This Was Also Fun, Tonight...

 

Anniversary Dr Who, Coming Soon...

 

Sadly, Fred Seems Unavoidable Today

The song is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5XX9LX2es4

"Right, " said Fred, "Both of us together
One each end and steady as we go."
Tried to shift it, couldn't even lift it
We was getting nowhere
And so we had a cuppa tea and

"Right, " said Fred, "Give a shout for Charlie."
Up comes Charlie from the floor below
After strainin', heavin' and complainin'
We was getting nowhere
And so we had a cuppa tea

And Charlie had a think, and he thought we ought to take off all the handles
And the things wot held the candles
But it did no good, well I never thought it would

"All right, " said Fred, "Have to take the feet off
To get them feet off wouldn't take a mo"
Took its feet off, even took the seat off
Should have got us somewhere but no!
So Fred said, "Let's have another cuppa tea"
And we said, "right-o."

"Alright, " said Fred, "Have to take the door off
Need more space to shift the so-and-so."
Had bad twinges taking off the hinges
And it got us nowhere
And so we had a cuppa tea and

"Right, " said Fred, "Have to take the wall down
That there wall is gonna have to go."
Took the wall down, even with it all down
We was getting nowhere
And so we had a cuppa tea

And Charlie had a think, and he said, "Look, Fred
I've got a sort of feelin'
If we remove the ceiling
With a rope or two we could drop the blighter through."

"All right, " said Fred, climbing up a ladder
With his crowbar gave a mighty blow
Was he in trouble, half a ton of rubble landed on the top of his dome
So Charlie and me had another cuppa tea
And then we went home

I said to Charlie, "We'll just have to leave it
Standing on the landing, that's all
You see the trouble with Fred is, he's too hasty
You'll never get nowhere if you're too hasty."

Bernard Cribbins, RIP

 Russel T Davies on Bernard Cribbins.

Dracula Who

So last night the BBC gave us a seasonal (New year) Dr Who and a reworking of Dracula by Gatiss and Moffat.  The Guardian liked the second more than the first (reviews by Stuart Jeffries and Lucy Mangan respectively).  I disagreed, and wrote this in the comments section...

Having watched the seasonal Dr Who earlier (so good! reminded me of Voyage of the Damned with its playful use of other genres, National treasures (Kylie, then), quirky costumes, dialogue and sheer randomness - and a crashing large piece of transport to end with!) - and also, having had a proper odd nun earlier in the day when we half-watched The Sound of Music - this Dracula felt somewhat flat. For me, Mangan and Jeffries got their stars mixed up in their reviews.

The Dracula was a fair three-starrer, improved somewhat by the sheer uncaring, scientific attitude taken by Claes Bang as Dracula, to the question of Death.

But there were so many holes.

If the Count is hundreds of years old, because he is 'different' from other blood-suckers, how come he's only just now got around to running experiments? Especially as he's about to move house? Surely he'd wait until he gets to Whitby?

And why couldn't he just research the same sources the off nun used?

Also, since Harker himself had already asked the question about the captive female vampire knowing English, why didn't he understand the weird nun's question when she also raised it much later?

Because, perhaps, for all that it gestured towards a more rigorous, 'logical' working out of the story (the flies, for example), it massively and annoyingly prioritised glossy style over substance. The glamour that normally belongs to the Count was given over to the script. Smart lines and in-jokes took precedence over the workings of the plot. It grated. Frustrating.

By comparison, the Dr Who was proper entertaining. Whittaker has grown into being a far more believable Doctor than Capaldi or Smith, and loads better than C. Baker, McCoy and Pertwee amongst the older bunch. Chibnal's writing is beginning to lose its Coronation Street-isms, and was always better than Moffat's unneeded complexities. And while Dracula was something of a tonal mess, the Doctor's New Year's Day romp was consistently, and lightly, balanced on a joyful knife-edge of daftness.

As others have noted, the odd nun was the best bit of this muddled show. Mostly because she offered a tonal balance. A small escape from the clumsy shenanigans at the Castle (hasn't Harker heard of drawing a map??? He was given pens and paper by the awkward script). But the Wells/Bang face-off by the nunnery gates went on far, far too long. Gatiss needs a far more robust editor. Naked, greased man, nuns, fur joke. Done. OK. But line after line after line of ponderous dialogue could have been cut and the whole thing would have been tighter and tauter.

I could see they were going for a sub-Hammer vibe, but although those old films may seem slow and ponderous today, they were modest masterpieces in speedy storytelling in their time. This new version seems to have copied that apparent slowness to modern sensibilities, without understanding how they refreshed the film culture of the day. Perhaps surprising given Gatiss's avowed/claimed expertise in the area.

So what are we left with? Some good performances from the main players, despite the script (and Morfydd Clark did well with Mina, despite the part being desperately underwritten). A piece that showcased the worst habits of Moffat and Gatiss, with unneeded logical holes and a focus on style over sense. A cliff-hanger following a blatant rip-off from Silence of the Lambs, which is only of vague interest because the odd nun is the only character we even partly care about.

By comparison, the Doctor Who was a joy, unlike Dracula using its genre source material with far more brio and panache, (and in passing, let's have a shout-out for the BBC wardrobe department's brilliant fusion of the WhittakerDoctor's trews with black tie).

So what do we have from the last few weeks?

His Dark Materials - a real success. The best filmed version of a tricky book so far.
War of the Worlds - a miss, overall, but the first episode was terrific.
Dracula - something of a mess. The BBC needs to give Gatiss/Moffat a rest to regenerate.

Just my two-penn'orth you understand....

Spacecraft

There are a lot of iconic spacecraft. 

The Starship 'Enterprise' and the ''Millennium Falcon'.

The Pan-Am 'Orion' and 'Discovery One' from 2001. 

'Red Dwarf' and the 'Liberator'.

'Nostromo'.

Probably the TARDIS counts too.


But this is, I think, my favourite.

Reserve

We won't be commenting upon the Dr Who 50th until we've seen it at least twice more..

Dates

This weekend appears to be the time of anniversaries.
CS Lewis, Huxley, Britten, JFK and Doctor Who.
Chener bookshop window is full of Lewis and the Doctor.
JFK specials on the BBC and in the Guardian.
Britten on R3.
Play about Lewis & Tolkien on R4 (not actually that good).
And wall-to-wall Who.  Documentaries (lovely to see Troughton again - our Doctor), minisode, clips, essays, articles, teasers, even a Dr Who Celebrity Pointless.

The main event starts in under half an hour...

Gaiman Live

On the Execrable Saturday Live this morning, Neil Gaiman as studio guest and the man who played the chief Yeti in the recently recovered tapes.  So they say.

I may have to stop hating it.

Crossing Over

We seem to be living in the era of crossover casting.  So while Mr Olivander (John Hurt) has become the next (not-quite?) Doctor Who for the upcoming fiftieth anniversary edition, Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch), after putting in a brief performance as Smaug, crops up in the new Star Trek.  Where the first person we see him meet is Mickey (Noel Clarke), one of the Doctor's old companions.  And let's not forget that Spock used to be Sylar while Scotty was Reepicheep and The Editor (a Dr Who villain) amongst many others...

Meh

This is meant to be a great, celebratory year for Dr Who.  Fifty years since the first broadcast in 1963 of 'An Unearthly Child'.

On November the 23rd, to be precise, a day after the assassination of JFK and the deaths of Aldous Huxley and CS Lewis.

So this should be a great series, with lots of opportunity for tongue in cheek jokes and echoes from previous stories. 

There has been some of that, but after three episodes it all feels a bit...

Meh.

Even last week's 'let's explore the Tardis' show - although better than the first two episodes - wasn't that great, and there were (arguably) continuity issues. 

Oh well, we can only hope for better later.

The Big Bang Visitor Experience Theory

I suppose it's true to say that over the last two years I've become a little addicted to The Big Bang Theory.  I've become a fan.

At its simplest, part of the attraction arises from the fact that most of the leads are physics or engineering geeks.  Or uber geeks. Sheldon et al have huge IQs and problematic social skills.  And you can't help loving them.

It is great that the main characters are interested in string theory, anisotropic universes and astronautics.  They love tech, and they are also into Stars Wars and Trek, Dr Who, comics, costumes and conventions. And they are surrounded by a bunch of other clever scientist people (and Penny).

Of course, as well as all the nerdy stuff, the other half of the show is admittedly more traditional - it's about relationships and love and stuff, and just how metrosexual is Raj? But it does all seem to fit together; we like watching these gawky individuals navigate a world full of other people.  The main characters are outlandish, at various places on the spectrum (of clever-idiocy, if nothing else), but likeable.

But mostly I think I like it because physics is in some way at its heart.

However, thinking about the show recently I realised that it has a significant weakness, and an obvious one.  The gang are keen on costumes and media SF, but they don't appear to read fiction.  They don't talk about Pterry, or China or Iain or Robert A.  When they argue over Star Trek or Babylon 5 they don't say a word about the writers.  Never a mention of The City on the Edge of Forever.  They appear to hold no opinion about Dean R Koontz. 

This may be partly because they still have an audience to connect to - there have to be points of contact which aren't too obscure.  Which is why they talk about Batman and the Flash rather than Rorschach or Dr Manhattan.   But the chief reason is more obvious. 

It's because it's on the telly.

Some time back, a fashion started amongst museums and galleries and their ilk to become more open to the public.  To let us 'behind the scenes' to see what they did with our money, and why they ought to be cherished. 

This resulted in lots of new buildings being designed and built to allow this to happen, and the signature element of many of these new ventures was the glass wall.  Physically transparent, it served as the thinnest possible membrane between the public and the behind-the-scenes experts who researched, conserved and curated the displays.  The Darwin Centre is an obvious example in London, but there are many others.

London Zoo caught this fever too.  I recall going to the newly Biodiversity Centre a few years ago, just after it opened.  An attractive, multi-level triangular building towards the southern corner of the site.  And yes, there were these huge glass walls opening on the keepers' offices, so we could see what they did at work.

I only once, ever, saw anyone doing anything in those rooms.

He was reading a book.

Doubtless a worthy and interesting book, about ants or cephalopods or the care and feeding of giraffes, but it didn't make a compelling visual feast.  There was no crowd of happy visitors clustered around the glass wall, watching him turn the pages.

It just wasn't good telly.

And that, I suspect, is ultimately why Sheldon, Leonard, Howard and Raj don't read SF, don't ever compare notes on the Culture or Discworld or Lundun.  Visually, it just ain't got it.  That is why they'll buy a George Pal Time Machine at auction, but never discuss Wells' original novella.

Having all four of them dress as the Flash is just so much funnier.  But that don't make it true.

Doctor Crossword 2013

Not only does November 2013 mark the 60th Anniversary of the first Dr Who, but this year it is 100 years since the first crossword.  See Paul's Web site for more info...

Who and Who Two

I rarely look at the number of pageviews generated by the Treees (he lied), but I did notice with some surprise a renewed interest in a rather dry post from 2009 on Rosencrantz and Guildernstern - and other stuff. 

How strange...

Between Olympics

Well, not quite.  The Paralympics have in fact started.  But I started this post in the hiatus between the two Games, and I'm not changing the title now.  So:

As I sit here between Olympics, and with the godawful ticketing system still not working properly, and not likely to let us get to see any Paralympic competitions up close in the near future, if at all, it seems a good time, as they say on Thought for Today, to pause and reflect.

We always expected the Olympics to be far, far better, and more worthwhile, than the benighted Jubilee - and they didn't disappoint.  We were on Dartmoor, on holiday, during the Opening Ceremony, which meant we got to watch it on a huge plasma TV.  Which was nice.

As every commentator - well most commentators - have said, it was astonishingly good. 

I have to admit, when I first heard about the bucolic idyll that was being planned, a fantasy English countryside, my heart sank. But even that was enlivened by the rippling blue cloth that covered the stands and allowed us to see the idyll as 'sea-girt'.

And then we tore it all up in the Steam-driven Pandemonium of the Industrial Revolution, led by  Sir Kenneth Branagh as Caliban (a theme for all four ceremonies it seems) - cum - Brunel.  Echoes of Blake and Milton. 

Followed by (in random order):-
- NHS nurses (a great invention from 1948)
- Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti.
- Suffragettes
- Voldemort from Harry Potter,  Rowling and Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang, and Mary Poppins (all representing children's literature?  But no Blyton I could see, nor Ahlberg, nor Kerr). And that section did  cause our 15-y-o to comment along the lines that the good socialist message of the NHS was undermined by the children in beds having to be saved by the privatised care of Mary Poppins...
- Beckham on a speedboat looking terribly stylish, and fireworks on Tower Bridge as it opened to let his ego through...
- The Swinging Sixties and psychedelia
- The Stunt Queen: so much more approachable than the one we have...
- The noise of the Tardis in the middle of another Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody...  (but why?)
- Rowan Atkinson & Simon Rattle in Chariots of Fire
A section on media (ish), introduced by the pips, Radio 4 and the Archers, leading to a house full of film and TV clips -  while decades of our pop and rock played...
- Python and Fawlty Towers, (let's ignore Eric Idle in the Closing Ceremony for the moment)
- A Matter of Life and Death
- Kes
- Gregory's Girl
- Bagpuss
- Queen Who Stones  Beatles
- Madness 
- Mud
- Jetpacks and Tim Berners-Lee
But sadly no Thunderbirds or HHGTTG or Fast Show that I noticed...

All really good fun.  But it did make me realise that we here at TANH appear to have been writing about the London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony in half of our postings, without really knowing what we were doing...  It's like we were revising for it.

So is that it?  Do we have to stop writing about all that stuff now?

Hitching in Bromley

As I've mentioned before, I first heard the first Hitchhiker when it was first broadcast on the radio, back in 1978. 

And, old fart that I am, I still believe that first radio series was the best, and that the TV wasn't as interesting. Notoriously, and obviously, the pictures weren't as good on telly - but also they messed around with the plot and to my mind simplified it.  And the books (which came in between) were the source for the TV version and shared many of the weaknesses of those shows.

Although, I know, lots of people liked the cartoon versions of the book on TV (and they were cartoons, not digital, back then), and DNA (Douglas Adams) liked the fact that in the books he could add back in a few lines that he'd written but which hadn't made it to the final broadcast on the radio, and he could also lose some John Lloyd-isms.  So in that sense it was purer Adams - but for me at least it wasn't purer Hitchhiker.

I also heartily disliked the Book at Bedtime version of the Eoin Colfer continuation.  And of course the most recent film was vile, despite being based on an Adams' script.

So I'm a bit fussy on this subject.

However, how could I resist an advert for "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Radio Show... Live!" at the Churchill theatre in Bromley.  It had many of the original radio cast - that is:

Simon Jones as Arthur Dent
Geoffrey Mcgivern as Ford Prefect
Susan Sheridan as Trillian
Mark Wing-Davey as Zaphod Beeblebrox
and the voice of Stephen Moore as Marvin The Paranoid Android.

Each night the Book would be played by a different guest star.  Like I said, how could I resist, even though there was typical confusion regarding the script to be followed (ie, it seemed to be the original radio series but the teaser video talks of it being based on the novels).

What a strange experience.  A live band - who were quite good - with a light show. At one point they switched to playing the Dr Who theme music - which was allowed, I suppose as Adams did act as script editor for a while and wrote some episodes.  A comfy chair for the Book (we had Andrew Sachs - Manuel to some of you) towards the right rear of the stage, a series of microsphones for the stars to perform the Radio show, and a live version of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.  In other words a couple of chaps doing the special effects on stage as the action developed.  And very good they were too - I especially liked their renditions of the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster and the falling (and landing) Whale.

The show really began when these two grey-haired old blokes tuned up. 

Years ago we used to watch Live & Kicking on BBC on Saturday mornings with our (then) young sons, and I can remember Andi Peters and Emma Forbes beginning one show sitting with a very old, grey-haired, rumpled-looking man on the sofa.  Quite unpreposessing.  Andi explained to the kids that he was amazing, and that their parents would know who this man was as soon as he opened his mouth and said something.  Which he promptly did.  He said 'Good morning children,' or something like that, and not only was it immediately clear that he was Oliver Postgate, but I was transported back to Ivor the Engine and Noggin and Pogles and so forth.

Something very similar happened last night in Bromley.  The two grey-haired blokes started talking and it was immediately obvious that they were Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect.  Their voices were unchanged,  I shut my eyes and it felt like the radio a long time ago.  It was only at that point that I realised one of the old blokes was wearing a dressing gown. 

And it worked.  Finally a new version of H2G2 that I could warm to. 

The first half was a cut down verion of the first four Fits, slightly altered and edited (and with some stuff from the books, but not too intrusive).  the second half was a rather messy selection of good bits from the rest of the stories in a pretty arbitrary order.  Which they recognised ('Arthur according to our records you seem to be missing several chapters from your life').

Toby Longworth was good as Slartibartfast, and the Vogons worked, too.

And Marvin was wonderful.  A puppet Marvin, with an operator in black, based on old bits of radio and a tape recorder - with Stephen Moore doing the voice, what's not to love.  Not the horrible Marvins from the TV and film, this one fitted in and worked!

OK, so they changed the name of the worst poet in the Universe for the obvious reason, I assume, and they referred to the 'Big Bang Burger Chef' rather than 'Bar', losing some of the aliteration to no discernible benefit.  And Sachs struggled with the script occasionally (some reviews on the Web suggest that other Books were more into the Guide and did better).

But other innovations worked well.  For example the extended scene with an increasingly frustrated Arthur trying to get a cup of tea out of a nutrimatic drink dispenser.  And failing.  And then the nutrimatic machine leading the audience in community singing - of "Share and Enjoy".  The Crikkit song and Marvin's song also stood up - just about.

Mostly however what made the show was these weird old people, who for some obscure reason had these remembered and much-loved voices from over thirty years ago, and were happily sharing them with us.

It could have been some kind of rock-show retrospective - like how John Cleese described performing the Parrot Sketch on tour (first silence, and then applause (but few laughs)).  But it didn't feel like that at all, and the audience laughed at many of the jokes (as well as mouthing them along with the performers).

Ah, the audience.  You would expect a fair number of grey haired old fogies out there as well.  And there were certainly some - with towels, and '42' and 'Don't talk to me about life' tee shirts, and dressing gowns.  But gratifyingly, there seemed to be quite a lot of people of all ages there and enjoying themselves, including some quite young children.

Anyway - I was won over.  Finally.  By Hitchhiker (sort of) away from the radio.

Here is the teaser from Youtube.

Frozen Angel, Nunhead Cemetry

Moffat Writes Sexist Sherlock?

The Guardian Web thing has a rather fun article on the most recent Sherlock episode, the Moffat re-imagining of A Scandal In Bohemia.  Jane Clare Jones argues that Moffat mishandles his woman characters and it shows particularly here.  "While Conan Doyle's original is hardly an exemplar of gender evolution, you've got to worry when a woman comes off worse in 2012 than in 1891."
Recommended.

2011

As is usual with the Reviews in the Trees, personal stuff is mostly left out, so losses, achievements and events amongst family and friends will not appear here.  Also, this quick-and-dirty retrospective cannot equal Charlie Brooker's  magisterial review of last year just shown on TV.

I began the year reading the excellent Bill Bryson book on Shakespeare. This is very good not least because he tries hard not to put in any speculation that isn’t rigorously supported by the historical record. Hence, also, a rarity.

Three other books I enjoyed were

• Graven with Diamonds by Nicola Shulman - about Sir Thomas Wyatt, his poetry, and mostly about his love lyrics. Although the core argument, that these had been neglected in the past, doesn’t really hold water, it was good to see a big bold book about Wyatt be favourably reviewed.
• The Idea of Justice by Amartya Sen. He is very good on democracy as a complex set of attitudes and processes, not just an opportunity every few years to vote for one’s leader(s).
• The Disappearing Spoon: and Other True Tales of Madness, Love and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean.  I wasn't totally won over by how this book is organised, but the sories were good.

Three exhibitions were:

• The Steve Bell retrospective at the Cartoon Museum,
• The British Library exhibition of (mostly) British science fiction, “Out of this World.” and
• The Leonardo show at the National Gallery (which we just managed to get tickets for, and went to see on the last day of 2011).

And three shows:

• Ornette Coleman - playing live at the Royal Festical Hall
• Noises Off - at the Old Vic, and
• Ruddigore - at the Barbican

On TV, the usual suspects dominated (eg Outnumbered, Rev and Doctor Who), plus, perhaps strangely, Mark Cousins' The Story of Film, which became unmissable each Sunday evening.

We went to France to avoid the Royal Wedding, and then later to Paris and Berlin for hols.

As lots of commentators have said, there was an awful lot of news in 2011.  The Japanese Tsunami and Nuclear fires, the Arab Spring, the Libyan uprising and death of Gaddafi. Obama got Osama, Hackergate and the closing of the News of the World (well done, The Guardian!), Riots in English towns and cities (which we missed), Lansley (tosser!)'s pause and Cameron's non-veto.  The Euro problems. And Private Eye made it to 50 (years) while The Sky at Night made it to 700 (shows)..

Quite a few rich and/or famous people seem to have died in the year.   Elisabeth (Sarah-Jane Smith) Sladen died of cancer in April at the relatively young age of 65 (63 elsewhere). She was probably most people’s favourite companion, and one of the few actors to work with several Doctors.   Gerry Rafferty, Peter Yates, Vaclav Havel, Henry Cooper (the great smelly brute) and Steve Jobs (who showed through his life that you can make huge amounts of money even if you have a crappy product, if you get the marketing right and make it shiny-shiny).    

Gilbert Adair, Christopher Logue, Christa Wolf, John Barry, Dick King-Smith, Joanna Russ, Pete Postlethwaite, January: Susannah York (a few months after I was her in a play in the West End), Elizabeth Taylor, Sidney Lumet, Janet Brown, Gil Scott-Heron, Peter Falk, Ken Olsen (DEC), Brian Haw and Eddie Stobart.   N. F. Simpson, Ken Russell, Anne McCaffery, Stan Barstow, David Croft, Jimmy Saville, Basil D’Oliveira and Dulcie Gray.  Perhaps too many.

Oh, and I saw a lot of trees...

On why Dr Who can do Hauptbahnhof better than Berlin...

And yet, and yet, despite my last post, one of the joys of the last Dr Who was the steampunky beginning, which included an anachronistic London with the Flying Scotsman, on elevated railway, entering the side of the Gherkin.  It reminded me enormously of Berlin Hauptbahnhof, but it was jazzy and fun instead of overwhelming.  (Of course I would have hated it if I actually had to go on that railway).  Churchill as Caesar  living in Buckingham Palace, and that was just the first five minutes.

And the tying-up of the complexities and loose ends of the last series was both sufficiently straightforward and yet still quite subtle.  A spottable solution, but still nice and quirky.  And a little less frenetic in feel than some of the other highly-plotted episodes have felt. 

And included amongst all of the running around was a gentle eulogy for Nicholas Courtney, who played Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, and who sadly died recently.  

Well done.  A good effort all around.