What I've Been Listening to (miracle edition)

[thisbluespirit]

How difficult this week has been is reflected in the fact that the most exciting part of this post happened on Saturday and I took this long to come here and flail about it loudly.

1. You may or may not recall, back when I first started trying to collect and listen to all the full cast BBC Radio installments containing Martin Jarvis, that I ran into a serial called The Twelve Maidens from 1971 that may or may not have still existed and certainly hadn't been repeated any time in the last 50 years, nor did it seem likely to be, and I was taken enough by the description to hunt down the novelisation, as I talked about here, last year.

Well, guess what? Apparently BBC Radio 4xtra has request weekends, and people called Colin and Steven can just email them and ask them to rerun random SFF serials from 1971, and they just go, okay, and do it and so... I've been listening to it!! I've heard the first two eps! It is pretty much exactly as the book suggested and very enjoyable and easy going so far.

Each ep is up on BBC Sounds for 4 weeks after broadcast (so don't wait for completion; eps1-2 will be gone before eps 5-6 arrive) and you can listen to it here from anywhere in the world: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0021q9s

\o/

I only found this because I was very bored and restless while supposedly resting on Saturday(?) afternoon, and thought I'd browse through categories of drama on BBC Sounds just in case. I squealed and nearly fell right off the bed instead of being duly calmed and distracted. (sovay got my initial squeaking by me being incoherent trying to dreamwidth on my phone, which nobody deserves.)

I honestly thought it must be incomplete from what little I knew of it.

But apparently if you're pining for something from the archive, you can just email the beeb at radio4extra@bbc.co.uk and hope they take pity on you. I can't believe that includes this, but I am delighted and looking forward to the next ep after it goes up post broadcast tomorrow at 4.30pm.


2. My browsing was inspired by me finishing Hamlet (1971), which I enjoyed very much - I am discovering that, provided I already know the play, Shakespeare on radio can really work for me. They can't be ponderous, the way some of the BBC TV Shakespeares can at times, they can get amazing casts (radio's probably the quickest medium to make, so people can fit it in), plus there's an intimacy with the radio format that makes it more emotive to me. Which is to say that this play was 3 hours and I would have sworn it was two. And I wasn't even all that taken with Ronald Pickup as Hamlet! (I mean, I still enjoyed it, so obv he was good; I couldn't have with a bad Hamlet, but, you know, whichever Hamlet will be 'my' Hamlet(s), I have not yet found. It wasn't BBC TV's Derek Jacobi either, so really no shade on Ronald Pickup. Obviously, I enjoyed Martin Jarvis as Horatio, but I particularly liked Robert Lang as Claudius and Angela Pleasance as Ophelia, too.)

As I mentioned in another post a while ago, most of the same cast reprised their roles for the 1978 radio Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, starring Edward Petherbridge & Edward Hardwicke, with Freddie Jones as the Player and Martin Jarvis as Hamlet (he was Horatio in the 1971, but played Hamlet on stage in between the two performances). I was entirely new to this, save very confused osmosis, and I also enjoyed this a lot AND am now more knowledgeable and enlightened. \o/ (My own enforced radio literary education programme via Mr Jarvis; it seems to work.) sovay informed me that Edward Petherbridge originated the role of Guildenstern on stage, so it was even cooler than I thought, and it was also adapted by Tom Stoppard himself.


3. After that, and prior to random miracle repeats, I got determined to find something good to listen to, because I'd been having a run of lesser SNTs, some with as much as five whole minutes of David Collings in them somewhere, and things like that, which wasn't good enough for summer.

I found a couple of possible things in the BBC Radio collection on Internet Archive, but was very intrigued by the sound of the SFF series, Pilgrim, which I discovered there. The first episode wasn't great, but I did like Paul Hilton as William Palmer/Pilgrim himself very much, and since I assumed it couldn't have run for 9 series if it didn't improve, I tried the second episode & that was much better, and promises to be the right sort of summer listening I was after.

Pilgrim or William Palmer is a Canterbury pilgrim cursed to eternal life by the king of the Greyfolk for insulting him on the road in 1185, and now he wanders around doing errands for the king, and/or helping ordinary people caught up in Greyfolk business or trying to find a way to end his own curse. As well as the IA link, there are a couple of (s9) episodes on BBC Sounds at the moment here.

Comments

[persiflage_1]

Oh! We did R&G Are Dead at the same time we did Hamlet when I did my English (and History) degree lo these 20+ years ago. It was great fun doing them together.

Glad you found some enjoyable listening. I was thinking I might re-listen to Bleak House with Michael Kitchen soon, if I've still got it saved.

[sovay]

(sovay got my initial squeaking by me being incoherent trying to dreamwidth on my phone, which nobody deserves.)

Other people having nice days is a genuinely pleasant experience!

Pilgrim or William Palmer is a Canterbury pilgrim cursed to eternal life by the king of the Greyfolk for insulting him on the road in 1185, and now he wanders around doing errands for the king, and/or helping ordinary people caught up in Greyfolk business or trying to find a way to end his own curse.

My father adores Pilgrim and has been trying for years to get me to listen to the complete works. Technically I have all nine seasons on the same drive that furnished the 2012 LATW The Browning Version with Martin Jarvis. And because of thinking about my father and radio, I just checked in on L.A. Theatre Works and your Mr. Jarvis is in their latest release, recorded April.

[liadt]

Hurrah to Colin and Steven! I hope spamming the BBC email account works for you too;p

Yay to Robert Lang!

I enjoyed Nicol Williamson's Roundhouse Hamlet, although he wasn't right for the role, but I had fun. Gordon Jackson was good in it too. Can't remember much about the Christopher Plummer one other than Michael Caine over doing it in a strop and the real life locations.

[thisbluespirit]

Heh, yes, it was an excellent radio combo, too! I liked that they'd done it deliberately to match.

I was thinking I might re-listen to Bleak House with Michael Kitchen soon, if I've still got it saved.

If you haven't, I'm pretty sure you gave it to me, so I could take a look - although I'm not 100% sure if I kept it, but probably!

[thisbluespirit]

My father adores Pilgrim and has been trying for years to get me to listen to the complete works.

LOL, that fits! Well, if it's any consolation, you can tell him that one of your internet friends is now enjoying it very much, as of episode 3. XD

I just checked in on L.A. Theatre Works and your Mr. Jarvis is in their latest release, recorded April.

Good to see that he's still keeping himself busy, or his wife is keeping him busy anyway, heh.

[thisbluespirit]

Colin and Steven are heroes! Heh. I am too shy to email the BBC, perish the thought. What if I asked for something that didn't exist? I might never recover! XD

Yay to Robert Lang!

I know I've come across him in a positive way in something else recently, too, but I thought he was particularly excellent as Claudius in this.

I enjoyed Nicol Williamson's Roundhouse Hamlet, although he wasn't right for the role, but I had fun. Gordon Jackson was good in it too. Can't remember much about the Christopher Plummer one other than Michael Caine over doing it in a strop and the real life locations.

LOL, thanks for the not-really-recs! I shall just have to keep looking for a Hamlet. I probably just need a time machine and go to see Martin Jarvis in the 70s and then aim for the 1989 RSC but one of the nights the understudy was on, although not the infamous time when Daniel Day-Lewis broke down. Although I might have to do it twice because they say Ian Charleson was amazing. I mean, if I had a time machine, if there were such things, and if I had sufficient health to ever go to a theatre again, but they can't stop you dreaming, right? <3

ETA: (Understudy in 1989 RSC was Jeremy Northam, in case you weren't a mindreader, and he had to go on plenty of times, due to DDl's breakdown and the fact that Charleson was already dying of AIDS when he took it on.)

[persiflage_1]

Heh, yes, it was an excellent radio combo, too! I liked that they'd done it deliberately to match.

I'm glad!

If you haven't, I'm pretty sure you gave it to me, so I could take a look - although I'm not 100% sure if I kept it, but probably!

I found it on a memory stick, yes. Thanks, though! I am, in fact, listening to it right now!

[ragnarok_08]

Those sound pretty neat!

[thisbluespirit]

They are! :-)

[thisbluespirit]

I found it on a memory stick, yes. Thanks, though! I am, in fact, listening to it right now!

Oh, excellent. Happy listening! <3

[persiflage_1]

Thanks! I've just finished listening to all five hours of it. And, as ever, the end made me cry like a soppy fool!

[thisbluespirit]

Awww! ♥

[igenlode]

I stumbled across various episodes of "Pilgrim" (quite late in the series, by what I could gather at the time) live on the radio on their original broadcast and found them enjoyable, albeit somewhat confusing when encountered in isolation. It seems to be the general trope of the Wandering Jew or the Flying Dutchman who ends up cursed with eternal life...

[thisbluespirit]

Yes, it seems to be that sort of basic idea. If you want to listen to them in order, the link to the whole lot on IA is there!

[igenlode]

I've just started listening to "The Twelve Maidens" :-)
Very reminiscent of John Wyndham so far...

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, cool! Hope you enjoy! XD

[liadt]

I encounter Robert Lang as baddies/murderers on the whole, lol.

The RSC one sounded a Hamlet and a half! Heh, heh, I do rec the Nichol Williamson one, but I don't think Hamlet experts would be impressed. There's the silent Asta Nielsen one where Hamlet is a woman in disguise, that's good, but not totally faithful to the plot;p

My mind reading wasn't half bad XD

[thisbluespirit]

I encounter Robert Lang as baddies/murderers on the whole, lol.

He was playing true to type in Hamlet, then! Idk if wherever I saw him before he was a baddie or not, I just must have noted him as a good actor.

There's the silent Asta Nielsen one where Hamlet is a woman in disguise, that's good, but not totally faithful to the plot;p

Oh, you sent me that! It's awaiting that mythical when I have the right kind of brain moment, because it sounded really cool. But sort of like the exact opposite of Shakespeare on radio, really, heh. XD

My mind reading wasn't half bad

I'm just transparent about some things.

[liadt]

I've got you ready for the time you decide to do all the Hamlets;p Very opposite XD

[pedanther]

I kept procrastinating about listening to The Twelve Maidens until there was less than a day before episode 1 disappeared, but I've now listened to the first couple of episodes. It is very familiar sort of territory for those of us who've watched 70s Who, isn't it? (Apart from the nudity, obvs.)

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, cool. And it is, yes! I thought so as soon as I read the description, and that was why I instantly wanted it. I feel like Peter must be related to Adam Colby, heh. Obviously, as I said, I found the novelisation, which had a lot more sex in it than the radio. I'm amused that I was right that it basically was the radio play with inserted "Margaret thinks about sex" paragraphs plus your "how to run a proper UK covern in the 1970s" helpful instructions, and I was not wrong. (Someone else online who read it reverse formatted it - "THis would make a good radio play!" XD)

I'm so amused by radio nudity. I bet that didn't require any clauses in anybody's contract, lol. (The BBC are more coy about that than the book, too. I thought they would be!)