A Dirty Dozen!

Starting today, and for the next three weeks, the Daily Mail are giving away a free classic serial on DVD each and every day, beginning with the first three episodes of “Pride and Prejudice”. The set includes twelve productions over eighteen discs and Andrew Davies’ adaptation is first off the shelf and out of the jacket. Never mind Colin Firth’s Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, soaked to the skin in his wet shirt, with the voluptuous Jennifer Ehle gazing on as heroine Elizabeth Bennet, the moment I prefer is when David Bamber, as Mr. Collins, shields his eyes from the semi-clad Julia Sawalha playing Liz’s flighty sister Lydia! I’m not sure I could’ve managed to avert my vision so readily! Naturally, there are a fair few written by super scribe Andrew! As well as the most famous Jane Austen televisual creation, there’s also Davies’ brilliant retelling of Charles Dickens’ “Bleak House”, again spread over two discs and structured, supposedly, soap style in fifteen episodes. This one has Gillian Anderson, Dana Scully in “The X-Files”, harbouring a secret from her husband, as the prim and proper Lady Dedlock. It also features Anna Maxwell Martin, from the “Doctor Who” episode “The Long Game”, as Little Esther and Carey Mulligan, from the same series’ “Blink”, as Ada Clare. “Torchwood” actor Burn Gorman is the disgustingly grubby Guppy singularly after the affections of mild-mannered Miss Summerson until she becomes disfigured! And, if your tastes are more murkily refined, there’s always Charles Dance as the equally repulsive lawyer Mr. Tulkinghorn.

Charles Dance, as Maxim de Winter, pursues Emilia Fox to take her as his second wife in Daphne Du Maurier’s “Rebecca”. Emilia pops up in “Pride and Prejudice” as Darcy’s sister, Georgiana, but keeps her clothes on in the Jane Austen! The things I have to remember for this blog!! Still, someone’s got to do it. I mean take their clothes off in classy drama productions! I’m sure I’m not the only one to remember!! Nudity doesn’t replace decent narrative, though, as it did in the recent Billie Piper disaster “Secret Diary of a Call Girl”. Emilia’s also in “David Copperfield”, as Clara, alongside the unfaltering Bob Hoskins as Micawber. “Harry Potter” fans will be pleased to see Daniel Radcliffe as Young Master Copperful! But, quickly returning to actresses, the lovely Daniela Denby-Ashe takes the lead in Elizabeth Gaskell’s “North & South”, as Margaret Hale, while the equally lovely Samantha Morton appears in Austen’s “Emma”, as Harriet Smith, and as the desired object Sophia Western in raunchy period piece “The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling”. Seven of the dozen titles originated on the BBC, whilst four débuted on ITV. The remaining dramatisation, E. M. Forster’s “A Room With a View”, is the only cinema release amongst the set and features Helena Bonham Carter as the impressionable Lucy Honeychurch rather than Elaine Cassidy in the recent TV version. Looks like I’m going to be camping outside Tesco’s or Smith’s over the next few weeks!

Trading Places

I don’t know how interested readers of this Blog are in stills from science fiction television series but I seem to amass them fairly rapidly, more than I can ever possibly use. I suspect it’s a continuation of collecting sweet cigarette and bubble-gum cards from when I was a child but without that teeth rotting element! I can remember a shop keeper going through her entire “Thunderbirds” stock, in a little newsagents in Paignton, during a summer holiday long ago, looking for that one elusive card to complete my set of fifty. She didn’t find it but I bought a packet anyway. I must have found it eventually, although where and when eludes me, as I still have them stored away for posterity. I actually have two sets of the first series, possibly one belonged to my brother, and a single set of the second. I prefer the latter, being made up of photos as opposed to artists impressions of the vehicles and characters. I also own a set of the sixty-four “Captain Scarlet” bubble-gum cards which mix artwork with photos and when collectively reversed make a single image.

Moving effortlessly on from Spectrum Pursuit Vehicles to a certain Sport-Utility Vehicle, I have to admit that, despite some reservations, my imagination seems to have been captured a little by episode seven of “Torchwood”. In a parallel universe, there might well be a set of trading cards for the series although, considering what I assume to be the age of the intended audience, that seems less likely than for “Doctor Who”! With this in mind, I’ve put together a little ten-picture gallery featuring the two leads from “Greeks Bearing Gifts”. It was Tosh’s episode but benefited greatly from the guest star, Daniela Denby-Ashe as Mary/Philoctetes, appearing throughout, rather than briefly at the story’s conclusion as was the case with Owen Teale in “Countrycide” and Gareth Thomas in “Ghost Machine”. The first of the set is above showing the moment our heroine first tries on the alien pendant with the remaining nine directly below in a separate post. Pictures two through six continue the exchange that took place in the Cardiff bar with the remaining four from the story’s climax at the heart of the Hub.

A “Gift” of a Gallery

Heart for Art’s Sake

“Torchwood” seems to be attracting interesting guest stars. Last week, in Chris Chibnall’s well-titled “Countrycide”, Owen Teale popped up towards the end of the episode as the leader of a group of Brecon Beacon villagers intent on cannibalism once every decade, almost as though he’d stayed on at the end of “Vengeance on Varos” ready to appear in “The Two Doctors”! And this week, starring throughout Toby Whithouse’s “Greeks Bearing Gifts”, Daniela Denby-Ashe, best known for long running sitcom “My Family”, played exiled and abandoned alien “Mary” who worms her way into Toshiko’s affections, with the present of a pendant that enables the wearer to read the innermost thoughts of others, in order to eventually invite herself into the Hub of Torchwood itself to retrieve her ship. Said thoughts made for a depressing indictment of the human race.

The balance between the personal relationships of the heroes and the science fiction strands of the story worked better in “Greeks Bearing Gifts” than it has previously, in both “Torchwood” and new “Doctor Who”, maybe because the alien artefact was a direct link between the two elements, making it an excellent plot device. Toby’s script benefited from his earlier experience writing “Doctor Who” episode “School Reunion” where the balance wasn’t as well executed. Daniela sustained a convincing performance throughout, possibly not an easy thing to do when alternating between tearing out the hearts of her victims down through time with present-day lesbian liaisons in Cardiff cafés! She played it as a femme fatale, which worked well enough, eventually brought to book by Captain Jack resetting her transport home to burn her up in the heart of the Sun. Hot stuff!!