"I first watched Gilmore Girls around the same time I first saw my mum cry ..."

TV Lovely profile of Gilmore Girls by Abigail Radnor in The Guardian:

"I first watched Gilmore Girls around the same time I first saw my mum cry. I was 21, newly returned to Manchester after a year spent studying at an American university, and I was, as my mum would say, “full of it”: overflowing with excitement and not shutting up. She was driving and I was in the passenger seat; I had just picked up a set of photographs of the best year of my life, and was using them as visual prompts to enthuse about the friends I had made, the places I had been, the ludicrous frat parties I had gone to. Mum was silent for the most part, until she burst into tears. I was dumbstruck. There is nothing more terrifying than seeing the strongest person you know overcome by sadness. Eventually she said, “I am just so jealous”, words I could never have imagined she would say."

I had wondered why, other than budget, the new series was four 90 minutes episodes. Turns out the Palladinos like Sherlock.

The Real First UK Television Broadcasts.

TV Although the launch of television broadcasts is celebrated on the 2nd November each year, there were a number of unofficial test transmissions beforehand, providing an diet of documentaries, film and comedy. Andrew Martin writes on the BBC Genome blog:

"Compared to the regular programmes that started later, there was a high proportion of film in these experimental shows: indeed the first item broadcast, on 26 August 1936, was a Paul Rotha documentary film, Cover to Cover.

"This was followed by the first proper live programme, with singer Helen McKay. This was interrupted by a technical fault (as the start of the transmission had also been). It was followed by an excerpt from the feature film First a Girl, then another outing for Miss McKay preceded a longer programme of film excerpts, including Charles Laughton in Rembrandt, and Paul Robeson in Showboat.

"And that, lasting a little over one and three-quarters hours including tuning signals and breakdowns, was the first day of high-definition television."

Romola on supporting Parents In Performing Arts.

Moccasins and Suspenders.

Commerce On Tuesday I visited Leeds for the first time since 2003, when, you'll remember, my mission was to visit all halls and houses I lived in during my undergraduate degree. This occasion was to see For All Time: Shakespeare in Yorkshire at the University of Leeds's Brotherton Library, a small display of items from their special collections including the First Folio (which I've added to the list here).  There's also a copy of A Yorkshire Tragedy, attributed to Shakespeare on the title cover but actually, analysis suggests, by Thomas Middleton.  Imagine having your work out there with someone else's name on it (although there's a fair few screenwriters for him this is their career).  Middleton would also rewrite Shakespeare plays; it's thought the versions of Macbeth and Measure for Measure we have are his adaptations.

The exhibition only took about half an hour so I spent the rest of the day walking the city centre, something I neglected to do thirteen years ago, not wanting to spoil my memories from the mid-90s, the version which appears in these old videos.  In the fundamental ways, it's exactly the same, the overall structure of the city just the same.  But there are still signs of modernisation and homogeneity, with large sections of the shopping centre having been demolished to make way for giant shopping malls, some architecturally gorgeous palaces, some giant, soulless edifices.  Independent shops do endure at the fringes, so I was able to do some Christmas shopping here and there, unusual items not available elsewhere, from shops which don't have outposts in Liverpool.

The big disappointment was the Kirkgate Market, which other than Morrisons was the place where I did most of my food shopping, eaking out a whole week's meals for £15.  The market was full, dozens of food stalls, the gift market including the stand which only sold tins, loads of clothes places and a general sense of visiting a typical city market but much, much greater.  Now that's all but gone.  Huge empty spaces, plenty of the stalls and shops are not let and there's a general sense of watching managed decline.  It's apparently in the process of being refurbished, but the addition of an event space just seems to be a way of filling an area which was once otherwise buzzing with commerce.

Kirkgate Market was the place were Marks & Spencers was originally founded back in 1884 (sort of) and recently, tying in with an exhibition which has opened at the chain's archive which is housed near Liverpool University, they've opened a pop-up stall inside the market, possibly on the spot where they were founded.  There's a small exhibition and they're selling the kinds of items which would have appeared back then, jams and pickles, tea and biscuits.  There's also a small cafe stand.  I thought you might like to see some photographs.



However tempted I was to buy some marmalade, I quickly remembered that it would be the same stuff on sale in Liverpool, so there wasn't much point in carrying it home.

Mila Kunis on Hollywood sexism.

Film Kunis writes on Medium about some of the male behaviour she's encountered during her career, even after becoming a successful producer. However shocking some of this, isn't unsurprising. I can't imagine how you navigate this and still remain true to yourself:

"In the process of pitching this show to a major network, the typical follow-up emails were sent to executives at this network. In this email chain, this producer chose to email the following:

“And Mila is a mega star. One of biggest actors in Hollywood and soon to be Ashton’s wife and baby momma!!!”

"This is the entirety of his email. Factual inaccuracies aside, he reduced my value to nothing more than my relationship to a successful man and my ability to bear children. It ignored my (and my team’s) significant creative and logistical contributions.

"We withdrew our involvement in the project."

You can imagine the producer's reaction. "What did I say? What did I say?" Kunis explains that he said it was just a "light-hearted comment" not really understanding that it's the fact that he would make that comment at all which is the reason why the actor/producer wouldn't work with him. It's about having a particular mindset which would lead to him thinking that was ok. The ultimate expression of it is to describe that tape as "locker room talk".

Happy Birthday Television!

TV The BBC website has published a history of television on the occasion of its 80th birthday, starting with John Logie Baird. So many interesting titbits:

"If Baird’s machinery looks rather improvised and Heath Robinson-like, that’s because it was. A friend described visiting his Hastings attic workshop and seeing an apparatus made up of an old tea-chest, an empty biscuit box, hat-boxes, cardboard, darning needles, and scrap timber - all held together with glue, sealing wax and string, and balanced on a washstand. By April 1924, though, this bizarre contraption did allow simple outline images of a Maltese cross and various letters of the alphabet to be transmitted two or three yards. And, after the inevitable flurry of press attention, Baird raised enough money to move his operation to London.

"The following year, the retail impresario Gordon Selfridge invited Baird to demonstrate the new ‘attraction’ at his Oxford Street department store. And a few months later, the Post Office licensed Baird’s fledgling company, ‘Television Limited’, to conduct short experimental transmissions from a succession of West End premises."

Baird's experimental transmitter was on the roof of Longleat, which would later house the hopes and dreams of many others.

On Cue-Card Guy.

Film The Atlantic has a well researched column by Megan Garber about how refracted through another prism, the behaviour of the male characters in some romcoms is that of the sexual predator. Somewhat inevitably but it needs to be said:

"The cue-card guy in Love Actually—his character is so roughly sketched that he is generally and correctly known simply as Cue-Card Guy—shows up at the door of his beloved, while her husband sits watching TV, to confess his love. There he is, at her home, without, the cards say, “hope or expectation,” for the purpose of … what? Confusing her? Making her feel good about herself? Convincing her that she should totally leave his best friend for her? Using her so that he may, himself, get some much-needed romantic closure?

"It’s unclear—opacity is the defining characteristic of Cue-Card Guy—but the movie suggests that it is probably the latter of these: “Enough,” Cue-Card Guy says to himself as he’s walking away from her house, “Silent Night” still blaring on his Doblerian boombox, having successfully passed his romantic frustrations on to the woman who is their object. “Enough now.”

Not to mention the number of romcoms in which the male character does something aggressively appauling to the woman who quite rightly moves on and then, what was up to that point a relatively balanced narrative in which both characters have agency, becomes about him trying to win her back, she becoming little more than object in an metaphoric/emotional recreation of the opening scene in Raiders of the Lost arc.

And yes, I'm entirely aware that my favourite film of all time, When Harry Met Sally, somewhat does this, including the run against time and the big speech.  But in that case neither character is really right or wrong, I don't think and Sally still keeps her agency.  Plus the film in general is about friendship rather than romance and you get the feeling that even if they were to divorce later they'd still remain friends.  Or rather that they get married because they're stuck together.

Review 2016: Review 2016: Call For Entries.

About The clocks have gone back in the UK, Christmas is close at hand, so it's time, as every year to look towards what's going to be happening on the blog this December.

For the most, when putting out a digital begging bowl and ask if people would like to contribute guest blog post for the end of the year, I make a point of choosing a topic which has nothing to do with that year.

The reviews of the year on this blog have tended to be nothing of the sort.

Not this year. This is different. This year is 2016.

2016 has been so strange, so unlike every other year on record, with so many different things, sometimes positive, mostly negative, so much stuff, that it feels like just the right time to finally make the annual review on this blog, an annual review.

So the pitch this year is - I'd like to you write about something which happened in 2016.

Could be anything, big or small. Massive world event or something which happened in your own life. Could be a review of a book, some music, a film, something you've enjoyed. A holiday. A celebration.

As long as you like. A couple of paragraphs to something much longer and involved. No word limits.

Email them to stuartianburns@gmail.com with "Review 2016" in the subject. Email me first if you like or just surprise me.

As soon as possible but the deadline is really the end of the year.

I'll be happy to plug something in return at the bottom, your blog, Twitter feed, what have you.

Thanks.

My Favourite Film of 1922.

Film My first viewing of Murnau's Nosferatu was exactly eight years ago today and I can't think of a better way of celebrating than to repost, as a Halloween treat, the original story of that night.  Back we go to Thursday, October 30, 2008.

I don’t remember being as cold as I was earlier tonight. I know it’s the winter, and there have been a fair few times when I’ve sat on lonely railway platforms waiting for trains that might not come and I’ve shivered through minutes which seemed like hours but stations, even those open to the air still seem to have a warmth, even if it's because of the internal glow of knowing that home and a warm bed will be in the future. Tonight I stood for an hour and a half in the one place, my feet were numb, my cheeks raw and even hiding my wrists within my armpits underneath my coat didn’t work. I couldn’t move, but didn’t want to move and grim determination was forcing me to stay until the end.

Especially because as a film fan, there was no way I was going to turn up to watch Murnau’s ‘vampire’ film Nosferatu on the Big Screen in Clayton Square in Liverpool and leave in the middle (though some did). Tonight was the Biennial’s The Long Night, and galleries throughout the city opened their doors until late with events including poetry readings at FACT, a short film festival at the Open Eye Gallery and this Halloween presentation in one of the most public squares in the city. Of course I selected the outdoor option on a night like this. In case you need to picture the scene, the BBC Big Screen sits between a Tesco Metro and a Zavvi and is one of the main thoroughfares through to bus stops and Lime Street Station.

This is not the perfect situation in order to see any film, even if it is a silent and yet it’s also the perfect place because it’s so unlikely. As the crowd gathered, people dashing past with their shopping also stopped to look and asked what we were watching. Cars drove through, a large van at one point threatened to park directly between the viewers and the screen (you can imagine the jeers which greeted that possibility), various teenagers turned up and poked fun at the images or rode about on bikes.

Photographers queued up to take pictures of us, looking up at the screen on mass. I’ve seen spontaneous crowds develop in this same spot whenever a big news story breaks, but that’s different to our collective sense of purpose, of watching one of film history’s most unusual films in unusual circumstances. Which isn't to say that everyone stayed until the end; whilst some were doggedly sitting on the floor under blankets, others walked away visibly shivering.

It’s a measure of what the director achieved that somehow some of his images pierced through despite the conditions, the noise, the lights, the distractions. By cranking the camera in experimental ways so that Max Schreck’s movements in the title role become unnatural, despite the obvious make up, he’s a chilling presence, though the directors has already noticed that the best way to show your monster is hardly at all and to let the victim’s fear project the image of what their seeing and it’s that we’re repulsed by.

Taboos seem to stop Murnau from showing Nosferatu actually killing anyone, so the director instead emphasises the details of his killing and also introduced a plaque which spreads in his stead, allowing for lashings of coffin imagery and religious iconography. Considering the film was made in 1922 it still holds up remarkably well as a horror film, if not more so because the production design and values are alien to anything we’re accustomed to seeing a decade under a century later.

There's no doubt the temperature helped with the atmosphere too, as steam rose from our mouths, though I'd be lying if I said there was no chatting, especially at the points when the film repeats story information (we know what happened on the ghost ship, we saw it) or is just plain incoherent (who are all these new characters? What happened to Hutter?).

The new soundtrack provided by Liverpool group a.P.A.t.T. was a multi-textured accompaniment, which oscillated wildly but cleverly between a rural folksy sound to at one point, when the context within which that kind of beastie can exist in the real world is being explained by scientists, a dance piece with BBC Radiophonic Workshop influences. We saw the band as the film played, either cross faded with the action or in a small box at the corner of the screen.

I think I actually lost track of the story during one of these moments and the effect was rather like watching Michael Winterbottom’s 9 Songs with the whoopee making replaced by German Expressionist motifs. But it didn’t matter – this wasn’t a time to be investigating Murnau’s use of lighting, but just to be in a place, enjoying an experience so that one day I can say to someone as we’re passing through:

“You know what? I watched Murnau’s Nosferatu here one All Hallows Eve. It was freezing, and a truck nearly ran me over.”

You can see images of the event at Bren O'Callaghan's webpage.

Nightvisiting.

TV Having booked this weekend away from work due to my birthday happening on Monday and wanting to treat myself, theoretically I could have tuned into this third episode of Class as soon as it was posted to the iPlayer at 10am this morning. But Class doesn’t feel like a “daytime” show. Much like its parent series, there’s something to be said for waiting for the darkness and watching when you’re slightly tired and more susceptible to whatever suspense it’s about to deliver. Plus if I had watched this morning, I’d have immediately wanted to review the thing and there goes half the day. Sometimes routines are good and Saturday evenings often don’t feel the same unless I’m chiding myself for three hours about my lack of vocabulary.

Nightvisiting repaid my patience and anticipation with its twilight atmosphere, surreal suburban imagery and emotional depth. Surely inspired by Buffy’s Conversations with Dead People, this relatively stand alone instalment is narratively more straightforward than previous weeks, more engaged with providing extra dimension to its characters. Plus it’s the first episode not related to something happening within the school and although that might be for budgetary and scheduling reasons, it does demonstrate the show doesn’t feel tied to Coal Hill Academy as a locale. Many shows have standing sets that are consequently pressed into service because they exist. Class is designed to be rather more flexible.

As suspected too, Class is also going to have to work hard to find a different identity to The Sarah Jane Adventures. That earlier series also dealt with grief and parental disappointment on numerous occasions and although it presumably wouldn’t have played out in tense almost real time and would have had a PG certificate, a version of the central concept of the episode could have existed in that series, albeit perhaps affecting someone other than the regulars. A fair few of those stories eventually ended up cross cutting a stand off against a visiting alien with Rani and Clyde chasing through the streets searching for clues or their friends or both. Functionally, what is Mrs Quill, but Sarah Jane and Mr Smith rolled into one?

The Lankin are in the phyla of Doctor Who monster designed around the requirements of the emotional core of a story rather than a special effect, although in this case, the accompanying visuals and body horror were suitably horrific. The kind of gestalt being which might rock up in an Eighth Doctor novel in that period when the text was like a poetic word fountain even if the human mind couldn’t quite conceive what was being described (eg, Lawrence Miles). Emotion feeders are a staple of the genre, and often using loved ones against the hero and as was seen in Doctor Who’s Last Christmas, grief is a particularly potent tool. With its heartbreaking opening montage, the episode succeeded in drawing us into Tanya’s pain.

It shows how strong Ness’s writing is that she doesn’t become the victim. There’s another version of this episode where she unequivocally succumbs to the Lankin’s offer and it’s the thrashing about in her front garden, which ultimately saves her. But the big theme of the episode is turning anger into a strength, April against her father for his weakness making her stronger, Matteusz transforming his parent’s misunderstanding of who he is into love for Charlie, Mrs. Quill’s rage against her sister motivating her to help humanity this time, Ram’s general annoyance at his new situation leading him to listening for once. If the show’s successful, there’ll soon be a YouTube edit soundtracked by Katy Perry’s Roar.

The performances are top notch, especially Sophie Hopkins who is more than capable of holding a close-up and underplaying the emotional when required.  Kobna Holdbrook-Smith is just creepy as the manifestation of her Dad, with his Chameleon-like blinks and body language demonstrating physical restraint, of being attached and held back back the larger entity.  But once again lets worship at the fetishy boots of Katherine Kelly, mesmerizingly striding through the thing (or at least striding with as much as her character's reluctance will allow) and taking full account of the humour potential of Mrs Quill's exile, cynically coping with the domesticity and humanity the Doctor's landed her with.  It's the kind of role which could be played too big, but for all her boggly eye rolling, it's contained, compelling.

If there’s some mild consternation it's in how the only two available kids in the group are developing a romantic interest and although such things are not an unrealistic result of intense situations, in some ways having April and Ram remaining platonic feels like it would have been stronger. Which isn’t to say that the writer isn’t applying some quite logic bits of character business like April needing a break due to her heart problems and Ram still retaining some of his irascibility, not quite used to embracing the version of himself that bullied Charlie in the first episode. Plus it is notable that April makes the first move, holds his hand, kisses him, as if to demonstrate just how emboldened she is.

But overall this is well directed with some good laughs and scares and a sense of achieving what it’s setting out to do. Would I be watching if it wasn’t a Doctor Who spin-off? I’d like to think so although I’m putting everything off at the moment due to ploughing through the whole of Star Trek (twenty-one seasons to go) which makes this impossible to really gauge. Plus I was a huge fan of Spooks: Code 9 which shows I’ll watch anything designed for this demographic. Reviews have been notably positive across the board and although a couple of have suggested this is the best yet, I’d argue they’ve all been equally good. If the strike rate remains this high we’ll be clamouring for Ness to take over the main series once Chibnall leaves.

Vined.

Technology Twitter's announcement of the closure of Vine doesn't really impact me. I never did use the service properly. But here are my two attempts at posting something creative.

My first proper vine. https://t.co/CjNizgv5DT

— Stuart Ian Burns (@feelinglistless) October 28, 2016

Vine wasn't ever really used for animation in this way as far as I could see, perhaps because of the inability to control the length of each frame.

Careless Winston. https://t.co/KgJkhYV2rf

— Stuart Ian Burns (@feelinglistless) October 28, 2016

I wish I could remember which documentary this appeared in. Oh my.

Where you lead, I will follow. To Netflix.

TV Find above the final official trailer for the Gilmore Girls revival which just looks astonishing. Some of the line readings are all over the place and there's bound to be a certain amount of patience required as wait for the actors to get a handle of their characters but damn. Six hours won't be enough. It won't be enough. Theory about Melissa McCarthy. She filmed a whole bunch of scenes on her work days so she's threaded through the whole thing. We'll see.

Meet the Perennials

Life Recently, no actually not that recently, I've become quite aware that I'm not a standard forty-one year old and that if anything I'm still the same person I was ten years ago, same mind set, same approach to everything pretty much, like I've been in stasis for ten years. If I feel older, it's because of a greater number of aches and pains. But mentally, I remain attached to the new things, pretty much, especially online. Now there's a word to describe me, us.

Perennials:

"We are ever-blooming, relevant people of all ages who live in the present time, know what’s happening in the world, stay current with technology, and have friends of all ages. We get involved, stay curious, mentor others, are passionate, compassionate, creative, confident, collaborative, global-minded, risk takers who continue to push up against our growing edge and know how to hustle. We comprise an inclusive, enduring mindset, not a divisive demographic. Perennials are also vectors who have a wide appeal and spread ideas and commerce faster than any single generation."

Having just missed out on Generation's X and Y, it's nice to finally have a category [via].

Canon(ical).

Shakespeare In the past, I've written about how the uncertainty surrounding Shakespeare's authorship of some plays has led me to deciding upon my own personal canon of about forty odd plays. Essentially if there seems to be decent evidence that the playwright had his hand in, the play's added to the list.

Imagine my surprise over the weekend when publication of a New Oxford Shakespeare was reported in the media with news of the inclusion of the 1602 rewrites of The Spanish Tragedy and Arden of Faversham.

The latter has been published as apocrypha before but this is the first time, I think, that it's been included within the main body of the rest of his work, albeit as a collaboration with an anonymous writer.

The eye-catching other decision is to list the Henry VI plays as a collaboration with Christopher Marlowe, something which has oft been suspected but again, this is the first time it's been marked for co-authorship.  See also All's Well That Ends Well, which adds Thomas Middleton's name.

How much of this is true depends on whether you agree with the data mining methodology of comparing the texts to corpuses of data about how these writers utilised language in the plays which are well established as theirs.

My own theory is that there might even be other plays floating around, currently listed as anonymous, which might well also be his work as well as others.  Despite his genius, there has to be work which pre-dates what we know to be his earliest plays.  No one, not even him, can start there.

Does co-authorship diminish his status?  Possibly, yes, maybe, no?  To an extent, he's been elevated above his peers to an unfair degree.  Each of this collaborators had equally rich careers which are barely performed or studied to the same degree.

So really it serves to bring them to the fore.  I'd love to see a BBC season about Shakespeare's peers, without whom he wouldn't be the playwright he became.  Has Middlton's A Chaste Maid in Cheapside ever been recorded?

My Favourite Film of 1923.

Film Is Harold Lloyd's Safety Last and my first viewing although I can't completely confirm this because it happened (comparatively) so long ago in the 1980s, when his silents were repeated as a series on BBC Two in the early evening in a specially prepared television version.

For years, I've had the theme song at the back of my mind and sure enough, through the magical internet, here it is:



And even more remarkably, here it is with a glimpse of the BBC Two logo beforehand, along with a chunk of one of the programmes:



Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy was originally the title for a 1962 compilation film arranged by Lloyd himself, which as the Wikipedia explains was well received by audiences, but less so by critics, presumably because at that time a lot of the material was otherwise unavailable and the preference would have been to see the films in their original state. This New York Times review is especially disparaging.

Then in 1974, the title was appropriated for a television series with a similar aim, but longer clips, written by Peter Durston (of which the web has nothing) and produced by Bob Hoag (of which there are half a dozen listed on the imdb).  Other than that there's scant information about the origins of the series, other than an uncited explanation from the Wikipedia that they were result of the films being leased to TimeLife in 1974.

Except, of course at the BBC Genome, where you can find synopses for all of the episodes and their TXes.

The first run of nine episodes can be seen here.  Just to complicate things, although the opening episode indicates its a series of ten, only nine seem to have been broadcast with Flash Gordon filling the Friday slot in the week of the last episode.

Then the show returned in October 1980 with another run of episodes which seems to mix the original broadcasts with new episodes and the repeats continued right through the eighties, with the final repeat happening on 4th September 1987.

After that, although his films were shown sporadically it was in complete versions ending with Back In The Woods on a Friday lunchtime in 1990.  Since then only near complete showing was as part of an episode of Paul Merton's Silent Heroes which includes Never Weaken.

My memory of the show is dim, it was, as I say, a very long time ago, but it would have been my first taste of silent cinema, however hacked about they were.  Without labouring the point, is the world really a better place having repeats of Antiques Roadshow and the like in this timeslot now?

Hooray for Harold Lloyd.

The Coach with the Dragon Tattoo.

TV Second episodes of any new show are always trouble with a capital T. Now that all the characters have been introduced as well as the concept, the writers then have to find something to do and more specifically something which is as much like the opening episode to keep things familiar whilst simultaneously offering a road map for what the show is ultimately going to be. Many show runners often propose that programmes don’t really find their feet until the sixth episode. Doctor Who only really entered the public imagination when the Daleks arrived on screen six episodes into the first series.  Buffy’s sixth episode was Angel (assuming you think of Welcome to the Hellmouth and The Harvest as a single unit).

Class doesn’t necessarily have that luxury. Who and Buffy enjoyed much longer seasons so it has to set out its stall pretty quickly and The Coach with the Dragon Tattoo is as successful as it can be under the accelerated circumstances. Plot wise it’s very early Buffy, drawing on elements of Teacher’s Pet, Reptile Boy and if you squint I, Robot … You Jane not to mention The X-Files’s Never Again. Oddly enough this is the first appearance of a living tattoo in Doctor Who’s mythology (judging by the TARDIS Datacore). But the execution is generally unlike those shows with a deep cut of reality spliced through it which indicates that although it’ll also be utilising the metaphoric supernatural, it’s with a more depthful sense of characterisation.

Unlike similar shows, especially Who’s own spin-offs, our heroes are not really heroes. For the most part in these kinds of series, once the protagonists receive their calling they suddenly become very efficient in their new vocation even if only a week or two has passed since their first interaction with whatever it is as a requirement of the format. By SJA’s second story, Clyde and Luke were already chasing Slitheen around their school. But in Class, the Doctor having haphazardly gifted them their mission, these kids have absolutely no idea what they’re supposed to do about it. They don’t have plans, they’re not strategic, they don’t think things through. They find themselves investigating but they don’t really know what that entails. All of which makes this feels fresh, makes it feel “real”.

They’re gripped by constant uncertainty and events are having a cumulative effect. Unlike the main series in which a companion has to affect a rather blasé attitude to death for the format to work, here it hurts. Ram’s PTSD cuts deep as this figure who’s spent his short life in control, on the football pitch and in his personal life finds himself having to fight to regain some semblance of the person he is. But he’s no warrior despite his actions in the opening episode. Another series might have had our heroes attacking the giant lizard thing or finding some method of combating it. Here they win because Ram suicidally risks what seems to him to be a pointless life ultimately turning his loss of control in on itself. That’s a huge choice in writing terms.

Which isn’t to say that there aren’t moves to put some narrative furniture in place. Tanya’s attempting to hack into UNIT, a back door which could become this show’s “Huggy Bear” or Sunnydale High School Library or Mr. Smith unless writer Patrick Ness turns that on its head and it does nothing of the sort (and isn’t it interesting that she even knows what UNIT is?). Mrs. Quill’s mission is slowly dawning on her although it’s perfectly clear she’s no mentor, content instead to work in parallel to whatever else is going on. Alice is showing signs of becoming a kind of reluctant leader. As an aside, does she actually have no heart? What’s keeping her alive? Like Ram’s leg, how’s that going to work medically going forward? Such things are not easy to hide, even considering the cuts to the NHS.

But there’s no particular drive to rush into anything, building the friendship between this group of more interest than artificially introducing such genre tropes. As in reality, the characters change subtly depending on who they’re speaking to and the motive. I’ve already seen criticism of the “they don’t talk like normal teenagers” variety but even though supposedly most realistic of dramas, with tons of improvisation and gritty camera work, fictional characters never do. Plus it stereotypes teenagers, many of whom are just as witty, grounded and intellectually vital as this lot even if it’s on a slightly less heightened level than in Class. Not all them are, true, but neither are adults as recent election campaigns have demonstrated. I’d trust the Coal Hill Academy crew to vote more than most of the current electorate.

This second episode also offers even more grist for the mill in story terms as we’re introduced to the concept of The Governors. In The Day of the Doctor, the sign for Coal Hill Secondary School identifies the Chairman of the Governors as one I. Chesterton although this sure has to be some other group? Katherine Kelly really is marvellous as Mrs Quill with just the right amount of wacky energy. In close ups she’s utterly compelling; her piercing eyes constantly appraising the scenery, suspicious of everything. We still don’t really know her motives. To continue my comparison with Spike from yesterday, if Quill’s somehow “unchipped” would she stick around to continue the work or fuck off out of it? My guess is she’ll do just that, leaping into the bunghole of time at the earliest opportunity.

So yes, another success which is going to make it all the harder to write about. Miracle Day might have been a complete mess but it’s always easier to be an amusing dumpster arsonist when you hate something. I can well remember my disappointment when Torchwood’s television adventures kept missing the target, when every decent episode was followed by some shocking panto. Class doesn’t feel like it’s capable of that, in that I can’t imagine what a rubbish episode of Class would look like. But then Torchwood had a very good opening, pretty good follow up and then fell down the cracks in the pavement outside Ianto’s shrine, so episode three will be the clincher? Can the show maintain this momentum? Tune in next week to find out. Or whatever it’s called when you stream something on the iPlayer …

For Tonight We Might Die.

TV Good. So, so good. Satirically launched ten years on from the exact day of the second official television attempt at a Doctor Who spin-off, Class has a confidence Torchwood rarely managed, an expressive proficiency which in its first episode at least puts it in the same bracket as the very best of genre shows. Which doesn’t mean it’s especially original, we’re not in Orphan Black or Sense8 territory, but as an example of trying to do a sort of thing in a particular moment, in a particular idiom for a chosen audience demographic, Class excels. It’s funny, smart, has genuinely interesting characters played by likeable actors and actresses and most especially, I’ll be watching the next episode because I want to and not because you’ll be expecting me to post a review. Miracle Day.  It's also available to watch on the iPlayer for the next eleven months, in case you didn't know.

Creator and writer Patrick Ness is pretty shameless about resurrecting Buffy: The Vampire Slayer in the Whoniverse, even opening the episode with similar beats to that series’s opening episode Welcome To The Hellmouth with expectation busting scary moment in the darkened corridors of the school during the teaser followed by the cast being largely introduced walking into the school the following morning. That was Buffy’s first day, but interestingly there’s no particular viewpoint character upfront, Ness taking advantage of the viewer’s inbuilt knowledge of what a school is and more important the archetypes which tend to fill such classrooms. He knows that we know that he knows that we know that he knows we’ve already watched enough of these kinds of programmes to get the gist so why repeat any of it?

It's The Sarah Jane Adventures for the Torchwood age bracket but without the pantomime. But whereas those shows recreated the look and feel of the parent series, albeit for different audiences, Class rejects the current Doctor Who’s idiom for the most part with rapid cutting, shorter scenes, intensified continuity and storylines running in parallel (though admittedly in order to introduce and service all these characters). There are also funny intercutting sight gags and a general sense of experimentation which has been purposefully lacking in quite this way of late in the Moffat era, which has been to an extent aping the classic era which much longer scenes and linear narratives. You can tell I liked this. I have my serious head on. Which is odd because the programme on the whole doesn’t.

Nevertheless it is unexpected that Ness would choose a “breaking of the status quo” introduction to the series, with all the characters in place waiting for the badness to happen, oscillating between omitting narrative information from the audience to create mystery and expositional diarrhoea. That’s something he’s learnt from Joss Whedon’s series, in which Buffy was the lead character and much of the show was from her point of view but Xander and Willow, like April, Ram and Tanya here, were still also a way for the viewer to relate the spooky-doo and others mania. But because they’re citizens of the Whoniverse and watched the same television we have, they’re not surprised by its existence, just by the nature of it. They were probably part of the 456’s human microphone.

Anyone else, just for a moment, wonder if Ms. Quill would be revealed to be another long lost Time Lord? She certainly has the temperament, Katherine Kelly sharp-tongued eccentricity making you wonder exactly how she’s able to keep her teaching job, although having said that, remembering some of my teachers … Either way, she’s utterly compelling with just the right level of moral ambiguity without becoming dislikeable. The less attention-grabbing approach would have been to make her a kindly mentor ala Sarah Jane (and even have brought in a previous companion for much the same role), but by making her mysterious, even dangerous, not a class protector through choice, instead of Giles we have the chip-neutered Spike from season four.

Her students might be archetypes but they’re also dimensional from the off. Ram is the athlete but he’s quickly given depth through tragedy (will Ness slip in a reference to refrigerators next episode?). April’s the prom princess but she’s also the loner, the warmest of the characters now without a heart. Tanya’s the brain but also exceedingly cool. Which leaves Charlie as the criminal except he’s more of a fugitive. Ok, a direct The Breakfast Club analogy doesn’t quite hold up, especially since British high school dramas haven’t traditionally portrayed the same kind of clique system, but in his writing Ness is working hard to write against expectation, to make these characters feel real, to plausibly connect with each other as human beings. “Does this mean we’re mates now?”

Ness also seems to have been left to chart his own mythological course. If the school had been renamed and the Doctor hadn’t appeared, there’s not much in here directly connecting it to the Whoniverse. But the best thing about the Whoniverse is that a writer can insert masses of imaginative new stuff and it absorbs it with less fuss than a Spontex. Almost the entirely population of a planet wiped out by mini-Balrogs who only live in shadows? If you like. An alien prince hiding on Earth with his mortal enemy as his indentured body-woman? Fine. Arguably one of the problems with Torchwood was its desperation to embrace the main series. I’d be quite happy if we never see the Doctor again and we have seven more episode of shiny new things to enjoy.

Inevitably I’m going ask, when is this set? Did anyone notice a date on anything? Obviously we’re back in shared universe territory so anything Earth bound and planet threatening will inevitably make us wonder how it’s affecting this new band of characters, just as I was always scared for the kids in the attic during Miracle Day. Clara’s been accepted as gone, dead or missing, but the Moffat era has a slightly hazier approach to contemporary stories. How many Zygons are there in the school? I’m betting on Mr. Armitage. But all of this is getting way ahead of everything. There are still seven episodes to go and anything could happen. For all we know, a Monoid could fall through time and wander into the school canteen during episode three.

If there was one slightly discordant note, it was the sudden emergence of the Tenth Doctor’s theme on the appearance of the TARDIS during the flashback. Clearly the intention was that Charlie and Quill were rescued by Twelve but it’s a measure of Murray Gold’s initial achievements that those notes have become so synonymous with that version of the Time Lord causing us to wonder briefly – did Tenth save them? Is that why he doesn’t emerge from the blue box because David Tennant wasn’t available? Other than that composer Blair Mowat acquitted himself well on his first drama series gig after a mix of films, shorts and documentaries including The Fan Show on YouTube.  The sound mix is all over the place, some of the dialogue unintelligible. But that could be just the downmix on my headphones.

What of the Doctor in his only appearance on television this year barring the Christmas special? Well, he’s the Doctor. Capaldi having completed his transition from the menace who growled his way through season 8 back to the benevolent alien we know and love.  He’s just magic now isn’t he? Following Russell’s lead when he wrote the Time Lord into his school based spin-off, Patrick is careful to make sure he doesn’t hog the spotlight, the kids the key to the solution. The Doctor’s holding back, testing them to some extent, but without the cruelty of Kill The Moon, stepping in when required. Will the next series be partly about him regaining his memories of Clara or have we properly moved on now? I appreciated the grace note, but how did he remember be the old caretaker without her?

Like Fleabag and Thirteen, Class is a demonstration that BBC Three, even with its new delivery method is capable of spearheading some excellent drama. Before you ask, no I haven’t seen episode two yet, that’s for tomorrow night. As I write these words its only half nine which is a welcome change from how Doctor Who was broadcast last year, with me still tapping away on this laptop past midnight as a result.  It’s strange not having to sit through five minutes of Strictly first but it is entirely convenient to be able to see a new episode of something when I want to. Which isn’t to say I haven’t missed the collective post-broadcast atmosphere on social media afterwards. Though I have got any mention of it muted on Tweetdeck to avoid spoilers, so for all I know you’ve all be talking up a storm.

The second episode of Class, just like all shows will really emphasise the format.  The “next week” trailer somewhat suggests it’ll be much as we expect, an alien of the week for the kids to fight or some time travel related business or both. We’ll (or more likely I’ll, since you’ve all seen it already) see whether everything will stand alone or the storytelling is going to be more cumulative and interrelated, the effects of one adventure bleeding into another. Perhaps, like Buffy, it’ll do both. Will we see the emotional toll on the characters as they have to deal with stuff week on week or embrace the great spirit of adventure? Will eight episodes be enough? The fact that I’m speculating about this shows that the job is done. I’m hooked.

Yves Klein at Tate Liverpool.

Art The first and so far only comments card I've ever filled in Tate Liverpool was about Yves Klein. One of his blue paintings, IKB 79 1959, was once part of the permanent exhibition. One day, this must be over a decade and a half ago, I was in an especially cantankerous mood and noticed that, because the painting was behind glass and positioned in a particular place with a florescent light above it, the blueness seemed to be off colour, slightly dull, the shimmer of the pigment only really visible along the edges.  After chatting to the invigilator, I headed to the foyer and filled the white space on the card and popped it in the box, not expecting a reply.

Tate replied via email and explained to me what's now patently clear.  That the painting has to be behind glass for protection purposes and so it's almost impossible not for light to be reflected off the surface no matter were the painting was hung.  Would you believe I argued back about this?  But the exchange was perfectly cordial and in retrospect especially patient considering my ignorance.  There's always a trade-off in museums between displaying and preserving an object and sometimes, because of the very nature of a painting or sculpture or an example of the decorative arts, there isn't a perfect solution.

IKB 79 1959 returns to Tate Liverpool for this retrospective and remains one of art history's greatest achievements, breathtaking in its execution and visual beauty.  Displayed in a corner near the entrance, as far away from direct light as possible, it has an almost supernaturally watchful presence within the gallery, with all the foreboding of Clarke's monolith.  It shimmers as your eyes find it impossible to quite focus on its aquamarine surface, unable to fix on any particular details.  To stand before it, is to find your emotions being absorbed and reflected back, as it broods, smiles, addresses, surprises and it's impossible not to look, to want to look, addicted by its luminosity.

International Klein Blue or IKB, was created with the help of the chemist and paint dealer, Edouard Adam, attempting to retain the radiant blue that the dry pigment has even after it had been applied to the canvas.  The result is the bluest of blues, with all the lucidity of the skies in the Giotto frescoes which were the painter's initial inspiration.  Giotto mixed lapis lazuli with egg tempera and oil which hasn't aged well in some cases but Klein's "trick" was to suspend the pigment in a synthetic resin, Rhodopas, described by Klein as "The Medium."  As a result the surface has much the same quality as it must have done when he originally applied the paint.

If the exhibition had simply been an empty room with this at the centre, then nothing more would need to be said, an example of an artist at the apogee of his creative powers, what would be the perfect album for a musician, the unrepeatable novel for a writer, the first feature film whose magic can't be recreated.  But like any creative, Yves Klein during his slender life (he died of a heart attack at thirty-four in 1962 just after most of these paintings were produced), kept trying, kept working and if the rest of the items in the exhibition are any evidence, wasn't fucking around.  As well as a painter, he was a judo master, one of the few in Europe at that time, and there's even a startling photo of him leaping off a building (albeit heavily staged).

But IKB 70 1959 doesn't exist in isolation.  Klein painted over two hundred similar paintings, trying out different painting techniques from brush to roller to sponge and there are smaller examples of these blue voids elsewhere in the show.  In his 1957 show, Monochrome Proposals, Klein displayed eleven identically sized blue monochromes with different prices to "focus our attention of the sensitivity of artistic expression and the role of the audience".  But they are different, with varying textures leading to other ways in which the light shines from the canvas but few as successful as the larger work.

Similarly, there's a rainbow of even smaller monochromes collected together with only purple missing from the usual list and other than the IKB, none of them are actually monochrome, either because of blotchy paintwork, or dirt which has collected on the surface across the decades or fading.  Around the same time, Klein experimented with utilising his pigment within sponges either attached to the surface of a canvas or as stand alone sculptures, but this has a dulling effect, making it just seem like the kind of blue water based paint we'd use in school, artificial.  But it's important for us to see these choices in order to appreciate the miracle of IKB 70 1959.

Half of the main display space is filled with Klein's Anthropetries, in which the artist attempted to find a crossover between performance art and creating something with aesthetic qualities.  A film is included demonstrating how these works were achieved, as the artist daubs naked women with blue paint and they then press their bodies against the canvas, the idea of a whole being becoming living paint brushes.  People with long memories, or want to click here, can see a recreation of just this on Channel 4's Club X in 1989 during a live television broadcast, which even filtered through TV Hell's presentation is still fascinating.

Klein said that he considered his paintings to be "ashes" of the original work implying that the actual art work was the process of creation rather than the results.  But creative people always say that their output is always a goshima shadow of the version they had in their heads, and it's possible, that the very great artists in all media are those who're able to replicate the version they have in their head to the rest of us as close as is meaningfully possible.  Klein was able to do just this.  IKB 70 1959 is one of a small number of paintings which has the capacity to create sense of wonder despite its apparently simplistic formal qualities and shouldn't be missed.

Yves Klein (with Edward Krasinski) is at Tate Liverpool, 21 October - 5 March 2017.  £10.00 / £8/00.

Elizabeth Wurtzel on Bob Dylan.

Music Writing for The Guardian:

"I learned from Bob Dylan that, if you are good with words, you can invent whatever life you want. That is the power of writing. Great authors create worlds, with cityscapes and neighbourhoods and characters that they choose. I’ll be damned if you can’t become the person you render. Bob Dylan’s masterpiece is himself, all his work and all the people it has affected."

Let's Not Kill Hitler.

Books Here's a brief but fascinating explanation for the origin of the "kill Hitler" genre of time travel stories. Doctor Who isn't mentioned but it does mention Rimbau's El Acronopete which sounds structurally oddly familiar. A cast iron box travels through time (albeit implied as happening in a dream) and ...

"The machine provided the setting for a story in three acts, in which the following group of characters travel in time: don Sindulfo García, a scientist from Zaragoza and the inventor of the device; his friend and assistant Benjamín; Clarita, don Sindulfo's niece and ward; a maidservant; Captain Luis, Clarita's beloved; several Spanish hussars; and a number of old French women of 'loose morals' that the mayor of Paris wants to rejuvenate so that they "regenerate" themselves."

They're then involved in the sort of hijinks which wouldn't be too out of place in a Who story if you squint, albeit in the wilder spin-off material.  An English translation is available here.