Best Christmas Telly
We had a lovely Christmas - with family visiting and a houseful for our party on the 28th. In the bits when I wasn't going from room to room with plates of nibbles or popping corks or wrapping or unwrapping presents I was watching telly. There was quite a lot to get through - I'm quite systematic with the Radio Times. There were some hideous disappointments of course - including a horrible Christmas Day Corrie. Why do they feel the need to turn themselves into Eastenders? I'd love to sit down the people responsible with a disc of Christmas 1965 on the street. I think that was the one with the whole cast doing a pantomime for the kids - or maybe it was the one with Stan Ogden wrestling the Masked Marvel while Annie and Ena drink the Rovers dry of sherry, burying the hatchet at last?
The Triffids adaptation was a waste of time, of course, as many people have pointed out. What is it with BBC and ITV? Do these producers only have about three or four books on their shelves? Can they only do stuff that's been done before? Are they that convinced that the public will only put up with stuff that THEY ALREADY KNOW? That's how it seems to go. All these endless remakes and overhaulings of familiar stuff. Umpteen Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyres. Endless Returns to and Reruns of.
The Triffids looked marvellous. Like venomous aloe vera. But there was no need to augment Wyndham's novels with new material. And what was all that voodoo innoculation rubbish at the end? It was magic, pure and simple. I usually love a touch of the supernatural... but not in John Wyndham. It just seemed an awful betrayal of his book.
I'll not talk about Doctor Who until the second part's been on, I think. So far it seems like a remake of the 1996 TV Movie with Paul Mcgann. I so wanted less to be happening. I wanted it to be about Bernard Cribbins and his pensioners dashing around London, trying to prevent the satanic rite in the prison that would bring the Master back to life. That's enough story for me, frankly.
Anyway - the triumphs.
Just recently I was saying Jeanette Winterson's recent novels have disappointed me. As a long-term reader of hers I was feeling out of touch and disgruntled. But Christmas Day morning there was 'Ingenious' - an hour long kids' drama set in Cheshire, in the shadow of Jodrell Bank. With this tale of an arabian genie and a dragon and una stubbs as a retired witch, she won me over all over again. It was a proper old fashioned kids' drama. It has to be a pilot. I can't bear it if it's a one-off. C'mon, there's a series, isn't there? There must be. We need to know! The episode was credited as being 'created' as well as written by Jeanette, so here's hoping it's a franchise in the making. In so many ways it was more Doctor Who than Doctor Who was. And Una Stubbs is a saint, in a quietly pent-up with anguish kind of way.
My other favourite TV thing - which I've waited yonks to see - the HBO movie of 'Grey Gardens' with Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange. I love the 1975 documentary about Jackie O's bonkers aunt and cousin. It's an eye-popping experience, first seeing that film. It's the definition of tragicamp. This new film - slipping the backstory and afterstory through the making of the documentary film is sublime. It's a beautifully made and acted piece of work. A labour of love, you can tell.
On radio I loved Radio 4's 'Someone Like You' - yet another retelling of five of Roald Dahl's 'Tales of the Unexpected'. As if they needed them. But again, it's SOMETHING WE'VE HEARD OF. But they were made very nicely - Charles Dance and weird Mantovani chillout theme and all. But why couldn't it have been five stories by R Cheywynd Hayes or Rosemary Timperley? Is it because NO ONE WILL HAVE HEARD OF THEM? And that would scare the producers and the commissioning people?
The Triffids adaptation was a waste of time, of course, as many people have pointed out. What is it with BBC and ITV? Do these producers only have about three or four books on their shelves? Can they only do stuff that's been done before? Are they that convinced that the public will only put up with stuff that THEY ALREADY KNOW? That's how it seems to go. All these endless remakes and overhaulings of familiar stuff. Umpteen Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyres. Endless Returns to and Reruns of.
The Triffids looked marvellous. Like venomous aloe vera. But there was no need to augment Wyndham's novels with new material. And what was all that voodoo innoculation rubbish at the end? It was magic, pure and simple. I usually love a touch of the supernatural... but not in John Wyndham. It just seemed an awful betrayal of his book.
I'll not talk about Doctor Who until the second part's been on, I think. So far it seems like a remake of the 1996 TV Movie with Paul Mcgann. I so wanted less to be happening. I wanted it to be about Bernard Cribbins and his pensioners dashing around London, trying to prevent the satanic rite in the prison that would bring the Master back to life. That's enough story for me, frankly.
Anyway - the triumphs.
Just recently I was saying Jeanette Winterson's recent novels have disappointed me. As a long-term reader of hers I was feeling out of touch and disgruntled. But Christmas Day morning there was 'Ingenious' - an hour long kids' drama set in Cheshire, in the shadow of Jodrell Bank. With this tale of an arabian genie and a dragon and una stubbs as a retired witch, she won me over all over again. It was a proper old fashioned kids' drama. It has to be a pilot. I can't bear it if it's a one-off. C'mon, there's a series, isn't there? There must be. We need to know! The episode was credited as being 'created' as well as written by Jeanette, so here's hoping it's a franchise in the making. In so many ways it was more Doctor Who than Doctor Who was. And Una Stubbs is a saint, in a quietly pent-up with anguish kind of way.
My other favourite TV thing - which I've waited yonks to see - the HBO movie of 'Grey Gardens' with Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange. I love the 1975 documentary about Jackie O's bonkers aunt and cousin. It's an eye-popping experience, first seeing that film. It's the definition of tragicamp. This new film - slipping the backstory and afterstory through the making of the documentary film is sublime. It's a beautifully made and acted piece of work. A labour of love, you can tell.
On radio I loved Radio 4's 'Someone Like You' - yet another retelling of five of Roald Dahl's 'Tales of the Unexpected'. As if they needed them. But again, it's SOMETHING WE'VE HEARD OF. But they were made very nicely - Charles Dance and weird Mantovani chillout theme and all. But why couldn't it have been five stories by R Cheywynd Hayes or Rosemary Timperley? Is it because NO ONE WILL HAVE HEARD OF THEM? And that would scare the producers and the commissioning people?
Gimme something I've never heard of. Make me fall in love with something new. Some of the old stuff is great but I hate the idea that people assume we're all middlebrow, cretinous and timid in our choices.
Though - if we're gonna have old stuff remixed and remade over Christmas... I wish Doctor Who had been about the triffids fighting dinosaurs and daleks on the streets of London on Christmas Day. That'd have been fun. Chap with tendrils, Sergeant Benton...!
Though - if we're gonna have old stuff remixed and remade over Christmas... I wish Doctor Who had been about the triffids fighting dinosaurs and daleks on the streets of London on Christmas Day. That'd have been fun. Chap with tendrils, Sergeant Benton...!
1 Comments:
Sadly, the more the soaps have tried to compete with each other, the more like each other they've become, and variety suffers as a result.
Did you record Grey Gardens? We were away and didn't have space to record it, though I am looking forward to seeing the documentary, which is on late tonight.
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