Events

Previews of forthcoming events and reviews of past events.

What TV’s on at the BFI in October/November? Including Diana Rigg and The Avengers

6 October 2015 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Around August, things get a bit weird with the BFI’s scheduling and it starts putting out brochures for a month and a half at a time. As I was away on holiday in August, I missed out on September/October, but now we have October/November, which gives us a fair few events from the tail end of October together with a copious number from November.

The highlight of the list is an afternoon with Dame Diana Rigg to celebrate 50 years of Emma Peel and air a couple of episodes of The Avengers, including the superb The House That Jack Built. However, there’s also a preview of ITV’s Jekyll and Hyde, talks on romance and race and disability on TV, Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard’s reunion in Staying On, showings of all seven episodes of Bouquet of Barbed Wire, and a season on the evolution of the TV documentary. 

All that and more after the jump. But first, do yourself a favour and if you haven’t watched it already, watch The House That Jack Built. It’s aces.



Continue reading “What TV’s on at the BFI in October/November? Including Diana Rigg and The Avengers”

BFI events

The oddness of the Radio Times Festival

28 September 2015 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Last week saw the first ever Radio Times Festival take place on the Green opposite Hampton Court Palace. I have to say it was a slightly odd affair, overall. Between Thursday 24th and Sunday 27th, there were plenty of events to go to, but you had to buy tickets individually for each one. Given that each hour-long event typically cost £12-£18, you could quickly bankrupt yourself going to all of them.

However, I didn’t, thanks to a bit of odd scheduling. I’d have been a shoo-in for the:

  • You, Me and The Apocalypse preview
  • The BFI: Missing Believed Wiped Special with Tim Brooker-Taylor celebrating the return of two episodes of At Last The 1948 Show to the archives
  • The Russell T Davies session
  • The Doctor Who session with Peter Capaldi, Steven Moffat and Brian Minchin
  • The Silent Witness session or
  • The Omid Djalili session

Except that was on Friday. When everyone is at work. The most I could have done is try to scramble down in the evening (1h-2h by train) and then scramble back again. 

Huh.

So instead, we were on the Saturday there purely to see Philippa Gregory discuss her new book The Taming of the Queen and slag off Wolf Hall (not Wolf Hall). That clashed with the Endeavour chat, unfortunately, and lovely wife didn’t fancy hanging around for the Lynda La Plante/Tennison session, which meant that we ended up only going to one thing. That saved some cash at least.

However, despite that weird scheduling, it was actually pretty decent. The weather was great, it wasn’t too packed, everyone was well behaved, it had possibly the most middle-class mobile restaurants imaginable (admittedly full of very tasty food) and Dick Fiddy from the BFI was around, too. 

I took a few photos while I was there and you can look at them after the jump. I have to admit my photo of Boycie from Only Fools And Horses wasn’t the best, though. And if you want to see sophisticated, wait till you see how Philippa Gregory herself overcame the lack of live streaming at the event.

Continue reading “The oddness of the Radio Times Festival”

What TV’s on at the BFI in August 2015? Including Six Centuries of Verse: American Pioneers

1 July 2015 Rob Buckley Post a comment

The BFI’s August TV output this year is dedicated almost exclusively to the one and only Orson Welles, including some special excerpts from the Munich Film Museum of some of his rarer, European TV work. However, there’s also a season dedicated to poetry on TV, with the likes of Maya Angelou, Andrew Motion, WH Auden and John Betjeman all putting in appearances.

More after the jump. But first, Lee Remick, Stacy Keach and others reading some of the classics of American poetry in the American Pioneers episode of Six Centuries of Verse, presented by John Gielgud, which will be airing on Monday 24 August.

Continue reading “What TV’s on at the BFI in August 2015? Including Six Centuries of Verse: American Pioneers”

What TV’s on at the BFI in July 2015? Including The Wednesday Play Where Adam Stood (1976)

4 June 2015 Rob Buckley Post a comment

It’s time for our regular look at the TV that the BFI is showing, this time in June 2015. This month’s output is devoted purely to the fourth part of the ongoing Dennis Potter season, this time focusing on the themes of sex and death. If that doesn’t sound much, you should probably see how many showings that amounts to, given it includes showings of all of Casanova, Blackeyes, Karaoke, Cold Lazarus, and The Singing Detective, as well as Blue Remembered Hills and Double Dare.

There’s also Where Adam Stood, Potter’s 1976 free adaptation of the autobiography of naturalist and fundamental Christian Edmond Gosse, whose father had trouble reconciling the Bible with the latest works of Charles Darwin, causing Gosse all manner of difficulties. Don’t want to wait to see it? Well, you don’t have to as it’s this week’s Wednesday Play (on Thursday):

Continue reading “What TV’s on at the BFI in July 2015? Including The Wednesday Play Where Adam Stood (1976)”

What TV’s on at the BFI in June 2015?

29 April 2015 Rob Buckley Post a comment

It’s time for our regular look at the TV that the BFI is showing, this time in June 2015. As well as part three of its Dennis Potter season, which includes both The Son of Man and Follow The Yellow Brick Road, there will be previews of two new shows: AMC/Channel 4’s Humans (an adaptation of Sweden’s Äkta Människor) and The Outcast, a BBC One adaptation of Sadie Jones’ novel of the same name.

Continue reading “What TV’s on at the BFI in June 2015?”