I remember, a long time ago, when Sunday afternoons stretched out interminably, watching the black and white version of Goodbye Mr Chips on TV and enjoying a good cry at the end. Mr Chips gets a mention in another weepy about a retiring schoolmaster, The Browning Version, which was broadcast this afternoon in a new production starring Michael York and produced by Martin Jarvis. Nearly everything that Martin Jarvis does is good, but this was superb. It was such a welcome contrast to all those dreary plays which fill the ‘Afternoon Play’ slot on Radio 4. This new production of The Browning Version is the start of a Terence Rattigan season to celebrate the centenary of his birth. If the rest of of season is as good as this, we are in for a treat.
The video is taken from the film with Albert Finney in the lead part of Crocker-Harris and shows the scene in which he breaks down, after being given the unexpected leaving gift by his pupil Taplow.
Archive for the ‘TV’ Category
Saturday, June 11th, 2011
The Browning Version
Thursday, May 26th, 2011
Chelsea Flower Show
These are some random thoughts from the Chelsea Flower Show.
Because of lack of space 7 designs which had received preliminary approval and were fully funded were rejected. I wonder how those designers feel about the inclusion of Darmuid Gavin’s flying pod, which bears the same relationship to gardening as Tracey Emin’s bed has to art. I don’t think they will be consoled by the thought that this is a show and the pod is showmanship.
Out of the 17 show gardens, 8 were given gold, an exceptionally high ratio. Bunny Guinness, who courtesy of the main sponsor, M & G, had one of the best plots and who had the deeply fashionable theme of “sustainable excellence” must have been very disappointed not to be among the golds. I was chatting to the people who supplied all the vegetable plants for her garden, W. Robinson and Sons (known locally as The Mammoth Onion) and they said they were amazed at the sheer volume of her order. It all looked splendid and the result must be a disappointment to Mammoth Onion as well. Apparently the judges said that her paths were too narrow!
Thursday, May 12th, 2011
The World’s Ghastliest Garden
ALL BLISS CONSISTS
IN THIS
TO DO AS ADAM DID
Traherne 1637-1674
These words are carved on the monument to Sir William Walton at La Mortella, the garden on the island of Ischia designed by his wife Susana together with Russell Page.
This remarkable garden, created from a barren quarry, was recently praised to the heavens by Monty Don in his TV series on Italian Gardens. Monty Don is nicenesss rolled into a ball; he’s also knowledgable and charming and yet his programmes on foreign gardens (first the world, now Italy) have tended to fall flat. The reason, I think, is that he is so uncritical, so flattering, so easily impressed.
I visited La Mortella in October 2009, shortly before Lady Walton’s death. La Mortella has been described as the best exotic garden in Italy and I wanted to see if it was as good as that other great exotic garden, La Mortola, created by Sir Thomas Hanbury fifty years before the Waltons started work on their garden. There’s no doubt that it was a magnificent achievement to make this garden out of nothing and Russell Page’s planting, now 50 years old, has produced some magnificent specimens. But that’s as far as the hyperbole goes. The setting is poor. The outlook is grim suburbia with the sea in the far distance- very inferior to the gardens on neighbouring Capri and nothing to compare with La Mortola. And then, when you’ve climbed to the top, you come across a truly hideous creation, which they have incongruously named Glorieta. My photo gives you some idea of its ghastliness, but you really have to be there and see it from every angle to appreciate how truly awful it is. Monty would have made a much more interesting programme if he had put down his book of superlatives for a moment and spoken about the garden with a little more objectivity.
Friday, April 22nd, 2011
Wayne on Fern
“You must catch this programme. It’s going to be absolutely huge” Fern Britton.
This is Wayne’s first appearance on a chat show but you’d never know. He’s completely natural; the audience love him and it’s clear that they love ‘The Hotel’ as well. Wayne isn’t at all put out when Fern invites him to sit in a ‘cutie-van’ and replies with the quip
“When the caravan’s a rocking.
Don’t come knocking”
Saturday, April 16th, 2011
“The Hotel” is “Unmissable” says the BBC
How often does the BBC cover a programme on a rival Channel and say that it is “unmissable”. This to our amazement was the verdict of BBC’s ‘Northwest Tonight, after they had come to Damson Dene to preview “THe Hotel”. And they weren’t shy about saying it again and again, as their piece was shown at breakfast, at lunchtime and in the early evening bulletin. Today’s papers have brought even better news. “The Hotel” was chosen by all the papers except the Guardian as their ‘Pick of the Day’ and all the reviews were upbeat, including the following gems:
“A sheer delight” , “A masterpiece in the art of editing” ,”It’s like Fawlty Towers in Heaven”
The Times
“TV Gold in waiting”
“Meet Wayne- from now on your Sunday nights just won’t be the same without him”
The Sun
Tuesday, April 12th, 2011
Michael Gove, Pob and Me
The publicity for The Hotel, which goes out this Sunday is gathering pace. The “listings” magazines came out today and they have all chosen The Hotel as one of the highlights of the coming week, which is all that Channel 4 could have hoped for. We have been warned that we might be taken by surprise by some of the comments which are made, not all of which will necessarily be flattering. The Radio Times proved the point very succinctly by beginning their review by saying that I “bear a distracting facial resemblance to Education Secretary Michael Gove”. Surely, I thought, they can’t mean that handsome young man who used to write for the Times? I googled him and was pleased to see that he is, indeed, 19 years my junior although his looks aren’t exactly matinee idol. There’s ample scope, no doubt, for him to improve with age, as the photo above suggests.
Tuesday, April 5th, 2011
The Great Olympic Deceit
A good deal of the 9 billion pounds of our money which the government is devoting to the Olympic cause is being spent on PR telling everyone how good the games will be for tourism. Every announcement stresses that the Olympics will be good not just for London but for the whole of Britain. The truth is very different, as has been revealed by the plans of the tour operators who bring groups in from the Far East. This is the time of year when they finalise plans for the next season, agreeing rates and securing dates. They have told us that next year they won’t be able to bring any tours to the Lake District between 15th july and 15th August because London hotel rooms just aren’t available for non-Olympic business and because the enhanced security in London will make it nigh on impossible to get around. My immediate reaction was to say – well, why not skip London and brings your groups to the Lakes, Stratford and Edinburgh? No chance, was the reply. For most visitors this is the trip of a lifetime and they don’t want to visit Britain without seeing London.
Rather surprisingly, after all the excitement at the TiC yesterday, I found myself being interviewed for both the BBC and ITV news channels about this story. The BBC showed some splendid shots of the new bedrooms and bathrooms at the Riverside Hotel, which have been especially designed with the Japanese visitor in mind by my very talented PA, Sally Schrieber and looked rather beautiful on my TV screen.
Wednesday, March 30th, 2011
“The Hotel”- The Official Launch
In TV-speak we have the TX date (transmission date to you and me)-of The Hotel Sunday April 17th at 8pm. Previously we had been told that the first episode would go out on Tuesday April 26th, and I expect that the date has been brought forward to get in ahead of the mighty brouhaha of the Royal Wedding. Wayne, the General Manager at the Damson Dene, and Paul and Lavinia, who are now his assisstant managers, joined executives from Channel 4 and the staff of Dragonfly, the production company and several dozen representatives of the press (”hacks” in TV-speak) for a preview of the first episode. We were at the plush cinema room in the Channel 4 headquarters in central London. The episode has three main themes- a proposal of marriage (the young couple were also there for the screening), the induction of Amos, a young Romanian recruit, and the story of an elderly couple who were having a short break before getting the results of a test which would show whether or not the husband had terminal cancer. This was the second time I had seen this episode and I found it to be just as funny and moving as the first. Most importantly, the hard, cynical hacks also loved it- in fact the Channel 4 guys said they had never seen such a warm reaction to a preview.
Afterwards, there was a question and answer session in which Wayne was brilliantly funny. I don’t think he realises what a star he is going to be.
Sunday, January 16th, 2011
Countryfile
Countryfile got in touch with me after seeing this blog. They wanted to know if I could really survive without using a supermarket. Good God, is it really so outlandish? I’m sure that Grange isn’t the only small town with no supermarket, but lots of good independent small shops. Living in Grange makes it easy for me to keep my pledge and I was chuffed that Countryfile did some filming in Grange to prove the point.
After Grange we went with Adam Henson to the farm, where I introduced him to my Wagyu catle. It was perishingly cold, but in typical Countryfile fashion we did some cooking outdoors, on a barbeque. Adam tried some Wagyu steak and was suitably impressed – I only hope that mine will turn out to be as good.
After the screening tonight I got an email from Peter Gott, who is well known for teaching Jimmy Doherty to raise pigs- “having seen you on the telly I am reassured that like me you have a wonderful body for radio!”. Never a truer word.
Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
The Great North Swim Fiasco
This weekend 28 competitors swam the length of Lake Windermere- more than ten miles. Some of our guests at the Newby Bridge Hotel also swam in the Lake, along with hundreds of others who had travelled to the Lakes to take part in the Great North Swim event. The only problem was that they weren’t able to take part in the event itself as it had been cancelled at the last minute by the organisers who had had the fear of God put into them by the presence of blue-green algae close the the starting point. They went onto national TV saying that the lake was poisonous and that it would have been irresponsible to let the event take place. This was no small matter, as 9,000 people had registered to take part in the event. Anyone with knowledge of local conditions could have told them that the algae is ever-present at the proposed starting place near the Low Wood Hotelas; ever since power boat racing has been banned the water there has been stagnant. There are many other places from which the event could have been started in complete safety. The organisers could also have given the participants the option of choosing themselves whether to take part, after having the risks explained. In the end, people voted with their flippers- they swam in the lake and, guess what- no-one suffered any ill effects.
This video shows me putting my point of view to ITV local news, followed by the actual broadcast.