Category: Film, TV & Radio

Stella Street

Over Christmas 1997 BBC Two showed Stella Street. Each episode was ten minutes and there were three or so every night spread over the evening. It is completely bonkers in a very good way.

Black Robe

There is usually a fair bit of variety here, the idea being to encourage you to log on tomorrow when there might be something more interesting, so today you have every right to feel aggrieved. Only last month there was a post, Douglas, about acclaimed cinematographer Dougie Slocombe and now here’s another distinguished man-behind-the-camera.

Picnic

This picture is in the National Gallery of Victoria. It inspired Joan Lindsay’s 1967 novel Picnic at Hanging Rock. Some great novels have a great first sentence.

Alphabet Soup

I have a fiendishly difficult quiz for you today. Here is a list of men (clue: no women) and I simply want you to guess which one of them has this alphabet soup after his name, KT, GCVO, GBE, CB, TD, PC and what these ten men have in common.

Douglas

He was born in London in 1913 but brought up in Paris where his father was correspondent for the Daily Herald. A degree in Mathematics from the Sorbonne gives no clue as to the direction his life took.

On Days Like These

On Wednesday evening Matt Monro was crooning “on days like these … “ Where was I? No trumpets, no foie gras but I was in heaven. Gentlemen in England now a-bed shall think themselves accurs’d they were not at Opera Holland Park on 1st August which in fact is not St Crispin’s Day (25th October).

Arabesque

Stanley Donen is probably a household name in America but he’s only just come on the radar in Margravine Gardens.

Red Notice

In 1969 I saw a film I have never forgotten, Z. It was the first film I’d seen that had a serious political message. It is about the assassination of a left wing Greek politician in 1963 by his right wing opponents and the government cover-up that ensued. The film is based on a book… Continue reading Red Notice

Annabel

People say “what goes around comes around”, EM Foster says “only connect” and Anthony Powell wrote Dance to the Music of Time to make the same point at somewhat greater length; a saga with which I struggled a bit early on, but once WW II came along I was hooked.

The Mighty Fallen

Last month I quoted at some length the Trial and acquital of Francis Bellew. Forty years ago I was up before the beak myself on trivial charges – a case I will tell you about when the time is ripe. Today I’m musing on a quotation from the Second Book of Samuel: “how art the… Continue reading The Mighty Fallen