The Crown

Slight reservations about the massive Netflix series THE CROWN, Series 1 is now a 4 dvd pack (10 one-hour long episodes), as they film Series 2.  One can see the quality and the interesting casting, but it moves at a slow pace and Buckingham Palace seems a very gloomy, dark place, with all those older ministers and courtiers - but I presume thats how the Fifties are perceived now.

Stealing the show four episodes in is the venerable Dame Eileen Atkins as Queen Mary, a role she has played a few times. Claire Foy and Matt Smith are growing into their roles, but will be replaced by older actors as the decades pass .... John Lithgow is a terrific Churchill, and there's Jeremy Northam (Anthony Eden), Greg Wise (Lord Mountbatten), Harriet Walter (Lady Churchill) and more, who capture the essence of their characters, without being lookalikes. Victoria Hamilton is a perfect Queen Mother, but Jared Harris seems all wrong as George VI (it begins with him coughing up blood, while drinking more whiskey and endlessly smoking, and shooting wildlife. The very busy Alex Jennings would be much better here, but he plays the brother who abdicated. Showing the coronation scene mainly through his eyes is genius. Vanessa Kirby looks like being an ideal Princess Margaret too.

Surely though Princess Elizabeth knew she would always be queen and was trained to step into her father's shoes, so why all the nervous stares and looking like a scared rabbit in the early scenes. The marriage in 1947 and the births of her first two children (surely important events for her) are glossed over too. Still, there will be a lot to cover ... television costume drama at its best then, these early episodes are directed by Stephen Daldry and its written by Peter Morgan (THE QUEEN). Its certainly better than the risible VICTORIA!

Series 2 starting next month continues from 1956 so we should see a lot more of Margaret once she meets Tony Armstrong Jones.

Above: the Royal Family at Windsor Royal Lodge, by Herbert James Gunn, 1950.

A treat: Lee and Dirk in The Vision, 1987

A thousand thanks to Colin for finding this - one of my Holy Grails - a 1987 BBC film with two of my top favourites, which was only ever shown once by the BBC and since unavailable. It is now on dvd, so thanks again Colin - just what I needed after a few days in hospital. 

Dirk Bogarde and Lee Remick head an outstanding cast (including Eileen Atkins and Helena Bonham Carter) in this powerful drama from the creative team behind SHADOWLANDS. Originally screened (in January 1988) as part of BBC2’s acclaimed Screen Two strand, THE VISION is a disturbing reflection on an era of televangelists, burgeoning satellite channels and ruthless media manipulation – quite timely then for 30 years ago.

Bogarde plays James Marriner, a faded, unhappily married for TV presenter, reduced to margarine commercials and opening supermarkets, who is persuaded to front The People Channel – a right-wing, evangelical satellite network poised to launch in Europe. Determined to recruit “Gentle Jim” as a reassuringly familiar anchorman, the network’s steely, seductive boss Grace Gardner (Remick) proves hard to refuse.

As the network’s first live transmission looms, Marriner – whose personal life is now under surveillance – has become deeply uneasy about its aims. Garner, however, makes it clear than any attempt to alert viewers to her organisation’s true agenda, will bring about a devastating retribution. 
Written by William Nicholson and directed by Norman Stone. 

Eileen Atkins (in another of her then Mrs Glum roles) is Bogarde's unhappy wife, and Bonham Carter their daughter, Dirk and Lee play perfectly together, at this late stage in their careers - almost their final work. I met them both (separately) at the BFI in 1970 (I was 24) and got to talk to them both, as per other posts on them (see labels). Its a great role for Remick, which she plays with relish and looks great here in her early fifties, a few years before her death in 1991. (We also saw Atkins on stage then as Elizabeth I in Bolt's VIVAT REGINA with Sarah Miles as Mary Queen of Scots).

I suppose it now too much to expect to get Lee's other BBC productions, SUMMER AND SMOKE in 1972 and Henry James' THE AMBASSADORS, with Paul Scofield, in 1977, finally on dvd too? - in the meantime, great to see THE VISION again, and it is so timely, even if the 80s technology looks so dated now.  Then there are Bogarde's other TV productions, like THE PATRICIA NEAL STORY with Glenda Jackson ...

Evening, 2007

A drama exploring the romantic past and emotional present of Ann Grant and her daughters, Constance and Nina. As Ann lays dying, she remembers, and is moved to convey to her daughters, the defining moments in her life 50 years prior, when she was a young woman. Harris is the man Ann loves in the 1950s and never forgets.

Yes, EVENING sounds like one of those nauseatingly soppy afternoon tv movies for the home audience, not suitable for us trendy folk. We avoided it at the time, but seeing it was on telly we had to look it, if only for that cast. One way - the only way? - of jazzing up a story like this is to make it look good and pile in the names, thats what they did here, as directed by Lajos Koltai.

The dying woman is Vanessa Redgrave, and also popping in are Meryl Streep, Glenn Close and the great Eileen Atkins. Add in Vanessa's daughter Natasha Richardson, plus Toni Collette and Claire Danes (as the younger Vanessa). The men, including Patrick Wilson and Hugh Dancy, barely get a look it. It all looks terrific too, Rhode Island in the 1950s .... all those seascapes. 

The grand dames all get their moment with Vanessa, as the memories keep piling up and colliding with the present. It's a deliberately paced, visually gorgeous meditation on real life issues, and you can cry at it and not feel like you're being manipulated too much.

Theatre stills: an occasional series

Shots from great theatre productions I have seen. We start with favourites Sarah Miles and Eileen Atkins as those rival queens in Robert Bolt's VIVAT REGINA, a stunning night at the theatre in 1971. Coming Up: Glenda, Susannah, Alan Bates, Bergman, Bacall, Jill Bennett, Ian McKellen,  Lee Remick, Angela Lansbury and Peggy Ashcroft, and more. 

Camping with Scott & Bailey + Fr Brown & the Doc

but Lady Felicia and Mrs McCarthy steal the show.

British TV is going through one of its quality periods with so much good stuff on one's recorder/Sky Box is practically working overtime!

HAPPY VALLEY and THE NIGHT MANAGER may have finished, but there is a new series (just 3 episodes) of the terrific SCOTT & BAILEY (we worked through the first four series over the winter months) - Sally Wainwright's gripping series of police investigations into murder cases set in Manchester. This new series is not written by her though, and somehow is not the same without Amelia Bullmore (centre) as the detectives' snappy DCI Gill Murray - she retired in the last series (Amelia also wrote several episodes). The new series too is more grim and downbeat, while we still enjoy the backstories of Janet Scott (Lesley Sharp) and Rachel Bailey (Suranne Jones) and their complicated lives. Both actresses are exemplary, as usual. Wainwright in the previous series also provides great roles for actors like Nicola Walker and Joe Duttine (CORRIE's amiable window cleaner) or Kevin Doyle (DOWNTON ABBEY's nice Mr Molesley),Geoge Costigan, Tracie Bennett, Rupert Graves, Danny Miller, Sally Lindsay, Lisa Riley, or Ellie Haddington  to get their teeth into, often as those damaged killers ...

Two female detectives, one motherly with family problems, the other emotionally immature with disasterous relationships, have varying levels of success applying their eccentric outlooks on life to their police cases and private lives.

Tucked away in the afternoon slot though has been 4 series of FATHER BROWN, based - very loosely - on the G.K. Chesterton stories of the priest detective. These series have apparently nothing to do with the stories, and are total fiction as the investigating cleric is based in a pretty 1950s (great period detail) Cotswold village, and he is aided and abetted by local posh Lady Felicia (Nancy Carroll) and his parish clerk/housekeeper Mrs McCarthy (Sorcha Cusack - having a lot of fun here). 

The friendly rivalry between the women keeps the series watchable and they get to wear some great '50s fashions and hats. Lady Felicia often wears gloves too and little mink stoles, and has a roving eye for any presentable man (Nancy Carroll is as fascinating as Honeysuckle Weeks in FOYLE'S WAR another discovery a while back). Mark Williams anchors it all as Father Brown often dealing with outlandish plots and annoying local chief detective Tom Chambers. The 45 minute episodes are fun and ideal afternoon viewing - must be a formula that works as there are over 40 episodes in the 4 series. 

We did not discover DOC MARTIN until its last series, so it is also fun going back to early series as we follow the grumpy, often rude doctor (Martin Clunes) in that ideal Cornish village Portwenn (actually Port Isaac in Cornwall) and the amusing stories that arise with the various locals and his slow romance with school-teacher Louisa (Catherine Catz). Quality casting here with Eileen Atkins, Stephanie Cole, Selina Cadell and Claire Bloom (as his icy mother, below) all of course marvellous, as is Stewart Wright (left) as the love-lorn policeman, and there is an adorable dog, eccentric locals, and lovely scenery - another winning formula then, Created by Dominic Minghella, there have  been 54 episodes in 7 series since 2004, so a lot of catching up!

Dr. Martin Ellingham, a London-based surgeon, relocates to the picturesque seaside village of Portwenn, establishing himself as the area's general practitioner. He grew up in the area having been raised by his now widowed Aunt Joan Norton. His reasons for leaving London and the high-paid life of a consultant are not clear initially but related to a phobia about blood he has recently developed. He soon meets several of the locals and eccentricity abounds. Martin's situation is made more difficult by what can only be referred as an almost complete lack of an acceptable bedside manner. He is gruff, abrupt and intolerant, not only in issues related to medicine, but to life in general. He and the headmistress of the local school, Louisa Glasson, are clearly attracted to each other and despite their awkwardness, slowly develop a relationship. They do marry and have a baby and then separate and then .... Catz and Wright are also in a rather good new BBC comedy series, I WANT MY WIFE BACK, and there is also that great other BBC comedy BOOMERS about those retired couples with amusing roles for the likes of Alison Steadman, Stephanie Beacham and Russ Abbott. 

CAMPING is another of those quirky Sky series (STELLA, MOUNT PLEASANT, STARLINGS) offbeat comedies that draw one in and one never knows or expects what is going to happen next. CAMPING is written by Julia Davis (who also directs the first 4 episodes) who also plays Fay the new girlfriend of Tom (Rufus Jones) who has left his wife and who feels young and groovy again, to the consternation of friends Robin (Steve Pemberton) and his bossy conrol-freak cow of a wife Fi (Vicki Pepperdine - a new discovery for me). Other friends on their camping holiday are ex-alcoholic Adam (Jonathan Cake) and his downtrodden wife Kerry (marvellous Elizabeth Berrington). The creepy campsite manager is David Bamber who stumbles across Fi pleasuring herself when her bad manners and one of her migraines leaves her behind as the others go on a fishing trip. Then there is that scene at the hospital, and at the antiques shop where Tom and Fay cannot control themselves ... The scene is set for amusing confrontations as Adam hits the booze and is jealous of Tom and Fay's constantly having sex, then Tom has to return to London as his wife is in a coma after an overdose and Fay is on the loose ..... how is it all going to end? There are only 6 episodes, but we are hooked, as is my friend Martin. It is a series though one will either love or hate, It is a jet black cringe-inducing comedy which "descends into a hell of bitterness, grief, jealousy, sexual experimentation, drugs, insanity and possibly murder." Control-freak Fi too is worried her son will grow up gay, eating mozzarella and other foods gays eat, and she is incensed when well-meaning husband Robin leaves a fossil for the son to find on the beach ... then at the hospital she has further demands to make on the doctor examining her son.

Brace yourself for a holiday to remember. A group of old friends go on a camping holiday in Dorset to celebrate a birthday. However, tensions and emotions quickly start to rise.

The Dresser, 1983

Finally, THE DRESSER from 1983, a successful play and film, which somehow I never saw until now - this is a feast of acting and another great British film of its era.

In a touring Shakespearean theater group, a backstage hand - the dresser, is devoted to the brilliant but tyrannical head of the company. He struggles to support the deteriorating star as the company struggles to carry on during the London blitz. The pathos of his backstage efforts rival the pathos in the story of Lear and the Fool that is being presented on-stage, as the situation comes to a crisis

The 1940s wartime era is perfectly evoked, and a great cast headed by two star turns from Albert Finney as Sir, and Tom Courtenay as Norman, the gay dresser, with Eileen Atkins as Madge, the long-suffering stage manager, and with Edward Fox, Zena Walker, Michael Gough, the great Betty Marsden and Sheila Reid rounding out the cast. Sir is surely based on Sir Donald Wolfit who not only was a tour de force, but was forced to tour endlessly with his gallant troupe, especially during those war years boosting morale. The author Ronald Harwood was in fact a dresser to Wolfit ... so all this feels even more authentic and one feels the love for the theatrical life.

Finney (an actor, like David Hemmings, with no vanity whatsoever) commands the screen as usual -not least when he stops that train!, matched every step of the way by Courtenay as the camp dresser, endlessly fussing and looking after Sir, helping him to keep going, but Sir's tyrannical rule over the company is beginning to crack under the strain of age and illnesss as he prepares to tackle KING LEAR. The fastidious and fiercely dedicated dresser, copes with Sir's unreasonable demands, tends to his health and reminds him of what role he is currently playing. Its a mutual double act. It is a story rich in detail, comedy, compassion and love for the theatre. 
Courtenay also essayed another gay theatrical gentleman in a Noel Coward play ME AND THE GIRLS, in 1985 which is part of that BBC NOEL COWARD COLLECTION, and of course Albert went gay as that Dublin bus conductor in A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE in 1994 (gay interest label). Albert and Tom also co-starred in another fascinating television production A RATHER ENGLISH MARRIAGE in 1998. 

Peter Yates (BULLITT) directs with a sure hand and THE DRESSER was nominated for 5 Oscars. Harwood's script (as with his THE PIANIST) is rich in detail, and great acting does not come much better than this. Glad I finally saw it.  The BBC are showing a new version later this year, where Sir and Norman are - who else? - Anthony Hopkins and Sir Ian McKellen. 

Another BBC rarity: The Lost Language of Cranes

Revisiting a gay classic: THE LOST LANGUAGE OF CRANES, 1991.
A young gay man comes out to his middle-class parents, which has repercussions for his father who has long since been trying to repress his own sexuality.

I saw this BBC Screen Two production when it aired in 1991 - the one time it was shown, so thanks to my pal Colin for finding a copy - its a German issue dvd. Its from a good novel by David Leavitt, scripted by Sean Mathias, and directed by Nigel Finch (another who did not survive the Aids crisis), produced by BBC regular Mark Shivas, and with an interesting cast. 

The great Eileen Atkins and Brian Cox excel of course as the parents Owen and Rose - we are back in that intellectual, middle-class milieu of London (as in Schlesinger's SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY) - she works in publishing as a book editor and he is a lecturer, and they have to leave to their well-organised apartment in 3 months ... their son Phillip (Angus MacFadyen) who is gay is seeing an American, Corey Parker. There is also Cathy Tyson as their best friend. Corey returns to the States but not before a visit from the two men, a couple, who brought him up after his parents were killed in an accident. This couple is played by veteran director John Schlesinger and Rene Auberjonois. 

Phillip decides he has to be open and honest and have no secrets and so tells his parents he is gay. Rose keeps her silence but this has a shattering effect on the father Owen, who breaks down. He has been struggling with his own homosexuality all his life, and now goes out on Sundays to porno cinemas to meet strangers .... his son's openly gay lifestyle is now a painful contrast to his closeted existence; but lots of gay men of his era did marry then and hope to lead normal, if not double, lives ...
Rose is no fool and has her own suspicions and feels her marriage is failing, particularly when Owen returns at three in the morning (after meeting Frank - Richard Warwick, in what looks like the old London Apprentice bar). 

It all comes to a head when Owen invites an attractive American student to dinner, and Phillip is there too. It is all too obvious to Rose that Owen finds the student attractive ..... so everything is revealed and life has to change. Rose did have an affair (as she was so unhappy in her marriage), with a colleague at work, who is still interested in her, so that could be a solution for her, as she realises her marriage has been a sham although Owen does love her and want to stay with her - she can accept her son is gay but now knows her husband is also. We leave Owen staying at Phillip's apartment as he watches his son and his new companion (Ben Daniels) walk down the street, maybe Owen could have a future with Frank ? 
Eileen, so often Mrs Glum, is terrific here - she was also Dirk Bogarde's wife in another BBC Screen Two rarity THE VISION in '87 with Lee Remick, if only one could get a copy of that ... 

This is an absorbing family drama touching on gay issues seen from that well-to-do milieu, I was pleased to get a copy again, following on from THE LINE OF BEAUTY (below), as I had also read the novel. And the cranes? - they are construction cranes, not birds.

We may now go back and revisit those other '80s gay dramas as well: MAURICE, QUERELLE, PRICK UP YOUR EARS, PRIVATES ON PARADE etc. 

Handy for the Heath ?

SCENES OF A SEXUAL NATURE, 2006. How could a sunny  afternoon on Hampstead Heath (in North London) be so crushingly dull? I used to be up there during the 70s and 80s, and it seemed a lot more fun than shown here. I also had this recorded on my Sky hard drive for about a year or so, before finally deciding to view it – despite that interesting cast. We drop in and out of observing 7 couples in various stages of relationship issues. 

Old-timers Eileen Atkins and Benjanim Whitrow get talking on a park bench and discover they have an unusual connection – as they were prospective dates about 50 years ago but went off and married other people instead (sounds like the start of hit series LAST TANGO IN HALIFAX). Catherine Tate and Adrian Lester are a divorcing couple, 

Tom Hardy fools around with Sophie Okonedo and drops his trousers – that makes the audience sit up!, Mark Strong and  Polly Walker  are another couple, while Hugh Bonneville and Gina McKee have an uneasy picnic. The only gay couple we listen in on (gays are usually plentiful on the Heath) are Ewan McGregor and Douglas Hodge (who was brilliant in LE CAGE AU FOLLES a few years ago) and Andrew Lincoln (forever Egg in THIS LIFE) is caught gazing at an attractive girl’s underwear …. Ewan has an eye for passing trade but wants to have children as well, while partner Douglas is not so keen, as Ewan heads into the bushes with a new friend …. 

This though plays like a tedious collection of hit and miss sketches, directed by one Ed Blum, and one ends up fast-forwarding some of the more boring episodes. 

Moi on the Heath in the early '70s

If this was meant to be another LOVE ACTUALLY it fails miserably, but is an interesting addition to those indie gay British movies (like LAWLESS HEART or BEDROOMS AND HALLWAYS - reviewed at Gay Interest label, both infinitely more multi-layered and entertaining than this forgettable piffle. And where was Tom Hollander ? - surely they could have squeezed him in somewhere! 
This was made in 2006 - if being filmed now, a whole new raft of performers familiar to us would have to be cast: David Tennant, Olivia Colman, Nicola Walker, Elisabeth Berrington, Miranda Hart, Martin Hutson et al ... and perhaps the sculptured cheekbones of Douglas Booth and the pouting Rupert Penry-Jones (who does not like kissing blokes) as that gay couple ! 

Dirk and Lee's Vision, 1987

On to 1988, when that January the BBC ran THE VISION,

- a then timely warning about the American takeover of Europe by satellite TV, with disturbing ulterior motives. The fascinating foursome here are Dirk Bogarde as the British TV anchor man recruited by the rich fundamentalists, headed by Lee Remick in what seems like Margaret Thatcher mode, to lend their crusade respectability; with Eileen Atkins as his wife and Helena Bonham-Carter as his daughter.

 
Dirk did another engaging interview, with Philip Oakes, to discuss it. It marked his return to the BBC after 40 years. At 66 with 60 films and 3 novels and 4 best-selling volumes of autobiography behind him, "Bogarde was emphatically still a star. He has a star's arrogance, a star's ego and deservedly so. When he left England 20 years ago it was because British audiences, who recalled him fondly as a Rank Organisaton charmer, shied away from the mature and serious Bogarde as revealed in films such as THE SERVANT and ACCIDENT, both directed by Joseph Losey. After the boring and predictable films he was offered, Bogarde packed his bags and moved first to Italy, then to France where he worked with some of the great names of European cinema: Visconti, Resnais, Fassbinder and Cavani.  

It would certainly be fascinating to get a box set now of these lost Lee Remick productions: SUMMER AND SMOKE, THE AMBASSADORS and THE VISION ... how about it BBC ?

Ladies in lavender (or lilac)

PAL JOEY is a so-so musical I had not seen since I was about 12 - but I was transfixed by it seeing it again over the weekend - its a diluted version (for 1957) of the show, but Kim Novak looks incredible in that lilac or lavender clinging dress with matching gloves. Rita looks good too as the reformed stripper whom Frank sings "The Lady Is A Tramp" to, and of course that cute doggie ... Kim's finest hour perhaps? - though I also like her lavender hair look in 1958's BELL BOOK AND CANDLE (and then there is VERTIGO...). A report on her other 1957 starrer JEANNE EAGLES coming up soon ...

A delicious anecdote by Dame Eileen Atkins in the weekend papers, on when she and Judi Dench and that great cast (Julia McKenzie, Imelda Staunton, Francesca Annis etc) were making the hit series CRANFORD a few years ago. The dames were got up in their period dresses and bonnets and while waiting for their cue to go on Judi turned to Eileen and asked "come on, tell me - what have you had done? there must be something...", Eileen retorted "If I had something done, do you think I would look like this" looking her most severe as the Victorian spinster. Collapse of both ladies laughing. Eileen (the original Childie in THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE) also spills the beans on the night Colin Farrell tried to get her into bed .... Judi of course was also marvellous in LADIES IN LAVENDER with her pal Dame Maggie - and probably had the best number in the otherwise forgettable NINE ! Dames !