August Bank Holiday

 I  often wonder, do banks really DESERVE to have a holiday? Considering the mess many of them got into in 2008 (I may have got the year wrong.) when the government bailed them out with taxpayer's money, THEY should be paying US!

Sunday. 11.35 a.m. We haven't had a proper church service for a few weeks now, because it's August, and the thinking is that, as most people will be away on holiday, there's really no sense in full service. Last week we had a community picnic and this week we have the famous church barbecue. I have made up a salad and done a few baked potatoes, which I put in the oven at around 6.30 this morning. I had gone to Sainsbury's yesterday after another of our prayer triplet sessions at a friend's home in Conniburrow. I then realized, when I got home, that I should have got something to drink to take with me. I drove to the Tesco Express store in Oldbrook Boulevard. Because of social distancing, you are supposed to follow a one-way system around the store. I picked up what I wanted and then made my way to the check-out, going to a manned till because there was someone using the self-service tills. I arrived at the back of a reasonably long queue and for some reason wasn't sure who was queuing. Then a young man let rip at me, accusing me of pushing in. Untrue, but he was adamant that I had. He continued to rant at me, using bad language which I won't repeat here. I thought he was going to end up hitting me, so I stood back. Then he hurled a packet of sweets or chocolates at me and then stormed off out of the store, continuing to rant and rave. It left me feeling somewhat shocked, and I think the same could be said of the rest of the customers who were queuing ahead of me. I have a feeling he was probably from a residential home nearby, probably with a severe type of learning disability or another mental health issue. Which made me wonder why he was allowed out on his own.

Monday. 11.00 a.m. So, Bank Holiday Monday! It's not exactly a baking hot day. Drizzling when I took out Alfie earlier. I'm not doing a lot, just pottering around. His Nibs is asleep on the sofa as I write this.

I had another odd dream last night. I know, most dreams are odd. I have mentioned before in these blog posts my time working in stage management and on one particular play I was A.S.M. on at Greenwich Theatre some fifty years ago, 'A Voyage Round My Father', written by John Mortimer. In the dream, I had a visit from his wife (not sure of her name.) She wanted to give me a copy of a book John Mortimer had written (I have no idea of its title.) and I told her about working on the play. She signed the book, and that was all. Strange, particularly as I haven't been thinking of that play or anything to do with it recently. Mortimer also wrote the Rumpole stories and television series, which I love.

Tuesday. 4.10 p.m. I am currently working on a sort of subplot for my writing project. I wouldn't call it a fantasy as such, but as my main character is a writer it's a sort of spoof of a genre of writing very much inspired by 'The 39 Steps' by John Buchan. I have always loved the Hitchcock version, which veers off course from the original story to a large extent. I watched the BBC television version which seems to stick to the original to some extent then uses some of Hitchcock's ideas and then changes the ending, what exactly are the titular 39 Steps? It seems as if each version has different suggestions, but it's one of those films and stories which is the blueprint of many later espionage thrillers.

The World's Your Oyster

Saturday. 6.40 a.m.Why, you may well ask, did I choose THAT as the title for this blog post? The simple fact is, I don't know. It just came to me, so I decided to use it. Crazy, but true.

It's a sunny and bright morning, and Alfie and I went out as usual. As we got to the crossing onto Oldbrook Green, I saw a group of men playing what I thought was football on the grass. Well, not much of a game, but more of an old-fashioned kick-about. I think from their voices, which were quite loud, that they were probably Russian or at least what you'd call East European. Well, they appeared to be enjoying themselves, but from the raised voices, I don't think the neighbors would have been too pleased, especially not on a Saturday morning, to be woken by a noise like that. But at least it was good-natured.

I have now got my FitBit working properly at long last, as I think I mentioned in my last post. As a result, I can use it to count steps when I am out walking with Alfie. So I was determined to do a circuit of Oldbrook Green. But unfortunately, Alfie has other ideas. He kept attempting to pull me back home to the flat. He can be very strong-willed when he wants to. An extremely determined little person at the best of times and considering his size, quite strong in the sense that it takes quite a lot of effort to prevent him from taking us both home. I had to really struggle to get him to walk all around the circuit, but we did eventually. I'm really determined to do my 10,000 steps (or, hopefully, far more.) each day.

We got back to the crossing point over Oldbrook Boulevard and it was as we were walking along the path I saw this large, very fluffy cat slinking along and making for the main path into Fishermead. When it saw Alfie, it decided to turn round and make for the other side of Strudwick Drive, near The Cricketers pub. Fortunately, Alfie didn't see it, otherwise, things might have been very different.

I've been watching a documentary which was on the television channel 'Talking Pictures', but which I had recorded on my Freeview box. I had forgotten all about it until I was short of something to watch and I had a look and it came up. It was about the film and theatre director, Lindsay Anderson. I am always interested in discovering more about the creative process someone goes through to produce a film a novel or any sort of artistic creation. There are a great many similar documentaries on YouTube which I have seen and as a result learned things I wouldn't have done otherwise. Anderson directed a film in the late 1960s called 'If . . . .' which was about a revolution in a public school. I remember seeing it when I was a student A.S.M. in Cheltenham. It was filmed in large part at Cheltenham College. It's strange how some things become a sort of intersection of several areas of my life. That one, obviously, Cheltenham. One of the actors was David Wood, who went on to play the part of The Son in the play 'A Voyage Round My Father' by John Mortimer when I went on to be an A.S.M. at Greenwich Theatre in 1970. David Wood mentioned that he had been an actor in rep at the Swan Theatre in Worcester at the time he was cast in 'If . . . .' which is where my daughter Chloe went to university there and now lives. The film had a very powerful effect on me. It was not only interesting at the time I first saw it to see Cheltenham portrayed when I was living there, but the fact that it was about rebellion and radical. My other favourite film is by Terry Gilliam, one of the 'Monty Python' team who created the brilliant animations which were used in the television series and then went on to direct several groundbreaking films. The film that really interested me was 'Brazil' which stars Jonathan Pryce. Set in a dystopian Britain and very similar to Orwell's '1984.' A comedy with a very black sense of humour and draws very heavily on Gilliam's illustration and design style. Not a comedy that's for the faint-hearted but with a clear message, similar to the Lindsay Anderson film. A great many Hollywood films are just like chewing gum for the eyes. Just fodder for the masses.  Chew on it and the flavour is gone, so you either spit it out or put it in a bin (or you should do.) Mindless pap. Just made to make money and that's about all. You come out and it's forgotten ten minutes later. But these two films make you think. I think it's that which makes them so brilliant. Blockbusters are not really my sort of thing. 

A Very Happy Lockdown New Year To You!

 So, that's 2020 done and dusted. Let's just hope that 2021 is better. Well, it certainly can't be any worse than in 2020. Around nine months of being isolated, not being able to meet those we love and cherish. No theatre, going to Camphill and working on various things with the guys there. Can't say I'm sorry that 2020 is over and done with.

(Sunday) Another mild morning. I thought it was going to be frosty, but it wasn't. 

I've been watching too much television. From 'The Crown' on Netflix, to 'His Dark Materials' on BBC1 and on Talking Pictures' TV. I had never heard of this channel until they did an item about it on BBC Breakfast one morning. Their ratings had gone through the roof during the pandemic, so I found it on Freeview and had a look at their schedule. They show almost all programmes from the 1950s through to the 1980s, including things such as Catweazel, Upstairs and Downstairs, Rumpole of The Bailey, and much more. 'Rumpole' was one of my favourite drama series from the 1970s. It was written by John Mortimer. I have a connection to it. I worked as an A.S.M. at Greenwich Theatre in the early 1970s and we did a play written by John Mortimer called 'A Voyage Round My Father. It had started life I believe on Radio Four and then it was adapted for BBC Television and eventually as a stage play, which was directed by Claude Watham, who had directed the BBC television version. It was later remade by Thames Television with Laurence Oliver in the part of the Father. There are some similarities with 'Rumpole' in that it began as a Play For Today on BBC1 and later developed as a series by Thames Television.

A further connection I have, if somewhat vaguely, is when I was again working at Century Theatre in Keswick in, I think it would have been 1973, as D.S.M. There was a film crew working around the area, most notably the lake, Derwentwater. They were making a film of the Arthur Ransome book 'Swallows and Amazons.' When we were scouring the town for props (beg, steal or borrow) for the plays we were producing, we often got asked if we were connected with the unit, which of course we weren't. The director of that film was Claude Watham and the screenplay was written by David Wood who was the Son in 'A Voyage Round My Father.'

(Monday) It sounds as though we might be going back into a national lockdown. It would appear that the virus is spreading and with the new variant, a mutant version of the coronavirus, is more dangerous and likely to be a risk to younger people. All I can say is that I hope we don't go into another lockdown because being isolated as I have been since March, it's effecting my mental health and I imagine I won't be the only person to be so effected.

BBC Breakfast this morning reporting from the Churchill Hospital in Oxford, where the roll-out of the Astra-Zeneca vaccine has begun. I'm wondering when I will be given the vaccine. As I'm over 65, presumably I fall into the 'vulnerable' category.

I have ordered a professional-standard microphone from Amazon so I can do some recording, possibly voice-over work, record a podcast or whatever. It should work with my MacBook air and then I should be able to upload to Soundcloud and other sites. It was ordered on Saturday and should be delivered today before 8p.m.

Re-visiting Brideshead

I am currently watching the Granada Television series "Brideshead Revisited" which is currently being re-run on Sky Arts. I remember seeing it when it was originally shown in the early 1980's.  Couldn't help then being captivated by it then and the same can be said about it now. It seems to have stood the test of time remarkably well. It's amazing to think that Granada, in those days a single company within a 'federated' ITV would produce something as lavish as this series. It runs to 11 episodes and if I remember rightly the first and last episodes run for 90 minutes. So that's around 12 hours of running time! Seems amazing that you would even think of making a drama series that ran that long in the 1980's, but nothing would be made with such detail and with such a superb cast in the early part of the 21st century. I do have some sort of link to it, having worked as an A.S.M. at Greenwich Theatre in the early 1970's and was involved in a play written by John Mortimer called "A Voyage Round My Father"  (see earlier post where I give much more detail on this.) John Mortimer was credited with writing the screenplay, but, having just looked on I.M.D.B. I discover that his screenplay wasn't used although his name remained on the credits. I wonder why. Anthony Andrews portrayal of Sebastian is quite mesmerising. It's the sort of acting which has you hooked. It would have been easy to have gone 'over the top' and played him as just camp, but he seems to avoid this quite admirably. There's no acting that comes up to this sort of standard on television that I can think of at the moment, intact, there's nothing that equals this series on anywhere on television at the moment. I can't think of anything which keeps you so hooked, where you have to find out 'what happens next' and look forward to the next episode.

I can't say that I'm actually over-enthusiastic about it as a piece of television drama. I know I watched it way back when it was first broadcast in 1981 and I read the book, but I have to say the characters are so arrogant and hateful I can't say they exactly draw you in. They are all self-centred, don't exactly show any redeeming features and are not particularly likeable. The central character, Charles Ryder, the narrator and played by Jeremy Irons, is so totally boring that you can't latch on to him at all. He goes about being to ally miserable all the time. He's supposed to be a painter but he's not very convincing. Who would bother hiring him? Sebastian, the character played by Anthony Andrews, is an interesting character, but he doesn't have to work as he's got money, presumably from being a aristocrat. He drinks himself stupid. Who would employ him anyway? None of the characters have to work, which is one reason I can't possibly engage with any of them. I have to say that the filming, direction and settings are excellent, but I can't imagine this series being produced with such a lavish style in the early part of the 21st century. It has a very downbeat ending to it and not exactly leaving you with a feeling that any of the characters find happiness in any way shape or form.

There is another connection I have, although vaguely with 'Brideshead Revisited.' I mentioned earlier that I had worked on 'A Voyage Round My Father' at Greenwich. During the run of the play, there was much talk of it transferring to the West End. It did eventually make it to the West End, but I don't think it was the same production and if so it had a different cast. I know that Alec Guinness played the central character of the Father, and if memory serves he did come to see the Greenwich production which had Mark Dignam playing the Father. Laurence Olivier came to see it and came back-stage after the performance. He played Lord Marchmaine in 'Brideshead, although he doesn't actually have a major part and is only in two episodes, when Sebastian takes Charles to Venice and in the final episode when Lord Marchmaine returns to England and there he has a somewhat long and drawn-out death. I remember when I first saw the series in the 1980's this episode, which runs for 90 minutes did seem a little over-long. But I can at least say I have been in the same room with Laurence Olivier, although not to speak to! Much later on Thames Television did a new television version of 'A Voyage Round My Father' and Oliver was in that. Another actor from "Voyage" has a small part in "Brideshead Revisited," John Nettleton, who played the commanding officer at the beginning and the end of the series, from the time that Charles Ryder, played by Jeremy Irons, revisits Brideshead Castle when he is an army officer and billeted at the house at the beginning of the Second World War. And I did notice in the closing credits that an actor I worked with at  Ipswich Theatre in the 1970's, Stephen Mallatratt, had a minor role. He went on to adapt the Susan Hill book "The Woman In Black for the stage and which has become a huge hit in the West End and on tour. He wrote scripts for many television series including "Coronation Street."

Compared to current television dramas it's light years ahead of, say Downton Abbey. I have seen one episode and I can't see what all the fuss is about.  Not particularly engaging characters and the story lines don't convince. I think the big problem  Carol and I have is that there are far too many adverts on I.T.V. I think within an hour's running time you get three breaks which is every 20 minutes. It's actually better to record on Sky+ and then when the advertising breaks come up just fast-forward through the commercials. I realise that it's these commercials that pay for programming on I.T.V., but when it's for such things as car insurance and sofas, then it does get incredibly boring. And can someone explain why these sofa companies are always having sales? We watched something else the other evening and there were no less than three adverts all for sofa companies? 

Having been to Castle Howard in Yorkshire, which is used throughout as the location for Brideshead Castle, and thoroughly loving the place, and the fact that it was filmed in various other locations throughout England, together with an exceptional cast, this is one television series well worth seeing again. I  can recommend it highly.

Why is it that so much of television today gives me a headache? I don't mean the subject-matter so much as the fact that directors insist on using some really headache-inducing camera techniques,
 what they call 'whip-pans' and something which makes me feel positively sick, where you have a couple of actors standing still and the camera spins around them? What on earth is that all about? You get things chopped up in the editing suite so you get a lot of very brief 'clips' and it's hard to make out what it is. Another is when they insist on having the actors walking along and the camera follows them, but instead of it being a smooth 'dolly shot' where the camera runs along a specially-constructed track, you get a really horrible wobbly hand-held camera shot which makes you feel queasy. Not nice. Well, none of this seems to be used in the making of 'Brideshead Revisited.' I presume it was made when such techniques weren't used much.  Is it because these unpleasant filming techniques are a way to cut costs? No reason can I give except that it's 'trendy' or 'arty.' Actually means that I'm not going to endure the show and just turn off or find something else to watch.  it seems that producers treat their audience with a great deal of contempt because everything seems to be in short time spans, that is, scenes are short as if the audience can't concentrate on anything for no more than a couple of minutes at a time. This was true of things like 'EastEnders' (which, incidentally, I can't stand as it's full of such hateful characters who are always falling out with each other and always shouting. Not good for one's nerves. Just not enjoyable viewing.) where you have several concurrent story lines and they keep on switching between them and you never know exactly what is going on unless you watch regularly.  Then there's the drama series adapted from a novel or something and instead of adapting it in sufficient episodes to make it worthwhile watching it's done in perhaps two or there when perhaps six or even more episodes would be better. No doubt this is because of budgetary constraints. This was evident a few years ago when they did a series based on 'South Riding' which was done in three episodes and the plot line was telescoped so much into the timeframe it was incomprehensible. None of this occurs with 'Brideshead Revisited.' In some ways it's incredibly slow and there are whole episodes where virtually nothing happens, but at least there is some character development. I know there is a newer, film, adaptation of 'Brideshead' but it makes me wonder how on earth you can telescope so much story into a running time of about 90 minutes without it seeming rushed. Well, with the vast running time of the Granada version of the book there is definitely space for the story to develop along with the characters.

Creative Writing

My writing is going well at the moment. I'm not sure whether I mentioned on here that I'd done a one-day creative writing course at Milton Keynes Art Centre one Saturday at the beginning of November and as a result of that I have got a good deal more confident as regards sharing my work with other people. From that course I'm signed up for a further 10-week evening  creative writing course, again at Milton Keynes Art Centre, and again lead by Deborah Fielding. I'm really looking forward to this and I'm absolutely sure that it will inspire me to write new material and also help with my writing in general.

I've been watching the series 'Moving On' which is a BBC 1 early afternoon drama series which must by now be in it's fourth or fifth series. It's shown each day for a week. I remember the BBC doing what are termed 'single dramas' when I was growing up in the 1960's, series of plays such as 'The Wednesday Play' which eventually became  'Play For Today. ' This series is very much in the same mold, and the plays feature subject-matter which is far more socially-aware than a lot of current, prime-time television drama. Writers such as  Alan Bennett, Dennis Potter, John Mortimer and Mike Leigh and wrote plays for these drama 'slots'. Mention of John Mortimer reminds me that he wrote ' A Voyage Round My Father' which I worked on at Greenwich Theatre in the early 1970's and started life as a Play For Today. 'Moving On' is produced and developed by Jimmy McGovern, a writer whose work I very much admire. My own writing is an attempt to produce more current material,  and has, hopefully a sort of depth to it. My current 'multi-strand' project was inspired by 'EastEnders.' I'm not actually a lover of this 'soap' and I wanted to attempt to create my own project much in the style of a soap in that it's set in a single location. I used Bedford as the location so that I could tie the various elements of the stories together (although it isn't actually set there.)  Some of the characters are based on people I observed while I lived there, not necessarily their real stories, but from making observations and visiting various places which I was familiar with was able to develop some of the characters and stories. Much as in the style of a soap, but I hope I am able to get away from the somewhat stifling restrictions which the average television soap has, such as the same old recycled story lines and the fact that the stock characters only live within such a restricted setting (i.e. a street, square or village such as Coronation Street, EastEnders and Emmerdale.) Some of the stories over-lap and characters cross between the various story elements. I had intended to have a single day as the time-frame, but having got so far with the project it seems that this will be too restricting and it now seems to cover a far longer time frame. As it has developed I am really surprised how the characters individual stories have grown and extended far beyond what I had at first envisioned and I'm more than pleased by how it has gone.

Working In Theatre- Part 5

I'm moving ahead somewhat in time to late 1970. I got a job as A.S.M. at Greenwich Theatre. I had kept the impetus going with work, even when one job came to an end and I was out of work. I wrote a lot of letters to various companies across the United Kingdom and I got the Greenwich job because a cousin on my father's side of the family had come to stay and mentioned Greenwich Theatre to me as she lived in that part of London, Eltham if my memory serves. I think Greenwich Theatre had only recently opened, but I'm not sure.  I wrote a letter to the theatre and lo and behold I got asked for an interview as they had a vacancy for an A.S.M. I went for an interview and was offered the job. I lived with my cousin Helen at her flat in Eltham, which was fortunate.

The show that was running, if I remember, when I went for my interview, was a play called "The Servants and The Snow" by Iris Murdoch (not related, as far as I know, but I suppose if you have the same surname as someone you are bound to have a common ancestor, the same way that Rupert Murdoch must be related to me somewhere along the line.) It might have been in rehearsal, as I think I saw them rehearsing on the stage when I went for my interview. Some of this is all a bit vague as my memory isn't too clear. Well, it was over forty years ago.

I started there working on a show called "Down The Arches" which was a sort of musical documentary about the building and opening of the London to Greenwich railway. It had Derek Griffiths in it, who is perhaps best know as one of the presenters on "Play School," the children's show that ran for years and was probably one of the first programmes on air when BBC2 opened in 1964. I remember he did an extremely good mime during this show. I was involved with the lighting, sitting in the control box at the rear of the auditorium and helping to set up the lighting cues on a very complex lighting board. Nowadays I expect this would be all computerised, you no doubt just press a few keys and the lighting changes are done automatically, fades and all, but in those days there were no such luxurys and it took about three of us to set these lighting cues up quickly enough before the next cue came from the prompt corner.

Then the next show in was "A Voyage Round My Father" by John Mortimer. This had started life as a BBC production, one of the Plays of Today single dramas on BBC 1. It may or may not have been done on radio, but I'm not sure of that. It had the same director as the original television production, Claude Watham, and the designer had worked on this, but I can't remember his name. It had David Wood, Mark Dignam and Trevor Bannister in it. He went on to play Mr Lucas in the BBC sitcom "Are You Being Served?"
The set for this show was rather complex. To allow for quick scene changes, part of the set was a revolve at one side of the stage. The remainder of the set consisted of several large multi-sided 'forms', for want of a better word, which were supposed to be winched up and down stage to make more 'scenes' and then projectors where used to project photographs onto the sides of these 'forms' so you could have a scene in a park or garden with projected flowers, trees etc or an interior of, say, a courtroom with wood panelling as you'd get in a courtroom or buildings for streets for an exterior. This might have seemed a really good way to stage the play ON PAPER, but once it had been constructed it wasn't going to work as expected. A false floor had been built over the actual stage floor, to allow special track to be laid, so the 'forms' could run along the false floor and cabling that pulled the shapes up and down stage with the added complication of motors inside these shapes so they could revolve at the same time as moving up or down stage. I hope all this makes sense. It might sound complex, but it is quite difficult to explain.