of information like, say, the names of all the capital cities on the African continent? Naturally, you would have to heave a great encyclopaedia off a shelf, blow the dust off its cover and then leaf through its cluttered pages, wouldn’t you? And who is seasoned enough (by the passing of time, not the addition of salt and pepper) to remember when we had far fewer options when it came to what to watch on TV? Fact is, until March 1997, we in the UK only had four channels to entertain us. Seems almost beyond belief now, doesn’t it? And if you go back to November ’82 there were just three! I mean, how in the world did we cope? And in case you’re now curious, BBC1 first aired in November ’36 (as BBCTV), then came ITV in September ’55 and then BBC2 in April ’64 (at which point BBCTV became BBC1).

With only four channels to choose between it was a relatively easy task to plot a course through the ocean of programming over the festive period. With full belly and dragging energy levels, the time spent in front of the TV often took up a significant portion of the holiday. Of course, there were grumblings about the repeats – particularly the scheduled movies – “How can that be on again? That was on last year. Why couldn’t they have shown so-and-so instead? I haven’t seen that one in ages.” At one time, James Bond’s appearances during our post-lunch snoozings were as regular as the Queen’s speech. But we would watch those repeats all the same, moaning as we did, but nevertheless enjoying their festive familiarity.

And that’s the difference today. Assuming that TV still has priority over all other forms of entertainment, we don’t need to sit through repeats anymore. Unless that’s what blows your hair back, of course. With many of us now having more channels to watch than we can shake a remote control at, not to mention the shelves of DVDs we own as well as computers that can stream virtually anything that’s ever been filmed, we are able to watch pretty much anything we like. And if we miss something because we were out or it clashed with something else we were watching, there’s always ‘catch-up TV’. Which means the good old Christmas TV schedule seems to have lost its influence a bit, doesn’t it? And yet…

The self-titled ‘Legendary’ double edition of the Radio Times is perhaps one of the most eagerly awaited magazines of the year and has been for as long as I can remember. Prior to 1991 of course, we had two magazines to buy and to study because the TVTimes was the only place to read the ITV and Channel 4 listings. Now though, both magazines give the same information so really it’s just a question of taste (perhaps an interesting article or interview within the pages of one) or loyalty as to which one we carry home with our shopping.

Today, menus and schedules on our TV screens may tell us what we’re currently watching and what’s coming up but I, for one, still enjoy turning every page of the Christmas Radio Times, red pen in hand, marking everything that’s of interest. I’m quite positive I won’t get to watch half of it but it’s nice to see it’s on. These chronicles are inventories of our viewing pleasure and whether we cheer or grumble as we leaf through them, most of us now have the power to go ‘off-piste’, so to speak, to take control of our own screens.

A headline caught my eye today which stated that Downton Abbey is scheduled to go head to head with Eastenders on Christmas day in the battle for ratings. Once upon a time, this would have meant disappointment for some household members and possible arguments for others as one of these shows would have to have been missed. Unless you had a video recorder. And let’s face it, using one of those was always a bit of a rigmarole. Today we just push a button on the remote and watch one show straight after the other. There’s not even any need to heave our turkey-stuffed selves out of our chairs. Really now, we’ve never had it so good.

And so whatever you end up doing this Christmas, whether or not it involves catching some of the festive TV and, yes those obligatory repeats, I wish you and yours the best of the season and a Happy New Year.

 

Classic TV Review: The Professionals

It was sad to read that Lewis Collins had died a few days ago (Nov 27) aged 67 following a five year battle with cancer. He was an underrated actor whose career was blighted by his being typecast as the tough guy, the character type that, ironically, made him a household name in the late ’70s. I’m talking, of course, about Bodie of CI5.

I wasn’t yet a teenager when The Professionals and its high octane opening titles exploded onto our TV screens late in 1977 and quickly became must-see action drama. I forget the time it aired – probably 8pm – but it was a show my parents allowed me to watch (bed straight after) and I just lapped up the fast-paced cocktail of car chases, gun fights and punch-ups. Of the three main characters, Bodie was my favourite – hard as nails and yet suave and well-dressed. I remember one Christmas getting an annual as well as a Corgi model of Bodie’s silver Ford Capri 3.0S complete with three tiny figures posing dramatically inside the box.

For those in the dark about the show, CI5 is a fictional law enforcement agency tasked with stopping all kinds of terrorism and threats to the UK. It is made up of highly capable individuals – the elite of the elite, if you will – and the man in charge is Cowley (Gordon Jackson). His two best men are Doyle (Martin Shaw) and Bodie (Lewis Collins). They are obedient to their superior but aren’t afraid of breaking the rules (as well as the law) if it brings results. Their partnership and friendship is symbiotic and with Cowley giving the orders, they are a great team. To complement the show’s action there are humorous moments between the leads and there is also detail in the police procedures although not as much as in many of today’s crime shows.

The show was created by Brian Clemens who was in part responsible for numerous classic TV shows of the ’60 and ’70s including The Avengers, The Persuaders!, The Protectors and The New Avengers. A total of 57 episodes over five seasons of The Professionals were aired between ’77 and ’83 however, the final episode of season one – Klansmen – was never transmitted on terrestrial TV in the UK because of its racial content.

I’ve caught an episode or two of the show over the years and yes, it filled me with a warm nostalgia but this morning, I happened upon an episode on ITV4 being shown as a tribute to Lewis Collins. This time, poignancy made me pay an even greater level of attention to the screen than normal. The episode was the fourth of season one – Killer with a Long Arm. It is about a Greek sniper who travels over from the continent with a mission to assassinate a Greek Royal at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in order to make a political statement. The pacing of the story is excellent and the tension builds nicely all the way to the rooftop climax. The plot is believable (with the possible exception of the zoom on the sniper rifle scope) and the writing intelligent. There is mention of forensics and the overall, the action is minimal. I seem to remember some episodes being a lot more gung-ho but maybe these came later when the writers may have struggled for ideas. There are some humorous moments too between Bodie and Doyle and so to put it in a nutshell, it is a terrific episode of an exciting show.

Lewis Collins still commands my attention when he’s on screen. He has great presence and his natural manner, which can change from charming and friendly to threatening and brutal in a second, is totally captivating. His onscreen chemistry with Martin Shaw is great too, which probably helped make the show the success it was and one would assume they had an absolute blast while filming. The two actors had previously shared the screen playing villains in a 1977 episode of The New Avengers and creator Brian Clemens, who had already got Martin Shaw on board as Doyle, brought in Lewis Collins on the strength of this previous pairing. I haven’t watched it but apparently Collins’ character in that New Avengers episode (Obsession) signs off with the comment to Shaw’s character, “Maybe we should work together again. We’re a good team.”

Indeed they were. Lewis Collins may have passed away and I’m sure our hearts go out to the loved ones that survive him but the character for which we all recognise and love him, will live on for as long as humans watch TV.

Film Review: The Fast Lady

Okay, so winter may not arrive officially until the 21st of next month however unofficially, in my mind it’s moved in already and taken over like an occupying force. I reckon we can all admit to having enjoyed a long warm summer this year and that’s an increasingly rare thing to say but don’t those glorious days of sandals and sun lotion seem an age ago already? And what’s replaced them? Wind, rain, chills and that annual pain-in-the-neck, the common cold. Yes, you’ve guessed it – I’ve got a stinker already!

For the last two days I’ve been shuffling around like a think-headed, red-eyed zombie, my joints aching and my nose itching and streaming so much that I wonder just where the hell all that fluid comes from. It may not be quite debilitating but it certainly makes you feel miserable.

So, last night as a counter-measure, I prescribed for myself a good dose of humour. A hearty laugh is always a sure-fire tonic and the sort of dose I was thinking of administering would be found in something like a Carry-On film or one of those slightly daft yet rib-tickling comedies from the ’50s or ’60s, starring a role-call of familiar faces from British cinema in its heyday.

I settled on a film that was completely unfamiliar to me – The Fast Lady from 1962. It tells the story of enthusiastic cyclist Murdoch Troon (played by Stanley Baxter) who one day is run off the road by impatient Charles Chingford (James Robertson Justice) in his Rolls Royce. Troon tracks the man down to his beautiful home with its manicured lawns and demands compensation for his damaged bicycle. It is here that he meets Chingford’s beautiful daughter Claire (Julie Christie) and the two are instantly attracted to one another. Learning that she is a lover of sports cars as well as “the men who drive them”, Troon decides to buy a car and pass his driving test.

Fortunately for Troon, his friend and fellow lodger is Freddie Fox (Leslie Phillips), an under-performing used car salesman with a keen (make that VERY KEEN) eye for the ladies. On discovering that Charles Chingford is the owner of a local sports car dealership, Fox sees the possibility of getting in with Chingford as well as selling Troon a car. And the car in question is a 1927 vintage Bentley named The Fast Lady.

What follows is all perfectly charming and uncomplicated fun as Troon, determined to be the man he thinks Claire wants him to be, takes his first driving lesson and then later, his test. He also has to deal with Claire’s bad-tempered father and the man’s extreme dislike of him and the two go on to make a wager that, should Troon lose, means he must never see Claire again. Meanwhile, Freddie Fox schemes, Claire Chingford coos, her father blusters and Troon, a rather clumsy Scot, soldiers on seemingly oblivious to the disaster he leaves in his wake. All very amusing.

The film was directed by Ken Annakin, a man of great talent and diversity. Not only did he give us such Disney classics as The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men and Swiss Family Robinson, he also directed big scale war movies like The Longest Day (the British segments) and Battle of the Bulge as well as riotous comedies like Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines and Monte Carlo or Bust!

Perhaps best known for his hilarious television shows which first appeared in the ’60s, Stanley Baxter – a Scotsman himself – plays Murdoch Troon with a believable measure of innocent heroism. He’s not as naive or hapless as, say, Norman Wisdom in his slapstick comedies, but he’s not a million miles away either. He’s a likeable chap though and you root for his character from the off.

Leslie Phillips is perfect doing what he does best and there’s only one other actor I can think of who nailed the cad as well – albeit to a more rotten degree – and that was Terry Thomas. Julie Christie, in only her second film role, seems quite at home in her part. Annakin captures her extraordinary beauty in several well-framed close-ups and it’s no wonder that she would soon become a global star. Three years later, when she starred as Lara Antipova in Dr Zhivago, Life magazine hailed 1965 as “The Year of Julie Christie” such was her impact on the silver screen. James Robertson Justice as her father, is excellent as always, and his domineering and acerbic Charles Chingford is similar to his Sir Lancelot Spratt in the Dirk Bogarde “Doctor” movies.

Along the way, the familiar faces of numerous comedy and character actors from the era pop up in cameos, among them Frankie Howerd, Dick Emery and Bernard Cribbins. I loved seeing how the roads and the high streets have changed over the years (the film was shot in and around Beaconsfield apparently) and also enjoyed car-spotting all those models that are now only seen at classic car rallies. The Fast Lady enjoyed great success at the British box office upon its release and fifty years later, it still has the ability to take your mind off your worries.

 

Win Karl Pilkington’s “Moaning of Life” Goodies

There are two types of people in the world: people who say they like Karl Pilkington, and liars. Everyone loves Karl, and everyone enjoys his shows and books.

The good folks over at Canongate Books are running what can only fairly be described as a public service by giving away books and DVDs of “The Moaning of Life”, and entry to the competition couldn’t be easier:

 

If the approaching end of Karl Pilkington’s TV series Moaning of Life is set to send you into a spiral of withdrawal, worry not as the book to accompany the show is out now http://ow.ly/qmGuB. To coincide with the launch of the DVD of the complete series of Moaning of Life a new competition has launched where three lucky winners will each receive a SIGNED copy of the book, a SIGNED illustration from the book (Happiness image attached) and a copy of the DVD. Five runner-ups will each receive a copy of the book. Does life get any better, Karl Pilkington fans?!

To enter, fans should simply look at this photo [below] and then e-mail marketing@canongate.co.uk with Karl Pilkington in the subject line, telling us what you think Karl Pilkington is saying in the picture.

The funniest entries win. The competition closes on Monday 2 December and the lucky winners will be chosen at random by Canongate. Don’t forget to follow @welovemoaning for all the latest updates on Karl Pilkington’s Moaning of Life book.

 

What's Karl Pilkington Saying?
What’s Karl Pilkington Saying?

 

That’s all there is to it – good luck!

 

Film Review: Separate Tables

I always derive great pleasure from watching a well-adapted film version of a stage play. I think it’s because fundamentally what makes a good story is its characters and a stage play is, in essence, nothing more than a study of its characters. Of course, there’s usually a plot of some kind that unfolds, twists and turns and events that occur to affect the behaviour of those in the tale and thereby expose more about them as people to us, the audience. For me, it always lays bare the artists’ talents in the writing and the performing departments because there’s no whizz-bang action and explosions to boggle our minds or death-defying stunts to draw our attention away from the human element of the tale. It really is basic storytelling, which some would argue is the purest kind.

Usually, a theatre audience will retain a certain detachment from the performance it watches, never really giving in to the world of make-believe on the stage, never completely forgetting that it is enjoying (or not) a group of performers. By contrast, the cinema audience gets drawn into the world on screen (assuming the director knows what he’s doing), the camera lens acting as its eye. Yes, we know the camera is mounted on a dolly which is being pushed by a Grip along a New York sidewalk but when it comes to watching the end product we forget this, we are there in the Big Apple jostling through the crowds on East 42nd Street and on into Grand Central Station. A scream comes from behind and the camera swivels around to investigate saving us in our seats the effort of looking over our shoulders. For all intents and purposes, we are the camera lens and we can get as close up and personal to the most intimate of moments between characters or we can stand on the edge of a bluff and behold the most spectacular of vistas below our feet. We’re not so much watching it as witnessing it. Think about it. It’s quite magical.

That’s why a well-filmed stage play can be so rewarding. There’s nothing to distract you from the humanity of the story. There’s no bustling sidewalks or majestic panoramas to enjoy. The entire story is expressed through dialogue and body language and little else. Yes, the camera (our eye) now has the freedom to move around the room, to close in on an object or a facial expression or some other detail but more often than not, there’s still a sense of confinement, of being indoors and away from the rest of the world. And in the case of Separate Tables this confinement is the ground floor of a small hotel in Bournemouth, a seaside resort on the south coast of England.

Based on two one-act plays by Terrence Rattigan (Table by the Window and Table Number Seven), Rattigan himself stitched them together and added a few characters to hide the seam. The film was directed by Delbert Mann who had, three years earlier in 1955, won the Academy Award for his romantic drama Marty, a film which also won Ernest Borgnine the award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. No question that the guy clearly knew what he was doing then.

Separate Tables boasts an all-star cast with David Niven, Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, Burt Lancaster and Wendy Hiller – two of whom would go on to win Oscars for their performances.  Niven plays Major Pollock, a spiffing, moustachioed war veteran who happens to be hiding a shameful secret. Sibyl Railton-Bell (Deborah Kerr), is a meek and rather dour spinster suffocating under the firm control of her Victorian mother (Gladys Cooper) who also appears to be the hotel’s resident matriarch. The sober hotel owner Pat Cooper (Wendy Hiller) is in love with a long-term resident, the alcoholic John Malcolm (Burt Lancaster), who in turn gets a surprise visit from his ex-wife Ann Shankland (Rita Hayworth). The plot lines of these five individuals are woven together with a deft subtlety that is absolute poetry. Their characters start to evolve as soon as the film begins but it’s not until the sudden discovery of Major Pollock’s awful secret, a revelation that divides and illuminates at the same time, that we really get to see what these people are made of.

Niven’s performance is possibly one of the best of his distinguished career and garnered him his only Oscar. His Major Pollock is all bluff and twitter as he regales boorish tales of his time at Sandhurst Military Academy or during the North African campaign always with just a little too much zeal. It’s obvious from the get-go that he’s not all he seems and when his world does come crashing down, the contrast in his behaviour is extremely well-judged. Like-wise, Lancaster’s performance is spot on and the arrival of his ex-wife (Hayworth at first purring glamour and controlled serenity but then revealing pain and loneliness) claiming that they can’t live without each other gives him the opportunity to show how vulnerable and doomed his character is. Deborah Kerr, playing very much against type, is shy and awkward and again conveys a loneliness that seems to be very much prevalent in most of the characters here. Indeed, Major Pollock, having just been told by Sibyl that they know all about him and his secret, tells her that they are really much alike in as much as they are both afraid of life. She’s utterly reviled by Pollock’s guilt but totally devastated too because she was secretly in love with the old fellow. Finally, Wendy Hiller who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as the proprietress does a great job of keeping a level-headed perspective on the gossip and bigotry that affects her guest as well as coming to terms with the fact that the man she loves still loves his ex-wife. She’s without doubt the most sane person under her roof. Without giving too much away, the final scene of this film is simply perfect – at first excruciating in its uncomfortableness but then extremely moving. Bottom line, a classic drama that’s all about great writing and stellar acting. Highly recommended.

 

 

Vintage Book Review: “The Time Machine” by H.G. Wells (1895)

“The Time Machine” (1895) was written at the latter end of the Victorian age, a time during which great scientific discoveries and leaps in progress were made. The concept of time travel was most likely fueled  by the discovery of, and the advances of, electrical energy, which then would have prompted an imagining of unparalleled potential, if harnessed effectively – in this case, the potential to travel through time.

H.G. Wells was then, and is known today, as a keen science fiction author, having touched upon the subject of science fiction many times before. The Time Machine tells the tale of a keen scientist who claims, to a room full of scarcely-believing friends, that he has just returned from a journey into the distant future, where many erstwhile unbelievable things he has experienced and seen, w ho then begins to recount his adventure.

Told from a third-person perspective, the narrator is relaying the time traveler’s tale, who jump started his time machine to embark upon a distinctly uncomfortable, but incredible, journey through the fabric of space and time, to end up in the year 802, 701 AD, a time when the the “society” of Earth has become virtually unrecognizable.

The first “people” he encounters are the “Eloi”, a race of barely-human people who have evolved over time to become impossibly ethereal and delicate, both physically and mentally, the implication being that they signify the “elite” society of the contemporary age, who have evolved to a point where intellect and strong feeling are no longer conducive to their surviving. The time traveler soon forges a bond with a female Eloi called Weena, a relationship which is hinted as being potentially romantic, but the “woman” is far too childlike and simple for this  to legitimately be the case.

He observes the Eloi, and their way of life, with a relatively dispassionate, but intellectually keen, narrative voice. However before long his time machine is mysteriously stolen by a dark and primitive underground-dwelling race called the Morlocks, who abhor sunlight and have evolved from the working class of the contemporary age to become what they now are. Worse, it turns out that every so often, they emerge during the night to feed on the Eloi, who in turn live in fear of them constantly.

This could be construed quite easily as the reverse of the upper class looking down upon, and suppressing, the working class, whom they deem to be inferior and exist only to serve the elite. The sheer extent of the division between the two races of people has resulted in both evolving to become extreme examples of “predator” and “prey”, in a brutal and inevitable “return to nature”.

After one night raid, in which the forest catches fire, engulfing Weena along with many of the Eloi (as is the implication), the time traveler casts himself into his time machine, just in time, to propel himself even further into the future, almost to the “end of time”, when the Sun is dying and on Earth there is a permanent sunset/sunrise, and there is virtually no trace of recognizable life.

There is a strong influence of a “Dying Earth Subgenre”, in which the ultimate end of the world, and of civilization, would inevitably form in the minds of the more imaginative and forward-thinking people of the age. Most remarkable here is the prompting of a mental projection into a future in which civilization, and society, disappear completely, and where humanity has left little to no trace.

After marveling at the unique glimpse of the future granted to him alone, the time traveler eventually manages to return to the late nineteenth century from where he came, just a few hours before his initial departure, and in good time to tell his friends of his adventure, once more.

Perhaps it is in the very fact that the entire tale is told as a “tale within a tale”, by a listener to the time traveler’s story, which shows that his tale is not doubted at all by at least one person, so fully and intricately has he related the experience. Given that time travel is still an endeavor which humanity is striving towards in the present day, and may still remain within the realms of “science fiction”, “The Time Machine” still manages to retain the same sense of speculative possibility today – over a century into the future – as it did at the time of writing.