I'm Still Here! 2016 Round-up

Jenna Coleman and Rufus Sewell in Victoria on PBS/ITV

Sorry I haven't been posting lately but my day job has been demanding too much time. So I have a bit of catching up to do. And thanks to Rabia, a concerned reader who wanted to make sure I was ok as my blog had gone quiet. So sweet and thoughtful of you Rabia. This post is for you!

I hope you all have been enjoying Victoria either on PBS or when it came out last year on ITV in the UK. I know they spiced up the Victoria/Lord Melbourne relationship a bit but when Rufus Sewell is playing Lord M...I am all for it! Jenna Coleman (Dr. Who, Death Comes to Pemberley) is adorable as the young Victoria. We'll never know what Victoria was really like but it seems there was enough material from her copious diaries for writer Daisy Goodwin to fill in the juicy bits.

Jenna Coleman and Tom Hughes in Victoria on PBS/ITV

And the appearance of Tom Hughes as a rather hunky Prince Albert is not bad at all either. Yes, we know they were none of them this attractive, but at least they don't all have blow-dried hair like in The Tudors! :)

The Crown on Netflix

At least as splendiferous is The Crown on Netflix. When Victoria is over, I am going to go back and watch this again. My husband (known as The Squire on this blog) started binge watching this while I was away for the weekend and I had to catch up 3 episodes when I got back. So it has some universal appeal especially for a history buff. It is fascinating to take a peek behind the curtain of the lives of royals who are either still living (Clair Foy as QEII and Matt Smith as Prince Philip) or are in recent memory (Vanessa Kirby as Princess Margaret and Victoria Hamilton as The Queen Mum). John Lithgow is pretty amazing as Winston Churchill...I love the bath spilling episode!

Now, a quick catch up on other films I have enjoyed since last posting! Hidden Figures...just wonderful. Again, this is one my hubby really enjoyed as well. The audience was cheering and jeering at the screen. Awesome! 3 ladies with fabulous scientific minds that we should know about and an entertaining film to boot. I want to read the book as well. Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race.  How is that for a book title?

I know, 1986 does not really qualify for a historical period film but LION is great. I was sobbing at the end...in a really great way. The little guy who plays Saroo as a boy (Sunny Pawar) is heart-breakingly adorable. The story of a lost child in India, adopted to Tasmania, Australia by a loving couple who subsequently finds his way back as an adult via Google Earth. Dev Patel as adult Saroo was fab as was Nicole Kidman as his Australian mum. I am not a big Nicole Kidman fan but she really did a great job with this one. And this one also is adapted from a book, again a true story, A Long Way Home.

Again, Sci-Fi is not my usual genre, and yet Arrival is one that I believe my readers would truly enjoy. It is about communication with aliens and will have you on the edge of your seat. No explosions and car chases, but lots of really different drama. Good different!

Sing Street is a real gem about a teenager in 1980s Ireland who starts a band to impress a girl. We caught this one on Netflix and both of my twenty-something sons sat down and watched it with us. "Where did you find out about this film Mom?"... Enough said.

Ron Howard's The Beatles: Eight Days a Week is a fabulous film. Only if you are a Beatles fan, but if you are this one is great!

Florence Foster Jenkins! I absolutely loved this one! Meryl Streep disappears into this over the top character and gives a really fun and yet tender portrayal of a fascinating lady. Hugh Grant shows some real acting chops and Simon Helberg (from Big Bang Theory) steals the show as her bewildered accompanist.

A few others worth mentioning were The Man Who Knew Infinity with Dev Patel as an Indian Mathematician in 1914 who makes his way to Cambridge England. You don't have to be an academic to appreciate this one but it is a well told and interesting story. On Netflix.

Shetland is a classic British murder mystery television series set in the Shetland Islands of Scotland. Not for everyone as it can be gruesome, but this one gripped me. Also on Netflix.

The Detectorists is a much lighter, quirky British show about metal detectorists in England. You have to like quirky for this one so of course I loved it!

On PBS, The Durrells in Corfu and Grantchester are both really good, and I have to catch up on Poldark as I haven't seen all of those. I still enjoy Call the Midwife, and there is a new season of Homefires coming to PBS along with To Walk Invisible about the Bronte Sisters.

There are many more that I want to see (Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Jackie, Fences, Queen of Katwe).

Anyway, I better post this or it will be another month before I get back to the blog! Thanks again to Rabia for checking up on me! :)

The Grand Sophy Film: Latest News March 2016

I recently had a tantalizing comment on my last post about The Grand Sophy film on this blog which went like this:

Financing is being pulled together now. Film will shoot in either May or September 2016 with Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter in supporting roles.

It was anonymous and so could not be directly followed up. However I took the liberty of contacting Jennifer Kloester, the author of Georgette Heyer: Biography of a Bestseller to see if she knew anything about this. She is a wonderfully knowledgeable source and she was recently speaking at the unveiling of the blue plaque on the Wimbledon birthplace of Georgette Heyer, with Stephen Fry!

Photo by Elizabeth Hawksley from historicalromanceuk.blogspot.ca
Jennifer Kloester speaking at the blue plaque ceremony

Jennifer was able to contact the agent for the Heyer estate who said:

 "They've got a great young actress called Jessie Buckley for Sophy, and Rob Ashford as director, and they're working on yet another draft of the script, but no production date has been set. The producers are talking about trying to attract A-listers for subsidiary roles, but no names have been mentioned."

Jessie Buckley as Princess Marya from War and Peace

Jessie Buckley seems a good choice for Sophie as she got rave reviews for her performance in the recent BBC version of War and Peace by Andrew Davies (Viv Groskop of The Guardian called her a marvel). I haven't seen War and Peace yet but have been advised to track down the UK version as the American version was ruthlessly edited (thanks Janeheiress).

Jessie Buckley- much prettier when not playing a pious Russian Princess!

A bit more unusual is the choice of Rob Ashford as director. He is originally a Broadway stage choreographer and now director but he has been working closely with Kenneth Branagh lately both directing in the West End and also doing choreography for the film Cinderella. I wonder if Ashford could talk Ken B into a cameo role. I would also be surprised if Stephen Fry wasn't interested in being a part of this project. Although if Colin Firth is truly involved, we may run out of older male parts (unless they leave in the horrid moneylender scene!).

If Helena Bonham Carter IS involved, I wonder if she would she make a better Marquesa or Lady Ombersley? Or how about Emma Thompson for one of those fun supporting ladies? Oh, here I am trying to help with the casting but it is really fun to imagine oneself as a casting director.

I would imagine Stephen Fry to be a wonderful Sir Horace Stanton-Lacy wouldn't you?

Now maybe I will have to try to contact the scriptwriter Olivia Hetreed to see how the project is progressing. Perhaps we should start a Twitter campaign to show the BBC et al that there is an eager audience waiting patiently for this to happen. And of course, if any of you haven't yet signed the petition for a Georgette Heyer film the link is here:

http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/georgetteheyerfilm

Comments below are very welcome!

Cheers!

Update: Petition Buzz is now defunct and so our wonderful petition for a Georgette Heyer film is gone, although it had almost 2000 names from all over the world! Keep leaving comments here and on GoodReads (or anywhere searchable) and hopefully the powers that be will hear us. Fingers crossed...

Downton Abbey Season 6 Episode 5 Best Lines

Carson: Are these done enough? This plate is cold...which is a pity. Bubble and squeak as a vegetable with lamb? This knife could do with sharpening. It's been a while since she played with her patty pans.

Good grief Mr. Carson! What has happened to the happiest man alive!

As Mrs. Patmore says: Men and sigh!!!!

Mr. Mason: It does me good to see a friendly woman bustling about the kitchen!

Back off Daisy! I smell another senior romance here. And has anyone else noticed that the lovely Cockney footman has more than a passing interest in Daisy? Another romance amongst the pigs. Mmmmm.

Tom: We were evenly matched Sybil and I. She was strong in her beliefs, so was I. We were a marriage of equals. We were very happy.

Lady Mary: I think we see that now, the family I mean. Not at first you're right, but now.

Good for you Tom! Giving Mary advice on affairs of the heart. Someone should point her in the right direction and you are the only one she trusts I think!

Tom: Long live our own Queen Mary!

Henry Talbot: La Belle Dame sans Merci.

Lady Edith: Victorian women growing into modern women.
New Lady Editor: And the price they paid...

Great episode for Lady Edith. She hires a helper, gets a kiss and plans a future away from Downton. Now if only Lady Mary wasn't sniffing around about Marigold. Look out!

Denker to Dr Clarkson: She's been running this village since you've been eating porridge in the glen with your mammy!
Lady Violet: You have read too many novels! You have seen too many moving pictures!

Oh this was a bit of fun to see Dame Maggie Smith wind up to fever pitch about Denker disgracing her. And always fun to see the sparring between Denker and Septimus Spratt!

Lord Grantham: If this is it, just know I have loved you very very much.
Lady Cora: This isn't it. We won't let this be it.

It was hard to find a photo that wasn't too graphic for the burst ulcer scene. If  you would like to see the GIF which plays it over and over, the link is here to Vanity Fair's Downton Gore Page.

Let's hope next week has less blood and more great lines!

Cheers!

A Child's Christmas in Wales 1987

A Child's Christmas in Wales

"I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six."

I watched A Child's Christmas in Wales on television the first Christmas I spent with my husband in 1987, before we were even married.  I knew he was the guy for me, because he appreciated the sweetness and beauty of this holiday classic.  Not many people even know this DVD exists, which is a shame.  Our family had the pleasure of traveling to Wales five years ago (although in the summer) and parts of Wales are still almost as rustic as in this film.  In fact, this was filmed on location in Montgomery Wales, which is probably little changed from when Dylan Thomas was a boy in Swansea.

Old Geraint telling his grandson Thomas about Christmas past...

This sweet film is based on the poem by Dylan Thomas which was first published in 1954 after his death.  It is really more like a lyrical piece of prose as only Thomas could write.  In 1986, a collaborative effort between Global TV in Canada and HTV in Britain (now known as  ITV Wales & West Ltd) brought this to television, and it was shown on PBS in the USA as well.  It is rare to see this on television anymore, so you'll have to invest in the DVD if you want to see this (a wise investment for years to come...)

"One Christmas was so much like another, in those years..."

"December, in my memory, is white as Lapland, though there were no reindeers. But there were cats. Patient, cold and callous, our hands wrapped in socks, we waited to snowball the cats."

"It's loovely Grandad."

The Welsh scenery is gorgeous and lets you feel as if you are truly traveling back in time.  The film is a combination of present day (well, 28 years ago) and flashbacks to what looks like the time period just before WWI.  The children all have authentic Welsh accents, although I believe the adults are all Canadian actors except of course the wonderful Denholm Elliott (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Trading Places, Room with a View) who was English, but does a wonderful Welsh accent.

"...once I had a little crocheted nose bag from an aunt now, alas, no longer whinnying with us."

The music will also stay with you after watching this, particularly from the cozy scene at the end, where the family are all singing by the fire, quaint Welsh carols like "On To Bethlehem Town" and "All Through the Night".

"Our snow was not only shaken from white wash buckets down the sky, it came shawling out of the ground..."

This post is a rerun from a few years ago but I have added the YouTube link below for those who don't have this on DVD. This gorgeous, funny and heartwarming production deserves a much wider audience. It has aged well. Enjoy an old fashioned Christmas with some mischievous boys in Wales!

Click for the full text of the Dylan Thomas Poem A Child's Christmas in Wales.

Home Fires on ITV and PBS

Home Fires on ITV and PBS

If you haven't yet been taken under the spell of the WWII drama Home Fires, then here is my whole hearted recommendation to check it out.

Opening in the late summer of 1939 as England prepared itself for the second time in a generation for war, the WI (Women's Institute) considers shutting down for the duration of the war. After all, what use is jam making and tea parties during wartime?

Actually, as the women of the WI in the rural Cheshire community of Great Paxford dig in and get to work (picking blackberries for fundraising jam here) the WI gives the ladies purpose and support and gives us a ton of enjoyment watching them. And the female battle between two local spitfires Joyce Cameron (Francesca Annis) and Frances Barden (Samantha Bond) starts the series off with some fireworks.

Although the stories of women at the home front may sound rather dull, Home Fires is anything but! Young love with dashing fighter pilots, a handsome doctor whose wife thinks she can practice medicine too and a conscientious objector who gets ostracized for his beliefs are among the many absorbing story lines.

Just don't get too attached to the male characters because during war you never know who is coming home and who isn't. And it is that dark cloud over Great Paxford which keeps you on the edge of your seat.

You will see lots of familiar faces such as Francesca Annis (Cranford), Samantha Bond (Downton Abbey) and Ruth Gemmell (Fever Pitch) in this series as well as some very talented new ones. I am thrilled that ITV have picked it up for another season so we get catapulted into the Battle of Britain next year.



Running currently on Sunday nights at 8pm on PBS, you can catch up on episodes on the PBS website here.

Off I go to watch it all again!!!

Cheers!

Georgette Heyer Film Petition now over 1000 names!

Update: www.petitionbuzz.com is now defunct so our lovely petition is gone! We were at almost 2000 names from all over the world and I am devastated that it has disappeared. The post below was written in the summer of 2014 and still no definite news of a Georgette Heyer film. Feel free to leave your name and country on a comment below. Fingers still crossed!


So here I am, flogging my Georgette Heyer Film Petition again. However, since we now have over 1000 names from all over the world on the petition (and lots of pleading and suggestions for which books to adapt and casting ideas) it was time to thank you all for your support. And obviously to beat the bushes for more Heyer fans who are aching for a really great film adaptation of one of her charming, hilarious novels.

Now if you have never read a Georgette Heyer book, you must purchase one instantly. And I can confidently say purchase because you will want to read these over and over again. OK, fine, I suppose you can also check them out of the library again and again as well. I have one or two on my e-reader but the beautiful covers of the new editions are so lovely on a bedside table that I think all future purchases will be of the paperback variety. My sister assures me that Georgette Heyer is one of the hottest sellers at used book stores world-wide, so they may be hard to find there however!

Alison Flood of The Guardian says of Georgette Heyer, "Just picking up one of the many battered paperbacks stashed around the house is like snuggling up in front of the fire with a mug of hot chocolate. Comfort reading, times a thousand."

So if there are so many Heyer fans from all over the world that have read the books to tatters and now would really like a film adaptation, where are the BBC, ITV and even Hollywood? What the heck is going on in the world of entertainment? The novels are almost film scripts already!

Well, apparently they don't realize that we are a large group of people with disposable incomes who will gladly part with some of it to see and purchase some quality film adaptations of Georgette Heyer's books. Money on the table people!!!

I suppose my next task will be to send the petition to some executives at the BBC and ITV and try to convince them of the financial viability of a film. I wonder if the fact that the books are still under copyright protection and can't be purloined gratis has some bearing on this. Hmmmmm.

So here is the link for the Georgette Heyer Film Petition again. And if you have already signed it, you nay want to go back and read some of the comments left by other fans. Countries represented include: The UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Russia, Brazil, Spain, Germany, India, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Poland, The Netherlands, New Zealand, France, Argentina, Croatia...well, you get the idea.

Perhaps I should drop off a copy of the petition to ITV and BBC when I am in London in a few weeks time. What say fellow fans?

Cheers and have a great summer. And take a few Heyer paperbacks to the beach!!!!

Fanny Price the introvert; is she unfilmable?

I recently put the question out there on Twitter- Is Fanny Price unfilmable? By which I mean the REAL Fanny Price. In the latest two film adaptations of the novel Mansfield Park from 1999 and 2007 she is made very different from how she reads on the page in order to have the viewer sympathize more readily with the character of Fanny.

In the former, she gets a good dose of spunky Jane Austen, writing her cheeky, nutty juvenilia and in the latter she just gets a dose of crazy boisterousness.

I had a few people on Twitter and on my MP blog post point out that the 1983 BBC miniseries has a truer take on Fanny's introverted personality than the more recent versions. I am working my way through it on YouTube (link here). The characters of Fanny (Sylvestra Le Touzel) and Maria (Samantha Bond) are fairly well played but Lady Bertram is soooooooo awful, I mean so truly awful that you have to check it out. It is just unbelievable!

Sorry if you love this version but although Fanny is more introverted, the entire production is now dated and flawed by today's production standards. It is however worth viewing, if only to see a very young Jonny Lee Miller as Fanny's little brother Charles. His mop of hair is adorable!

But what is it about Fanny Price which makes her the least lovable of Jane Austen's heroines? Is it her introversion, which masks her massive teenage crush on Edmund and just makes her seem like a cold fish? Or is it the fact that she seems convinced she is always right, which makes her appear judgmental and sanctimonious, when in reality she is constantly doubting herself?

I think that a nice long miniseries adaptation of Mansfield Park (sympathetic to the character and personality of Fanny which Jane Austen intended) is truly called for!

And really, don't we introverted readers deserve a character we can relate to? I mean, I love Lizzy and Emma, but if I am honest with myself, I was much closer in disposition to Fanny when I was 18 years old.

There is also an argument for a longer version of Mansfield Park in that there are so many subplots and minor characters which deserve a truly wonderful film treatment. Both Susan and William Price deserve lots of screen time so that we can see how Fanny relates to her siblings. And the trip to Sotherton? It just has to be in there doesn't it? And Lover's Vows? I don't know about you, but I want to see a few scenes of that in rehearsal!

So let me know your thoughts on Mansfield Park in general, and Fanny Price in particular. And if anyone reading this has pull with BBC or ITV, please send them here!!!


Cheers!

N.B. A couple of astute readers have commented below that of course Anne Elliot from Persuasion is an introvert and yet is well loved by Austen fans. So it is not entirely her introversion. Rather the kind of introvert she is. I have run across a few internet sites recently where literary characters have been evaluated as to their Myers Briggs Personality Types (here is a link to Harry Potter Characters' Myers Briggs Types). Would readers like a blog post where I compare Anne and Fanny on the Myers Briggs scale? I think this would help explain the lack of love for Fanny!

My Reality TV Pitch- The REAL Austenland!

Who else thinks they would like to spend a bit of time in a REAL Austenland? You know, go to England, and truly immerse yourself in the day to day "reality" of life 200 years ago. I would love to and I rather think that you would too. But how costly would it be to make a theme park and who could afford to go there? So here is my pitch to BBC or ITV or whoever has the ability to make this happen.

Take your basic English country house. You know the type. Somewhere we would love to poke around in and be genteel for a week or two at least. Then add two or three females who have serious Darcy crushes (and who we can relate to as surrogates for our experience). Give them wardrobes, a ladies maid and a staff of however many it took to run a place like this in the 19th century. And then film them as they go through the day as Elizabeth Bennet would have.

And let it be truly realistic. Take away their smart phones, lace them into corsets, give them only the toiletries that a well heeled Regency lady would have had and let the cameras roll.

Let them use the facilities available for the time (OK, turn the cameras off at this point) so that we can see how it REALLY was. Candles and fires for evening light only. Books and pianoforte as the only entertainment other than walks and morning visits and games of whist. Mutton for dinner. Bring it on BBC!!!

Sooo...we could just leave it there. I mean, there would be plenty for the historians to show us about our misconceptions about how lovely the life of a genteel lady in Regency England would be. And I would love to hear how a modern woman feels like a fish out of water when transplanted a century or two. I think most of us would really enjoy Austenland but then we'd like to come home and have our smartphones and our beauty products back!

But what if we then showed these Darcy-holic women (not so very unlike ourselves) what the life of an average English woman was like? Perhaps the wife or daughter of a coal or tin miner who has to scrape by and make a small wage stretch a long way.

Show them the cooking and cleaning and marketing and gardening involved in the Regency or Victorian life of most of our non-artistocratic ancestors. I don't know about you but I don't have anyone resembling Elizabeth Bennet in my family tree. My ancestors were more like characters out of Oliver Twist or Mary Barton!

And I wouldn't want to see this through the eyes of the ever cheerful and vastly freckled Ruth Goodman, who seems thrilled to scour floors on her hands and knees and milk cows and then make her own cheese/butter/cake/whatever with plenty of energy to spare. Nooooo, that's not what I want to see (I have already watched Victorian Farm, Edwardian Farm, Victorian Pharmacy and Wartime Farm, so I know this lady cannot be worn down).

No, I want the reality TV version where a few soft 21st Century females are left weeping over laundry day, knowing that they still have to feed a family of 8 at the end of the day and weed the garden, and do the marketing before the day is done so she can then roll up her sleeves to wash up the dishes! I want to vicariously experience the dishpan hands and the communal outhouse behind the cottage!
 

Actually, as long as the working class families had enough to eat, they were probably just as happy as the upper class members of society...just a bit more tired at the end of the day I suppose. But I would miss my dishwasher and my computer a lot more if I were transplanted into the Austenland of my actual ancestors. No aristocracy in my family tree!


Am I alone in wanting to see this? I hope not! But the question is, what will the BBC say to my pitch? Please let me know what you think before I try to figure out who to send my idea to!

Cheers!

Thanks to the person who suggested that what I was pitching sounded like Regency House Party from 2004. I have already lost a few hours watching it on YouTube. Link is here, but beware. Very addictive!