The BFI has something of a rum concoction for its June 2017 programme. The main season is dedicated to architecture on TV, with a whole host of documentaries from the archives, as well as a Q&A with the rather marvellous Jonathan Meades.
But the other entry in the calendar is an entire Saturday dedicated to former TMINE Wednesday Play, Penda’s Fen. There’s a showing of the play in the evening, but the rest of the day is dedicated to a Penda’s Fen symposium, ‘Child Be Strange’, that will include a Q&A with the writer David Rudkin. Slightly odd order that, so you might want to watch the DVD a couple of times first.
Do you like playwright Trevor Griffiths? Do you like German TV? Then the BFI has a season and a single TV show for you in May.
‘Fassbinder: Television Pioneer’ looks at the German film director’s TV work, while ‘Interventions: The Television Plays of Trevor Griffiths’ covers the likes of Food For Ravens, All Good Men, Oi For England, Through the Night and Country, as well as an episode of Fall of Eagles. Details after the jump.
But first, here’s that Fall of Eagles ep, which looks at the origins of the Bolshevik/Menshevik split, as well as this week’s ‘Wednesday Play (on a Friday)’, All Good Men, in which a Marxist son confronts his moderate Labour father when he accepts a peerage – Dennis Potter described it as having ‘some of the sharpest, most telling and intelligent speeches ever heard on television’.
Here we are, January barely even begun, yet we’re now looking at what the BFI is planning on showing in February. Phew. Hold on tight – 2017’s going to be speedy, everyone.
February’s TV season will probably seem to go by quickly, too, since it’s exclusively dedicated to ‘Forgotten Dramas’ – a range of little-known TV dramas. Basically, ones people have forgotten about but deserve to be known better, such as Rudolph Cartier’s last directorial project Loyalties, John McGrath’s experimental The Day of Ragnarok and Arthur Hopcraft’s gritty political piece The Nearly Man, which inspired a subsequent TV series.
It’s curated by Lez Cooke, John Hill and Billy Smart as part of Royal Holloway’s project The History of Forgotten Television Drama in the UK, so an extra bonus is a TV conference on Wednesday 22nd February all about TV archives, access and research.
All that and more after the jump. No videos, I’m afraid, because, you know, they’re forgotten dramas. If there were videos, they probably wouldn’t be forgotten.
It’s not quite 45 years since The Stalls of Barchester was first broadcast, as it aired on Christmas Eve 1971, but this is close enough and since when have I ever run TMINE’s The Wednesday Play feature on a day other than a Wednesday, hey?
The Stalls of Barchester was an adaptation of master ghost story writer MR James’ short story of the same name. It sees 1930s scholar Clive Swift uncovering a box in the library of Barchester Cathedral that contains the diary of the cathedral’s former archdeacon (Robert Hardy). Swift is able to work out from the diary that Hardy caused the death of his own predecessor at the cathedral and resultingly came under the curse of the man who made the wooden decorations for the cathedral’s stalls – a curse that ultimately leads to his own death…
Stalls was the first official entry in the annual 1970s BBC play strand, A Ghost Story for Christmas. It was adapted, produced and directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark, who had seen Jonathan Miller’s 1968 adaptation of James’ Whistle and I’ll Come ToYou and being a lifelong fan of the author, pitched the idea of another adaptation to Paul Fox, the then controller of BBC1. Fox agreed and Clark chose Stalls to be the first in a series he would produce, as well as largely write and direct.
The slightly novice and unconfident Clark chose to follow many of Miller’s choices with Stalls, including building up tension and fear through suggestion and atmosphere rather than being overt, and shooting on location (Norwich Cathedral doubles for Barchester) using 16mm film rather than video; he even hired Warning‘s Ambrose Coghill to play the curator. Unlike Miller, however, he was able to shoot in colour – and rather tastefully, too, unlike many video-shot shows of the early 70s. He also reveals a bit more of the supernatural than James ever did in his story and despite a cast of actors known mostly for their roles in sitcoms, avoids the humour that Miller included in his piece.
With no fixed run time thanks the scheduled late night time slot, Stalls was able to run to 50 minutes and proved so successful that Clark was able to make an annual return to James’ stories for most of the decade.
And it’s your Wednesday Play – enjoy!
PS Remember: if you like it, support the makers (ie the BBC) by buying it on DVD
Gosh, 2017 came round quickly, didn’t it? Yes, already, we’re looking at what the BFI is showing in January next year. Two big things:
A tiny, tiny Sherlock season. Only one episode in fact. But it’s a new one. Maybe some of the cast might even be attending
An Aliston Steadman season. Quite a big one, since includes the likes of Abigail’s Party, Nuts in May, Pasmore, Girl and Virtuoso, as well as Alan Bleasdale’s first TV drama, Early To Bed.
Details after the jump, although you might want to listen to a bit of Demis Roussos first.
