Some major names in the history of British television gathered last Sunday (29 May) to honour the pioneering producer and TV executive the late Verity Lambert, as Doctor Who's very first director Waris Hussein and former showrunner The Lord Thy God Steven Moffat (OBE) jointly unveiled a blue plaque on the wall of Riverside Studios in Hammersmith. As the first ever female producer in the BBC drama department, Verity made a name for herself launching Doctor Who, the format of her great mentor Sydney Newman, in 1963. Across a long and prestigious subsequent career, she produced dozens of successful and fondly remembered programmes, including Adam Adamant Lives!, Take Three Girls, Budgie, The Naked Civil Servant, Rock Follies, Fox, Reilly: Ace Of Spies, The Flame Trees Of Thika, Widows, GBH, Minder, May To December and Jonathan Creek and the movie A Cry In The Dark.
There was a sense of déjà vu at Riverside (the former BBC studios-turned-arts venue) as the Doctor Who Appreciation Society had already installed the same plaque in 2014 - also unveiled by Waris Hussein. However, Riverside closed shortly afterwards for redevelopment. It reopened in 2019 but had hardly got up and running before the pandemic hit. During this period, DWAS held Verity's plaque for safekeeping and organised this second unveiling. Those in attendance included many of her friends, colleagues and admirers, such as Caroline Quentin, Larry Lamb and Anna Carteret, Lynda La Plante, Philip Hinchcliffe and Michael Grade. The main focus of the day was a screening of episode one of Shoulder To Shoulder, a 1974 BBC drama about the suffragette movement and a passion-project for its producer, Lambert. Two of its stars Dame Siân Phillips (who played Emmeline Pankhurst) and Patricia Quinn (who played Christabel Pankhurst) formed a panel with the show's director, Hussein, together with Carole Ann Ford.
Meanwhile, dear blog reader, here is today's From The North Thought For The Day.
Danish political drama and From The North favourite Borgen is back on the small screen after an almost decade-long break. Running from 2010 until 2013, Borgen had its breakthrough when Nordic dramas The Killing and The Bridge were also finding international success. The drama, broadcast to great acclaim in the UK on BBC4, followed Danish politician Birgitte Nyborg, an idealistic underdog who climbed the political ladder. There's a really good piece about the revival on the BBC News website here featuring interviews with creator Adam Price and Sidse Babett Knudsen. During Borgen's original three series, viewers watched Knudsen's character become Danish Prime Minister before losing the next election and founding a new political party. In the revived series, Nyborg has now become Foreign Minister. Throughout all eight of the new episodes, the plot explores the fallout from discovering oil in Greenland. Nyborg faces dilemmas about climate and security. Old alliances and the relationship between Denmark and Greenland are at stake, as much larger powers - specifically, the US and China - vie for influence. Borgen went down well with critics during its initial run. 'It is more than intricate political drama: it is intimate drama, politics made human,' wrote some Middle Class hippy Communist of no consequence at the Gruniad Morning Star. 'It is about democracy and people: relationships between people, the relationship between work and home. It is about journalism, women, values, having children, not having children. It is about you and me.' Early reviews of the new episodes have also been positive. 'The whole series is looking glossier and larger-scale, helped by the more international implications of the plot,' noted Lewis Knight of the Radio Times. 'The dialogue and plotting remain fast-paced and switch between both Danish and English with as much impressive skill as Knudsen's excellent linguistic abilities.' The new series is available on Netflix.
Following the arrival of incoming preview discs at The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House, he's a quick review of Strange New Worlds: Spock Amok. 'This is coming dangerously close to hijinks!' Well, it's about effing time that the Star Trek franchise got around to doing a prequel to Amok Time (and, a minor one to What Are Little Girls Made Of? as a bonus). It's nice to see that Strange New Worlds has, amongst its arsenal of gifts, something which several Star Trek series since, well, Star Trek itself, have struggled to acquire - a strain of wry, slightly self-deprecating humour. (Deep Space 9 admittedly did have a bit of that as, more recently, has Discovery. But, much as this blogger loved The Next Generation, that was one series which took itself far too seriously for far too long. And as for Voyager, po-faced doesn't even begin to cover all the cracks). This blogger loved Number One's mad hair, 'Enterprise bingo' and all of the cute body-swap stuff. After five episodes, this blogger is ready to confirm that Deep Space 9 has, officially, lost its long-standing claim to be 'the Star Trek series that got good the quickest.' Though it is still, to date, the one that 'stayed good the longest.'
Meanwhile, The Man Who Fell To Earth: Moonage Daydream also arrived on The Stately Telly Topping Manor doorstep. 'Sorry, once you get to know him he's ... a blast!' Magnificent. The dialogue just sings, dear blog reader ('Purgatory is where you get the best perspective'). The soundtrack is wonderful, the direction and design simply stunning, the humour was great ('my experience with mood alteration has been ... disappointing'), Zoe Wanamaker was great ('What are the odd?', '42.6 per cent!') And, the scenes between Chiwetel and Naomie were touched with magnificence. As, indeed, is the whole series. And, the next episode looks even better on the strength of the trailer.
One of this blogger's favourite novels is John Wyndham's classic 1957 SF chiller The Midwich Cuckoos and one of his favourite movies is Wolf Rilla's 1960 adaptation of Wyndham's work, Village Of The Damned (though, John Carpenter's unfortunate 1995 remake ... not so much). So, when this blogger heard that Sky was producing an eight-part TV adaptation starring From The North favourite Keeley Hawes and Max Beesley, Keith Telly Topping was properly delighted. Albeit such a provenance is not, necessarily, a guarantee of quality - another of this blogger's favourite novels is Joan Lindsay's timeless Picnic At Hanging Rock and another of his favourite movies is Peter Weir's stunning 1975 adaptation of that text; however, the 2018 TV adaptation starring From The North favourite Natalie Dormer proved to be, at best, flawed-but-interesting, even if it did - just - make From The North's Best Of list for that particular year. This week, the first episode of The Midwich Cuckoos was broadcast on Sky Max and was, this blogger thought, really rather good. The reviews have been, mostly, very positive. This blogger says 'mostly' because, there's always one cheerless miserable fekker with an agenda smeared, an inch thick, all over their disgusting mush ready to spoil the party for everyone else. Step forward, then, the Gruniad Morning Star's atypical Middle Class hippy Communist vegan quiche eater, That Awful Mangan Woman and her review of the opening episode Women's Rights Are Under Attack & This Is What They Make? So, clearly no agenda whatsoever going down there, then? This blogger has, of course, found That Awful Mangan Woman's shrill and, often, hysterical bollocks for the Gruniad problematic (and, sometimes ludicrous) on many occasions in the past - there are, for instance, several such examples in last year's From The North awards. But this is probably the finest example of the utter horseshite which passes for critique in the Gruniad these days. This blogger has no idea whom the 'they' that Mangan whinges so furiously about are (The Patriarchy, presumably) and he must have missed the passing of a new law which forces anyone to watch specific TV programmes. Thankfully, That Awful Mangan Woman's utterly facile, nasty spew has been countered by several other, far more positive, reviews of The Midwich Cuckoos from people who actually know what they're talking about; in the Torygraph, The Times, the Den Of Geek website and, most notably, From The North favourite Mark Kermode on the latest episode of Kermode & Mayo's Take. Looks like you're on your own in your crusade against ... whatever, Lucy. Good luck with that. You plank.
Updated to add: Shortly after this bloggerisationism update was published, this blogger's good fiend Allan noted: 'If anything The Midwich Cuckoos is a feminist production. Whereas the original [novel] had a "lets see how they react" third person view[point] of the village this new version started like a soap and got us involved in the characters lives. How can a story that covers the responses to unexpected pregnancy not be feminist?' Which this blogger completely agrees with. Barbara Shelley always felt that Village Of The Damned didn't show enough of the women's perspective - originally said in a 1994 interview with the Scarlet Screen fanzine and confirmed to this author in a private e-mail communication in 2003 when this blogger was writing A Vault Of Horror. And, that's almost certainly true - the fact that Village Of The Damned is a twenty four carat cinema masterpiece notwithstanding. The new TV adaptation, on the strength of the first episode, is most definitely a female-led story (this blogger understands three of the four writers involved in the production - Sasha Hails, Namsi Khan and Laura Lomas - are women) which is precisely why That Awful Gruniad Morning Star Woman's crass, insulting dismissal of their hard work so got right on this blogger's tit end when he read it. And, for what it's worth, the legend that is Mark Kermode agrees with us. So, you know, that's good enough for this blogger. God save us all, dear blog reader, from the whinging of Middle Class hippy Communists with an agenda.
'We're gonna be bigger than The Stones.' 'D'you know how many shit bands there are in London saying that right now?' Something else reviewed by Mark on the same podcast was Danny Boyle's much-anticipated Pistol - based of Steve Jones's autobiography and broadcast on 'The Home Of Punk Rock, Disney+' - along with an interview with the director by Simon Mayo. There's a splendid additional piece on the series by the BBC's Mark Savage (and, also, an interview Danny gave to another Gruniad Morning Star hack). On the strength of the first four episodes which this blogger watched at the weekend, dear blog reader, Pistol is proper terrific. It certainly appears to be a more authentic telling of the story than this (albeit, equally as funny). Great performances - especially Toby Wallace's Jonesie, Thomas Brodie-Sangster's amazing Malcolm McLaren and Sydney Chandler's touchingly-played Chrissie Hynde, who all dominate the first episode (The Cloak Of Invisibility) and Anson Boon's mad-as-a-kennel-of-Rottweilers Lydon and Maisie Williams's sympathetic Jordan who, between them, own the second (Rotten). The real-life Lydon's failed court objections to the production are rendered nonsensical, especially when one considers how sympathetically Johnny Rotten is portrayed in Pistol (for the most part). Danny reckons Lydon felt it was going to be a 'Middle Class' (hippy Communist) Gruniad Morning Star readers version of The Pistols story (which might be true but, coming from a vocal Trump supporter like Lydon, such objections are farcial). Anson Boon plays Johnny as a stroppy, confrontational, very angry bastard but one with a genuine heart and, importantly, a moral compass (especially in the third episode, Bodies, in which his relationship with the notorious Mad Pauline, the 'girl from Birmingham' in the titular song, is explored). Lydon is, also, the only one out of all of them who is shown to really mean it (maaaan).
Plus, there's a pretty authentic-seeming sleazy, drab and grey 1974-75 London into which Sex and those who shopped in her provided a splash of lurid colour and some sizzling dialogue (this blogger's favourite being when Glen Matlock tells Steve Jones 'I'm not a rich kid, you know' and the audience all think, as one, 'no, mate. But you will be!'); even the anachronistic placing of 'Who Are You?' on the (excellent) soundtrack (Bowie, T-Rex, Hawkwind, The Kinks, Iggy & The Stooges et cetera) and having 'Bodies' as part of the band's live set well before Sid replaced Glen didn't upset this blogger as they, perhaps, once would have done. Hell, it would appear, hath little of the filth and the fury that one would expect from an aged punk rocker in his late fifties who now just wants to sit in his favourite armchair with a cup of milky tea and a choccy biscuit and watch some quality drama. What have you done, Danny Boyle? What a fuckin' rotter!
The Sex Pistols, of course, once almost - infamously - appeared in a movie called Who Killed Bambi?, to be directed by, first Russ Meyer and then, equally briefly, by Jonathan Kaplan. Which, after both pulled out of the project and McLaren's ego demanded he rather than the band be the star of the movie, eventually mutated into Julien Temple's flawed-but-fascinating The Great Rock N Roll Swindle. Which managed to be really funny and really sad, often simultaneously. Another popular beat combo The Be-Atles, of course, also made a couple of movies (they were quite good, you might've seen them). However, the question of exactly what was their first brush with the film industry has been a hotly debated one since the mid-1990s when Sir Paul McCartney (MBE) mentioned in an interview with Q magazine, that The Be-Atles had been trying to break into movies for at least a year before they finally did and were 'in discussions' to appear in a film, pre-A Hard Day's Night. He claimed it was The Yellow Teddy Bears, a very low-budget drama made by Michael Klinger and Tony Tenser's Compton Films, directed by Robert Hartford-Davis and starring ... no one you've ever heard of. McCartney implied that the reason The Be-Atles turned down the movie was that they were told they would be required to perform a song written by an outside source rather than use one of their own (plus, the money wasn't very good). This always seemed a rather unlikely proposition; firstly because the film (also known as Thrill Seekers and, fantastically, Gutter Girls in the US) was made at Shepperton Studios in the spring of 1963 when The Be-Atles were still relatively new to the general public having just had their first major hit with 'Please Please Me'. But, mainly, because of the storyline in which a clique of girls in a London school wear a small yellow teddy bear on their uniform to signify that they have lost their virginity. Linda, the girls' leader (played by Annette Whiteley), fears she may be pregnant from her window cleaner boyfriend, 'Kinky', an aspiring pop singer (Iain Gregory). It was always difficult to imagine Brian Epstein even considering the possibility of allowing The Be-Atles to become involved in such a potentially controversial feature (Compton Films specialised in quickly-made exploitation movies - in a variety of genres.) Although, had they done so the movie's release, in July 1963 just as Be-Atlemania was gathering momentum, would have been jolly interesting and history may have taken a very different turn. (The film, available for viewing on YouTube incidentally does, indeed, feature a nightclub sequence with a band - the, not even remotely famous The Embers - performing a rockin' little number which the groovy clientele dance to. Which is, presumably, where most people who believe this story imagine The Be-Atles may have featured.)
Reportedly, the film's scriptwriters, Derek and Donald Ford, took the idea for their screenplay from a newspaper story in late 1962 (most likely in the News Of The World) about a group of schoolgirls who advertised the loss of their virginity to their friends by wearing gollywog brooches given away with jars of Robertson's Jam. The change to teddy bears was necessitated in the movie when the jam company refused to allow their trademark be used instead of making it a marketing opportunity and snatching the producers hands off at the chance of some free publicity. It was a very different world in 1963, dear blog reader.
So, The Be-Atles possible involvement in such a project always seemed a remote one, especially as some versions of the movie contain quite a bit of nudity (for example in a shower-room scene), although you'll still find references to The Be-Atles almost-but-not-quite-appearance - most likely based solely on Macca's Q interview - scattered around the Interweb. Here, for instance. The mystery was finally solved upon the publication of John Hamilton's highly-regarded biography and career analysis of Tony Tenser, Beasts In The Cellar (FAB Press, 2005). The Be-Atles were, indeed, 'in discussions' to appear in a Compton Film, just not The Yellow Teddy Bears! In fact, it was the subsequent Saturday Night Out, made by the same Hartford-Davis/Kilinger/Tenser/Ford Brothers cabal in the autumn of 1963 and released (to little or no acclaim) in April 1964. Just as The Be-Atles were on a train somewhere between Marylebone and Minehead filming A Hard Day's Night.
Saturday Night Out was shot at Shepperton and on location around London and concerned a trio of rough, tough, salty merchant seamen and several passengers disembarking from their ship at Tilbury and, subsequently, having the titular Saturday night's entertainment in the city. It's rarely seen these days but it's not bad as a period piece and a portrait of London just as it started to think about swingin'. On the IMDB trivia page for Saturday Night Out, the claim is made that 'The Beatles were offered the chance to appear in the film, but the producers were reluctant to pay the train fare from Liverpool. Another Mersey group, The Searchers, who happened to be in London, appeared instead.' This is patent nonsense, frankly and is contradicted by Beasts In The Cellar. There, it is suggested that Tony Tenser hadn't heard of The Be-Atles at this point in time but asked Hartford-Davis's teenage daughter about them. She said they were 'fab' and 'with it'. Which is difficult to argue with. However, Epstein played hard-ball over the appearance money and so Tenser returned to his director's daughter and asked if there were any other bands she liked (who might be a bit cheaper to hire). As a footnote to this sotry, this blogger's good mate Young Malcolm once interviewed Tony Tenser who told a slight variation on this story, stating that his decision to use The Searchers rather than try harder to get The Beatles was, in part, a bit of mischief on his part knowing that it would annoy Bob Hartford-Davis's daughter and, therefore, annoy Bob Hartford-Davis even more! He tells, essentially, the same version of the story on one of his DVD commentaries on The Tigon Collection box-set (2005). The acclaimed Be-Atles historian and biographer, Mark Lewisohn is, of course, currently working on the second volume of his definitive - and massive - Be-Atles biography, All These Years (tentatively scheduled for publication sometime next year, which will cover 1963 to 1966). So, one imagines, this subject will be dealt with in Mark's usual forensic detail there.
In the event, The Searchers appeared in a pub scene performing a song called, not unreasonably, 'Saturday Night Out' (co-written by their producer, Tony Hatch). It was, subsequently, issued as the b-side of their worldwide hit, 'Needles and Pins'. And, Bob Hartford-Davis's loss was Dick Lester's gain.
Hartford-Davis, Klinger, Tenser and the Fords subsequently went on to make the highly amusing horror movie Black Torment (1964 and a big favourite here at From The North) whilst Hartford-Davis's next brush with the world of pop music came a year later with the 'so-bad-it's-brilliant' Gonks Go Beat. The Be-Atles (a popular beat combo of the 1960s, you might've heard of them) were most definitely not invited to appear in that one.
So, dear blog reader, with the crushing inevitability of the crushingly inevitable, we come to that part of From The North dedicated to this blogger's on-going medical malarkey. For those who haven't been following this on-going saga which seems to have been on-going longer than ... a very long thing: This blogger spent several weeks feeling pure-dead horrible; had a week in hospital; was discharged; received some B12 injections; then more injections; recovered his missing appetite; got a diagnosis; had a consultants meeting; continued to suffer from fatigue and insomnia; endured a second endoscopy; had a second consultation with his doctor; got toothache; had an extraction; which took ages to heal. Last week, this blogger had another conversation with his consultant. A couple of tests (an ECG, for instance) have been arranged for next month in an effort to get to the bottom of the persistent fatigue symptoms (other than this blogger being, in the words of The Sex Pistols - a popular beat combo of the 1970s, you might've heard of them - a 'lazy sod') and another consultation has been scheduled for the end of June. Nothing further to report this week except for a marginal, though somewhat annoying, increase in this blogger's occasional bouts of swoony lightheadedness. Which was off-set, somewhat, by this really deserved injection of carbs, protein and calories.
And, this one. Also really deserved.
And, indeed, this one. Normally, this blogger tends to be far too tired by late afternoon to do much other than very basic cooking but this Friday being one of his (marginally) better days, here is an illustration of us Friday Jubilee Bank Holiday really deserved dinner at The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House. ASDA basmati rice, ALDI lemon and pepper breaded king prawns and Wagamama raisukoree Thai style curry (the latter was so ferocious that this blogger could, see through time for several hours afterwards). God bless Her Maj for living long enough so that one of her subjects could develop a taste for food from The Commonwealth (and beyond).
Earlier in the week, this blogger received an e-mail from an (occasional) dear blog reader - hello Roy - who was enquiring as to why, exactly, From The North has its comments section permanently turned off. Keith Telly Topping explained, wearily, that this was because of the unwanted attentions of this blogger's rude and abusive online stalker a couple of years ago together with a couple of cases of spam-bombing and foul-mouthed outbursts from several, let's not beat about the bush here dear blog reader, arseholes. It's sad that this blogger was forced into such a situation as From The North had a couple of semi-regular correspondents whose below-the-line comments were usually worth reading. But, frankly, avoiding the aggravation of dealing with idiots with anger-management issues was becoming more trouble than it was worth.
And, speaking of idiots with anger-management issues, this blogger was particularly taken with this thigh-slappingly hilarious story on Yahoo. Man, Twenty One, Breaks In To Dallas Museum Of Art & Causes Five Million Dollars Damage Because He Was 'Angry At His Girlfriend'. Dallas Police documents included a statement from the museum, which read: 'This was an isolated incident perpetrated by one individual acting alone, whose intent was not theft of art or any objects on view at the museum. However, some works of art were damaged and we are still in the process of assessing the extent of the damages.' The spokesperson added: 'While we are devastated by this incident, we are grateful that no one was harmed.' The museum suffered damage previously during an incident where a truck-mounted crane fell on the building's roof, injuring the operator and narrowly missing a sculpture outside.
Another 'you couldn't make it up'-type story was Trader Working From Home Wiped Out Three Hundred Billion Euros In Stocks After Adding Extra Zero. Citigroup, the bank involved, is still reportedly calculating the losses from the so-called 'fat finger' mistake but the bank is expected to 'take a hit of at least fifty million bucks,' according to Bloomberg.
This week's From The North Headline Of The Week award goes to the staffer at the Ipswich Star who tweeted this. It's the 'for crimes' that makes it art.
Patricia Brake, best known for her roles in Porridge and the ITV drama Manhunt, has died aged seventy nine after being diagnosed with cancer, her family has said. Her agent, Scott Marshall Partners, said that Patricia would be 'sadly missed' by her friends, family, colleagues and fans. Brake's sixty-year career saw her play roles in Coronation Street, Emmerdale and EastEnders. But she was best known to viewers in the 1970s for her role in Porridge. Patricia played Ingrid, the daughter of Ronnie Barker's Fletcher and she reprised the same role in the sequel, Going Straight, alongside Barker, Richard Beckinsale and Nicholas Lyndhurst. Alongside the Somerset-born actor's cockney accent = a distinctive quality she brought to many comedy roles - Brake caught the eye of the television critic Clive James for her 'fluffy but compelling sexiness.' He added that she played Ingrid 'with all the lowlife zing that cockney sparrers of stage and screen are traditionally supposed to display but never do.' Over the years, she had roles in Midsomer Murders, Doctors, Casualty, Holby City, 2point4 Children and Eldorado. She worked with the Two Ronnies and Morecambe and Wise and in the late 1970s was seen every Saturday night as Eth in The Glums. Born in Bath in 1942, she went to study at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School when she was sixteen. She found success in repertory theatre and joined The Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford when still a teenager. During that season, she played Hermia in Peter Hall's A Midsummer Night's Dream, alongside Dames Judi Dench and Diana Rigg. She made her TV debut in the 1961 Associated-Rediffusion series Home Tonight opposite David Hemmings. Her CV also included appearances in No Hiding Place, Lorna Doone, Emergency Ward Ten, This Man Craig, The Ugliest Girl In Town, Z Cars, Play For Today, Dolly, Hunter's Walk, Second Time Around, Forget Me Not, Mister Big, A Sharp Intake of Breath, Fat, Only When I Laugh, The Bounder, Mann's Best Friend, Tickle On The Tum, The Little & Large Show, The Upper Hand and McCready & Daughter. She continued to work until last year when she played a rape victim in Manhunt. She also worked in shows such as Truth Seekers by Nick Frost and Defending The Guilty by Alex McBride. Patricia's first marriage was to actor Robert McBain while she subsequently married Michael Kennedy. She is survived by the children from her first marriage, Jon and Hannah, three stepchildren - Angus from her first marriage and Sarah and Gavin from her second - and several grand-children.
