Classic children’s Tv: The Ghosts of Motley Hall, The Feathered Serpent, Sky, Tom Grattan’s War, Richard Carpenter, Children’s and post Watch with Mother serials
Telefantasy: Strange, Firefly, Invasion Earth, Out of this World, Virtual Murder, 1990s telefantasy
Films: Alien, Handmade Films, Jaws, Duck Soup
TV: Nigel Kneale, Second Coming, Phillip Saville, The Comic Strip Presents, Lives & Loves of a She Devil, Adverts
Theatre: War Horse, The Pillowman, RUR
Miscellany: Pluto, La Machine, Anatomy of a tv advert, The end of record shops and much more
Written by Tim Worthington, Sean Alexander, Oliver Wake, David Rolinson,Matt Salusbury, John Connors
Available in print or digital version from Amazon here Tomorrow Is Now or search on Amazon for Tomorrow Is Now
Excerpts after the break....
Excerpts from Tomorrow Is Now
In February 2009, a large independent record shop in Nottingham announced that it was closing its doors and offered a stark explanation as to the reason. The usual arguments debated endlessly over
the past
few years have revolved around the
way that
music is purchased; the
assumption of the music industry being that
if a way could be found to
persuade / force people to pay for internet delivered music that would be the
answer to declining cd sales and illegal downloading. However it seems the issue has evolved; at least as far as the Nottingham retailer was concerned. They claimed that people under 25 no longer
wish to own music, regardless of whether it’s free or not.
They simply want to be able to access it which nowadays is very easy what
with 3G phones and so forth. As if the death knell for the traditional music delivery systems were
not tolling loudly enough, the arrival the same month of Spotify, a site where you
can listen free to something before deciding to buy, surely made those bells chime very loudly in every nook and
cranny of the traditional music industry. It’s now surely the world’s most un-
provable yet
certain fact
that within a decade there will be no high street music or film
retailers; can
we now
add that
nobody will
own music?
It's hardly surprising that the big-screen adventures of The Beatles have been ever so slightly overshadowed by their achievements in other fields. What
is surprising, though, is that their
cinematic careers are rarely celebrated at all. The films that they
made in the 1960s, and
A Hard Day's Night in
particular, are
way above the usual level of rush-produced cash-in 'rock movies', shot
through with
surrealist wit
and psychedelic whimsy, and
boasting performances so impressive that
even the
notoriously sniffy Halliwell's Film Guide felt
moved to
praise the acting ability of the
Fab Four. Their post-Beatles forays into
the movie business were
more of a mixed bag - ranging from Paul McCartney's strangely compelling 'stolen album' fantasy Give My Regards To Broad Street, through the weird art films John Lennon made with
Yoko Ono, to Ringo Starr's oft-forgotten spell as the star of a string of
erratically brilliant movies including 200 Motels, That'll Be The Day and The Magic Christian - but
with no small irony it was the 'Quiet One' who
had the
most significant impact on the industry.
Alien certainly made its mark. Starting out as an inverted take on John Carpenter’s cult space comedy Dark Star, Starbeast, as it was originally called, would go through a variety of
refining processes during its gestation and rebirth as Alien. Dan O’Bannon, performer and writer on the aforementioned slacker hit, began work on the script following the disharmonious end to his relationship with Dark Star director Carpenter. Inspired by stories of
World War II bombers attacked by gremlins, O’Bannon wrote the first half of a story
concerning
the hypothetical invasion by alien beings of a B-52.
At this
point a period of writer’s block resulted in the embryonic Alien temporarily grinding
to a halt - and it would take the arrival of friend and writing compatriot Ronald Shusett to capitalise on O’Bannon’s suspenseful first act. Once complete - and despite
later revisions and additions from names including director Walter Hill
and producer David Giler - O’Bannon and
Shusett’s combined two-act template
of build-up and resolution would provide the backbone
of the film’s success. And an important name-change to Alien would seal the script’s
maturation from pipedream to bona-fide screenplay.
Nostalgia, as wags are so fond of reminding us, ain't what it used to be. But sometimes it isn't what it's
going to be either. Way back in 1986, BBC Video accidentally rewrote the 'rules'
of home video (which apparently had something to do with all releases being something that
nobody would want to buy
at a price
that
nobody would be able to afford) when they put out a compilation of their ancient Watch With Mother children's shows at
a virtually unprecedented budget price. It seems nobody had quite
anticipated just how
nostalgic those who
watched the shows as children would be feeling
a couple of decades later, as the video sold out several times in the run up to Christmas, with the struggle to keep up
with demand
making national
headlines. After many years of being quietly forgotten about, Andy Pandy and his pals were back with a visibly-stringed vengeance.
Drama aimed at a younger audience is something of a different proposition to what would broadly be described as children’s programmes. The very
best of the former can still be watched
today and some
of it
is certainly well enough written and made to transcend its
intended audience and simply be called `good television drama`. In This Way
Up in the past
we have
discovered the exceptionally high quality of series like The Ghosts of Motley Hall, The Feathered Serpent and Children of the Stones but these date from the 1970s the so called golden age of
drama aimed at younger viewers. Finding a gem
of similar distinction in the late 1960s is indeed a surprise but Tom Grattan’s War is certainly the
equal of those classic
1970s and
80s series often
mentioned.
If the story of The Comic Strip Presents... starts anywhere, it starts with a very exasperated theatre manager. Early in 1979, with his
enthusiasm fired by his
discovery of standup comedy clubs on a recent visit to America, promoter Peter Rosengard set
his sights on opening a similar establishment in London. Rosengard's primary aim
was to provide an outlet for
provocative, energetic comedy that
mirrored Stateside trends, but
actually finding the requisite talent was another matter. At
first he was simply deluged with boorish dinner-jacketed club
comics peddling a tired line in sexist and racist wisecracks and
proud boasts of string of cruise liner bookings, and while some suitable performers like
Lee Cornes did emerge from the early auditions, the
opening date
for The
Comedy Store was looming close and there weren't enough acts
to fill
it. Then
one day,
a burly Northerner walked in; he'd
seen an advert that
had been
judiciously placed in the
satirical magazine Private Eye, and launched
into a volatile monologue about a violent incident in a cake
shop. Rosengard offered Alexei Sayle the compere's job
on the
spot.
A master class in script writing and studio acting, The Ghosts of Motley Hall has been hidden away in children’s television history behind the outwardly similar BBC series Rentaghost for far too long. It’s
time for
that to change though, because the ITV series is infinitely superior in every
respect. Motley Hall delights in rich language and revels in its own world of ghosts who
are only human after all;
it pivots gracefully on tiny plots weaving them brilliantly into 25 minutes of character interaction and fun.
Where Rentaghost goes for
the cheap panto laugh and slapstick every time, Motley Hall will delight you with wit, energy
and even drama. It’s
a shame that it hasn’t been acknowledged because at
the time the series was
incredibly popular, being nominated for a BAFTA award and twice
winning “junior TV
Times” `Look In`s
readers award for
favourite series. Perhaps with all the episodes now available on DVD this will change and the true worth of the show
will be recognised.
There are many reasons why a television series may languish in obscurity, perhaps the
primary
one being that it simply does not merit any
interest. However, this is not the case with ABC’s 1962 anthology Out of this World, which suffers due to two factors independent of the programme itself. Only one
episode
is known to exist, leaving
little scope for
re-evaluation, and the series has long been
overshadowed by its celebrated longer-running BBC cousin Out of the Unknown. Yet, the briefest perusal of even the most cursory of episode guides suggests that Out of this World is not just worthy of
attention as a curiosity, but as an
original and successful series in its own right.
There is of course absolutely no proof that anyone in 2001 said `Let’s do a show that combines the gravitas
of The X Files and the monsters of Buffy headed up by a character not unlike a certain Time Lord` but that’s really the sort of hybrid Strange appears to be at first sight. Closer inspection though reveals it
to be a much more sophisticated show than simply
being an amalgam of other successes. It has a craftsman’s touch lacking in its
early 2000s
contemporaries and a potentially enormous storytelling canvas located at the point where
magic, science and religion clash, a heady area indeed. Only seven episodes were made – a pilot and one six part series- and they seem
slightly cautious and at first restricted by the locale
but by the end of the series
you can easily imagine that expanding. Strange was never
going to be a ratings busting family show but scheduled properly – it occupied a Saturday
night schedule that ill- suited its
brooding mood
- and given the opportunity to build on its
foundations, it could have been memorable. For those who appreciate it’s richness it has been frustrating to watch the likes of Torchwood and Primeval struggle to find storylines of substance and mystery to match their slick visual motifs and high concepts. Strange strove to be something different, something unique and it nearly achieves it.
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