Shurely Shome Mishtake!

Statistician and Painter - never seen in the same room

Much excitement from eldest about the Tom Stoppard adaptation of Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End which started on BBC 2 last night. Of course this has mostly been the result of cool hero of said production being portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch though she has already whistled through the (accurately named) teratology causing some "ahs" of recognition when the assistant at Waterstones eventually uncovered it in a back room somewhere. I did start it myself in a desperate attempt to keep ahead of the TV version but in one episode it overtook me by quite some distance. And here's a tip for you - while the dead-tree version on Amazon is £8 - the links from there to the Kindle editions show versions at between £4 and £5. Search instead for it in the Kindle store and you will find it for 77p. Much as I don't like spending for something I already have, I was wasting much time in looking up words in the Kindle dictionary anyway so I've saved a bit of time there.

The TV version is very good - without the dumb exposition of most such dramas but bearing in mind Tom Stoppard is completely at home writing about football or Quantum theory, I wasn't expecting much allowance for the Downton audience. Christopher Tietjens is an honourable man - the most honourable man in literature maybe - a man blessed with an intellect of superhuman proportions yet cruelly manipulated by his socialite wife. There may even be shadows of Cumberbatch's most famous role in that he has the analytic mind of Sherlock Holmes but without the limit of only retaining information which is useful to him. Tietjens is as comfortable with matters of statistics as applied to Government Social Policy as he is with all-things equestrian or the minutiae of local legal systems. And like Sherlock, Tietjens has a sidekick who in any normal company would be the cleverest person in the cast in McMasters, an equally-honourable man of supreme intelligence and social wit. A fellow statistician, McMasters is an expert on Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a point highlighted by the producers decision to make the Actor who portrays him (Stephen Graham - last seen lusting after Sean Bean in The Accused) look uncannily like the subject of his monograph. There are shades of Goodbye to All That and even the Ghost Road Trilogy but Parade's End is more ambitious than either. It is described as an early modernist novel but to me seems like a link between mid 19th Century books and later more popular 20th century works.

And as a final tantalising link to another of my obsessions, I'm pretty convinced that FMF is The Nightingale of the PJ Harvey B-side to The Glorious Land.

Great TV - now can The BBC be persuaded to do a version of Arcadia?

On The MetaVentriloqal

The Garden of Arthur "Two Hens" Jackson Yesterday

My mind is full of V. Poor jokes after watching Tim Vine's DVD The Punslinger yesterday, a disk with a very cool picture of the man himself on the front. As usual for TV's stuff - 2 minutes in and you wonder whether you'll be able to take such an awful parade of punning. 10 minutes in and it's drawn you down like a whirlpool with its never-ending stream of jokerage. And then you get hit by the genius of the Ventriloqusim section. I will not explain - just suffer a bit of google-tubing and find it for yourself - you will not be disappointed. One complaint from certain sections of the family is that the extras on this DVD are not as wonderful as such things as "Parade of Sport" or "Video Diary" but said Ventriloquism will more than make up for this.

Literally - not Figuratively

"Pick up the Phone - Pick up the Phone"

We've been very taken by The Hour and have dismissed all the various clamour about it not capturing the times exactly. People who worry that the phones are anachronistic should get a life - this is a drama and I'm sure that some pompous lord somewhere had a go at Pride and Prejudice when it first came out. Prompted by a comment from one of the family I turned down the colour on the TV on a replay of a small segment on iPlayer on the Wii and with the slight blurring it looked very atmospheric so the triumph of Style over Content is complete.

I think I would take issue with the idea that the women in The Hour are too forthright. I'm pretty certain that the 1950's was not the earliest decade which gave rise to strong, independent women and the fact that many commentators feel the need to discuss it is quite disappointing as personally I feel it's not really worth comment this days. And if you argue that I have just commented on it I would reply that it was a meta-comment - comment on comment.

That is all.

Something Better Change

(From http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/4325921/TV-review-A-Short-Stay-in-Switzerland-BBC1-and-Generation-Kill-FX.html)

You should also see the video of Doctor Anne Turner talking to Fergus Walsh who appeared as himself in A Short Stay in Switzerland. I would like to think that this drama - like Vera Drake did - managed to show just a story without making judgements either way. Julie Walters is obviously one of only a few actors able to play a role such as this and she was memorable in what will obviously haunt a lot of people. I have to declare my support for assisted suicide but I was nagged by the worry that it is relatively easy to be convinced of the rightness of something by an eloquent, well-educated Doctor. I may have missed similar dramas with different social circumstances but the fact that Julie Walters made this dignified and (for the character of Doctor Turner) without doubts at any stage, will have gone some way to convincing people that this is right without getting them to think about the details in their own situations. My feeling is that the decision is mostly down to the person concerned but every case is different.