To the
other great love of this blogger's life, now dear blog reader. Filming for the new series of
Doctor Who continued last week with the Timelord's new assistant taking centre stage,
according to Tenby Today. Mille Gibson was spotted on the Pembrokeshire coast path, where scenes for the BBC's popular long-running family SF drama have been shot between Penally and Lydstep.
The
Radio Times - which used to be run by adults - has managed to come up with three entirely separate stories based on things that Russell Davies has said (albeit,
not said directly to
them) relating to the future of the
Doctor Who franchise. Firstly, there was a piece,
Russell T Davies Confirms Doctor Who Spin-Offs: 'Time For The Next Stage' which taken entirely from an extensive and wide-ranging interview Big Rusty gave to
GQ magazine, which you can check out
here. 'I thought the streaming platforms are ready, the spin-offs are ready; I always believed in spin-offs when I was there. I did
Torchwood as a spin-off,
The Sarah Jane Adventures as a spin-off. Those spin-offs declined when I left and I can see why. And I very much left after 2008, when the money became scarce. I think that's fair enough for the public service broadcaster that the money is spent on other things.'
From an
interview that Russell and Mark Gatiss gave to
The Times,
Radio Times (no relation, though it used to be run by adults) managed to extract another something-or-nothing exclusive,
Russell T Davies Hints Every Episode Of Doctor Who Could Go On iPlayer. One presumes this 'every episode' claim includes the ninety seven missing ones which (if we follow this conspiracy theory to its logical conclusion) the BBC have been hiding for just such an opportunity as this. In fact, Russell didn't 'hint' at this or anything remotely like it, what he actually said was 'You make all of the back catalogue available, first, on
iPlayer. I can't swear that will happen, but there
are contracts. It's our heritage, it deserves to be there so kids can fall in love with
Doctor Who like they love
Friends.' Keys words in that particular statement? '
I can't swear this will happen.' 'Episodes from the classic series are currently available to stream on BritBox, but it sounds as though Davies is hoping to make them available for free on
iPlayer in their entirety,' states the author of this bizarre piece of putting two and two together and getting twelve, one James Hibbs. Again, dear blog reader, context is everything and until Russell comments on this (or any other) aspect of
Doctor Who without an 'I'm not sure exactly where we stand on this' covering himself-type comment such as 'I can't swear this will happen,' it's one of those 'make a sentence from the following words - "believe it", "see it", when I", "I'll"' - things. Not that the
Radio Times (which used to be run by adults) seems to understand the difference.
A third
Radio Times Russell Davies article, also drawn from the
GQ interview, was
Doctor Who Boss Feels 'A Lot More Free' With Biggest Budget Ever. This is probably the mot substantial of these trio of borrowed, 'what can we use for a
Doctor Who clickbait article this week?' efforts. Although, again, this blogger would not be doing his duty if he didn't suggest that dear blog readers go for the full three-course
GQ interview rather than the McNuggets
Radio Times version. 'It's one of the reasons I've come back - you can tell stories on a bigger scale,' Russell told
GQ, although he added that not all of the previous issues had disappeared. 'It's the same old problems, I still have to cut scenes because they're too expensive and I still have to reduce the number of monsters and things like that,' he said. 'But my imagination feels more free, a lot more free, actually. It's just a joy to write anyway. I'm really proud of it. Oh my God, there are some strong episodes coming up.'
The
GQ interview, incidentally, leads with Russell expressing admiration for
From The North favourite and long-time
Doctor Who fan Edgar Wright and Russell's hope that Edgar might like to direct an episode in the future. That's if he's not too busy making that really annoying McDonald's advert
mentioned in the last bloggerisationism update! Although, again,
GQ have done a bit of a
Radio Times trick here and made rather more of Russell's answer to their question than there was to be made. 'Any truth to the speculation around Edgar Wright?' the interviewer, Jack King, asked Russell. 'Oh, no.
Was there speculation?' replied the
Doctor Who showrunner. 'There was some cryptic
Instagram posting last year and fans thought that he'd be directing an episode as a result,' said the interviewer. Which was true although Edgar himself had already scotched the fan speculation in
his own interview with
GQ. To which Russell added: 'Yes please! No, we wouldn't have kept
that secret, would we? If he's reading
GQ please get him to do it. I love him.' So, it's not exactly
Russell T Davies wants Edgar Wright to direct Doctor Who is it?
More,
When Presented With An Over-The-Top Fan Idea, Russell Davies Said He'd Be Quite Prepared For That Eventuality In The Highly Unlikely Circumstances That A Movie Director Could Find A Hole In His Schedule To Fit In Doing An Episode Of Doctor Who And The BBC Could Afford To Pay Him (See also, Jackson, Peter). Glad we got
that sorted out.
Russell has also criticised a new wave of 'rubbish' TV screenwriters who, he claimed, are more interested in diversity than television. At least, that's
according to a rather spectacularly spiteful and agenda-soaked piece of phlegm in the
Daily Torygraph which includes the shit-scum claim '
Doctor Who has itself been criticised for pushing a perceived political agenda with its recent storylines, which have included a time-travelling episode taking in the bus protest of Rosa Parks and moves to make the main cast more diverse.' Yes, it has. Amongst agenda-soaked bigoted Tory
twats the likes of you and the
Daily Scum Mail, if not anyone that actually
matters, you hateful right-wing bag of filth. Quite why Russell felt it necessary to even talk to these people in the first place is a question probably well worth asking but, for context, what the
Torygraph quotes him as saying is: 'I do a lot of mentoring and there are voices wanting to be heard - of any gender or ethnicity - who consider themselves invisible. They hate the media that ignores them and they're trapped into wanting a job in that medium purely to increase representation. I read their scripts and they're rubbish. They don't actually love television, so they don't know how to write for it.' Which is more a criticism of bad writing rather than of representations of diversity. Particularly when it comes from Russell Davies, a man who needs lessons from precisely
no one when it comes to creating positive portrayals of gender and ethnic diversity on UK television. Jesus, dear blog reader, some people are just
scum. And, most of them writing for the right-wing press.
Meanwhile, The Lord Thy God Steven Moffat (OBE) has
told the
Radio Times that '
Doctor Who could go on forever - I believe it can. I want it to not stop. And I know [Russell's] going to make use of its infinite adaptability to always be the number one predator in the environment. I want it to go on forever ... Like the stories of Robin Hood and King Arthur and Sherlock Holmes. Some things
always go on.' But, to quote the great Richard Thompson, 'She thought she'd live forever, but forever
always ends.' So 'forever'
per se might be a
bit over-optimistic, Steven. Just a shade. Let's say 'a long time' and hope for the best. Steven also suggested that he has 'no plans' to follow his predecessor as
Doctor Who show-runner in returning to the popular long-running family SF drama any time soon - even to write an episode. 'It would be career madness even by my standard to go back into a junior capacity on a show I used to run,' he said. 'I would have to be insane to do that!'
All of which, inevitably, brings us to Memorably Daft Double-Entendres In Episodes Of
Doctor Whom (1963-2022). Number Eighty Six: Oh,
that's a trifle harsh, this blogger feels. Personally, Keith Telly Topping thought
The Greatest Show In The Galaxy was
great.
Memorably Daft Double-Entendres In Episodes Of
Doctor Whom (1963-2022). Number Eighty Seven:
The Shakespeare Code.
Memorably Daft Double-Entendres In Episodes Of
Doctor Whom (1963-2022). Number Eighty Eight:
Vampires Of Venice.
Memorably Daft Double-Entendres In Episodes Of
Doctor Whom (1963-2022). Number Eighty Nine:
State Of Decay.
Memorably Daft Double-Entendres In Episodes Of
Doctor Whom (1963-2022). Number Ninety:
The Parting Of The Ways.
Memorably Daft Double-Entendres In Episodes Of
Doctor Whom (1963-2022). Number Ninety One:
The Awakening.
Memorably Daft Double-Entendres In Episodes Of
Doctor Whom (1963-2022). Number Ninety Two:
Robot of Sherwood.
Memorably Daft Double-Entendres In Episodes Of
Doctor Whom (1963-2022). Number Ninety Three:
The Tenth Planet. In which Polly bombs out the (no questions asked) offer of co-habitation (quite possibly, rent free), all because of a display of atypical toxic Cyber-malenes. Because, as we all know, for The Cybermen, the 1960s liberation movement was something that happened to other ... cyborgs.
This blogger managed to get right a more-than-usual two questions on the latest episode of
From The North favourite
Only Connect. Of course, as entirely expected they were the musical question ...
... and the TV-related question. You all kind of knew
that was going to happen, dear blog reader, yes?
The Sandman writer and
From The North favourite Neil Gaiman
says that a
Dead Boy Detectives series is in full swing and filming for HBO Max. The author revealed that the show is in production while answering posts on
Twitter.
The Dead Boy Detectives debuted in the third series of
Doom Patrol in the episode
Dead Patrol. The characters themselves were original creations of Neil, Matt Wagner and Malcolm Jones. They first appeared in
The Sandman issue twenty five, which was released in April 1991. In
Doom Patrol, the two dead boys were played by Sebastian Croft and Ty Tennant as Edwin Paine and Charles Rowland, respectively. The characters were accompanied by a medium, Crystal Palace, who was portrayed by Madalyn Horcher. Palace is a newer character who first appeared in
Dead Boy Detectives issue one in December 2013. It was announced in September 2021 that HBO Max wanted a pilot based on
The Dead Boy Detectives. Even though a lot of fans would have wanted a spin-off from
Doom Patrol, this is a new original series. Paine and Rowland will be played by George Rexstrew and Jayden Revri respectively. And Palace will be played by Kassius Nelson.
Yer man Gaiman seems really busy at the moment,
discussing one of the characters he is most excited to be writing for in the forthcoming second series of
Good Omens. Maggie Service shared a selfie from her last filming session doing ADR for the series. 'The last line was very apt, might have almost shed a tiny tear,' she wrote. 'It really is looking rather, lovely it must be said.' Gaiman quoted her tweet and added that Service's character, also named Maggie, is 'one of the things [I'm] most excited about' when it comes to the series' next batch of episodes. Service previously appeared in the first series of
Good Omens as Sister Theresa Garrulous, a Satanic nun from the Chattering Order of St Beryl. However, Prime Video announced that whilst many actors will return for series two, not all of them will, necessarily, be playing the same characters. Confirmed to be returning are Michael McKean, Gloria Obianyo, Miranda Richardson, Reece Shearsmith and Nina Sosanya along with Michael Sheen, David Tennant and Jon Hamm.
Highlight of last week's
Kermode & Mayo's Take:
The Laughter Lift. 'Everyone has been struggling with Covid but there's now a new virus that makes the sufferer forget eighties independent music. And it seems to be spreading. No one knows The Cure!'
Come on. That's nearly as good as their
previous masterpiece: 'One of our favourite trips abroad was to Oslo for a Bill & Ted convention.' 'Norway?' '
Yes way, dude!'
Recommended
From The North reading for all dear blog readers, part the first; check out Chris Browning's excellent and highly personal
review of
George Martin: A Painter In Sound box-set at the excellent
We Are Cult website.
Recommended
From The North reading for all dear blog readers, part the second; a truly splendidly researched piece on the
Dirty Feed website,
Freeze-Frame Gonna Drive You Insane on the far-more-notorious-than-it-should-be
The Young Ones series two flash-frame malarkey.
Recommended
From The North reading for all dear blog readers, part the third; the
Gruniad Morning Star's latest G2 interview,
'A Lot Of The Demons Seem A Little Cheesy Now': Sarah Michelle Gellar On Buffy, Her Burnout & Her Comeback. Which contains lots of fascinating titbits but, if you thought the media's pushing of that hateful word 'Whovian' was bad, dear blog reader (and it
is), please feel similarly
violated by this week's 'completely made-up' word, 'Buffyologists'.
Recommended
From The North reading for all dear blog readers, part the fourth, another
Gruniad Morning Star think-piece by Katie Cunningham,
Mumbling Actors, Bad Speakers Or Lazy Listeners? Why Everyone Is Watching TV With Subtitles On. That's '
everyone' dear blog reader - because, obviously Katie
asked everyone when researching her article otherwise she would not have made this sweeping claim in a national newspaper. This blogger believes that by 'everyone' what Katie
actually means is 'most of the Middle-Class hippy Communists who both write for and read the
Gruniad Morning Star,' which appears to be a much more demonstrably accurate claim. For what it's worth, this blogger watches TV and most other media with the subtitles on - and has done for decades. Not because he has failing hearing - though he
has and after over fifty years of listening to extremely loud rock and/or roll music on a daily basis, that's hardly surprising - but, rather, he doesn't want to miss any funny or important lines. However, his opinion of those who whinge that they can't hear the dialogue on TV these days because the actors aren't speaking clearly enough remains unchanged; try washing your cloth-ears out with soap and water and pay a bit more attention instead of fiddling with your mobile phones when you're supposed to be watching TV.
That thoroughly vile and soon-to-be-extremely-unemployed Hancock individual has
claimed that his appearance on
I'm A Z-List Former Health Secretary Desperate To Get My Boat-Race Back On TV ... Please Vote For Me To Stay Here As Long As Possible (I'll Even Eat Kangaroo Anus If You Want) last year was 'not primarily about money.' One or two people even believed the lewd and odious rascal. This blogger would, however, draw dear blog reader's attention to the key word in this particular claim, '
primarily.' Oh,
what a giveaway ...
Barrett Strong, one of the pivotal figures in the history of Motown Records, has died at the age of eighty one. He sang the label's first major hit, '
Money (That's What I Want)', in 1959 and subsequently went on to co-write classic songs like 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine', 'War' and 'Papa Was A Rollin' Stone'. Those hits were 'revolutionary in sound and captured the spirit of the times', Motown founder Berry Gordy said in a written tribute to the musician. 'Barrett has left his indelible stamp on music history,' said Temptations founder Otis Williams in a statement. 'Our Motown family has lost a beloved brother and extraordinary songwriter.' Gordy added: 'Barrett was not only a great singer and piano player, but he, along with his writing partner Norman Whitfield, created an incredible body of work. Barrett is an original member of the Motown Family and will be missed by all of us.' Strong was born in Mississippi and grew up in Detroit, where he sang and played piano with his four sisters in The Strong Sisters, a gospel group. While touring local churches, they befriended soul stars such as Jackie Wilson and Sam Cooke. 'My sisters were very pretty girls, so when all the singers would come to town, all the guys would stop by my house,' he later recalled. 'I'd play the piano and we'd have a jam session.' He was just eighteen when he agreed to let Gordy manage him and release his music. Within a year, he had a million-selling single, 'Money', which was subsequently covered by The Be-Atles, The Rolling Stones, The Kingsmen, Bern Elliott & The Fenmen and The Flying Lizards. According to Strong, the song began with its infectious piano riff, which he dreamed up during a spontaneous recording session at Motown's Hitsville headquarters. 'I just happened to be sitting there playing the piano,' he told the
New York Times in 2013. 'I was playing 'What'd I Say', by Ray Charles and the groove spun off of that. Everybody said, "What was
that?!"' he recalled. 'They said, "Let's write some lyrics" and we had a song.' With its opening refrain, 'The best things in life are free/But you can give them to the birds and bees' 'Money' was an instant hit, shooting to number two on the US R&B chart and number twenty three on the Hot 100. The success provided Gordy with vital capital to expand his operation and Tamla Motown went on to transform US music, breaking down racial barriers as it went. However, Strong spent years fighting the label for his share of the song's royalties, after they removed his name from the credits. (Gordy, somewhat dubiously, claimed he had written the song himself and that Barrett's co-writing credit was a 'clerical error'.) 'Money' was Strong's only hit as a vocalist, albeit one that kept him on the radio for more than sixty years. He later said that he was happy to retreat behind the scenes. 'I never felt comfortable with myself as a recording artist,' the father of six told
Billboard magazine. 'I had to work to support my family. I'm not looking for the spotlight and all the glamour and stuff like that. I just like to work in my studio and see what we can come up with.' In Motown's back rooms, he teamed up with producer/writer Norman Whitfield, with whom he wrote some of the label's most cherished singles, including 'Ball Of Confusion', 'Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)', 'I Wish It Would Rain' and 'Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home)'. Many of their songs had roots in political activism. Edwin Starr's 'War', for example, was inspired by Strong's cousin, who was badly injured in Viet'nam. 'With 'War', I had a cousin who was a paratrooper that got hurt pretty bad in Viet'nam,' Strong told
LA Weekly in 1999. 'I also knew a guy who used to sing with Lamont Dozier that got hit by shrapnel and was crippled for life. You talk about these things with your families when you're sitting at home and it inspires you to say something about it.' 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine', meanwhile, took its title from the days of the US Civil War, when the 'grapevine telegraph' was a system of communication used by slaves. Strong heard the phrase on the streets of Chicago and took it to Whitfield. Together, they worked it into a song of epic romantic betrayal. Smokey Robinson's Miracles recorded it first, in 1966, but Gordy decided not to release it. A year later, Marvin Gaye cut a version, but that was also vetoed. It was only when Gladys Knight & The Pips sped the song up, putting a lighter spin on its aching melody, that it got the Gordy seal of approval. Their version reached number two in the US in 1967 and Gaye's dark, hypnotic reading of the song was relegated to appearing Gaye's
In The Groove LP until E Rodney Jones, a DJ at Chicago's WVON radio station, started playing it. After the song was broadcast for the first time, Jones told Motown's marketing man Phil Jones that 'the phones lit up.' It was released eleven months after The Pips' version and became Motown's biggest-selling single, going to number one on both sides of the Atlantic. 'They didn't think it was a hit record,' Strong later recalled. 'You know how it goes: They say, "We don't like that," but when it's a hit, everybody takes credit.' In the 1970s, Strong and Whitfield pushed Motown towards more experimental sounds, notably on the psychedelic soul classics 'Cloud Nine' and 'Psychedelic Shack', both by The Temptations with whom they worked on a regular basis. 'Looking back on that whole period, I would say that the album I most felt proud of was The Temptations'
Solid Rock [1972]"' he told
Blues & Soul magazine in 1975. 'At the time, Norman and I were really into that sound and we were first to really capture it. Of the songs I've written, I'd say that 'Grapevine' and 'Papa Was A Rolling Stone' are my personal pride. Papa earned us a Grammy so we were especially proud of it at the time.' In addition to the Grammy, Strong was also honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Songwriters in 1990 and a Songwriters Hall of Fame induction in 2004. He left Motown in the 1970s and made a handful of solo LPs. In 2010, he released
Stronghold II, his first LP for thirty years, while his music can still be heard on London's West End in
Motown: The Musical. After suffering a stroke in 2009, he moved to a retirement home in Detroit, where a jukebox often played his songs in the recreational area. True to his signature song, he said life as a musician 'means more than money. Money has its place. But you've got to do more than just have money. When you go to bed at night, you've got to live with yourself,' he told the
Detroit Free Press in 2019. 'I did something. I did my part, what I was put on this Earth to do. I made people smile. I made people have babies. I made people do a lot of things. So I contributed something to my being here.'
As the leader of the New York band Television, Tom Verlaine, who has died aged seventy three, was a key figure in the
coterie of musicians - Blondie, Talking Heads, The Ramones, The Patti Smith Group, The Voidoids - who made downtown Manhattan a laboratory of new sounds and new styles in the mid-1970s. Although each of those groups pursued a very different musical path, together their impact would shape what became known as the punk movement, while Television's debut LP,
Marquee Moon, released in 1977, would secure a place among the most admired and enduringly influential releases of its era. In Patti Smith's recent publication,
A Book Of Days, she chooses a photograph from 1974 in which she and Verlaine, then lovers and occasional collaborators, are holding hands in a tableau of sweetly defiant thrift-store chic: a flimsy child-bride's gown for her, a patchwork leather jerkin for him. But among the artfully distressed apparel, defiant haircuts and painfully skinny silhouettes of their
milieu, none of those serving apprenticeships in CBGBs, Max's Kansas City and other New York clubs showed more concern for the music itself than Verlaine. 'Attitude,' he once said, 'will only take you so far, which for me is never far enough.' Instead the career of the visionary singer, songwriter and guitarist, including solo LPs and appearances as well as various Television reunions, seemed to represent a constant quest for the perfect blend of musical eloquence and some form of spiritual elevation. Fittingly for a man who appropriated his stage name from a great French symbolist poet, Verlaine wrote striking lyrics, such as the opening lines of 'Marquee Moon': 'I remember how the darkness doubled/I recall lightning struck itself.' In another early song, 'Venus', he sang of how 'Broadway looked so medieval' - a description both improbable and indelibly perceptive. But it was his exploratory guitar solos that spoke of his early interest in (and deep knowledge of) the
avant-garde jazz of the 1960s. Somehow he managed to find a language midway between the speaking-in-tongues improvisations of the saxophonists John Coltrane and Albert Ayler and the more functional styles of such rock and/or roll, R&B and guitarists like James Burton, Steve Cropper and Dick Dale, as well as the expansive psychedelic guitar improvisations of Jerry Garcia and John Cipollina and to make the result match his own era. Verlaine's tightly wound stage presence was compelling, but his personality - his cool reserve, fugitive manner and inherent suspicion of others' motives - made him a figure of mystery and worked against his chances of the mainstream success to which, in any case, he never seemed committed. The son of Lillian and Victor Miller, he was born in Morriston, New Jersey, into a Middle-Class family who moved to Wilmington, Delaware, when he was six years old. After classical piano lessons, he switched to saxophone upon discovering jazz and then took up the guitar. At Sanford, a private school in Hockassin, where he was a day pupil, he met a boarder from Kentucky named Richard Meyers, with whom he bonded over a love of poetry and a mutual desire to escape the confines of the establishment in which they found themselves. The first attempt ended with both being brought back after being arrested in Alabama for setting a building on fire. They had made their separate ways to New York by 1971, where they teamed up again on the Lower East Side, changed their names to Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell, scuffled for work and wrote poetry together under the
nom-de-plume 'Theresa Stern'. But Verlaine, working as a clerk at The Strand bookstore in the East Village, was determined to form a band. He taught Hell the rudiments of playing the bass guitar and together with the drummer Billy Ficca they performed as The Neon Boys before adding another guitarist, Richard Lloyd and changing their name to Television in 1974. Verlaine's songs, the compositions of Hell (including the anthemic 'Blank Generation') and the soaring interplay between the two guitarists quickly earned them a following among New York's scenemakers. Endorsements came from David Bowie and Nicholas Ray, the director of
Rebel Without A Cause, whose crisp epithet - 'Four cats with a passion' - appeared on their promotional material. Smith, then beginning her own rise to prominence, was another early supporter and Verlaine played on her first single, a version of 'Hey Joe', in 1974. Richard Hell, whose spiky hair and ripped T-shirts would (allegedly) inspire Malcolm McLaren's styling of The Sex Pistols, had already been sacked by Verlaine on the grounds of heroin-induced unreliability by the time Television made their first single. An extraordinary Verlaine song, '
Little Johnny Jewel' was an angular, strange, seven minute earworm of the thing split over the two sides of the single, it was released in 1975 on a label created by their patron, Terry Ork. The following year they signed a deal with Elektra Records and began work on
Marquee Moon. The LP was co-produced by the studio engineer Andy Johns, who had worked with The Rolling Stones, Free and Led Zeppelin and who helped Verlaine achieve the clarity of sound for which he was searching. If the LP's sales were disappointing by the standards of the biggest rock bands of the time, their music was warmly received by the rock press in both the US and Europe and by audiences on their first tour of the UK, with Blondie as their support act. A second LP,
Adventure, made less impact and the band dissolved in 1978 after disagreements between Verlaine and Lloyd. Verlaine’s eponymous first solo LP was released in 1979 (containing 'Kingdom Come', later covered by David Bowie), followed two years later by
Dreamtime and then by several others, including
Cover, completed in 1984 while he was briefly living in London. Two LPs of instrumental pieces,
Warm & Cool (1992) and
Around (2006), showed his gift for creating tone poems inspired by
film noir. In 1995 he appeared as a guest with Smith's band on a US tour with Bob Dylan. Television briefly reformed in 1992 to release a new self-titled LP of the highest quality and toured occasionally both before and after the second departure of Lloyd, who was replaced from 2007 by Jimmy Rip. Their last appearances came in 2013.
Although Sylvia Syms, who has died aged eighty nine, emerged as an actress during the decade from 1956 that saw British cinema changing radically, she seemed to belong to an earlier stiff-upper-lip tradition of British films rather than kitchen sink drama. Nevertheless, the ethereal Syms starred in a wide variety of films during that period before she developed in later years into a fine supporting player. She was nominated for a BAFTA for her performance in J Lee Thompson's
Woman in A Dressing Gown (1957), which had Syms playing the other woman for whom Anthony Quayle wants to leave his wife (Yvonne Mitchell). Based on a play by Ted Willis, this candid social drama heralded a new dawn in gritty British film-making. However, the same director-writer team's
No Trees in the Street (1959) was a distinctly old-fashioned melodrama set in the London slums between the wars. It starred Syms as a girl hoping to escape BOTH her environment and a local hoodlum (Herbert Lom). Roy Ward Baker's
Flame In The Streets (1961), another screenplay by Willis, was a well-intentioned plea for racial harmony, in which Syms played the daughter of a trade union leader (John Mills), whose intention to marry a West Indian man puts her father's supposed liberal values to the test. Equally worthy, but just as reflective of the mores of the time in England, was Basil Dearden's
Victim (1961) in which Syms gave a beautifully understated performance as the wife of an in-the-closet barrister (played by Dirk Bogarde), especially notable in the scene when she reacts painfully to her husband's confession of his desire for a young man. Syms was memorable as a plucky nurse in Thompson's
Ice Cold In Alex (1958), in dusty khaki on a trek through the North African desert from Tobruk to Alexandria in 1942. In the same year, she was decorative in
The Moonraker, a swashbuckling period piece set during the English civil war and radiant in
Bachelor Of Hearts as an undergraduate helping a German student, Hardy Krüger, negotiate and understand the rituals of Cambridge University. For the following decade, Syms was very active in British cinema, managing to belie her reputation as a sweet-tempered English rose by taking roles such as a stripper, Maisie King, in
Expresso Bongo (1959). In one scene, as the girlfriend of a sleazy agent (Laurence Harvey), she just throws a coat over her skimpy costume after her performance at the strip joint, returning with him to his pad. 'Well, there's not much point in putting my things on at the theatre if I'm going to take them all off again here,' she explains. In complete contrast was her novice nun helping other nuns to smuggle Jewish children escaping the Nazis in war-torn Italy and confronting her feelings towards an Italian major (Ronald Lewis) in the moving drama
Conspiracy Of Hearts (1960). In
The World Of Suzie Wong (1960), Syms was a British expat in Hong Kong, hopelessly competing for William Holden's affections with a Chinese sex worker and in
The Quare Fellow (1962), based on Brendan Behan's play, she stood out as the lonely and alcoholic wife of a man about to be hanged in Mountjoy prison. When given the chance, Syms showed a penchant for comedy as in
The Punch & Judy Man (1963), in which she played Tony Hancock's socially ambitious wife, with an accent just off-posh and as the girlfriend of an inept bank robber (Sid James) in the
Carry-On-style
The Big Job (1965). Sylvia was born in Woolwich, the daughter of a trade unionist, Edwin Syms and his wife, Daisy. She was evacuated from the capital aged four with her brother and sister at the outbreak of the second world war. Her mother died of a brain tumour when she was twelve and her father remarried two years later. Syms suffered from depression for most of her life, which she put down to her unsettled childhood. 'Everyone thinks I'm very strong and together,' she explained. 'I have always had this ability to put on a very powerful exterior, but in reality I'm a great mess inside. I've just had to learn to cope with it.' She was educated at convent schools, before studying at RADA at the same time as Albert Finney, Alan Bates and Peter O'Toole. After graduating in 1954, aged twenty, Syms went into weekly rep in Eastbourne and Bath. She was seen by Anna Neagle and Neagle's producer-director husband, Herbert Wilcox, who cast her in the title role of
My Teenage Daughter (1956), the couple's first film, in which they attempted to get 'with it', hoping to appeal to both parents and teenagers. In it, Syms, revealing a touching vulnerability beneath outward defiance, played Neagle's rebel daughter, who drops out of school, links up with a Teddy Boy, goes to wild parties, drinks booze and does the jive. Shocking. Needless to say, in a typically moralistic ending, she sees the error of her ways and is reunited with her mother. In the 1970s and 80s, when the film roles began to dwindle, Syms took on more television and theatre work. She was Beatrice in
Much Ado About Nothing at the 1984 Edinburgh festival, Martha in
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1989) and Cleopatra in
Antony & Cleopatra (1991), both at Birmingham Rep. In 1994, the left-leaning Syms appeared at the Tricycle Theatre, in
Half The Picture, a dramatisation of the Scott inquiry into arms to Iraq. Four years later, at the same theatre, she played both Queen Elizabeth and Margaret Thatcher in Howard Brenton and Tariq Ali's
Ugly Rumours, a political satire on New Labour. As Thatcher, Syms was brilliant as a madwoman in the cellar of Number 10. Her triple-stringed pearls intact but her twin-set suit covered in cobwebs, she carried about her person a 'Thatcher extractor', a sort of portable vacuum cleaner designed to suck socialism out of the body, which has worked on Tony Blair. Syms had already portrayed Thatcher - slightly more realistically - in
Thatcher: The Final Days (1991) for Granada. Also on television, she was seen in six episodes of
The Ruth Rendell Mysteries (1989-98), ten episodes of the blackly comic
At Home With The Braithwaites (2000-03), four episodes of
EastEnders (2007-10, as Olive Woodhouse), and a host of other series, including
Gentleman Jack (2019). She was the narrator of the BBC2 series
Talking Pictures from 2013 until 2019. Her CV included appearances in
Rev,
Above Suspicion,
Collision,
New Tricks,
Blue Murder,
Where The Heart Is,
The Jury,
The Glass Virgin,
Doctor Who (brilliant as the evil housekeeper Mrs Pritchard in 1989's three-parter
Ghost Light),
Rockcliffe's Folly ,
Nancy Astor,
My Good Woman,
Paul Temple,
Thirty Minute Theatre,
Strange Report,
The Saint,
The Root Of All Evil,
Danger Man,
The Human Jungle,
Suspense and
The Baron. Her later movies included
Shirley Valentine,
Absolute Beginners,
Give Us Tomorrow,
The Tamarind Seed,
Operation Crossbow and
East Of Sudan. In her mid-seventies, Syms commented: 'I never valued my looks when I was young. But I remember a brilliant director, Lewis Gilbert, saying: "Don't ever get your face done because you'll
always work. We'll always need some old people!" And he was absolutely right.' She transmogrified into Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in Stephen Frears's film
The Queen in 2006. As a tipsy Queen Mum, mainly upset that Diana's funeral will ruin the plans made for her own interment, Syms delivered her lines with wit and relish, telling her daughter (Helen Mirren in the title role): 'Reassert your authority. You sit on the most powerful throne in Europe, head of an unbroken line that goes back more than a thousand years. Do you think
any of your predecessors would have dropped everything and gone up to London because a bunch of hysterics carrying candles needed help with their grief?' Syms was appointed OBE in 2007. In 1989, Syms divorced Alan Edney, her husband since 1956. She is survived by her children, Ben and Beatie.
Nominations for the
From The North Headline Of The Week awards include
Info News'
Drunk, Angry Jesus Arrested During Exodus Concert In Penticton.
The BBC News website's
Bournemouth Homeowner's Fury Over Sofa Wedged In Stairs.
A classic from
Metro (so, not a
real newspaper),
Chef Released Twenty Cockroaches Into Pub Kitchen In Row Over Pay.
Devon Live's
Devon Morrisons Shopper Fuming His Chicken Snack 'Didn't Contain British Meat'.
And,
Richmondshire Today's
Obscene Graffiti Appears On Fence At New Scotch Corner Development. Let us, perhaps, just leave that one without any further editorialising. Tempting though that may be.
And, finally Rockin' Sir Rod The Mod Stewart has
called in to a live
Sky News phone-in offering to donate money for medical scans after hearing stories from people about treatment ordeals on the NHS. The singer said it was 'ridiculous' that people were having to wait long periods to get essential scans and treatment. The seventy eight-year-old former Faces singer told
Sky News: 'I personally have been a Tory for a long time but I think this government should stand down now and give the Labour Party a go, this is heartbreaking. In all my years in this country I've never seen it so bad ... change the bloody government.' This blogger is, genuinely, unsure which is the more shocking, the fact that the man who once claimed 'Maggie I wish I'd never seen your face' should confess to his Tory tendencies or that it's taken him
this long to realise they don't know what they're doing.
Mind you, dear blog reader, the author of Thus Spoke Zarathustra was also reported to have once said 'That which does not kill us makes us stronger.' Which is, clearly, utter frigging bollocks. Getting stabbed in the leg, for instance, is unlikely to kill the stabbing victim in question providing the blood loss is staunched before he or she has lost too much. History, however, does not record too many people, this blogger asserts, reported as saying: 'You know what, getting stabbed in the leg really made me stronger.' That's the problem with nihilist philosophers, they never think things through to their logical conclusion; that Schopenhauer was another one. 'Happiness exists in frequent repetition of pleasure,' he reckoned. No shit, Arthur? 
If he'd said that doon Th' Bigg Market, dear blog reader, he'd have found out that there is a fourth stage between numbers two and three - getting fisted in the mush for looking at someone 'in a funny way.' 
So, let us kick-off this latest From The North update with the really important news; this blogger's beloved (and now, thankfully, sold) Magpies reached their first domestic cup final since 1999, beating Southampton in the Carabao Cup semi-final second leg at a rockin' St James' Park on Tuesday. Eddie Howe's side led by a single goal after the first leg at St Mary's and extended their advantage after but five minutes through Sean Longstaff's low shot. The North Shields-born midfielder scored again sixteen minutes later following Miguel Almirón's pullback after earlier good work by Joelington. Southampton's Che Adams scored from twenty five yards before half-time but the hosts still won relatively easily despite Bruno Guimarães being shown a red card with eight minutes left for a rash challenge which caught Samuel Edozie on the ankle. Referee Paul Tierney originally showed the Brazilian midfielder a yellow card but, following an intervention from the video assistant referee, changed the decision to red. Longstaff took advantage of good work from Kieran Trippier to beat Saints keeper Gavin Bazunu after four minutes, then crowned a sweeping move with a confident finish for his second. Che Adams (named after the Cuban guerilla, Che Stadium, probably) gave Southampton some hope with a fine strike on the half-hour that ended Newcastle goalkeeper Nick Pope's attempt to keep an eleventh consecutive clean sheet, but Southampton's slow start cost them dearly to leave Howe and his players contemplating a Wembley date on 26 February against The Scum. Jonjo Shelvey waved a tearful goodbye to Newcastle supporters on the pitch at half-time on the day that he signed for Nottingham Forest and received a deserved standing ovation. The popular midfielder had spent seven years on Tyneside and had asked club officials if he could bid fans farewell, driving three hours up from the East Midlands to do so. 
United's upward direction of travel since Eddie Howe's arrival on Tyneside is moving at such a pace that Th' Toon Army can now add Wembley to their list of destinations as they continue to shoot for a place in next season's Champions League. This being Newcastle, of course, what looked like being a stroll against Southampton came accompanied with some minor second-half nerves before the sound of Paul Tierney's final whistle was drowned by the deafening roars echoing around Tyneside and numerous choruses of 'tell me ma, me ma/I won't be home for tea/we're goin' to Wem-Ber-Lee'. In reality, Newcastle were never in serious danger of squandering a place in their first domestic final since the 1999 FA Cup once two early goals from Longstaff gave them an even greater hold on this EFL Cup semi-final. In addition to being United's first Wembley final since 1999, it is also their first League Cup final since 1976 (this blogger was at that one) and a chance to win their first trophy since Ujpest Dozsa were beaten in the 1969 Inter Cities' Fairs Cup. Heady times indeed for Newcastle United and their transformational manager, supported by the funds supplied by the new owners. When Howe succeeded Mister Brucie (nasty to see him, to see him nasty) in November 2021, Newcastle United were nineteenth in the Premier League table, five points from safety after eleven games and, even their most loyal supporters were struggling to see a way they could avoid relegation. Newcastle's graph has been ascending ever since. The frenzied atmosphere on Tyneside once Southampton were beaten was a release after the years of pain in the 1990s when Kevin Keegan's great entertainers could not, quite, get over the line in the Premier League and Kenny Dalglish and Ruud Gullit's sides suffered successive FA Cup final losses to The Arse and The Scum in 1998 and 1999 respectively (both of which this blogger attended). There were three or four good years in the league under Sir Bobby Robson, but this was followed by the many sour years of bitter discontent under former owner, That Odious Ashley Individual. In that era, Newcastle's fans were often criticised by know-nothing glakes for 'expecting too much' from a club that has not won a trophy for fifty years - but, this was always a harsh and unfair judgement. We, as supporters, did not want a procession of title triumphs and the Champions League arriving on Tyneside. We simply wanted a club of such rich potential, a one-team city with a spectacular stadium located near the heart of that city, to be given the chance to punch their weight on the field. As a famous flag at the ground during the dying days of Ashley's reign of misery said: 'Newcastle fans don't demand a team that wins, just a club that tries.' Howe has revived his own career after taking time out from the game after his departure following Bournemouth's relegation. And he now has the chance to take his place in Newcastle folklore by becoming the first manager to win a trophy on Tyneside since Magic Joe Harvey. Working alongside director of football Dan Ashworth, even before Ashworth's arrival, Howe had laid the basis for progress with smart signings of powerful characters such as Kieran Trippier and Dan Burn alongside real class in the shape of Bruno Guimarães. Nick Pope has proved to be an incredible bargain at ten million knicker and striker Alexander Isak cost sixty million quid but has already shown his quality; watching from the stands against Southampton draped in a black and white scarf was Newcastle's latest acquisition Anthony Gordon, purchased earlier this week from Everton. It was also fitting that those greats of the 1990s Alan Shearer, David Ginola and Lee Clark, who kept the flame alive even though the trophies did not come, were at St James' Park to join in the celebrations. 
It was, in truth, an utterly joyous night at Gallowgate: As the very excellent Niall and Biffa at the always superb nufc.com website noted: 'Isak ... is set to be missing from the squad to face The Hammers [on Saturday] due to concussion protocols. That worry, concerns over central midfield cover and everything else are for another day though, this is simply to be savoured - we've waited bloody long enough. This could have been the night when we reverted to type and gave the sort of non-performance that we've served up on too many occasions, be it promotion play-offs or European capitulations. Not for this squad or manager though; instead they're making history and rewarding those who stuck by their club through sour times, not to mention a whole new generation of followers blissfully unaware of what preceded them.' Aye. What they said. 
Ultimately, only but one question remains concerning the memorable evening. What on Earth was self-proclaimed Arsenal fan and From The North favourite Idris Elba doing, hanging out with Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi in the Milburn Stand? 'Jumping on The Magpies bandwagon' according to some smear of no importance at the Daily Scum Mail? 'How's [sic] Idris Elba got a ticket?' asked one disgruntled voice on social media. Ignore them all, Wor Geet Canny Idris, you're welcome at Th' Toon any time you like (particularly as, on the evidence of Tuesday night, you seem to be a lucky mascot!)
