Whatever happened to the teenage dream?

When I was growing up, assuming that I did manage to climb to the top of that particular mountain, it was presumed that what children wanted on television in the way of drama was escapist fodder. Thus my memories are full of daring-do on the high seas, in shows such as Freewheelers, or moderately scary outer-space malarkey on Saturday teatimes during the late Sixties, in the company of Patrick Troughton and chums! Doctor Who was aimed at intelligent 12-year-olds, although I was a little younger when Pat was the Doc, but designed for all the family to enjoy. The lovelies that accompanied our hero were always suitably attired… yes, they wore miniskirts and, thus, showed a bit of leg but it never really went beyond that. If you wanted to see Wendy Padbury having sex, you wouldn’t see her engaged in the deed on either of the aforementioned series. You’d have to stay up late and catch her in Blood On Satan’s Claw for that kind of thing! Even when you got a bit older, sex was never really a staple for teenage consumption. The closest television was ever going to get to linking the two would be Marc Bolan and T.Rex encouraging us to Get It On, on Top Of The Pops in 1971. The girls dancing amongst the studio audience weren’t dressed to ever suggest that that prospect was an actual possibility.

So, here we are, 40 years on, and your offspring are more likely to want to watch Hollyoaks or Skins than an episode of Doctor Who or The Sarah Jane Adventures. It’s not hip to enjoy a rollicking good yarn with the faint hint of a moral message in these enlightened times. We’ve got to concern ourselves with the issues of the day and wallow in all things problematical. Is Johnny finally coming out of the closet or has he just been in the bathroom an awfully long time?! Is Jenny on the pill and having underage sex? Probably, considering how much mascara she has on, not to mention the boob spillage from her low-cut tops! It isn’t just 16-year-old girls that want to watch Skins. If they have a younger sister, the sibling won’t want to be left out. They’ll want to see it too, even though I presume it’s the older lasses who are the target audience. The lads will be tuning in to see how much flesh is on display, rather than to learn about safe sex. Childhood no longer exists anymore. It’s been gradually eroded away by commercial interests, despite self-appointed moral guardians doing their level best to stop anyone, of any age, from being remotely titillated by anything they see on the box. Alf Garnet once complained he couldn’t find the pornography Mary Whitehouse was fussing over… and he’d looked on every channel!

The Tracks Of My Tears

London’s Leicester Square was transformed into a running track, earlier in the week, for the premiere of new athletics film Fast Girls. The British drama, released only weeks before the London Olympics (oh, how I’m looking forward to that!), follows a female sprint relay team as they attempt to qualify for a world championship. Its main actresses, who faced a gruelling training regime before making the film, swapped their sweaty Lycra running costumes for designer gowns as they arrived on a red carpet complete with track markings at the Odeon West End. Leading lovelies Lenora Crichlow, best known for her role as Annie in Being Human, and Lily James were joined by co-stars Whitechapel actor Phil Davis and Rose’s on/off boyfriend in Doctor Who Noel Clarke - who co-wrote the film - and real-life sporting personalities including Dame Kelly Holmes.

James said the rigorous exercise and diet routine, to prepare for the part, drove her to tears at times. “It was such a change physically and mentally at first,” she explained. “It was really, really hard. When filming wrapped, it was Christmas, so I ate and I ate and I ate. My stomach was bursting at the seams.” It sounds as though Lily should be in the next Alien sequel! The actress went on to say she had more respect for real athletes since making the film, and joked that she was keen to show off her new skills at the Olympics. “I might compete! I’ve been thinking about it,” she quipped. “But, I’ll let them have their day!”

Crichlow, who plays James’ rival on the track, said she could not stop reading the script when she first received it. “I think it’s a really fresh, unique way of telling an age-old underdog story,” she said. For my money, the extraordinarily beautiful Lenora is the black answer to Billie Piper. “It’s got fantastic female British leads,” she added. “They’re the heroes of the piece. It’s a really positive way of depicting women.”

Fast Girls is released nationwide on Friday, June 15th.

The Bradbury Chronicles

American science-fiction writer Ray Bradbury has died in Los Angeles at the age of 91. One of his four daughters, Alexandra, confirmed that her father passed away on Tuesday night in Southern California, although she did not give any further details.

Bradbury wrote hundreds of novels, short stories, plays and television and film scripts in a career dating back to the 1940s. His most famous novels include Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes.

Ray was born in 1920 in Illinois and, as a teenager, moved with his family to Los Angeles. For three years, after leaving school, he earned a living selling newspapers, writing in his spare time. From the early 1940s, his short stories started to appear in magazines such as Weird Tales, Astounding Science Fiction and Captain Future. In 1947, he married Marguerite ‘Maggie’ McClure and published his first book, a collection of short stories, Dark Carnival.

Three years later, Bradbury began to establish his reputation with The Martian Chronicles. They were a collection of stories about materialistic Earthmen colonising and ruinously exploiting Mars, a commentary on the Cold War. It was turned into a memorably bizarre TV mini-series starring Rock Hudson.

Ray’s most celebrated novel, Fahrenheit 451, published in 1953, depicts a future society where books are banned and firemen start fires rather than put them out, a critique on the evils of censorship and thought control in a totalitarian state. The story, which gets its title from the temperature at which paper spontaneously ignites, proved to be uncannily prophetic. The characters are addicted to TV soap operas, while miniature headphones provide a stream of music and news. A film version starring Julie Christie, photographed by Nicolas Roeg with a music score by Hitchcock-composer Bernard Herrmann, directed by Francois Truffaut, was released in 1966.

For years, Bradbury tried to prevent the publication of Fahrenheit 451 as an e-book. He told the New York Times that electronic books “smell like burned fuel” and called the internet “a big distraction”. “It’s meaningless; it’s not real. It’s in the air somewhere,” he said. But he relented in 2011, when his publishing deal was renewed. His agent said, “We explained the situation to him, that a new contract wouldn’t be possible without e-book rights. He understood and gave us the right to go ahead.”

Bradbury also authored several works for film and television. He wrote the screenplay for John Huston’s 1956 film version of Moby Dick and scripts for many TV series, including Suspense, The Alfred Hitchcock Show and The Twilight Zone. Director Ridley Scott paid homage to the writer in Blade Runner, naming the hotel residence of character JF Sebastian The Bradbury!

Ray was passionate about literature. Although his writing had slowed in recent years due to a stroke, which meant he had to use a wheelchair, Bradbury remained active. He penned new novels, plays, screenplays and a volume of poetry, writing every day in the basement office of his home in Los Angeles. “The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me,” he said in 2000. “The feeling I have every day is very much the same as it was when I was 12.”

Ray’s grandson, Danny Karapetian, tweeted, “The world has lost one of the best writers it’s ever known, and one of the dearest men to my heart. RIP Ray Bradbury (Ol’ Gramps).”