Category: Film, TV & Radio

Let Us Pray

Increasingly, the BBC World Service provides less provincial and more interesting news than the BBC UK newsroom and their analysis is more intelligent. One such item caught my ear this morning.

Doctor….Who?

Dr. Keel was the star of a TV programme that ran for nine years in the 1960s and was briefly revived in the 1970s. I’m misleading you because he was only the star in the first series after which his side-kick supplanted him and the programme became famous. 

From Z To Somewhere Else

A recent post about Dr Zhivago leads me to London Spy, a recently concluded psychological thriller on BBC TV. The journey has a few stops on the way so, if you’d care to come for the ride, all aboard!

A Post About Post

I recently listed a few of the abundant, high quality crop of novels published in 1932. 1847 wasn’t so dusty either: Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Vanity Fair and The Macdermots of Ballycloran were all published. You haven’t heard of The Macdermots? Nor me until now.

Hatchard Job

Gifford’s name has cropped up a few times here and, as he has never sent in his legal team to sue the socks off me, here he is again. He has drawn my attention to a poll conducted by Hatchards to pick the best novel of the past 200 years.

When I Was Five

“A house in Kensington and £2,000 a year.” Sounds a bit like some thing from the pen of Muriel Spark, doesn’t it? Well, you’d have to sell the house these days. When I started in the City I never aspired to a residence in Kensington but I thought that I could jog along on £4,000… Continue reading When I Was Five

What A Waste

Here is Sam Mendes with the cast of Sceptre. The rating 12A for a film means that it is suitable for children aged 12 and over. Children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult. Recent James Bond films have all been given this classification and need it commercially to the extent that the director… Continue reading What A Waste

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

(That’s the only French content in this post.) This is what the old Odeon in Kensington High Street will look like after it has been re-developed as flats with seven cinema screens in the basement. Looks good to me. The Art Deco facade has been preserved but the conservationists are still furious. 

Hitch

He directed more than fifty films between 1925 and 1976. My mission this winter is to watch the lesser known ones that I have never seen or heard of. So last night I saw Alfred Hitchcock’s Topaz, released in 1969.