The Best of This Way Up

Articles, features and episode guides from the archives of This Way Up are collected together in a unique volume.

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....

The Best of This Way Up 2002-2014 - Now Available!

Tomorrow Is Now
 

The Best of This Way Up 2002 -2014

Articles, features and episode guides from the archives of the acclaimed fanzine/ blog This Way Up are collected together in a unique volume. 

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, The end of record shops and much more 

Written by Tim Worthington, Sean Alexander, OJ 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

Up-words - Withnail and Brian

Up-words features the best articles from the paper issues of This way up

WITHNAIL & BRIAN

By Tim Worthington

October 2006

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.

Never the most outgoing of performers, George Harrison had initially confined his non-Beatles movie career to 'rockumentaries' such as the celebrated The Concert For Bangla Desh, and occasionally draping his sitar sounds over arthouse efforts like the bizarre British romance/weird-out Wonderwall. By the end of the 1970s, and almost completely by chance, this nodding acquaintance with the production side of film-making had developed into a full-time serious business venture, with his production company Handmade Films eventually turning out twenty four movies that included some of the greatest British films ever made, along with a couple of the worst, and a fair amount of the downright odd. And it all came about purely because he wanted to see a film that was in danger of not being made at all.