igenlode | Entries tagged with bbc

Took the eiderdown off my bed and put it away for the year, a rather rash procedure prompted by a series of nightmares (usually a sign that my sleeping temperatures are too high). Also a non-trivial one that requires quite a lot of furniture-shifting in order for me to be able to pull the bed out far enough past the chest of drawers and the radiator so that I can access the storage underneath, so it's not a choice that is reversible at a whim. But I have been sleeping for some time with the eiderdown thrown back so that it only covers my feet, and that is obviously still too much.

I have taken one of the blankets off for good measure, as I found myself sweating while trying to remake the bed -- the sun has come round far enough to heat my room in the afternoons now, and the temperature in there after dark with the window open was still on its way up towards seventy :-O
But I haven't put the blanket away, so I can retrieve that easily if necessary.

( Sweet peas )

Marie Antoinette has managed to pull off its usual trick of giving even the most unsympathetic characters moments of humanity, which is one of the things that is so good about it; ( Read more... )

"Waiting for the Out" finished on a high with two unexpected yet earned and credible happy-outcome twists: a series strongly recommended.

( Marie Antoinette )

Kit Bellew is now firmly launched (although not yet rechristened 'Smok') on his Yukon adventure in "Smok and Malish" -- though I'm afraid that, as with the Soviet "Twenty Years After", after an initially hopeful start I was able to pick up rather less of the plot in what followed, despite the fact that large chunks of this section are completely dialogue-free, and indeed shot in what amounts to fluid silent-film storytelling technique...( Read more... )
As I said, this section consists of a lot of what are effectively silent film sequences with the occasional 'title card' snatch of dialogue, so Smekhov's expressive face is used to convey a lot of his character's thoughts and decision-making, to my benefit; it was the actual conversations I had trouble with!

I was somewhat shocked to gather from the podcast that the composers for "Ali-Baba" apparently didn't get paid for their work; they were classified on the record sleeve as 'dilettanti' ('amateurs'?) due to not being members of the official Composers' Guild, and thus the mere glory of getting their work published and distributed was presumably supposed to be enough! (Smekhov, likewise classified, presumably didn't get paid either due to not being an officially sanctioned 'writer'... but then the project was his idea in the first place. They were just doing the music in their spare time as a favour.)

I am now several chapters into the Russian version of "The Three Musketeers" as bed-time entertainment( Read more... )

I wrote a long post, but the browser crashed while I was looking for images :-(

Summarised version:

( BBC Radio Lord of the Rings )
Waiting for the Out: continues very good -- Guardian review

( Marie Antoinette )

And also *two* Russian Smekhov-adjacent serials: an in-depth nine-part podcast on the 'musical spectacular' "Ali-Baba" (which I had vaguely heard of but hadn't realised he actually wrote all the lyrics for -- apparently it was another beloved Soviet children's classic, at least according to the possibly-not-impartial makers of the podcast!) and a pre-Musketeers adventure serial that was referred to in several recent interviews, "Smok and Malish", in which he plays the lead. Again, I had vaguely heard of this: it is clearly the prior production briefly alluded to in "When I Was Athos" which had involved falling off roofs, out of canoes, and into snowdrifts :-D
( Read more... )

I don't know -- I'm beginning to feel that *maybe* I've crossed some sort of threshold since Christmas, and that I'm actually starting to understand Russian freely at last...? ( Improved listening comprehension )

( Fast-talking historian )

I found the missing new season of Marie Antoinette on the BBC catch-up service (with five months left to run); unfortunately it looks as though this season is based around the same events as Antal Szerb's The Queen's Necklace, which I have literally just finished reading. So whereas the first series benefited from the fact that I knew very little about events at the French court at that end of Marie Antoinette's life and had no idea which characters were going to be significant, how events would turn out for the protagonists, or what to hope for, in this case I'm immediately recognising the whole set-up with foreknowledge of how it is going to end in advance. The annoying thing being that I knew nothing about the entire necklace affair (vaguely associating it with Anne of Austria and the Duke of Buckingham) until this week, and indeed would have avoided reading the book if I'd had any idea the TV series was going to re-emerge...

I took a look at the new Saturday night drama on BBC1, "Waiting for the Out", and was immediately drawn in; apparently it was actually the second episode, but to be honest I don't think I'd have guessed that! ( Read more... )
I hadn't realised that this was another 'prison drama', after the also excellent "Screw", about women prison officers -- I wonder if it was filmed using the same decommissioned prison, as the setting looked very familiar! The story-telling was nicely done, but above all it quickly made me care about the characters, which is where the last few TV shows that I looked at failed from the offset. (King and Conqueror did engage me with the characters, but all too often I was struggling to really swallow the depiction of them...)

Also, apparently Marie Antoinette, for which I have been waiting forever with decreasing expectations, *did* eventually get a second season three years later, but it slipped out back in May so quietly that I completely missed it :-(

I tried watching the BBC's new "The War Between the Land and the Sea", which was being put into the Saturday-evening slot. Unfortunately I really struggled to understand what was going on.

( If I am going to struggle, I should prefer it to be with Russian )
Sorry, Russell T. Davies, but you had one chance to fix my interest, and you didn't make it. (Which, by an ironic coincidence, was more or less what Boyarsky was saying about his own experience of recent film releases in that school-interview :-p)

It is so jolly cold that I am back to using a bungee cord on the bookcase (hooked around The Collins Book of Best-Loved Verse, which is conveniently slender but rigid) in an attempt to keep the bathroom door shut, given that the bathroom window lives *open*...)

On the other hand I have managed to complete my third chapter, and just need to write the final epilogue snippet, for which I have some ideas bubbling away -- though I'm not quite sure how I'm going to actually end it, plus I need to check some dates on French foreign policy first :-)

I am still listening to the BBC Lord of the Rings( Read more... )

Catching up with the hideous backlog of washing-up with the aid of my pocket Walkman and Episode 1 of Brian Sibley's masterly 1981 radio adaptation of "The Lord of the Rings" for BBC Radio. Even now the music is instantly evocative...

Watch on YouTube

I have been watching the BBC's new drama about King Harold and William of Normandy, which to be honest is making me more and more inclined to go and read Georgette Heyer's "The Conqueror" instead (almost certainly, given Heyer's fanatical research ethic, more historically accurate, and easier to empathize with the characters as well).
Whoever did the adaptation on this one obviously had the brief to emphasise as many significant roles for women as possible, but at least it is done plausibly, with women depicted as canny diplomatic advisers or powers behind the throne, rather than being weapons-wielding warriors. King Edward's mother, Emma of Normandy --I'm *assuming* that connection between the realms is historically accurate, because I've never heard of her-- is basically the villain for the first half of the run, until Edward finally snaps and batters her to death with the crown of England (yes, it's that sort of show). Hard to imagine Edward the Confessor murdering anyone, but the scene makes it seem plausible in context.

Gore is definitely a defining factor, and I get the impression a lot of effort has been put into the fight choreography. The sets and buildings -- maybe not so much. ( Read more... )
My favourite character is currently the elegant and slippery Count Baldwin of Flanders, William's completely untrustworthy father-in-law (who actually does fit my memories of Heyer, so is probably drawn from historical record!)

Not a great show, but not sufficiently actively annoying to cause me to stop following it...

I finished watching The prisoner of the Chateau d'If, and did finally feel something (and there were a couple of songs that I actually liked, though I'm not sure why there were any songs in it at all, as this isn't a musical and there were only a handful of random songs at wide intervals throughout). The reason why there seemed to be "an awful lot of plot to be covered in the final episode" turns out to be that it is much longer than the other two, which are about 65 minutes each while this one runs about ninety minutes...

Even so it still seems quite rushed, and I don't see the point of including such characters as Valentine de Villefort and Maximilian Morrel when the subplot involving them has been entirely removed (also an issue, as I recall, with the Robert Donat version!) I was able to follow more of what was going on in this episode thanks mainly to my familiarity with the original plot, although where departures from this took place I was quickly confused. ( Read more... )

( Soviet Musketeers music )

I watched the first episode of the BBC's new drama "This City is Ours", mainly because it *was* the first episode and I often miss the beginnings of things and then have no interest in watching the remainder. But I shan't be bothering with any further episodes, I'm afraid. ( Read more... )

The second half/series of Sous le Signe des Mousquetaires was actually very intriguing as a set-up, because since they had (like the BBC "Musketeers") abandoned canon and were apparently writing their own material using the established characters and setting, pretty much anything was up for grabs and you couldn't tell which way the story was going to come out. ( Read more... )
At least d'Artagnan has finally confessed to lying to his friends about Milady's supposed death (although Athos nobly points out that, having, as I had suspected, guessed the truth some time previously, the fault was as much his in not speaking out earlier; even though he doesn't share the background of Dumas' character, this animated version of Athos is actually one of the few who looks and feels 'right' to me)

YouTube decided to show me (presumably due to my having watched the entirety of the first one) a whole series of fan-vids on the BBC "Musketeers" -- which apparently I never actually wrote about here, despite having watched it diligently throughout its run[s], and in fact named one of my Raouls in tribute to a character whose arc I particularly enjoyed!

I had forgotten just how *intelligent* that show was( Read more... )

Of course the fan-vids didn't go into any of that beyond the action sequences and the one-liners :-p
But YouTube proceeded in consequence to recommend me a 'review' of the various different screen versions of "The Three Musketeers" by someone who started off his upload with a scathing plot summary of the original story, saying how much he disliked the characters, accusing them of murder (for duelling) and rape and elitist behaviour, and generally demanding that a 19th-century novelist writing about the seventeenth century should adhere to the tenets of his 21st-century Internet-advocated ideology.( Read more... )

My immediate reaction was a strong desire to reread the novel in the original French, of which I own a copy! But I ended up by remembering that I had once been halfway through the animated series which was recommended to me by

Violonaire as a childhood favourite, Sous Le Signe des Mousquetaires, a.k.a 'the one where Milady has green hair and Aramis is a girl' ;-)
( Read more... )

Conclusion of the radio series "Growing Solo": one former BBC journalist spends a year living on only what he can grow on his smallholding in Somerset -- and discovers that what really grows best in Somerset is grass, which is why the county is historically known for its cheese production!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001yhhz/episodes/player

"In many ways this project is a protest; a hunger strike..." https://wickedleeks.riverford.co.uk/opinion/my-year-of-100-per-cent-self-sufficiency/

Edit: apparently he also has a small YouTube channel, and the material broadcast on Radio 4 consists of clips edited down from these longer episodes (with pictures!)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm3CUjP4CBkfFiMyM3FmFjJITVsE-MlCQ

Quick TV roundup: the ending of "A Good Girl's Guide to Murder" didn't live up to the promise of the other episodes, alas. ( Read more... )
And as I suspected they did try to pair off Pip and Ravi in the final reel, and as it turned out it didn't work for me at all. I don't know if the result was any less toe-curling in the original novel (or if it didn't take place at all in the original novel, and was just the producers trying to tie off loose ends!), but Pip simply does not come across as emotionally adult enough to start nursing a romantic interest in anyone, and the enormous height difference between the two characters doesn't help either. The dynamic between them is big brother/younger sister, which makes kissing both unconvincing and unattractive :-(

On the other hand "Piglets" was pretty successful despite my having missed most of the start, although if this week's episode was really the final one it seemed a bit inconclusive. (None of the plot strands were really cleared up except the one about who was going to be the new Chief Superintendent, which was neatly resolved by bringing the old one back over the head of both warring candidates!) With hindsight the programme is very much the modern equivalent of "Carry On Constable", with a similar mix of visual/verbal/character-based humour; the inept Superintendent Bob is least successful for me, because I never did find incompetence entertaining, but on the other hand the clueless trainee Huggins who always takes everything literally is often very funny, so I'm not sure where the distinction is. I suspect it is that Huggins often manages to succeed unexpectedly, whereas Bob just fails...

Another 'season' (well, two episodes) of "Vienna Blood" appeared unexpectedly and I managed to catch it quite by coincidence; the BBC seems to keep it very quiet :( ( Read more... )

( Fic progress )

A tale of two thrillers: a lot of new series seem to be starting on TV at the moment, and due to the BBC playing around with the usual schedules thanks to Wimbledon/football I found myself watching the first episodes of two thrillers that turned out to share a surprising number of tropes in common -- "Jetty", and "A Good Girl's Guide to Murder", which I'm pretty sure I've seen on the second-hand book shelves in a pink chick-lit cover without being inspired from the blurb to read it. ( Read more... )

( Retuning ITV )

I accidentally triggered the 'Auto Retune' feature on my no-longer-new digital TV set (bought as a result of the forced digital TV changeover) as a result of trying to change channels and inputs without using the remote controller,( Read more... )A desperate third effort (the definition of madness, repeatedly trying the same thing in the hopes of achieving a different result) finally restored what appeared to be the full spectrum of TV coverage, just ten minutes before the end of the programme I had originally been intending to watch on BBC2. I think it's all back now, at least the useful bits, though digital TV reception without a roof aerial has never been great around here. Luckily it wasn't a programme I was particularly invested in, but just a comedy that sounded potentially mildly interesting.

I did enjoy the third series of the Bristol-set "The Outlaws" -- possibly not quite as good as the initial one, as the plotline is getting a bit strained, but it manages to score with me, as ever, by including moments of genuine warmth and feeling for its characters as well as poking fun at them or putting them into humiliating situations for a laugh. ( Read more... )

I accidentally ran across another 'Missing Hancock' episode on the radio this evening: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000cp2n

I remember stumbling across one of these before; they are very well done, so much so that I really couldn't have told that it wasn't the original cast, and -- as I remembered -- a *great* deal funnier than the later TV series. Less self-indulgent (or rather Hancock-indulgent) I think, being much more of a team effort, and of course it's simply much more my type of humour, revolving around wordplay rather than cringe-making humiliations. Here I actually laughed out loud a couple of times at the clever script, and generally enjoyed myself.

Nice to know at least that I wasn't imagining that I did indeed find Hancock funny in the past...

I think my dill and my chilli seeds possibly actually are germinating now, which proves that all the other things that germinated before them simply are weeds in the same pot (poppies and corn-marigolds mostly), deploying the age-old weed strategy of 'germinate first and grow fastest' ;-)
(There's a reason why 'grow like a weed' is proverbial...)

To my surprise I also have a shoot splitting the dead topknot on one of the narcissus bulbs, in addition to the existing side-shoots that all the others have been doing. But I'm increasingly worried that my bonsai birch may have failed to survive the frosts earlier this year, as the nice plump dormant buds that developed after its pruning are now looking increasingly brown and withered rather than promising to unfurl; it is still rather early for silver birch, but some of the smaller branches are starting to look dead under the bark as well. We shall see.

( Marie Antoinette )

( Better )

It's looking as if[†] they are going to go through Marie Antoinette's entire life, rather than just creating a 'teen couple try to make arranged marriage work' drama... which means that this could get a good deal darker than I was expecting :-( The show was up to the stated year 1780 already at the start of this episode, and we have to be then at least a year or two later by the end of it, which is getting into 'dangerous' territory. We already had ironic hints this week about how "you too will grow old and ill, Sire"; as we know, he very notoriously won't...!( Read more... )

I very nearly didn't watch the BBC's new show Marie Antoinette, partly because I had it vaguely confused with the French production "Versailles", which I had gathered was something along the lines of "The Tudors" ("Louis the Phwoarteenth"), and partly because I'd seen someone enthusing over it based on 'it has two women kissing', which did not seem like an adequate basis for endorsement. (Spoilers: it *does* have two women kissing, but via the "I'll teach you how to get your man" trope -- I suspect there was a trailer shot in circulation with a certain amount of deliberate misrepresentation.)

Anyway, I did watch the first episode, and found it enjoyable, and have gone on to watch the rest so far. ( Read more... )

It's a bit damning when Michael Palin's non-fiction "Around the World in Eighty Days" challenge is proving to be closer to the spirit of the original and more watchable than the BBC's fancy new drama :-(

And the dispiriting thing is that the latter *could* have worked, even with all the revisionism and re-casting; there are moments in every episode when you can see the ghost of what might have been, despite the fact that it has practically nothing to do with the original plot. ( Read more... )

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Igenlode Wordsmith

Entries tagged with bbc

Heating up

Series

Serials

The Queen's Necklace

Waiting for the Out

The War Between the Land and the Sea

(no subject)

BBC Lord of the Rings (1981)

King & Conqueror

Screen update

The Three Musketeers

Growing Solo

TV conclusions

More TV

Digital TV

Missing Hancock

Plants and TV

"Marie Antoinette"

Marie Antoinette

Around the World in Eighty Days