thisbluespirit (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thisbluespirit) wrote2024-10-07 08:26 pm
thisbluespirit) wrote2024-10-07 08:26 pm
Entry tags:
Fannish Things
1. ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
yuletide is upon us! I'm still not entirely sure whether it'll be a good idea to sign up or not, but it looks likelier. I nominated Craddock & Co, Indigo Saga, The Winslow Boy and Wish Me Luck. I'm going back and forth on whether or not I'm actually going to request TWB (there's another request for it already anyway, so it will be in Yuletide regardless), but I will with the rest. I might also possibly go for WtOVPIC and/or Sister Boniface, but I'm undecided as yet.
I was also excited/intrigued/so stunned you could have knocked me down with a feather to see Heyer's No Wind of Blame, Louise Cooper's The Time Master series, but with characters for the second trilogy, with Karuth, which is my favourite bit, The Year of the Unicorn, Love's Labours Lost (2000), and I feel so vindicated that someone nommed The Net (1995) requesting Jack/Angela, because the foe!yay clearly needed to exist.
Also, someone who was absolutely not me nommed The Shadow of the Tower! I had a very nice fic for it for last year, and I'm giving it a rest (I will be back), and I did a double take for a minute and had to check with myself that I hadn't done it without noticing. idk if they will actually request, though. Oh, and plenty of other nice things as usual!
Who else is thinking of signing up, and what have you got your eye on?
2. Talking of Jeremy Northam, I got another BNA sub for a month, and I've snagged some of the articles I mentioned ages ago that I'd spotted in a search on his name, so I am currently well informed on his theatrical engagements pre-1989, which is cool. He was in some school/amateur dramatics before that, and it even coughed up pictorial evidence that he existed prior to the late 1980s, which I wasn't expecting. I am in the process of posting the articles to tumblr - these are what I've done so far:
1979/1980 School/AmDram productions in Bristol here, with two pictures, although the earliest one is so dark that you'll just have to take their word for it that the white blob to the left in the darkness is probably Jeremy Northam's face, but the second one has a nice article about him learning to roller skate in order to be in a Ben Jonson play, as one does.
No pics, but review of him as Benedick in Much Ado as a finale to his time at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
Brief, but did give another couple of pics with it - first professional gig in Salad Days at the Nottingham Playhouse in 1986. (The cast got a free salad for lunch at Debenhams, so there's glamour for you, lol.)
Then I skipped ahead to 1988 get a couple of Wish Me Luck interviews up - a nice one with Suzanna Hamilton (who played Matty), which came up as she mentions him in it, plus two versions of what presumably was the a longer interview or press release from elsewhere wth Jeremy Northam here, on playing Colin.
3. Since this now means that I actually know what he was in prior to appearing to the world in WML, I looked some of them up and one (that I haven't yet posted to tumblr) was French Without Tears in 1987. This turned out to be an early Rattigan, and as I want to see more Rattigan, I looked for adaptations, and there was a film and also a 1976 BBC Play of the Month version, with a cast that included Anthony Andrews, Nicola Paget, Michael Gambon & Nigel Havers, so I looked for that on YT, but with no luck.
And, then, just after I'd been talking tolirazel about The Winslow Boy and reminding myself that I really need to try some more Rattigan, it magically appeared on an old TV channel I subscribe to, and I was in the mood to manage watching online, so I did. I enjoyed it a lot. It was, as wiki had said, an early fairly light-weight comedy about a bunch of young Brits studying French so they can pass the exam for the Diplomatic service & having romantic shenanigans, but it still had a lot of Rattigan touches and didn't tie up half as neatly as it might have done as written by someone else. ( It was also pretty easy to see why they'd cast a young Jeremy Northam as Kit Neilan a decade later, so that was good fun all round.)
(The 1986 theatre version was directed by Sue Wilson, whose 1991 BBC radio Christmas at the Wells plays I liked so much; she seems also to have been involved with the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School - she directed that Much Ado, so she'd obviously worked with Jeremy Northam a few times before she got him onto the radio. I'm sure her version of FWT would have been very good and interesting, as her radio plays certainly were.)
yuletide is upon us! I'm still not entirely sure whether it'll be a good idea to sign up or not, but it looks likelier. I nominated Craddock & Co, Indigo Saga, The Winslow Boy and Wish Me Luck. I'm going back and forth on whether or not I'm actually going to request TWB (there's another request for it already anyway, so it will be in Yuletide regardless), but I will with the rest. I might also possibly go for WtOVPIC and/or Sister Boniface, but I'm undecided as yet.I was also excited/intrigued/so stunned you could have knocked me down with a feather to see Heyer's No Wind of Blame, Louise Cooper's The Time Master series, but with characters for the second trilogy, with Karuth, which is my favourite bit, The Year of the Unicorn, Love's Labours Lost (2000), and I feel so vindicated that someone nommed The Net (1995) requesting Jack/Angela, because the foe!yay clearly needed to exist.
Also, someone who was absolutely not me nommed The Shadow of the Tower! I had a very nice fic for it for last year, and I'm giving it a rest (I will be back), and I did a double take for a minute and had to check with myself that I hadn't done it without noticing. idk if they will actually request, though. Oh, and plenty of other nice things as usual!
Who else is thinking of signing up, and what have you got your eye on?
2. Talking of Jeremy Northam, I got another BNA sub for a month, and I've snagged some of the articles I mentioned ages ago that I'd spotted in a search on his name, so I am currently well informed on his theatrical engagements pre-1989, which is cool. He was in some school/amateur dramatics before that, and it even coughed up pictorial evidence that he existed prior to the late 1980s, which I wasn't expecting. I am in the process of posting the articles to tumblr - these are what I've done so far:
1979/1980 School/AmDram productions in Bristol here, with two pictures, although the earliest one is so dark that you'll just have to take their word for it that the white blob to the left in the darkness is probably Jeremy Northam's face, but the second one has a nice article about him learning to roller skate in order to be in a Ben Jonson play, as one does.
No pics, but review of him as Benedick in Much Ado as a finale to his time at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
Brief, but did give another couple of pics with it - first professional gig in Salad Days at the Nottingham Playhouse in 1986. (The cast got a free salad for lunch at Debenhams, so there's glamour for you, lol.)
Then I skipped ahead to 1988 get a couple of Wish Me Luck interviews up - a nice one with Suzanna Hamilton (who played Matty), which came up as she mentions him in it, plus two versions of what presumably was the a longer interview or press release from elsewhere wth Jeremy Northam here, on playing Colin.
3. Since this now means that I actually know what he was in prior to appearing to the world in WML, I looked some of them up and one (that I haven't yet posted to tumblr) was French Without Tears in 1987. This turned out to be an early Rattigan, and as I want to see more Rattigan, I looked for adaptations, and there was a film and also a 1976 BBC Play of the Month version, with a cast that included Anthony Andrews, Nicola Paget, Michael Gambon & Nigel Havers, so I looked for that on YT, but with no luck.
And, then, just after I'd been talking to
lirazel about The Winslow Boy and reminding myself that I really need to try some more Rattigan, it magically appeared on an old TV channel I subscribe to, and I was in the mood to manage watching online, so I did. I enjoyed it a lot. It was, as wiki had said, an early fairly light-weight comedy about a bunch of young Brits studying French so they can pass the exam for the Diplomatic service & having romantic shenanigans, but it still had a lot of Rattigan touches and didn't tie up half as neatly as it might have done as written by someone else. ( It was also pretty easy to see why they'd cast a young Jeremy Northam as Kit Neilan a decade later, so that was good fun all round.)(The 1986 theatre version was directed by Sue Wilson, whose 1991 BBC radio Christmas at the Wells plays I liked so much; she seems also to have been involved with the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School - she directed that Much Ado, so she'd obviously worked with Jeremy Northam a few times before she got him onto the radio. I'm sure her version of FWT would have been very good and interesting, as her radio plays certainly were.)
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I misread 'French Without Tears' as Tears for Fears and am now disappointed Jeremy Northam wasn't in a TFF video doing an interpretive dance.
Ha, no, sadly! As far as I know, he's not one of those actors who have randomly turned up in a music vid.
If only they'd been doing something called "Three-Course Meal!" Although, tbf, it was only Debenhamss; maybe a salad was all for the best. XD
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Me, too! <3 I am still not sure what I'm doing about it, but my hesitation is not because my love for it has waned at all. I did add a little promo to the promo post, so you never know. Someone else may discover it, too!
I think we overlap on a quite a few old period dramas and maybe other things - would you be okay with me adding you? I have been very flaky about doing exchanges for a few years now, but I know your name from AO3 and I have definitely wound up at various letters of yours over the years, going, "Ooh, look, somebody else likes this, amazing!"
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And I hadn't seen your promo post for The Winslow Boy - thank you for making it! I was toying with doing one myself, but I've just started a PhD and the last few weeks have been quite hectic. I love the still of Robert and Catherine you chose, and I too would like to see six more hours of the story exploring how they might get together. <3
I just picked up a copy of the original play, which I've been excitedly reading through - and I also need to get round to seeing the 1948 film adaptation; I've already watched the 1977 version, which I liked very much too, although the central performances weren't quite as good, imo, as Northam and Pigeon's.
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I love the still of Robert and Catherine you chose, and I too would like to see six more hours of the story exploring how they might get together. <3
I mean, I also wouldn't trust anyone but Rattigan to do it right, but that doesn't stop a person wishing for it!
I've already watched the 1977 version, which I liked very much too, although the central performances weren't quite as good, imo, as Northam and Pigeon's.
I haven't seen any other version of TWB yet, although I have seen/heard a few different versions of The Browning Version, but I will be getting to it at some point, as I've just sent off for the BBC's Rattigan collection, since I'm 3 for 3 on loving the Rattigan I've seen, even if French Without Tears wasn't on the top tier with the other two.
I'm not sure why I took this long to finally get TWB, but last year I was rewatching Enigma (2001) and demanded of the universe why I had not seen more things with Jeremy Northam in for ages, and when I looked him up to see what else I could have, there it was, a shiny other Rattigan play! (I mean, aside from, as it turned out, three things I actually owned and hadn't watched and one old TV show I was wavering about ordering or not, so I had to admit, the universe was not to blame.) Anyway, as you can tell I loved it, too!
I was toying with doing one myself, but I've just started a PhD and the last few weeks have been quite hectic.
Oh, wow - I'm sure they must have been! Good luck with that.
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That makes sense - the tone and the character voices are definitely hard to get right. I think my craving for more fic overrides any worries about that fic not sounding right (I've read all five existing stories on Ao3 multiple times and enjoyed them immensely), but I can understand why you might feel that way <3
And I hope you enjoy the BBC collection! I think the casting/performance of Arthur Winslow was the highlight of the 1977 version for me: Nigel Hawthorne is very good, but to me he feels a bit too...soft and cuddly. The actor playing him in the 1977 adaptation feels more formidable and more like the Edwardian patriarch that Rattigan intended him to be: you can understand why Ronnie was afraid to show him the letter, and that he loves his family but has no idea how to express it without leaving character; his decline throughout the play was very movingly done too.
I haven't actually read or watched any other Rattigan plays - TWB was my first introduction to him! What would be the best one to sample next, in your opinion?
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Oh, fic, is a different thing! I can be like that with fanfic for books sometimes, but that's a whole other thing again, because of it being the same medium. :-) I, too, have read several of those several times since last year!
I haven't actually read or watched any other Rattigan plays - TWB was my first introduction to him! What would be the best one to sample next, in your opinion?
Ha, I really only know The Browning Version otherwise - but that is also very good, an intense one-act character piece, sort of an incredibly mundane, low-key tragedy that's invisible to the rest of the world. We did it for A-Level and I loved it so much that while I was interested in seeing more Rattigan, I was always a bit hesitant as to whether or not his other stuff would work in the same way for me. Of course, now I can officially say that this is clearly not the case, and I'm very excited about the BBC Collection hopefully winging its way to me soonish!
If you want to try TBV, I recommend the BBC 198(5?) one we watched back in the day, with Ian Holm, Judi Dench & Michael Kitchen, which is very sharp and good and faithful (as far as I can recall, but given the cast and the Beeb, that seems likely to be accurate). Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be on YT currently. The 1994 film is supposed to not be that great, but I've never seen it myself. The 1951 film with Michael Redgrave is lovely and was adapted by Rattigan himself, but it has a more optimistic coda that the play doesn't have. Which, watching it years after the BBC one, felt like an amazing gift/little AU, but it depends which approach you feel is most likely to suit you for an introduction to it.
The one I linked to above, though, was also great fun - a much earlier work, and much lighter, but still with his eye to character detail, a fab cast, and as I said, not anything like as neat a resolution as you'd expect from a 1930s comedy of romantic errors (in the good way.)
Once I have my boxset, I will slowly become more informed! XD