In Search of Chock-A-Block.

TV Noticing this tweet from Clayton "All Things Doctor Who" Hickman reminded me to check on the status of the wiped episodes of Choc-A-Block, the children's television series from the 1980s. 

Kaleidoscope's Lost Shows's search engine provides the following information:

Missing or incomplete episodes for programme:

CHOCK-A-BLOCK.

11.06.81 (missing)
18.06.81 (missing)
25.06.81 (missing)
02.07.81 (missing)
09.07.81 (missing)
16.07.81 (missing)

23.07.81 Shoe
One or more sequences exist from a recording on a domestic video format (e.g. VHS, Beta, Philips 1500), but the complete programme is lost.

30.07.81 Shoe
The only known complete copy was recorded on a domestic video format (e.g. VHS, Beta, Philips 1500).

Out of an original total of 13 episodes, 6 episodes are missing. In addition, one episode is incomplete and 2 exist on formats inferior to the original.

Which is what it is, a bunch of TX dates. Fortunately the Wikipedia has a complete episode guide (because of course it does) and the BBC Genome exists so it's possible to create match that information up with the episode details.

As it stands, according to that list, these episodes are still in the archive in broadcast quality:

(1) "Clock" tx 21/05/1981
(Fred Harris and the song "The Clock That Lost Its Tock)

(2) "Crow" tx 28/05/1981
(Carol Leader and the song "Ballad of Joe Crow")

(3) "The Sheep" tx 04/06/1981
(Fred Harris)

(12) "Bee At The Sea" tx 06/08/1981
(Carol Leader and the poem "If All the Seas Were One Sea")

(13) "Unknown" tx 30/08/1981
(Fred Harris and the song "Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, Where Have You Been?")

Inferior non-broadcast quality copies exist in the archive of:

(10) "Shoe" tx 23/07/1981
(Carol Leader)

(11) "Snake" tx 30/07/1981
(Fred Harris and the song "Drake on the Lake")

Not in the BBC archive are:

(4) "The Train" tx 11/06/1981
(Carol Leader)

(5) "The Sun and The Moon" tx 18/06/1981
(Fred Harris and the song "Out Shone a Ray")

(6) "Magpie" tx 25/06/1981
(Carol Leader)

(7) "Unknown" tx 02/07/1981
(Fred Harris and the song "King Cole's Mole)

(8) "Cat" tx 09/07/1981
(Carol Leader)

(9) "Pig" tx 16/07/1981
 (Fred Harris and the song "The Dancing Pig")

Sad face.

Except - they're not lost!

Here's "The Sun and The Moon" on YouTube:



Here's "Unknown":



Here's "Cat":



Here's "Pig":



Plus there's this which I can't identify but I think is "Magpie":



Which just leaves "The Train" as the single missing episode.

Chock-a-boy, checking out.  So that's that.  Good-bye.

Shakespeare Lives on Radio Three.

Radio BBC Radio Three has published details of how they'll be celebrating Shakespeare weekend, with a series of live broadcasts from around Stratford and further afield. As you'd expect the emphasis is on his subsequent influences on music but there still plenty of textual analysis, for example:

Record Review on stage: Live Broadcast
The Other Place Studio Theatre
0945-1100

Actors Samuel West, Hugh Quarshie (a recent Othello at the RSC) and scholar Kate Kennedy join presenter Andrew McGregor on stage to guide us through archive recordings of the greatest Shakespearean interpreters of the last hundred years, including the likes of Sybil Thorndike, Johnston Forbes-Robertson, John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier.

The broadcasts end at tea time on Sunday evening, but you have to assume that the evening play has to be something Shakespeare. Hasn't it?

New Adventures With The Eighth Doctor (Titan Comics).

Comics Hello again and here we are nearly a quarter of the way through the present hiatus, gap or whatever word you’d like to use for a year in which the only televised episode is at Christmas.  But there’s still plenty of Who around, certainly far too much than most of us can afford, between the BBC and Big Finish audios, books and comics. My strategy is to pretty much stick with making anything with the Eighth Doctor a priority then picking and choosing whatever looks essential from everything else. Does anyone really have the purchasing power to collect everything produced each month now? How do people find the time to read and listen to everything. Presumably enough of this stuff is selling to different fan demographics to sustain itself, but there can’t be many franchises this prolific.

Anyway, at the sharp end of production is Titan Comics, who having nabbed the license to produce US comics from IDW has set about creating their own cottage industry with titles for all of the nuWho Doctors (10th, 11th and 12th initially and now 9th) and a series of limited series for the classic models which means the Eighth inhabits yet another media. The selected approach, set the story during the Time War, is somewhat predictable given the world having moved on from being able to create sequels to the now twenty year old TV movie and the wild popularity of Night of the Doctor (which according to this month’s association circular led to an increase in sales of the McGann audios at Big Finish) making the pre-regenerative Eighth the expected model.

Except this is not a story directly about the Time War. As with the River Song cameo, this is a Doctor who’s actively trying to avoid the thing and seeking a distraction.  George Mann brings some weariness to the incarnation, but for the most part he’s back in the powerful adventurer mode, life’s champion and all that, carefully dodging the cataclysms which are presumably destroying the universe as hinted at in the Justin Richards short story Natural Regression. Perhaps at some point in the future, perhaps in the Big Finish audio, someone will make an attempt to define the chronology of these stories. For now I’m putting it early. At this point there aren’t enough stories for it to matter too much.

Mann’s story somewhat mirrors one of the Big Finish boxes, the Doctor having been tasked by some mystery other with discovering the origin of his new companion, Josie Day, a painter who somehow knows more than she should about the universe, with each issue developing from visiting a space and time on a handwritten list. We’re back in Seasons of Fear, Keys of Marinus or Key To Time multiple territories, though the impetuous is much looser, there’s no ticking clock, it’s simply a way to justify each adventure and when the conclusion comes, it would probably have worked out the same way if they’d simply skipped to the end (not that you couldn’t argue that the emotional connection sparked by the intervening adventures doesn’t help).

New companion Josie is pretty old school in Eighth Doctor terms, fitting a similar silhouette to Sam Jones, Izzy Sinclair and Lucie Miller (and so Ace and Rose), although for various spoilery reasons it’s not quite that clear cut. If you haven’t read the comics yet, if you’re waiting for the trade paperback, my suggestion is that you stop reading now. I want to briefly discuss the implications of Josie briefly. Have you gone? Good. Right so, yes, the cleverness of Mann’s writing is that as well as making the final instalment provide a logical conclusion to the first and provide a twist (effectively shifting the cliche into someone akin to Majenta Pryce of DWM fame), it’s how in those intervening adventures by giving Josephine a key part to play in helping the Doctor, often with a big speech attached, he justifies the Doctor’s faith in her more than is often the case with companions.

The Pictures of Josephine Day

Paintings coming to life is as good a start as any and Mann connects it well to that central mystery about Josie. As we discover (and yes, I’m writing this after reading all five issues) (twice!), Josie knows full well why she has all the knowledge that troubles him and in re-reading the issue, we can already see Mann layering in that she’s hiding something, providing lame excuses but doesn’t overplay his hand, aided by Emma Vieceli’s superb characterisation of her face which manages to capture the double meaning of the words so that can read something new into everything in hindsight. Mann notably doesn’t feel the need to reintroduce Eighth, treating him as being as much of a known quantity as any of his other incarnations. Although he’s not sequelising the cross-media legacy exactly, he is at least acknowledging it.

Music of the Spherions

Tricky second story. Arguably imperilling Josie Androzani-style is an odd choice for her second adventure, but it does provide a good moment of raging anger which you can absolutely hear McGann himself relishing and his companion having the first of her big speeches as she brokers peace between the inadvertently genocidal Spherions and the accidentally oppressed cat like inhabitants of the war-torn planet. Vieceli’s artwork really is epic and gorgeous in places, taking anime as a clear influence especially in the latter stages when Josie’s infection is flushed out. Unlike the various DWM artists across the years which strove to create a clear likeness of the actor, Vieceli’s most offering an idea of the Eighth Doctor, preferring to underscore movement over tableau.

The Silvering

Following the pattern of the 2005 series, after a contemporary setting, then something alien comes Earth’s past, Edinburgh 1866 and like The Unquiet Dead a trip to the theatre. Are these influences intentional? The Doctor confronting magic that isn’t is a deep seam running through his biography and Eighth in particular, this recalling some of the atmosphere of Lloyd Rose’s Camera Obscura. It’s pretty slight stuff, like one of those pieces that would turn up the DWM strip between the larger arcs when Scott Grey or Alan Barnes needed a break from writing in order to catch up. I didn’t notice the twist at the end first time around, perhaps because there’s not enough room in the reflected mirror to see that Josie isn’t there.  There's probably a discussion to be had about who the viewpoint character is in these stories.

Briarwood

“Aaah, it’s The Krynoid Invasion or Invasion of the Krynoids” “[Caption: Seeds of Doom]” Sadly, The Paul McGann Years would be a very short video although I’d pay good money for Big Finish to produce an audio version in which he attempted to provide anecdotes about spending a week in the booth every couple of years recording his scenes. Anyway, Mann returns to another of the Doctor’s key antagonists, alien plant life, on this occasion crossed with a big mansion mystery. The piece has a Masefieldian tone as Mann foregrounds a small boy getting to grips with the notion of having an adventure and the mythology which has built up around his family.  You could well imagine this story told with mid-80s production values, the moments when the plants take control of humans achieved through stop-motion animation ala The Box of Delights.

A Matter of Life and Death

The finale caught me by suprising, having thought that this was a six-part series. Despite rehearsing some of the same arguments as The Almost People from television and Immortal Beloved from the audios, this is my favourite issue of the run with its strong antagonist in the source of Josie’s existence and the Doctor having to take moral decision that underscores how he stands apart from humans without undermining his heroism. The reveal of who provided him with the original list (which also reconfigures our understanding of the first page of the previous issue) is the kind of thing which should annoy me, but I couldn’t help grinning at how well Mann provides necessary contrasts in personality. The final moments hint at there being further adventures for Eighth and Josie. Good.

Restoration of a Bacchante.

Art One of my favourite painters is the 18th century French court portrait painter Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun and her masterpieces include the likeness of Lady Hamilton as a Bacchante which usually hangs at the Lady Lever Art Gallery. The painting as recently been restored, and here the conservator Kristina Mandy talks about her work as NML publish a pdf of the conservation report:

"Varnish removal

After a surface dirt layer was removed, a mixture of solvents were used to slowly remove the varnish layer. Additional residues of an older varnish layer were discovered in Lady Hamilton’s costume, which made her dress appear brown, rather than the original purple-blue colour. These residues were also removed.

A photograph taken during cleaning demonstrates the large visual colour shift achieved by the varnish removal, revealing the bright colours the artist intended for the composition. Additionally the depth in the portrait was reintroduced, and smaller details in the painting were finally visible."

The pdf (which is here) also includes an analysis of Le Brun's original processes in crafting the composition, shifting the anatomy, extending the canvas.

Romola on Isabella.

Theatre BBC Radio 4's Front Row is running a series of interviews with various actors and experts about their favourite Shakespeare characters and Romola Garai has chosen Isabella from my favourite play, Measure for Measure, which she recently played on stage.



As she identifies, the character's situation is often misrepresented. Angelo is suggesting he effectively be allowed rape Isabella (even if the word is never used) and although the Duke then proposes a method for this not to happen, for the production to then end on the two of them leaving as couple as often happens when the director has decided this is the comedy it isn't, is to deeply misunderstand the action which has preceding it. There's a reason why Shakespeare ends the the play on the Duke's proposal but not Isabella's answer.

Other actors featured include David Tennant and Catherine Tate, which means I can add a Doctor Who tag to this post too.

My Favourite Film of 1953.

Film Just because I'm don't follow a particular religion doesn't mean I'm not someone who doesn't have faith.  At the risk of plunging headlong into a Thought for the Day and in order to swerve from smacking headfirst into a sketch from The Fast Show, it's important to note this isn't faith in God or some other mono or polytheistic supernatural being.  I've said in the past that creative endeavours have filled the gap where religion would be and that's still probably true, Shakespeare, the Time Lord franchise and films in general probably have that function.

As Steve Martin says in Grand Canyon, everything you need to know about life is in the movies including it seems, if you're using Grand Canyon as a source  of the information that everything you need to know about life is in the movies.

Here's an example.

In early February, I finally saw Ken Branagh's Cinderella whose central "message" is to "Be kind, have courage and all will be well."  The younger, more cynical version of me might have scoffed at that, but the person typing these words now thinks, "Well ... that's not a bad way to go about things" reminding me as it does of how we'd probably all be better off if we conducted ourselves in a similar way to Cary Grant in North-By-Northwest, genial and good-natured even in the face of aggression and surprising events.  That does work by the way; if a stranger bawls at you, they have nowhere to go if you don't bawl back which is my point about these filmic life lessons, they always have a grain of truth.  Plus it helps if they're the courageous and kind type themselves.

The other moment I often think of is in The War of the Worlds.

The Martians are on the brink of winning.  Everything is near destroyed and then a Pastor realises that no one has bothered to try speaking to the aliens. He says, "I think we should try to make them understand we mean them no harm. They are living creatures out there" and after some justification in relation to God having perhaps created this aliens as well as humanity, steps forward into their path, bible pressed forward and begins quoting. It's Psalm 23. "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. [...] Thou anointest my head with oil. My cup runneth over. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord, forever."

Now it doesn't go too well and the Martians vaporizer him anyway. God doesn't help him much.

But there's something about his bravery in the face of obvious annihilation, his absolutely belief that he has to at least try.

Who would have thought Cinderella would reinforce the message of War of the Worlds?

Which is why I always try to be be kind, have courage and hope all will be well.

Storyvillages.

Film Nick Fraser of the BBC's Storyville (which despite threats of closure of close a few years ago is now seemingly going strong) has a piece in today's The Observer about the power of documentary. Not only do I appreciate the way in which he doesn't spoil Sarah Polley's Stories We Tell this opening section resonates with me in an odd way:

"My life has been spoiled by docs. I cannot deal with most fictional representations any more – because reality seems too interesting. Dostoevsky, Vasily Grossman and Richard Yates apart, no novelists quite match up to the hits of reality I get each week. Have I become a voyeur? Am I improved by so much exposure to the lives of others? I couldn’t say, but the experience doesn’t seem negative to me. Meanwhile I can say categorically that docs have become an irreplaceable cultural form of our times. We would miss them if they went. We would miss them very much. I thought of this while watching a Brazilian film about a hang-gliding champion sentenced to death and executed in Indonesia for smuggling 13kg of cocaine in a spar of his glider. His life and last days were conveyed by means of his Skyping and the camera he’d smuggled on to death row. This film wouldn’t have been made even five years ago."

Exactly. Outside of Time Lord adventures I've never been a huge reader of fiction, preferring reality or at least the prose filter of reality instead.  But, and this is the contradiction, I certainly watch a lot more fictional than non-fiction including literary adaptations or the very books I spurn.  The Observer has also post a list of films chosen by practitioners.

Fleet Folios.

Books The Folger Shakespeare library has sent eighth of its First Folios on a tour of the US, covering all fifty states, reports the New York Times.

It's the first time a copy of the Folio has visit many of these areas and although I've always been cautious about just what you can gain from seeing just two pages open in a book, and find exhibitions of volumes frustrating for this reason, the power of this object is stronger than most because it's a piece of the past, a way for us to touch a moment (or at least look at it through glass) within living memory of the man who invented many of those words:

"The book, on loan from the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, drew a steady stream of visitors last Saturday, including Amy Redhage, who had driven seven hours from Lowden, Iowa, with her five children.

“I went to Stratford-on-Avon with my high school orchestra, but I don’t think we got to see anything like a First Folio,” she said with a touch of reverence.

Other pilgrims have shown flashes of outright Shakespearemania, like a college student who visited later that afternoon and announced her intention to get a passage from “Macbeth” tattooed on her side.

“She stood next to the Folio and tried to keep herself from crying,” said Patricia Bornhofen, the museum’s communications manager, who was keeping watch over the exhibition."

For my part, I'm resting watching my way through the 1001 (odd) film list and instead having a go at the canon again beginning with Peter Hall's ravishing 1969 film of A Midsummer Night's Dream starring Helen Mirren, David Warner, Diana Rigg, Michael Jayston, Helen Mirren, Clive Swift, Ian Richardson, Judi Dench and Ian Holm (which I didn't even realise existed until I saw this tweet).  It's available to hire as a stream from Amazon Video.

Third Party Shakespeare.

TV Small tipbit in amongst this blog post about the process of working towards the emergence of third party content on the BBC iPlayer. My emphasis:

"We already have some experience of showcasing third party content with S4C on BBC iPlayer and over the next few months we are planning to dip our toe in the water further by undertaking some small scale pathfinder projects to get a better understanding of the issues and questions we will need to address. This will start next month with content to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death where our plans include a digital event on 23rd April hosted in Birmingham and co-curated by the BBC and the British Council, in collaboration with some of the nation’s greatest performing arts institutions."

Apart from the fact this was just the sort of thing which would have been broadcast on television back in the day (see Fanfare for Europe, "a celebration in words and music from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden to mark the formal entry of the United Kingdom into the EEC, in the presence of the Queen and Prince Philip. Introduced by Tom Fleming.") it is nevertheless exciting to see the event receiving a national airing.

It is of course, the event mentioned in the press release back in 2015 but the fact of it being hosted on the iplayer rather than in clips boxes on the website is what makes this interesting, a potential flood of content that hasn't been broadcast on television - and being attached to this third party content initiative.

The BBC Trust's restrictions seem fair.  Essentially it has to be material which is connected to what the BBC is already doing or more specifically the kind of thing the BBC has already done.  At best this could be a way for performance material to be seen without it having to be broadcast and contextualised for television broadcast.  We'll see.

The Exorcism of BBC Three.

TV BBC Three's promo channel and ghost version with a schedule is coming to an end at the close of the month reports a516digital. Just you be ready in pub quizzes of the future to argue the toss over whether Gavin and Stacey was the last programme to be aired by the channel on television:

"BBC Three has been broadcasting a secret schedule of favourites from the BBC Three archives since the channel made its move from linear TV to an online service in February. Initially, the channel broadcast three hours of programming every night, dropping later to two a night, a move required for the channel to keep its channel slot on Sky. The remaining hours have been filled by a looped promotional video advertising the move online."

"Episodes of Murder in Successville are scheduled to run between 2 and 4am on Thursday 31st March 2016, before the channel is removed for good from linear TV platforms."

There you have it, BBC Three on television has decided to go out with some bitter irony, at least in title terms.

The A-Z list of the channel's programme content continues here now linked from the front page of BBC Three iPlayer page again, albeit at the bottom.

Most of the new stuff has expiries of three to twelve months but it'll be interesting to see what's left when the ghost BBC broadcasts go completely at the end of April.

 a516digital thinks that the channel is only really broadcasting two hours of regular content a week at the moment, which would be the drama Thirteen and Sex In Strange Place, the Stacey Dooley documentary.  Both have five month expiries so after a while the selection will pile up again, but the channel has to be careful to look like it has a richer offering if it's to prove that going online can work as a viable option and haven't simply replaced a television channel with a content rich blog.

On my blog: Twitter at ten.

About The social media microblogging website "Twitter" has reached its tenth anniversary today. I have mixed feelings about Twitter. On the one hand, I can't imagine what being online would be like in 2016 without Twitter, and as you'll see, the number of opportunities and events which have happened to me because of this social media microblogging website mean that I can't be anything but pleased about its existence. Except, part of me wonders what's been lost as, along with the rival "Facebook", it's become the backbone of just the internet and how we interact with the internet but also society.

Before Twitter, all this was discussion boards, email, blogs and RSS feeds and part of me wonders if they experience then was richer simply because everything was simply more purposeful because in order to fully utilise them you required much greater agency, you genuinely felt like you were surfing. Now everything is sort of pushed through a pipe that drips at a hundred and forty characters at a time, it's more like standing under that pipe with a bucket. And the problem is, if you try and stop, because everything falls down the mountain into that pipe now, you'll end up dehydrated even though there's enough water around to drown but you're ignoring because it feels so damn hard.

Anyway, for all that, let's celebrate by looking at some of the ways this blog has interacted with Twitter across the past ten years.

My Favourite Film of 1954.

Film In 2009, I undertook to watch all of Alfred Hitchcock's films in order and somewhat review them on this blog. That endeavour is all posted here, including a brief survey of my favourite, Rear Window, which even more than the director's consensus best, Vertigo, seems to be a near perfect film in that it contains all of the suspense and psychological rigour but also a modicum of humour and Grace Kelly.  It's also the film I relate to most given my highrise living and proximity to other buildings through which you can see other lives even though you must not, also making you conscious that people might just be able to see how you conduct yourselves.  It's a conspiratorial privacy augmented with blinds and curtains when absolutely necessary.

This need to work through lists is born of a restless, distracted interest in culture which requires taming, of being, as I say in my Twitter profile of being intensely interested in everything and so needing guidance so as not let the entirety of culture topple in on me.  So there I am watching acting and directing careers in order, the adventures of a Time Lord across media, visiting art institutions and the boxed sets of television, the endless boxed sets.  At the moment, in what I intend to the list to end all lists, I'm working through 1001 films to watch before I die, which typically is actually more like a thousand and a half due to annual updates and of course I'm trying to see them in chronological order, one per day.  I'm in the 1940s now.  I've been at this nearly six months.

Every one is a challenge and there always moments when I hit the wall.  There are abandoned projects.  There was a moment whilst listening to In Our Time in order when I realised that my interest in everything didn't stretch to evolutionary psychology or literary modernism and that indeed my inability to really understand what any of these people were saying was making me depressed.  Attempting to follow This American Life from the start also foundered at the end of the Your Radio Treehouse era because that was the moment when show re-emerged fully formed and I was falling behind on new episodes.  That's also a factor.  These projects tend to work best when there's an obvious end point or a single body of work. Part of me wishes Woody Allen would stop for this reason.

None of these are achievements exactly.  My personal Everest was returning to a red brick university for an MA and I'm quite content that being my great achievement, at least for now.  But there's still a sense of pleasure at completing especially if you feel like you've learnt something.  Only until I watched my way through Hitchcock's career did I notice that he utilised roughly the same plot over and over through much of his career, of the wrongly accused on the run but that it wasn't until he shifted away from this that his true classics emerged.  So perhaps there is something to be said for not relying too much on linear thinking.

Shakespeare on Merseyside.

Radio The BBC has announced local radio's contributions to their Shakespeare festival which includes Radio Merseyside and would you believe:

"BBC Radio Merseyside will be delving into the story of actress Sarah Siddons who played Hamlet in Liverpool in 1778. At a time when actresses were still associated with prostitutes, Siddons took pains to lead an exemplary life as a respectable married woman.

Although her husband was a respected actor, she was really the family’s breadwinner, the brighter talent and the bigger draw at the box office.

Siddons’ ground-breaking Hamlet extended the possibilities for actresses on stage and paved the way for a flock of others to follow suit.

Frances De La Tour and Maxine Peake are just two of the actresses who’ve tackled the role of Hamlet while Fiona Shaw and Frances Barber have played other male roles."

Which seems like is going to be a documentary, but all I've found is this longer story (which is still well worth reading).  Nevertheless there's a page at the Shakespeare on Tour website collecting stories connecting Shakespeare to Merseyside.

We Need To Talk About Claire Temple.

TV At some point in the not too distant future, I'm going to write a listicle (or whatever the millennials are calling them these days) about my top ten favourite characters from the whole of the MARVEL cinematic universe and it's while watching Daredevil's second series that I realised just how high Claire Temple is one that list. Of all the characters we've been introduced to across the franchise, the she's the one who feels the most grounded and likeable and most importantly makes you wish that MARVEL would make a show or film in which superheroes are backgrounded rather than foregrounded, incidental rather than main characters, in which its about what it's like to live in a world where navigating rush hour could also include dealing with major disruption due to a contest of champions.

As is customary I spent the whole of yesterday working through all the available episodes of a Netflix MARVEL series in order to avoid the inevitable spoilers, beginning at around half seven in the morning (the series was uploaded an hour earlier than usual) and finishing just after midnight. As is also customary, this was time well spent as Daredevil's second series, whilst for my money not being quite as brilliant as Jessica Jones and slightly more formulaic, is still like nothing else on television and you should definitely watch it at your earliest convenience. Anyway since it's Saturday night and I have the itch, here's some odd comments about this run of episodes huddling around some numbers for comfort. Obviously this is supposed to be read after you've seen all the episodes because SPOILERS.

(1) Having run a whole story through thirteen episodes and finding themselves becoming slightly bogged down around episode ten with Nelson vs. Murdoch and essentially seeing Matt and Foggy talking through the previous nine episodes of exposition about the Daredevil and things, season two is instead segmented into three clusters of four episodes then a final resolving installment. The first four introduce The Punisher, the next four are about Elektra, the final four are about returning to themes and characters from the first series and the final episode climaxes The Hand story.

Unexpectedly The Hand and The Blacksmith aren't revealed to be connected in some way, and I think that has to do with the series working as an origin story for The Punisher (much as Jessica Jones did for Luke Cage), who along with Karen's participation instead ultimately resolves his own story. A less brave show might have attempted to put Daredevil in both climaxes somehow, but the writing is deft enough for us to view this as an ensemble piece rather than just the Daredevil show. My guess is that if there is a third series, Elektra will have even greater agency than she does here, hopefully, whether she's to be the antagonist or not.

Will we now see a show about The Punisher or will he continue in or one of the other shows. I'd like to see him spin-off if only so that s3 of Daredevil doesn't feel like a retread of this, that instead of Daredevil, we're watching Daredevil and The Punisher each year. I think he's strong enough, especially if he travels outside of Hell's Kitchen, takes his fight elsewhere. The fear might be that his Death Wish brutalism is too much to sustain him on television as an anti-hero without it all tipping over into machismo. The trick will be to find interesting enough supporting characters and a story which justifies the killins'.

(2) More noticeable in this series is the story editing is even closer to comic books, and the "meanwhile" approach to cross cutting between scenes. On dozens of occasions, threats between champions even brutal fights are intercut with character moments or expositional action related to another storyline and just sometimes the viewer is forced with having to juggle three or four different tones within minutes. Sometimes it jars, usually it worked well enough that our tension is kept going throughout. In that way there feels like less luls overall than the first year.

(3) Back to Claire Temple briefly. Her appearance early on suggests that she's not going to have much more than a cameo in this run of episodes (not unexpected given the Rosario Dawson's presumed schedule) and yet there she is later in the series receiving some proper character development which suggests that her story is going to weave its way through all of these MARVEL series, her arc next being picked up in Luke Cage. Perhaps her resignation here will be catalyst for her setting up the clinic for superheroes or vigilantes which appears in the comics? It goes without saying that Dawson is glorious in all of her scenes, somehow finding a more naturalistic tone against the wanton mayhem surrounding her.

(4) Elektra has a flashback. Kingpin has a flashback. Frank Castle gets no flashback. Everything we learn about the incident which was a catalyst for him to become The Punisher is through exposition and investigative dialogue. Another series might have had brief shots of him remembering fragments of the tragedy, but the producers realised that the brutally we have in our imagination could only be diminished through terrible shots of his wife and children being gunned down (perhaps also conscious that this origin in particular is a pretty generic example of fridging albeit from an earlier period). The show also heads off into the psychology of him making the choice to take the law into his own hands in a way that none of the films has, I don't think.

(5) If there's one weak moment, it's the return of Fisk, the most telegraphed, least surprising twist since every Doctor Who Dalek story built up to the appearance of the pepperpots at the end of the first episode like some mystery even though their name is in the title. But the flashback to his time in jail, along with the callback to his meditative art piece certainly gave worth to his reappearance. Perhaps my only real disappointment is that because he's such an integral part of Daredevil he's rightly been placed in this series which means he won't be available as an antagonist in the Spider-man films and the more outlandish approach to the character that would offer, not least as a key part of Black Cat's origin.

(6) They've dealt with the Foggy and Karen bystander problem with the first series in which they mostly reacted to events. Of the two, Karen is best served and while its clear that Elodie Yung's Elektra is supposed to be character that everyone is supposed to coalesce their interest around, in places Deborah Ann Woll practically walks off with the thing, shining like a baking sun against Charlie Cox's purposefully shadowy understated Matt. Does Foggy joining Carrie Ann Moss's law firm mean he's now going to turn up in the next series of Jessica Jones? Or Luke Cage? Good god, I love how all of this is connected.

(7) All of which said, I don't see how The Defenders series is going to work at this point. Presumably the rich worlds of secondary characters will intermingle in a similar way to the characters in The Avengers films, most of them having met one another given the number of shows which are in production now, but foregrounding the four main characters is going to be a tricky business, as is finding a story which means that they won't jar. Plus how many series will have per year before Defenders debuts? MARVEL/NETFLIX hasn't yet given an indication of the new release date structure now that Jessica Jones has gone to a second series and we have to assume both Luke Cage and Iron Fist will be granted multiple season orders too.

Ariana Grande's Impression of Jennifer Lawrence.

TV On the basis of this and her musical impressions, to an extent Grande's a loss to the world of variety. At least if her musical career dries up she has another entertainment off-ramp.

"No one has ever quoted me back to me before."

Film In the midst of a fairly bog standard rewrite of a press release at The Hollywood Reporter about how Warner Bros is producing twelve films for the Chinese market including Miss Congeniality and Blended (yes, that Blended), is the news that my favourite film of all time is receiving the same treatment. I think. Um:

"When Larry Meets Mary (romantic comedy) — Wen Zhang directs Song Jia and Bao Beier in a story that proves it takes time to find true love."

I mean it has to be, hasn't it?  Although When Harry Met Sally had a range of distributors across the world back in the day, Palace Pictures (would you believe) for the theatrical and then MGM in the home market (accounting for the rubbish transfer on the dvd) the original production company, Castle Rock is currently owned by Warner Bros.

Here then are the new Harry and Sally, I mean Larry and Mary, Bao Beier and Song Jia:



The director Wen Zhang is mainly known for his acting, although he does have a television credit.

Well, I'm intrigued as I always am with remakes.  How much of the original script and characterisation will survive?  Or the structure?  Anyway, a Google Alert has been set up and I'll keep you posted.

The Screaming Room.

Film While we're on the subject, numerous film directors, many of whose work I adore are backing a new venture called The Screening Room (proposed by Sean "Napster" Parker) in which a consumer pays $150 for another set-top box and then $50 a time to rent a film on the day of release at the cinemas, with the added incentive to cinema chains that they'll receive $20 from that $50 for effectively allowing it to happen.

Because that's what this is really about.  Film studios still need cinemas to project their product and cinemas won't do that if they're also competing with a home streaming service which is why consumers would have to pay $150 to even access the films even though a Roku or Fire Stick and Amazon Video app would do the same thing.

And does. Stephen Fingleton's The Survivalist was released at cinemas and on demand on the same day. Here it is on Amazon Video.  The Veronica Mars film too was VoD on its week of release, although that also illustrated the stranglehold the cinemas have on distribution in that the film company had to hire the screens in order to show the thing.

Netflix is trying to break the stranglehold but only some IMAX screens would carry the Crouching Tiger sequel in the US and Beasts of No Nation? well, Wikipedia, do tell:

"Netflix bought the worldwide distribution rights for around $12 million. The film was simultaneously released theatrically and online through its subscription video on demand service on October 16, 2015, with Bleecker Street handling the theatrical release. Considering the online release a violation of the traditional 90-day release window of exclusivity to theatres, AMC Cinemas, Carmike Cinemas, Cinemark, and Regal Entertainment Group—four of the largest theater chains in the United States—announced that they would boycott Beasts of No Nation, effectively downgrading it to a limited release at smaller and independent theatres. The film was also theatrically released in the UK on October 16, 2015, in Curzon Cinemas."

So what this is also about is how so many of us would prefer to pay to see the film at home, even at a premium rate, even on a small screen, than have to endure the process of going to the cinema, of having to deal with our fellow audience members, a potentially shitty projection, horrible sound and a general sense of being forced to watch something in less than optimal circumstances.

I can see why they're scared.  Their business model is in peril, in much the same way that music venues were when recorded music was introduced and radios have been when with the addition of streaming.  Both became smaller, streamlined and there was pain, lots and lots of pain.  But they coped and adapted.  Which is what cinemas need to do.

If they'd been really clever at the start they would have been the companies offering video on demand in the first place.  You wouldn't visit Amazon Prime to stream a film, you'd be visiting the Odeon or Cineworld app or something run by a consortium of them all making films at home.  But they didn't.  Instead, we'll continue to wait the 90 extra days to see these films in our own home.

Amazon Prime Studio, a list.

Film Almost this time last month, I wrote about how it was possible to find out which items a studio had available on Amazon Prime through the search box.

A month later I've realised I was overdoing a problem which Amazon had fixed themselves.

On this page it's possible to see all of the studios participating in their video on demand service.

Click each of those and it's possible to see all the films on offer from that studio.

From there you can also click to see what's available through Prime.

They don't have subscription streaming deals with all the studios (Netflix and NowTV and whoever having tied up the rights to others), but here's a list of everything on Prime by distributor, sorted by date added.

Disney

Entertainment One

Film Chest

High Fliers

Metrodome

MGM

Momentum Pictures

The Movie Partnership

MVP-Screen Media

NBC Universal

Twentieth Century Fox

Studio Canal

Warner Bros

WHE Orbital

As you can see some of them are actual studios and others are redistributors for other material.  Film Chest looks like old Hollywood stuff which has fallen out of copyright and the are classic home release distributors.

In terms of interest I'm not sure how useful this is other than as the digital equivalent of those booklets which fall out of dvds listing all the wares that studio has to offer and in at least being able to see which studios has done deals with for future reference.

The accuracy is interesting.  Hannibal is listed as the sole MGM release but is presumably here because Universal had the original UK domestic distribution rights.

Netflix sidebar:

Netflix is odd.  If you search for Disney or Netflix you get everything Disney or Netflix.  But search for Curzon or Artificial Eye or Paramount or any of the other studios whose content they have it treats it as a proper name.

My Favourite Film of 1955.

Film In 2014, my Mother bought me this Rogers & Hammerstein boxed set for Christmas and that's when I first saw Oklahoma!  As with most musicals of that period it was impossible to watch without knowing some of the songs.  You might like to correct me but I have a strong memory of Roy Castle singing O What A Beautiful Mornin' either on Record Breakers or a variety show probably All Star Record Breakers.  I knew every lyric to The Surrey with the Fringe on Top right up until Harry's ex-wife Helen and Ira interrupt he and Sally whilst conducting a karaoke incident in a department store ("Six years later you find yourself singing "Surrey with a fringe on top" in front of Ira!").  What I especially love about the musicals of that period is how the shots always hold on the performers for much of the length of the song, which is especially notable in Oklahoma due to all the location filming.

But of course, being from Liverpool, the song with the greatest resonance is You'll Never Walk Alone which I think is played in every local hospital during the maternity process because we seem to know the words during what we think is our first listen even before we know that it's from a musical, even before we know it was recorded by Gerry Marsden.  Post-Hillsborough too, it's become near possible to hear so synonymous has it become connected with the tragedy.  It was on deep rotation between emergency messages and dedications on Radio City in 1989, I think, along with Eternal Flame by The Bangles.  That's also still a difficult listen in its original form.  That's why the pop version by Atomic Kitten always seemed like an interesting choice.  Did they know?

One of the reasons the song, You'll Never Walk Alone, I mean, still runs through me is because about three years later in the middle of my A-Levels, I spent three nights at Liverpool Cathedral as part of a mass choir of local schools singing that and a range of other hymns, a thousand voices.  I've mentioned this before, notably in 2007 when memories of that night bubbled up again after hearing three of the songs on a recently bought compilation which had been put together to cash in on Euro 96.  Our school, the Blue Coat was there, along with many others. We were told at the time these would become the radio gold standard, but apart from the cassette of the recording which I've stored somewhere, I'd heard nothing in twelve years. Now here we are on a cd released four years later. Not that I was expecting royalties.

Not having thought about it for years, it was quite a surprise to have the sound, the epic sound, filling the space around my head through the headphones I bought for that year's Proms. All kinds of details I'd forgotten, like the fact that we had to redo You'll Never Walk Alone many times because we were naturally singing the Gerry Marsden version when they'd licensed the Rogers and Hammerstein original which has slightly different notes around 'the sweet silver song of a lark' which on hear in I noticed we still didn't get quite right with half of everyone singing one version and everyone else singing the other.  On reflection, to have a choir of school children that large singing in any kind of a comprehensible way and largely behaving themselves was an incredible achievement.  But as one of these photographs shows, it wasn't the first time a thousand voices attended the church.

There was teenage angst too.  I had a very quick, but very deep crush on a girl called Claire from St Julie's School, who was sitting in front of me because she'd been cross with someone from my school because they'd been picking on me. I liked her so much.  Painfully shy, I didn't really get to speak to her until the last night (having walked around the cathedral outside for ages trying to pluck up the courage to ask for her phone number) and then we only really talked for a few minutes because my parents came and picked me up. I got her phone number, but never did call her because that would have been an even greater effort for someone who'd spent his puberty in a boy's school with teachers and family members as his only female contact.  Years later I was sat in the passenger seat of a car in a garage forecourt and saw her with some friends heading into the shop, her face illuminated briefly in some headlights.  Would have been a bit weird if I'd said hello.

Since this event I’ve been to concerts and events in which thousands upon thousands have piled into an enclosed space together, sometimes singing. I expect there were close to that many in a typical school assembly. Except on those occasions I hadn't really thought about it and hadn't been given a number. Eight hundred. It seemed like a lot and as we worked our way through Take Five of The Old Rugged Cross, in that massive space it sounded like it too. Perhaps that's why, during the Proms every year I can imagine the power of the organ and the BBC Singers despite not having been in the Royal Albert Hall.

Imagine my surprise then whilst thinking about writing this piece in finding the original album we recorded on Spotify.  Perhaps my favourite thing about it is you can tell these children are from Liverpool and the surround areas.  The accent is unmistakable.  But also the passion with which we sing You'll Never Walk Alone, just those three years on from Hillsborough, none of us unaffected by those events, the words bursting out of our chests.  As I listen again now, I remember that I cried.  Was that why I was picked on?  Was that why Claire defended me?  I don't know, I don't remember that.  But the atmosphere, I'll never forget the atmosphere.  Oh and having to do several retakes of The Old Rugged Cross because the alarm on someone's digital watch kept going off and the microphones were sensitive enough to pick it up even in a cathedral sized recording studio.

All Snaits.

Music All Saints have a cover story in The Observer today and the interview does the usual business. For example they have to explain to the interviewer what Dinner Date is during a discussion about the kinds of television they watch:

What programmes are we talking about? 

Natalie: All the Housewives …

Melanie: Whatever is the worst TV you can imagine – we watch worse than that [laughs]. I like fighting, swearing …

Nicole: She likes fighting, swearing, drinking. A lot of sex. Mel actually got me into a few that I didn’t even know … Dinner Date.

Sorry, what’s Dinner Date?

Melanie: Whaaaaat!

Nicole: It’s amazing. It’s like Come Dine With Me crossed with Blind Date in someone’s house.

Melanie: There’s no sex on that one though. That’s like a daytime one.

There's also a section about Mel's socks. No, me either.  I wonder if they've ever shopped in All Saints.