Review 2012: The Projects: My Year Watching Shakespeare.

Theatre  Shakespeare.  Twenty-twelve was an excellent year for Shakespeare.  Arguably, of course, every year venerates Bill to some degree but with the Cultural Olympiad deciding that he’s one our greatest exports, twenty-twelve was indeed an excellent year for Shakespeare.  Not since the birthday celebrations in 1997, has there been such a focus across the media and in theatres, with the Shakespeare: Staging The World exhibition at the British Museum, the Globe to Globe season at the “replica” with all of the plays in various languages from visiting theatre groups, part of a World Shakespeare Festival.

But for those of us in the provinces, it was still a great year for accessible Shakespeare with his plays appearing across the BBC in various forms which was why at around March time I decided that I’d spend a portion of the year working my own way through the canon, with non-broadcast plays covered by other productions on film, video and audio I’d not had a chance to catch up with yet.  So I printed off an alphabetical list and stuck it to my door, ready to be crossed off as I demolished each testament to man’s creative ingenuity.  Plus as it turned out Geoffrey Wright’s disastrous gangster version of Macbeth with Sam Worthington in the title role.

Macbeth

Away from the many documentaries, the BBC’s first broadcast productions were on Radio 3.  A stripped down production of Much Ado About Nothing appeared in the Afternoon on 3 slot designed to highlight the music Eric Korngold composed for a 1910s production with Daniela Nardini as Beatrice and Liam Brennan as Benedick and although it didn’t hold together as drama due to the brevity of the text it was a treat to hear Korngold’s music in situ and there was real chemistry between the stars despite them obviously reading the play in from a script.  It's just a pity that it wasn't filmed as per an earlier A Midsummer Night's Dream which is still available to watch here.

Much Ado About Nothing

On three Saturdays, the Drama on 3 slot brought Twelfth Night, Romeo & Juliet and The Tempest as well as a repeat of last year’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  If the four shared anything other than cast members, it was atmosphere, especially Dream which was recorded on location in a Sussex woodland which meant the timber of the voices and footprints created an extra level of twilight magic (a production aided by Roger Allum’s excellent Bottom).  David Tennant and Ron Cook bestrode the Night and Romeo in various roles with only The Tempest not quite holding together due to a confusing restructuring of the text. Epic Prosporo from David Warner though.

Twelfth Night, 
Romeo & Juliet 
The Tempest
A Midsummer Night’s Dream

June brought BBC Four’s broadcast of the RSC’s then current production of Julius Caesar.  Produced by Illuminations (whose previous work includes recordings of David Tennant in Hamlet and Patrick Stewart in Macbeth), their grand experiment was to record the play’s public scenes in the RSC theatre during a performance and intercut that with intimate moments shot on location in an abandoned shopping mall, an experiment didn’t quite work for me.  The theatre scenes had a glorious energy, which wasn't quite replicated in the interior scenes at first, despite a magnetic Brutus performance from Paterson Joseph.

But it’s worth noting that Caesar isn’t my favourite of Shakespeare’s plays anyway.  After a tremendous first few opening acts, it descends into a tedious miasma of skirmishes and spats but, and this is important, this production somehow managed to make those lucid and emotionally charged especially as the loyalties of the conspirators were wrought asunder.  But I just couldn’t help, during the scenes artistically shot using iPhones wondering who was holding the camera and how they were able to get all of those angles.  Nevertheless this was a bold statement on how television and theatre companies need not be deadly rivals.

Julius Caesar

Illuminations had begun planning on a recording of the RSC’s repertory of The Histories, but this was cancelled when the behemoth that was The Hollow Crown spun across the horizon.  A filmic version of the first Henriad, this didn’t disappoint in entertainment terms with starry casts, incandescent photography and interconnected readings of the plays even if ambitious Saturday night scheduling during Wimbledon meant the audiences weren’t quite as huge as they deserved to be, watching Twitter on those evening revealed that casting Tom Hiddleston drew in a demographic that might otherwise be uninterested.

Of the four, Richard II was the most successful thanks to Ben Wishaw's mesmerising whisper though the title role and a determination to put the text to the forefront, especially during the John of Gaunt sections, where a slow push in did full justice to Patrick Stewart's enunciation of The Sceptred Isle.  If anything, the Henry V was less successful due to its determination not to be anything like the Branagh film, rather than be its own thing and damn the similarities.  But I was please to have seen been able to cross the rarely filmed Henry IVs of my list.  Little did I know what was to come.

Richard II
Henry IV, pt 1
Henry IV, pt 2
Henry V

Hiddleston was actually the second Henry I’d seen of the year, the first being Jamie Parker’s boyishly regal version in the Globe’s touring production of Henry V which I wrote about at length here.  Then, come August, I was hearing the play again along with a dozen others as part of the BBC Radio 4 Extras repeat of Vivat Rex, the twenty-six part mash-up of plays by Marlowe, Shakespeare and their contemporaries describing the history of the monarchy from Edward II through to Elizabeth I produced in 1977 to commemorate the Queen’s silver jubilee, now re-emerging in her Diamond year.

The series was gamely broadcast on weekday mornings for a month and I giddly recorded them all and listened to them across about four days, lost in the maze of words and history.  In project terms it meant I somewhat heard my first production of Edward III, listed as anonymous then but subsequent “canonised” as at least a collaboration thanks to textual analysis.  It also allowed me to include other playwrights in my personal festival, including expectedly John Ford’s Perkin Warbeck and the anonymous Thomas of Woodstock albeit in heavily truncated versions.

Edward III
Henry VI, pt 1
Henry VI, pt 2
Henry VI, pt 3
Richard III
Henry VIII

Which, as far as I can remember, was it for broadcast Shakespeare.  But there was still another twenty-odd plays to cover, having disregarded The Two Noble Kinsmen due to only recently listening to the one available professional recording within months of starting to work through the canon in earnest and assuming that Vivat Rex had more than covered the shortfall.  Luckily because I’m a fan with an overbearing collector gene, I’ve multiple copies of all the plays in various formats from different companies, so it was really just a matter of choosing what to listen to, thinned down somewhat by having to select productions I’d not visited yet.

The Two Noble Kinsmen

So on my flat screen I saw Ralph Fiennes’s visceral Coriolanus, Trevor Nunn’s RSC production of King Lear with Ian McKellen facing off against Sylvester McCoy’s clown, Nunn’s The Comedy of Errors with Judi Dench curiously recorded in a studio with audience cutaways and pretence of having been shot in the RSC theatre, a bizarre 1983 Antony and Cleopatra with Timothy Dalton and Lynn Redgrave with Nichelle Nichols and Walter Keonig in minor roles, Tom Stoppard’s truncation of The Merchant of Venice presented by the National Youth Theatre in 1998 and a charming Taming of the Shrew from Canada’s CBC in the 1980s.

Coriolanus
King Lear
The Comedy of Errors
Anthony and Cleopatra
The Merchant of Venice
Taming of the Shrew

Audio is trickier.  There are essentially four collections available; The 50s Marlowe Society in conjunction with the British Council released on Argo, the 60s Shakespeare Recording Society productions published by Harper Collins, the 90s Arkangel complete works directed by Clive Brill and the BBC radio versions produced in and around the millennium along with a smattering of classic radio releases.  All share some extraordinary casting choices often dictated by contemporary productions but unfortunately they’re also incredibly inconsistent, demonstrating that even the best plays can be rendered unlistenable through bad choices.

In other words, while you might assume the Argo version of As You Like It and might be boring and bobbins and the Arkangel Troilus and Cressida a treat, the reverse is true, but its reversed again when comparing Argo’s unfunny Merry Wives of Windsor and Arkangel’s superb The Winter’s Tale.  John Gielgud crops up as Time in the latter and can also be heard narrating their poignant Pericles, and it’s casting choices such as these which led me, despite their bland Cymbeline to defaulting to ArkAngel anyway.  Their treatment of King John gives it the panto welly it needs, the Timon of Athens a clear, logical communication substituting the new National Theatre production I couldn’t get to.

As You Like It
Troilus and Cressida
Merry Wives of Windsor
The Winter’s Tale
Pericles
Cymbeline
King John
Timon of Athens

Arkangel is also the place to go to hear a young Damien Lewis offer his Valentine in the neglected The Two Gentlemen of Verona (opposite Michael Maloney’s Proteus) and Harriet Walter’s expressive Tamora in Titus Andronicus.  But eventually I had to resort the Argo with their rather neutral interpretation of Love’s Labour’s Lost and the HarperCollins Measure for Measure in which Sir Ralph Richardson and Margaret Leighton manage to drain their dialogue of all its subliminal bawdiness against which Gielgud’s Duke seems perfectly cast even if he doesn’t quite manage to emphasise the shiftiness inherent in the role.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Titus Andronicus
Love’s Labour’s Lost
Measure for Measure

There was a gap in the middle for the Olympics, which lasted even longer once I became addicted to the Paralympics too.  But eventually I completed the list somewhat were I started six months ago with the BBC All’s Well That Ends Well with Emma Fielding, Siân Phillips and Miriam Margolyes produced to celebrate the millennium and Michael Grandage’s Othello for the Donmar Warehouse recorded for the BBC in studio by Chiwetel Ejiofor, Ewan MacGreggor, Hiddleston (again) and Kelly Reilly (which again I wish had been filmed), ending finally with Argo’s dull Hamlet, which I reviewed here.  And if all that’s been exhausting to read you should have listened to some of them.

All’s Well That Ends Well
Othello
Hamlet

If the project demonstrated anything to me, it’s that most of the cliché’s are true.  There really isn’t anyone like Shakespeare for the depth and quality of language, for investigating the human spirit, for capturing our national identity.  But like I said that it’s then up to the director and actors to communicate that language, story and history to the audience, to believe in what they’re doing.  Surprisingly it’s the so-called obscurities which came out best, especially later when listening to the audios, where when someone more used to Lear is handed Pericles they find another character of dimension.

But it's also suggested that every generation deserves its complete works because what all of these endeavours capture, from Vivat Rex to ArkAngel, isn't just an interpretation of the text, but a snapshot of the theatrical life of the nation through directors and through casting.  Television hasn't had a complete works since the 80s, audio since 1998, and although in both cases the BBC is slowly recording version of some of the plays, it's those obscurities that could do with some attention.  Now that Edward III and others have joined the canon, isn't it time for them to be given some professional attention?

Cyber.

Engineering MIT's Technology Review reports that new generation ocular implants with allow people with degenerative eye disorders to see. One particular word in the following paragraph is a bit worrying:

"The Argus II, the first “bionic eye” to reach commercial markets, contains an array of 60 electrodes, akin to 60 pixels, that are implanted behind the retina to stimulate the remaining healthy cells. The implant is connected to a camera, worn on the side of the head, that relays a video feed."

Rather like megapixels in a camera, the greater the number of electrodes, the clearer the image. Before long it seems possible that having these bionic eyes will become as natural as a false limb.

Vastra Investigates.

TV Another tease. Spin-off. Please. Vasta Investigates is really an extended sketch rather explaining how humans when faced with the most extraordinary events and unalike people will largely processes it just as Douglas Adams predicted when writing about the Somebody Else's Problem condition in his novel Life, The Universe and Everything. When confronted with something which doesn't quite match the expected context, a person will simply block it out just as the police officer here, even after being told the truth of Vastra and Strax's existence, merely puts it to one side in the end because it's easier.

Red Brick Universities.

Academia The Victoria Building at the University of Liverpool which now houses their art gallery and museum celebrated its 120th year a couple of days ago and their blog has a commemorative history with some ravishing photographs and this factoid which is surprisingly little known (or at least few people seem to have known it when I've asked them):

"The distinctive exterior of the building led to the coining of the phrase ‘red brick university’ by Bruce Truscot, the pseudonym adopted by Edgar Allison Peers, a Professor of Spanish at Liverpool from 1922 – 52, who wrote an influential book of the same title about universities originating in the 19th century."

The inevitable wikipedia entry demonstrates however that plenty of universities have red bricked buildings and live up to the name.

Antarctica.

Biology Within this past few days, after sixteen years of planning, scientists have begun drilling two miles into the ices of Antarctica searching for life:

"The most likely organisms to be found will be bacterial - - they’re everywhere,” David Pearce, a microbiologist at the program said in an interview in October, shortly before heading to the southern continent to begin preparations. “If there’s nothing there, that will tell us the limits for the existence of life on Earth.”

American English.

Books Tim Parks in The New York Review of Books on the process differences between writing for British and American audiences. We don't speak the same language:

"I had already sorted out the spelling, in fact had written the book with an American spell check, and didn’t expect that there would be much else to do. Wrong. Almost at once there was a note saying that throughout the 300 pages my use of “carriage” for a passenger train car must be changed to “coach.” Since this is a book about trains and train travel there were ninety-eight such usages. There was also the problem that I had used the word “coach” to refer to a long distance bus. Apparently the twenty-four-hour clock was not acceptable, so the 17:25 Regionale from Milan to Verona had to become the 5:25 PM Regionale. Where I, in a discussion of prices, had written “a further 50 cents” the American edit required “a further 50 euro cents,” as if otherwise an American reader might imagine Italians were dealing in nickels and dimes."

Presumably because of years spent online and watching Hollywood movies, the differences between the different prose styles isn't as noticable to me. Perhaps it's because I'm automatically translating. Or perhaps it's that I expect a piece written by someone from a particular place to sound a particular was and my brain unconsciously adjusts accordingly.  Luckily for Parks there is room to negotiate / for negotiation.

Review 2012: The Projects: The Hamlet Weblog: 35 John Duttine.

Elsewhere My side project has reached another milestone as I've met my thirty-fifth Hamlet, and as ever I've somehow been surprised by what I've heard. As is customary, anything about Hamlet stays on The Hamlet Weblog, but you can read all about Mr Duttine's interpretation here.

35 John Duttine

Hamlet played by John Duttine.
Directed by Gordon House.

The BBC’s Research and Development group has built a prototype which puts the BBC World Service on the web, making over seventy thousand programmes from the past sixty years available to listen to here. Still in closed testing, I’ve been lucky enough to have been given access (which might be able to ask for too via the details on their blog) and have spent the past few weeks in an agog state, boggling at the mass of programming at my finger tips on hundreds of topics across dozens of genres.

Of course my first search was the Hamlet, of course it was, and apart from documentaries, magazine shows and reviews, sure enough there is at least one production, this production. Originally broadcast in two hour long episodes on Sunday 4th and Tuesday 6th September 1983, adapted for radio by Colin Davis, directed by Gordon House, as you can see starred raffish John Duttine in the title role (his appearance in Day of the Triffids is pictured) and what a privilege to have been given the opportunity to listen.

At first, as audio Hamlets go, it seems superficially orthodox. The sound design is basic and period, with echoes for the interior of the castle, harsh winds for the exterior, scene changes are punctuated by some jingly atonal tubular bells and noodling on a pipe organ, Cyril Shaps’s Polonius is a typically bumbling old buffer with little room for a military mind (no Reynoldo scene) with Hamlet Snr played by famous voiceover artist John Westbook to give the character some spooky gravitas.

Except all the while us listeners, if we’re familiar with the play, notice that Davis in his adaptation experimenting somewhat with the structure of the text and in reducing it to fit the timeslot is making some interesting character-based decision, especially in relation to Hamlet. There’s nothing online at all that I can see about the production, which is a shame because I’d love to know the extent to which the adaptation was done in collaboration with the director and actors or if these are Davis’s alone.

After the Ghost, Davis cuts the swearing scene (“Sweeearrr…”) so to add some time for Hamlet to be off stage (off mic) transposes the introduction of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (in what amounts to their longest scene) with Ophelia’s description to her father of Hamlet’s visit which then leads almost directly into Polonius explaining to the King and Queen that their son is mad and the plan that become the nunnery scene later.

Except, and this is where is becomes really interesting, Davis also cuts the Fishmonger which offers a clue as to how he, the director and Duttine view their Hamlet. In losing Fishmonger, we lose the wilder metaphoric excesses of the characters’ “mania” or “faux-mania” and this is repeated when Claudius asks the prince where he’s placed Polonius’s body and he tells him directly, no convocation of politic worms are e'en at him.

This is one of those sane Hamlets you hear about and rarely played. Or rather this is a Hamlet who seems entirely in control of his faculties and whose madness isn’t a mental illness, but anger. He’s an even more sinister and cruel in places than Peter Vaughn’s Claudius, a figure much more representative of the blandness of evil, only really showing emotion and inconstancy during the prayer scene. When Hamlet’s confronting his mother in the closet, we’re not sure if he won’t do her in as well.

Yet there’s still a constant element of doubt as to whether he’s faking these mood swings too, it’s not just controlled anger. Duttine's is a very public “To Be…”, watched by Polonius and Claudius with Ophelia evidently in proximity but when he spies her, his “Soft you now! The fair Ophelia!” so often played as a way of attracting her attention is internalised, as though he’s realised what he’s about to do, what he must do because he’s being watched, and doesn’t like it. Which suggests these choices have to have been collaborative to some extent.

All of which said, presumably dependent on the timeslot and utility, this is still a Hamlet which includes the greatest hits, from Polonius’s advice through to all of Hamlet’s speeches with the exception of “to the manner born” even to the point of including Fortinbras and his Captain, textually missing in action up until that point, so that “How all occasions do inform against me” can be included with some logic (even if the warring army arguably appears from nowhere in much the same way Laertes does at the end of the Welles adaptation).

The break in story occurs just before an all male Mousetrap, as Polonius agrees that Hamlet should be sent to England and Claudius says “It shall be so. / Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.” It’s an unusual point, especially given the day between the broadcast of the episodes, but it does mean that episode two begins with the ear catching spectacle of the play, which while rushed through, also underscores the aspect of theatricality and “play” inherent in the story.

The climax is pretty traditional, even if the sword fight is pretty swift and Osric is retained, though Fortinbras’s reappearance at the close jars with the perfectly tender way in which David Horovitch’s stalwart Horatio says, “Good night, sweet prince” which feels like the emotional conclusion of this production, though the mood is retained somewhat by the suitably processional music composed by Bernard Shaw (not George).

There's plenty more Shakespeare in the World Service prototype, along with rare productions of Early Modern Drama, though it's worth noting that it's still relatively populist in its choices, there's no Arden of Faversham or anything by Philip Massinger.  But plenty of Marlowe.  Not that I've the time to listen to any of it.  But at least I found the Hamlet.  At least I did that.

Tenth Planet.

Space  Last year, the so-called tenth planet discovered in 2005, Makemake made a rare visible appearance and the findings of astronomers were recently published.  Don't get too excited.  It lacks something:

"The astronomers detected a sudden drop in starlight when Makemake’s occultation began, as if someone had suddenly switched the star to a lower wattage rather than dialing down a stellar dimmer switch. The sharpness of the occultation suggested that the dwarf planet lacks a significant global atmosphere, which would lend a fuzzy edge to its shadow. "If the decrease is abrupt, you see that there is not an atmosphere," says study co-author Noemi Pinilla-Alonso, a postdoctoral planetary scientist at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. By contrast, when Pluto passes in front of a star, "the decrease is gradual, which shows that there is an atmosphere."

The films Dustin Hoffman didn't make.

Film Hoffman has an interview in today's The Guardian in which he offers a ballsy list of films he turned down:

"Yes. Yes, that's another demon. I've turned down some wonderful projects." For example? "You wanna list?" And he starts counting them out. Not the movies he didn't make, just those he regrets not making. "Ingmar Bergman, The Touch, because my first wife was pregnant and didn't want to leave her obstetrician in New York to go to Sweden." Is that really why he turned Bergman down? "Oh. I've always had great rationalisations. They rarely are the truth. You can find reasons not to do anything." Back to the list: "Close Encounters. Spielberg says I've turned him down more than any other actor. We finally did Hook together." Blimey, you could have chosen a better Spielberg film. "I just finally had to say yes! I'm glad I did it. So there's Close Encounters, the one about slaves and a love story Richard Dreyfuss did, and Schindler." Who would he have played in that? "Oh, Ben Kingsley's role." I tell him I'd have preferred to have seen him as Schindler's accountant. "I wish you'd tell him that." He laughs. "Yes, call him up now. Sir Ben!"

Funnily enough other than the Bergman, there isn't one of those in which the subsequent actor wasn't perfect for the role.  But then, I expect, we're heading into the discussional hinterland of the extent to which the best actors inhabit a role to such an extent that it's impossible to see another actor playing it.  Also, I love Hook.

Kim Wilde sings Merry Christmas on the Tube.

WHO 50: 1966: The Tenth Planet.

TV  One of the discussion points for the 50th anniversary special is whether we’ll finally see the regeneration between the Eighth and Ninth Doctors, from Paul McGann to Christopher Eccleston.

Apart from the fact this would require the casting of two actors who aren’t currently playing the Doctor and some kind of tricksy flashback structure to incorporate such a scene into the story and for Steven Moffat to think that it’s a good idea, it would also spoil one of the great new mysteries of the revived series.

It also ignores the fact that, to an extent, we can’t see the series’ first regeneration either.

We could once.  Indeed we did, at least those of us who are old enough.

On 29th October 1966, BBC One broadcast the regeneration of William Hartnell into Patrick Troughton.

Except since then, the tapes have been wiped and through a strange coincidence, neither that episode or the following one still exist the BBC’s archive, partly because episode four of The Tenth Planet was one of the least sold internationally so there were less copies lying around.

Not that this helped Marco Polo much.

Bits of it do survive.  A clip was utilised in an episode of Blue Peter.  The BBC kept that episode of Blue Peter.  We also have a short silent cine recording from episode one of Power of the Daleks so we can at least see Patrick’s first grin.

They were edited together and tacked onto the reconstruction of The Tenth Planet that was released on VHS at the turn of the millenium, along with the audio from some off-air recordings.

But it’s not the same, because it never could be.

Rather than film a regeneration which doesn’t need to be seen, perhaps the better way to celebrate the 50th would be for us to somehow find a regeneration which should.

You never know.

"Let's play liiionnns!"

UK Premiere of The Hobbit, a photo by The British Monarchy on Flickr.

Introductory Story.

Physics Leofranc Holford-Strevens's The History of Time: A Very Short Introduction has been given a preview chapter at the OUP's website in pdf format:

"The most fundamental unit of time-measurement is in most societies the period of the earth’s rotation round the sun, which is normally known as the day. Unfortunately this word and its equivalents in other languages are ambiguous: other meaningsapart, they may denote either the light period (daytime) as opposed to the night, or the combination of daytime and night. In some cultures, this combination is termed the night, as it used to be by Celtic and Germanic peoples, who measured the length of journeys or campaigns by the periods of inaction during darkness; this practice – to which we still revert when booking a hotel – survives in the English word ‘fortnight’, meaning 14 nights (formerly too in ‘sennight’, meaning a week). Nevertheless, the prevailing word is ‘day’."

Your Paintings completed.

Art Something of a national artistic milestone:

"Today the Public Catalogue Foundation (PCF) and the BBC completed their hugely ambitious project to put online the United Kingdom’s entire collection of oil paintings in public ownership. This makes the UK the first country in the world to give such access to its national collection of paintings. In total, 3,217 venues across the UK have participated in the project and 211,861 paintings are now on the Your Paintings website."

Which includes Manchester Art Gallery now too, and the World of Glass.

Review 2012: The Projects: Joss Whedon.

TV  Earlier in the year, perhaps Easter time, perhaps before, I embarked on rewatching all of the television series on which Joss Whedon has had overall creative control (Buffy, Angel, Firefly and Dollhouse) in preparation for finally seeing The Avengers (Assemble) on its blu-ray release. Watching the original unaired Buffy presentation with the wrong Willow and Stephen Tobolowsky as Principal Flutie, it’s not completely clear that Whedon would go on to produce some of the best loved television series of all time. But slowly after a few episodes, the series built its own unique identity, addiction set and here Whedon is over a decade later as the director of the biggest film of all time and I am attempting to review all of them in three paragraphs each.

My expected appreciation curve for Buffy: The Vampire Slayer was that after a barnstorming first three seasons, the show would become a rather patchier affair in which individual piece of classic television usually written and directed by Whedon himself (Hush, The Body, Once More With Feeling) provided a scaffold for less compelling overall story arcs and baddies, with the Nerd Trio in Season Six, and Season Six actually the nadir. Some of which is true, but watched in concentrated form, its notable how even the worst episodes (Beer Bad, Doublemeat Palace) still contain some cracking dialogue and characterisation or a subplot which manages to utilise the horror genre as a metaphore for the human condition.

Indeed, notably it’s at its weakest when pandering to the fans. The interminable love triangle between the slayer and her two vampires, as well as prefiguring Twilight is often about as interesting, especially in the latter stages when Buffy and Spike are throwing each other against the supporting walls of houses. Whedon’s work excels only when he’s cruel, replacing Angel with a figure who’s the exact opposite but arguably more likeable and killing Tara, breaking up one of the great television romances. Even Dawn, the previously non-existent sister for Buffy manages to sidestep the Scrappy-Doo potential by not making her a Potential, just a normal kid that Buffy must learn to protect eventually by letting go.

If something weakens the show latterly it is the shift away from the core group and it’s only when the Buffy returns to the school and the Scoobys it finds its centre of gravity again. What I wasn’t prepared for was choosing Anya as my favourite character thanks to Emma Caulfield’s fearlessly layered performance. If there’s a tragedy in the ensuing comics, it’s that Anya’s not still in there, saying the things no one dares to. Watching again I was reminded too that the demon in one of the show’s worst episodes, Hell’s Bells, in which Xander witlessly leaves Anya at the alter has my name, or at least in his original human form.  If only it had been Conversations with Dead People or some such.

If I say that Angel’s my least favourite of Whedon’s series, it’s because creatively it’s the least certain (which is quite something considering the first five episodes of Dollhouse). The premise is excellent, the atoning vampire helping the helpless, but as the series continues, perhaps for budgetary reasons, the show finds its story playing out across just a few sets and the sense of a metropolis in which the supernatural intermingles is replaced with the kind of narrative navel gazing which can become quite old pretty quickly. Which it does, until the middle seasons in which most of the characters are unlikeable and there’s an apocalypse too many played out across the foyer of a hotel which becomes greyer as time goes on.

Borrowing this viewing order from the web I worked through Angel and Buffy enmeshed together and it is noteworthy how often a story element from one series is so seamlessly passed to another, either through mystical amulets or characters like Faith, unrelated story arcs running in parallel yet able to resonate, like the flashbackpalooze of Fool for Love and Darla with its moments in which the same events are viewed from the viewpoints of characters from different series. Only by watching both together are we able to see the dramatic character development in Cordelia and Wesley, even if arguably in the former case its pissed up a wall by the old stand-by of demonic possession and wilful blindness of the other characters.  How could they not know it wasn't her?

Remarkably Angel the series is at its best when it’s at its dopiest, when Angel the character’s dancing, Wesley’s drunk or Fred’s being kick-ass. But also when it’s willing to take risks with those characters like a testing ground for the moral ambiguity which would be the lifeblood of Dollhouse. When Angel locks a group of lawyers in a basement knowing it will mean certain death at the fangs of his historical cohorts it’s all the more shocking because it’s the so-called lighter version of the character and not his utterly evil Angelus form. Like Buffy it’s also in the closing stages that the show becomes watchable again, when it largely ditches the story arcs and returns to a largely stand alone format.

It’s also remarkable that while making both of these series Whedon was also able to produce what’s arguably his greatest achievement, the fourteen episodes of Firefly. Buffy’s Buffy of course, but of all Whedon’s shows, its his space western which from the opening episodes has the most likeable characters, simultaneously unbelievable yet plausible reality and dynamite storytelling. Like all of his series, it’s also rich with language, but unlike the others actively challenges the listener’s ears requiring multiple viewings for us to completely understand every conversation (and being versed in Chinese) and is refreshingly lacking in pop culture references, beyond visual and narrative influences.  Cancellation came too soon.  I would gladly have sacrificed Angel's later seasons for more of this.  Except Smile Time.

Except, like My So-Called Life and others, its brevity makes it all the more precious not least because unlike other series it was never left to go off the boil or repeat itself. There are few clunkers with only Shindig ever spoken of as being sub-par even though it’s a master class for Nathan Fillion’s comic timing and Jewel Staite’s general adorableness. The final episode, Objects in Space is the highlight with its poetic imagery and dialogue and a star-making (or should have been) performance from Summer Glau. If the show hadn’t had the benefit of its film spin-off Serenity to somewhat close out its storyline, the final shot of River’s jack becoming a planet would have still been perfect.

If we hadn’t been gifted the film what would the latter seasons be like? I always imagine Christina Hendricks’s con artist joining the crew just before she would have taken the Mad Men gig and presumably the story of Summer would have been a constant undercurrent. We would have discovered who Shepherd Book really was and what Inara had in her syringe. Zoe and Wash would have had kids or divorced. Simon and Kaylee would have married and Mal would remain stoic through out. In my darkest moments I even imagine a season five shocker of Serenity being destroyed leaving the crew alone on a planet, the rest of the season a battle to gain a new ship, Serenity II. But the show could never be that dark somehow.

Unlike Dollhouse which is all about the darkness. Lacking the linguistic ingenuity of Firefly but even more network interference, this is perhaps creatively Whedon’s most troubled show but certainly his thematically and intellectually most rewarding. Hobbled from the off by Fox’s prudity in relation to what the Dollhouse was made for, it is still able by the close of its second season to tell an exciting and narratively self contained story which somehow manages to even make its notoriously shaky first five episodes a benefit. From a show without a protagonist it became a show with multiple protagonists and all of them played by Eliza Dushku, even if arguably all of them are also Faith with “wicked kung fu moves”.

Ironically its in these latter stages that the show finds what would have been a network pleasing premise at the beginning which would also have had just as many interesting things to say on the nature of identity. Imagine instead if the show had begun with Echo accidentally absorbing all of those personalities and skills able to switch between them as the mission requires. Those first five episodes might have played out in much the same way but with added benefit of a central character w could immediately cheer for especially if she was hiding her condition from Adelle and the rest of the Dollhouse. A bit Alias perhaps but that’s no bad thing and certainly more coherent than the unaired pilot included on the dvd.

But the bravery of the series is that ultimately none of its characters are really heroes. With the exception of some of the dolls, all of them have a morally ambiguous core, even Echo as she usurps her body's former occupant, and it’s a rare occasion when an entire series is filled with characters we love to hate, something not even Galactica achieved. It’s like a Shakespearean problem play, twenty-six episodes of tragicomedy ultimately topped off with a hopeful apocalypse. That Topher, the best character, is arguably the architect of that apocalypse demonstrates the risks the show was taking in its birth on network television. That it was still given the opportunity to complete its story is a testament not just to Joss’s fans but also their buying power when faced with the completed box set.

So having watched nearly fifteen years worth of television in just over six months I can absolutely see why Whedon inspires in us such devotion. His ability to create characters within ensembles all of which could be capable of starring in their own shows and sometimes do, consistently wanting to challenge the audience and self critical enough to know when he’s not succeeded, but also with such an utter love for his own material, rarely showing a that’ll do attitude to what’s being produced in his name. When his shows almost fall apart in someone else’s hand, its often because he’s creating perfection elsewhere. Lord knows what’ll happen now that he’s in control of the Marvel universe. Now, I’ll be in my bunk.

[Clarification: Yes, this is a lazy repost of something from back in September.  But back in September I didn't know Review 2012 was going to be precisely about this kind of displacement activity and so it seemed fitting to add it to flow here too.  Sorry if you read the whole thing with a slight feeling of deja vu.]

Eames Lounge Chair.

The Shalka Doctor returns.

TV As a special Christmas treat, sometime Doctor Who writer Paul Cornell is hosting a new adventure, by L M Myles, for his animated Ninth Doctor as played by Richard E Grant:

"A soft, cooing sound woke Alison: of pair of grey birds perched at the end of her bed, watching her with their beady, black eyes.
"Hello," said Alison.
One of the birds cocked its head. "Coo," it said."

Scream of the Shalka is still available on the BBC website, as is the one other follow-up story. It's two now.

Review 2012: The Projects: The List: 7. Eat a Hostess Twinkie.

Food The last thing I expected during my annual Christmas visit to Manchester was to eat a Hostess Twinkie.

Perhaps I should offer some background so that you can understand the magnitude of that statement.

My first exposure to comics, or rather American comic books, were random issues bought for me from a market stall in Speke, the place in Liverpool where I was originally brought up.

This would have been the early eighties and in those days instead of recycling, out of date magazines and comics were sold through these market stalls without their covers, though often the comics still did.

I still have some old Doctor Who monthlies and magazines from that period and it’s from here, as a treat, my Mum would buy me issues from all the superhero greats. She’d give them as a surprise in restaurants to keep me quiet along with copies of Fun-To-Do, the kids colouring and craft magazine.

Somewhere in the midst of these comics there would always be a curious one page strip, usually featuring a completely different character, which always ended with them enjoying or at least extolling the virtues of something called a Hostess Twinkie.

To my young, impressionable eyes, these seemed like exciting, exotic treats. If they were nice enough for Peter Parker to share with his Aunt May, they must be something extra specially, special.

Imagine my disappointment when I asked for some from my Mum, and she’d not only never heard of them, but when she asked at the local Fine Fair, they hadn’t either.

I showed her the comic for identification. This just simply wasn’t something which was sold in Speke in the 1980s. I think she bought be some Cadburys Chocolate Animal biscuits instead, digestives in the shape of lions, elephants and monkeys.  Exciting but not the same.

Then as I began watching Hollywood films, I noticed Twinkies were referenced relatively frequently. The one which made the most impression then was from Ghostbusters, Egon describing the mayhem within their ghost containment unit:

“Well, let's say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area. Based on this morning's sample, it would be a Twinkie... thirty-five feet long, weighing approximately six hundred pounds.”

He was waving a Twinkie around as said this and it still retained that element of mystery. I knew and understood that all it was really was a sponge cake with some sort of cream in the middle, but its unavailability only increased its mystique.

Some day, I told myself, when I go to America, one of my first experiences will be eating a Twinkie, priority one probably, above visiting the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building.

Time marched on. Even as the pop culture references piled up, I resigned myself to never eating a Twinkie. In Die Hard when Bruce Willis eats a “thousand year old” one. In Zombieland when they become one of the characters primary missions because of the expiry date.

Then, in real world that expiry date gained unforeseen importance.

When Hostess entered administration in November, I realised that even if I ever did manage to cross the Atlantic, I’d have to make do a the statue and the building.

Then, oh then, I visited Manchester.

Americandy is a small chain of shops recently opened, in Exchange Square, at Picadilly and in Kings Street which is the outlet I visited.

Just out of curiosity. Both the Harvey Nicks pop-up and Central Perk in Liverpool sell American sweets but I wondered just how much variety a shop which sells this sort of confectionery might have, how detailed their purchasing.

Sure enough most of the brands on sale have already penetrated the UK marketplace, though the options available are slightly different. Plus I haven’t seen Lucky Charms anywhere else. But that’s just a cereal.

I approached the counter. I already knew the answer before asking so I framed the question according.

”I don’t suppose you have Hostess Twinkies?” I was already backing away on the expectation of a negative answer.

“Yes. They’re in the basket over there.”

I think I may have jumped for joy. I think I may have said “Really?” then “Really?!?” again.

At this point the basket took on a mythic significance. Like the ark of the covenant or a holy grail. Sure enough, Hostess Twinkies. £3. I didn’t hesitate.

Back at the counter, I put the precious object on the counter. I just kept looking at and looking at it. It seemed to so small, its significance magnified by three decades of covetousness.

Finally I’d be discovering what it was that caused the Penguin to hypnotise a delivery man simply so that he could hoard his delivery of the sponges to Gotham City.

“The company’s gone into receivership.” I said, passing the time, but really just trying to keep my mind on the transaction.

“That’s why they’re £3," she said, "They used to be £1.50.”

I grinned. I took my change. I picked up the Twinkie, turning it over in my hand as I walked out of the shop. The top was golden and curved at the edges. On the flat bottom I could now see the holes where the cream is syringed or poured into the centre.

After a nanosecond of wondering if I should take it home with me, I began to unwrap it, my hands shaking.

I took a bite. As expected, it really is just some very nice sponge cake with fake cream, a substance not unlike the material which appears in a Cadbury’s Mini-Roll, probably the same substance, jammed unevenly in the middle.

But I savoured. Oh how I savoured.

I stood in an alleyway opposite a stall selling French winter clothing, leaning against the wall and eating this Twinkie as slowly as a Twinkie has probably ever been eaten.

Then it was gone.

After a thirty-year wait, I’d eaten a Twinkie, and you could say in the nick of time. They’re still being made by a company under license in Canada, and although they’re about the same, under the same recipe, the bakery’s in Montreal and they’re not being made by Hostess.

Now whenever I see those films which mention them, I’ll understand what they’re talking about, I’ll have the memory of the taste, or the version of the memory of the taste which integrates all of the hopes and dreams inherent within the eating of it.

The next thing I did was phone my mother and tell her, described the taste, described the purchase, reminded her of the comics she used to buy me. She seemed pleased, in that bewildered way my parents often are when I’m telling them about some new, fool adventure.

What I didn’t do was go back and buy another. Having had one, I wanted to keep it special. Plus I knew I was having a strudel with custard later in the afternoon and I’m watching my weight.

But as you can see I've kept the wrapper for a bit.  It still as bit of the sponge on it, fragrant with the smell of what's now in my stomach.

The Christmas Market was as fun as it usually is, with Zippy dressed as Santa sitting on the Town Hall overseeing everything.

There’s an exhibition at the Manchester Art Gallery of sculptural work created just with paper, including a forest, an extraordinary machine and a film in which the imagery comes to life directly from its pages in silhouettes.

There’s also an amazing exhibition at the John Rylands Library about Anthony Burgess and his work with Stanley Kubrick on the making of A Clockwork Orange, which includes Kubrick’s own letter to Burgess explaining his reasons for not adapting the author’s book about Napoleon and the actual white sculptural phallus brandished by Malcolm McDowell in the film.

Yet, throughout, all I could think about, and I kept saying to myself was, “I’ve eaten a Twinkie.”  I've eaten a Twinkie.

7. Eat a Hostess Twinkie.

Astra.

Space  There is a theory that the asteroid belt was the product of a notional "fifth" planet which existed between the orbits of Mars and Jupter until a cataclysm led to its destruction.

"Theories regarding the formation of the asteroid belt from the destruction of a hypothetical fifth planet are today collectively referred to as the "disruption theory". This theory states that there was once a major planetary member of the solar system circulating in the present gap between Mars and Jupiter, which was variously destroyed when:

it veered too close to Jupiter and was torn apart by the gas giant's powerful gravity.
it was struck by another large celestial body.
it was destroyed by a hypothetical brown dwarf, the companion star to the Sun known as Nemesis.
it was shattered by some internal catastrophe.

The planet is most often called Phaeton. But sometimes Astra.