thisbluespirit (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thisbluespirit) wrote2024-10-20 05:54 pm
thisbluespirit) wrote2024-10-20 05:54 pm
Entry tags:
I think I'm stuck mainly mid-century again
More things, updating from the last report of things!
1.![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
yuletide assignments have gone out! I have an excellent one, but obv no more can be said. Good luck to everyone else also starting the writing in secret portion of the Yuletide experience.
2. (a) Re. my resolution to Watch More Rattigan, which is progressing, or at least half progressing. I realised after making my last post about it, that such an animal as the BBC Rattigan Collection existed on DVD and was currently going too cheap not to snag, so I used lingering b'day/Christmas money.
Now it has arrived and it is mine, all mine! I have my mitts on not only ones I haven't seen but also the lovely 1976 BBC French Without Tears that YT provided the other week, and the Ian Holm and Judi Dench Browning Version that I haven't seen more than brief clips of since about 1993. \o/
(b) However, in the meantime, I looked at my Royal Exchange Theatre book to see if James Maxwell had directed or performed in a Rattigan play, and resolved that, if so, I would start with that one. It turned out that he did, directing While The Sun Shines (1943), a wartime comedy. I had a feeling this wasn't included in the BBC set, and I was right, so what I am doing currently is listening to a BBC 1969 Radio production via RadioEchoes of While the Sun Shines (also on YT). (Even the absence of the Internet Archive could not hinder my Rattiganisation.)
I think of the Rattigan productions I've experienced so far this is my least favourite, but given how stellar those have been, that is not really much criticism. I'm enjoying it, but I haven't got to the end, so I won't make any final judgments on the play itself yet, although it is more like French Without Tears than the later two. I am curious to know how it will wrap up, and it's not hard to see some of the aspects that might have interested James Maxwell as a director.
So far, though, Rattigan keeps making the hero sleep with other servicemen, for Reasons, and also the French Lt, talking about talking to people on trains, said that usually, When in Rome... so on English trains "I act as if I had died in my seat" which. Amazing. Accurate to this date. (Exceptions only in events on things going terribly wrong on the train, which was what happened to him.)
(c) YouTube noticed my interest, and threw me this little Part One of introduction to Rattigan by the National Theatre, which helpfully covered exactly the three plays I had seen. It's very short, but I really thought the director (directors?) talking about The Browning Version at the end (and calling it a perfect play ♥) absolutely got it. (And incidentally the photos they showed along with it suggested that the NT have done a version that had Anna Chancellor as Millie! With what looked like Nicholas Farrell, to me. Which made me go !!!!)
(d) And then also Talking Pictures turned out to be showing the film of Cause Celebre with Helen Mirren last night, which is another play not included on the BBC Boxset, so I recorded it. I feel like the world at large has just gone: at last! And is queuing up to shove three decades of long overdue Rattigan at me.
I will go slowly though and just watch one every so often as a treat. (WHICH PLAY NEXT THO???! XD)
(e) re. French Without Tears and my (now lapsed again) BNA subscription, I realised I'd claimed the 1987 one I had snagged a review of was directed by Sue Wilson, but actually I misremembered: she directed the next play Jeremy Northam did at Salisbury that year, and this one was by Lynn Wyfe. But The Stage did pause to vindicate my feeling that a v young JN would have been an ideal Kit Neilan, as the review singled him out for first praise: "Jeremy Northam produced all sorts of little tricks to make his portrayal of Kit Neilan touchingly appealing..." (although everyone else was good, too, they said.) Ha.
3. Talking my BNA sub, and finally escaping Rattigan's clutches for a moment, I did a quick search for my granddad's cousins, George & Bill Partleton, who were make-up artists on films, and retrieved this very random pic that should also pleaseliadt, so I had to share it:
This is the earliest mention I've got of either of them in this profession. Even if it is, of course, not as good as the OTT "he uses real blood in horror films!" piece of fake news I found before.)
From the Daily Express WEds 22 April 1936.
1.
yuletide assignments have gone out! I have an excellent one, but obv no more can be said. Good luck to everyone else also starting the writing in secret portion of the Yuletide experience.2. (a) Re. my resolution to Watch More Rattigan, which is progressing, or at least half progressing. I realised after making my last post about it, that such an animal as the BBC Rattigan Collection existed on DVD and was currently going too cheap not to snag, so I used lingering b'day/Christmas money.
Now it has arrived and it is mine, all mine! I have my mitts on not only ones I haven't seen but also the lovely 1976 BBC French Without Tears that YT provided the other week, and the Ian Holm and Judi Dench Browning Version that I haven't seen more than brief clips of since about 1993. \o/
(b) However, in the meantime, I looked at my Royal Exchange Theatre book to see if James Maxwell had directed or performed in a Rattigan play, and resolved that, if so, I would start with that one. It turned out that he did, directing While The Sun Shines (1943), a wartime comedy. I had a feeling this wasn't included in the BBC set, and I was right, so what I am doing currently is listening to a BBC 1969 Radio production via RadioEchoes of While the Sun Shines (also on YT). (Even the absence of the Internet Archive could not hinder my Rattiganisation.)
I think of the Rattigan productions I've experienced so far this is my least favourite, but given how stellar those have been, that is not really much criticism. I'm enjoying it, but I haven't got to the end, so I won't make any final judgments on the play itself yet, although it is more like French Without Tears than the later two. I am curious to know how it will wrap up, and it's not hard to see some of the aspects that might have interested James Maxwell as a director.
So far, though, Rattigan keeps making the hero sleep with other servicemen, for Reasons, and also the French Lt, talking about talking to people on trains, said that usually, When in Rome... so on English trains "I act as if I had died in my seat" which. Amazing. Accurate to this date. (Exceptions only in events on things going terribly wrong on the train, which was what happened to him.)
(c) YouTube noticed my interest, and threw me this little Part One of introduction to Rattigan by the National Theatre, which helpfully covered exactly the three plays I had seen. It's very short, but I really thought the director (directors?) talking about The Browning Version at the end (and calling it a perfect play ♥) absolutely got it. (And incidentally the photos they showed along with it suggested that the NT have done a version that had Anna Chancellor as Millie! With what looked like Nicholas Farrell, to me. Which made me go !!!!)
(d) And then also Talking Pictures turned out to be showing the film of Cause Celebre with Helen Mirren last night, which is another play not included on the BBC Boxset, so I recorded it. I feel like the world at large has just gone: at last! And is queuing up to shove three decades of long overdue Rattigan at me.
I will go slowly though and just watch one every so often as a treat. (WHICH PLAY NEXT THO???! XD)
(e) re. French Without Tears and my (now lapsed again) BNA subscription, I realised I'd claimed the 1987 one I had snagged a review of was directed by Sue Wilson, but actually I misremembered: she directed the next play Jeremy Northam did at Salisbury that year, and this one was by Lynn Wyfe. But The Stage did pause to vindicate my feeling that a v young JN would have been an ideal Kit Neilan, as the review singled him out for first praise: "Jeremy Northam produced all sorts of little tricks to make his portrayal of Kit Neilan touchingly appealing..." (although everyone else was good, too, they said.) Ha.
3. Talking my BNA sub, and finally escaping Rattigan's clutches for a moment, I did a quick search for my granddad's cousins, George & Bill Partleton, who were make-up artists on films, and retrieved this very random pic that should also please
liadt, so I had to share it:This is the earliest mention I've got of either of them in this profession. Even if it is, of course, not as good as the OTT "he uses real blood in horror films!" piece of fake news I found before.)
From the Daily Express WEds 22 April 1936.
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Though the plot made me spit!
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Mazel tov! Have a wonderful time.
and it's not hard to see some of the aspects that might have interested James Maxwell as a director.
I would ask you about that.
talking about The Browning Version at the end (and calling it a perfect play ♥) absolutely got it. (And incidentally the photos they showed along with it suggested that the NT have done a version that had Anna Chancellor as Millie! With what looked like Nicholas Farrell, to me. Which made me go !!!!)
Yes! I read a review of it in 2011 and complained vociferously to the internet that I could see a livecast of One Man, Two Guvnors but not The Browning Version? Then of course I loved One Man, Two Guvnors, but I still wish I'd been able to see Nicholas Farrell as Andrew.
I did a quick search for my granddad's cousins, George & Bill Partleton, who were make-up artists on films, and retrieved this very random pic
That's lovely! Your granddad's cousin has a good face himself. That was for The Man Who Changed His Mind?
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Hey, I think doing make-up work for Boris Karloff is pretty cool :D
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Blimey the Universe is raining Rattigan down on you.
Nice to remember the times when Nicholas Farrell wasn't in ads!
All the best with your Yuletide endeavors:)
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I'm glad you treated yourself to all that Rattigan! And that photo of your granddad's cousin and Boris Karloff is so cool, what a great find! Archives! <3
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