The Agatha Christie Challenge – The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side (1962)

Posted on April 7, 2021 by therealchrisparkle

STOP PRESS: The Agatha Christie Challenge is now available as a book in two revised volumes – details at the end of this blog post!

In which garrulous busybody Heather Badcock corners movie star Marina Gregg at a reception party, boring her to tears; and the next minute, she’s dead! But did the murderer intend the harmless Heather as the victim, or the wealthy and influential Marina? Fortunately for Miss Marple the murder takes place at Gossington Hall in St Mary Mead, and her friend Chief Inspector Craddock is brought in from Scotland Yard to investigate the crime; so Miss Marple has all the necessary access to the facts to crack the case. As usual, if you haven’t read the book yet, don’t worry, as always, I promise not to reveal whodunit!

The book is dedicated “to Margaret Rutherford in admiration”. Margaret Rutherford was a seasoned actress, known for many great dramatic and comic film appearances following her first big hit as Madame Arcati in the film of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit in 1945. By 1962, she had already appeared as Miss Marple in the film Murder She Said, with three more Marple adaptations to follow in the next couple of years. This was Christie’s first book not to have been serialised in advance of its full publication in either the US or the UK, although an abridged version was serialised in two parts in the Toronto Star Weekly Novel in March 1963, with the shortened title The Mirror Crack’d. Otherwise, the full book was first published in the UK by Collins Crime Club on 12th November 1962, and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in September 1963, also with the shortened title The Mirror Crack’d. The title is a quotation from Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott, which is quoted as an epigraph.

This is a thoroughly entertaining read, where the old and the new collide, and sparks fly as a result. The clash of traditional and modern is evidenced not only in Miss Marple’s day-to-day life, but also with the old ladies of the village being confronted by modern day America, by having a film studio on their doorstep. You can also see it in people like Cherry, who has moved into the Development but doesn’t like the new types of people, preferring the gentility of the traditional village residents. You can sense Christie reaching conclusions as she writes the book, uncertain as to how the old and the new will live together until she actually explores it in the narrative. She writes some pacey conversation scenes – those between the Misses Marple and Knight, Miss Marple and Dr Haydock, Miss Marple and Dolly Bantry, for example, come to mind, plus – if you already know whodunit (as I sadly did – I find the 1980 film adaptation really sticks in the mind) – you can see how adeptly she deliberately leads the innocent reader up the garden path, with a wilful narrative deceit that’s a complete joy to identify!

We’re back in good old St Mary Mead, where Miss Marple seems to have aged considerably since the last time we met her. Although she’s still grumbling about gardeners, she’s not keeping up with the changes that have happened to her beloved village, and it puts her out of sorts. Even worse, she now has to suffer the indignities of what today we would call a live-in carer. Miss Knight fusses around, talks down to Miss Marple as if her brains were slowing down (which they’re undoubtedly not), makes her milky tea, insists on her having an afternoon nap; and, although she does understand the kindness behind the actions, and she appreciates the advice that she does require a certain level of “looking-after”, Miss Marple resents every minute of it. Even though Dr Haydock, whom we first met in The Murder at the Vicarage, encourages her to keep her brain alive, Miss Knight does everything she can to prevent Miss Marple from catching the local gossip or discovering the details of the local murder, because it will tire her out. But Miss Marple is too used to getting her own way, and detection is oxygen to her, so she does, of course, work alongside the police to discover who killed Heather Badcock.

Although she doesn’t want to be cared for, she does still value a decent housekeeper and cook – so, enter Cherry who becomes Miss Marple’s long-term companion. Cherry and her husband Jim have a house on the New Development, where modern living starts to encroach on the traditionalism of the village. But Cherry doesn’t fit in with the new estates; yes, she likes the gadgets and the convenience, but she doesn’t feel at home there. So when she suggests to Miss Marple that she and Jim could occupy part of the house that never gets used, it’s the perfect solution to Miss Marple’s needs. Miss Knight will be out the door without a moment’s thought!

Other characters from previous novels appear in the book, including Mrs Dolly Bantry, now widowed as her husband Arthur died some time before; they used to live in Gossington Hall, and would host some of the Tuesday Night Club meetings as retold in The Thirteen Problems, and it was on their library floor that The Body in the Library would be found. Miss Hartnell, whom we also first met in The Murder at the Vicarage, is still alive, “fighting progress to the last gasp”. But progress always wins, as evidenced by the Development. And it’s while going for a sneaky walk in the new estate (taking advantage of Miss Knight’s shopping trip) that Miss Marple not only ends up having an unexpected argument with some new residents, but she also trips on the footpath, which is how she meets Heather Badcock, who takes her indoors and looks after her injury. Miss Marple is now definitely of the age where she doesn’t fall, she has a fall.

The other significant person we meet again is Craddock. He’s come a long way since he led the investigation in A Murder is Announced, he’s now a Chief Inspector, but to Miss Marple, and indeed Christie, he’s usually just plain Dermot. I don’t think Christie is ever this familiar with any of her other detectives. Maybe it’s that informality that makes Craddock come across as more of a family friend than a law enforcer. He is brought in to help when it appears that local man, Detective Inspector Frank Cornish, is out of his depth. To be fair, Cornish isn’t given much opportunity to tackle the case before Craddock is called in, and we’re not given much insight into the kind of guy he is.

It’s an enjoyable, brisk read, with some nice observations and conversations, and a clever solution. It does, unfortunately, employ the device of having at least one whopping great coincidence, which is a little disappointing when you consider the book dispassionately. But it’s very well written, and with a remarkably memorable storyline.

Looking at the references, there are, unusually, few locations for us to consider – by far the majority of the story takes place in and around St Mary Mead, which could be a village in Kent or Hampshire, depending on your own interpretation of distance and direction from real places! Apart from that, there is just the occasional London-based conversation. As for the other references, Christie likens the gardener Laycock’s excuses to those of Captain George in Three Men in a Boat, one of the daring chaps who takes the two week river cruise in Jerome K Jerome’s hilarious and still fresh 1889 novel. Marina Gregg is said to have been great in the films, Carmenella, The Price of Love and Mary of Scotland; the first two of these are fancies of Christie’s imagination – unlike Charlie Chaplin, who was said to be coming to the local Hellingforth studios. But Mary of Scotland was a real film, starring Katherine Hepburn, from 1936 – and a flop. I wonder if Christie simply didn’t do her research or wanted to tantalise us with the possibility that Marina Gregg took a leading part in it?

Dr Haydock, encouraging Miss Marple to keep her brain active, suggests she could “always make do with the depth the parsley sank into the butter on a summer’s day […] Good old Holmes. A period piece, nowadays, I suppose. But he’ll never be forgotten.” This is a reference to a vital clue in the Sherlock Holmes story, The Adventure of the Six Napoleons. Interestingly, Christie would use this quote again, in her next book, The Clocks, and in her 1972 novel Elephants Can Remember. It’s also interesting that Haydock, and/or Christie, speculated that the Sherlock Holmes stories might go out of fashion. I don’t think there’s any evidence of that, Holmes remains probably equally as famous in the annals of fictional detectives as Poirot!

In further literary references, Hailey Preston is likened to Dr Pangloss, for his belief “that all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds”. Britannica describes him as “the pedantic and unfailingly optimistic tutor of Candide,” from Voltaire’s novel of 1759. Cherry suspects that Arthur Badcock must have murdered his wife Heather, even though he is a very meek chap: “still, the worm will turn or so they say. I’ve always heard that Crippen was ever so nice a man and that man, Haigh, who pickled them all in acid – they say he couldn’t have been more charming”. Crippen, of course, was hanged for the murder of his wife in 1910, and Haigh, the Acid Bath Murderer, killed somewhere between six and nine people for their money. A nice man, indeed.

“Othello’s occupation’s gone”, says Mrs Bantry to herself after her conversation with Ella Zielinsky. This is from Act 3 Scene 3 of the play, where Othello is in conversation with Iago and he has fed him the lie about Desdemona’s disloyalty. Later Ella herself quotes, “fly, all is discovered” which, it is alleged, Conan Doyle sent in a telegram for no apparent reason, and the recipient did indeed fly. She also remembers the phrase, “the pitcher goes to the well once too often”, which is a variation on a 14^th century proverb which means you can push your luck once too far, or that you shouldn’t repeat a risky action too often. And continuing the literary vein, Miss Marple recalls a book “written by that brilliant writer Mr Richard Hughes […] about some children who had been through a hurricane”. She’s referring to A High Wind in Jamaica, dated 1929, and considered one of the best English language novels of the 20^th century.

Regular readers will know that I like to consider any significant sums of money in Christie’s books and work out what their value would be today, just to get a feel of the range of sums that we’re looking at. There aren’t many in this book – the chief sum mentioned is that of £500 which was deposited into Giuseppe’s bank account, which today would be around £7500. Almost more interesting, although much smaller, is the admission fee to the Gossington Hall fete, which was a shilling. That’s 75p at today’s rate. Pretty cheap, really.

Now it’s time for my usual at-a-glance summary, for The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side:

Publication Details: 1962. My copy is a Harper Collins paperback, the twelfth impression of the 2002 Agatha Christie Signature Edition, nineteenth impression, dated 2007, bearing the price of £7.99 on the back cover. The cover illustration merely shows a cracked mirror. That’s not very inventive. I could have done that.

How many pages until the first death: 76, but that’s misleading as this edition has 351 pages, which is a little under twice the normal page count in the Fontana paperbacks. So it’s not a long time to wait before things start getting bloody.

Funny lines out of context: Disappointingly none.

Memorable characters: Most of the characters aren’t particularly memorable with the exception of Marina Gregg, the Hollywood star, who brings glamour and exoticism to the otherwise staid confines of an English village.

Christie the Poison expert:

Heather Badcock is killed by the administration of what Christie, in a rare comic aside moment, describes as “hy-ethyl-dexyl-barbo-quinde-lorytate, or, let us be frank, some such name”. It’s a piece of marketing irony that it’s better known as Calmo. Christie is obviously taking the mickey out of some overly complicated chemical terminology – basically, Heather died of an overdose.

There is also some talk of the effects of poison by arsenic; and another person is killed by cyanide spray. When the deaths eventually come in this book, they come thick and fast!

Class/social issues of the time:

We return to the charming world of St Mary Mead to discover that it’s perhaps not as charming as it used to be. Christie uses this book to explore the effect of “the new development” as a blot on the English landscape, inhabited by some decent people of course, but also those that don’t really deserve to live in a village. At least, that’s the sense you get from this book. Perhaps the most interesting characterisation here is Cherry, who has moved in to the Development, where she has a modern home with modern conveniences, all of which she appreciates, but she identifies much more with the old-style village – to the extent of giving up her own modern home to live in an annex at Miss Marple’s. The divisions between the two levels of living are emphasised much more strongly than any similarities between the two.

Christie and Miss Marple both make a play about the phrase, “coming in Inch”, by which they mean taking the local taxi service. Mr Inch hasn’t run the business for years now, but convention requires that they still call it and the driver by the old name. This highlights the desire of the older members of the community – and those who serve them – to keep with the old practices and terminology. Nothing new would really work for them.

But progress is enforced on St Mary Mead, not only by The Development, but also by the appearance of the Hellingforth Film Studios, dragging the community into the twentieth century to a mixture of curiosity and distaste. The likes of Dolly Bantry and Miss Marple rubbing shoulders with Marina Gregg and Jason Rudd is one of the amusing sideshows of this book, and which help give it a little extra flavour.

Christie uses a few words that we wouldn’t use today, and you sense they were used deliberately to push the envelope of acceptable language to see what would be considered funny, or telling, or, indeed offensive. In a fit of xenophobia more than racism, Cherry refers to Giuseppe dismissively as “you know what these wops are like”. Frank Cornish refers to Margot Bence’s assistant as her “pansy partner” with all its pejorative force. And Dr Haydock and Miss Marple talk in terms of people who aren’t overly intelligent as morons. This use of language really stands out today.

It’s left to Craddock to satisfy Christie’s occasional need to knock feminism, in a conversation he has with Miss Marple about the Good Old Days. He remarks that in Miss Marple’s time, women would have been what he calls, “wonderful wives”. “I’m sure, my dear boy, [she replies] you would find the young lady of the type you refer to as a very inadequate helpmeet nowadays. Young ladies were not encouraged to be intellectual and very few of them had university degrees or any kind of academic distinction.” “There are things that are preferable to academic distinctions,” said Dermot. “One of them is knowing when a man wants whisky and soda and giving it to him.” You can sense the crackle of old and new values clashing uncomfortably as they speak.

Classic denouement: Not at all. In fact, it’s not until Miss Marple finally appears at the scene of the crime that she is completely convinced of all aspects of the case, and its solution. There’s no confrontation of the murderer, as that person isn’t present; just a clarification and final understanding of all the details between the investigating team and one of the suspects. There’s no real alternative for Christie than to stage it this way, but you do sense a little potential drama is lost as a result.

Happy ending? The only glint of happiness at the end is that Miss Marple will be rid of Miss Knight and that Cherry will take her place. Apart from that, only sadness remains.

Did the story ring true? There’s one sucker punch of a coincidence, and you get the feeling that if only Miss Marple had visited the scene of the crime earlier, it could have been solved much more quickly. But both the modus operandi of the murder, and the motive struck me as extremely believable.

Overall satisfaction rating: A very enjoyable book, with a good story, and I really like the way Christie uses it to reassess the character of Miss Marple with her passing years, and how old and new lifestyles can (or cannot) co-exist. It’s probably worth more than an 8/10, so I’ll give it the benefit of a 9. Just.

Thanks for reading my blog of The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side, and if you’ve read it too, I’d love to know what you think. Please just add a comment in the space below. Next up in the Agatha Christie Challenge is The Clocks, one of the first Christies I ever read, and I remember as a child being thoroughly confused by it – I remember my mother asking me if I understood whodunit and I also remember lying to her that I did! As a result I’ve never quite come to terms with this book and certainly can’t remember anything about it. Therefore I’m very much looking forward to re-reading it and, as usual, I’ll blog my thoughts about it as soon as I can. In the meantime, please read it too then we can compare notes! Happy sleuthing!

If you enjoy my Agatha Christie Challenge, did you know it is now available as a book? In two revised volumes, it contains all my observations about Christie’s books and short stories, and also includes all her plays! The perfect birthday or Christmas gift, you can buy it from Amazon – the links are here and here!

Lockdown Armchair Travel – Syria, November 2008

Posted on April 1, 2021 by therealchrisparkle

More lockdown armchair travel and the last country on my list to begin with S is Syria – perhaps not one’s first thought for a holiday destination, but back in 2008 when we were there, it was an exciting, exotic and stunningly historical country, which we visited as the second part of a tour which also went to to Jordan (you can check out my Jordan pictures here if you like!) So when you think of Syria, what do you think of? Perhaps I should rephrase that and ask what did you think of?

The face of President Al-Assad appeared on many buildings – I always think he bears a curiously unemotional expression. This was on a back street behind our hotel in Bosra, the border town with Jordan where we first entered Syria. The town has one major sight – and it’s extraordinary.

Its amazing Roman theatre that dates from the 2nd century AD. The theatre is 102 metres across and has seating for about 15,000 people. It’s built so that speeches made from this stage reach the farthest spectators with the greatest of ease and no amplification.Sadly the site has been damaged in the Syrian Civil War. But I’m sure the amazing sunsets are still there.The next day we drove north, towards Aleppo. We first stopped at Maaloula, where some people still speak Aramaic, the language of Christ. Among its extraordinary sights is the Greek Orthodox Convent of Saint Thecia, hidden in the rocks. It’s not just a convent and monastery town though. We saw the fascinating local habit of people buying their freshly baked bread, and then spreading it out and waving it around in an attempt to cool it down for eating! And, whilst I’m always up for trying local food, I though I’d give the sacrifice a miss. We journeyed on to discover the famous castle of Krak des Chevaliers. Steeped in history, this Crusader Castle was first inhabited in the 11th century. Full of atmospheric corridors and alleyways, doors and courtyards. Richard the Lionheart was there… You can tell it from his own lion decorations. New frescoes continued to be discovered there right up until the 1970s. Sadly this too has suffered damage during the Syrian Civil War. I’m so glad we got to see it before it was damaged. Dominating the surrounding countryside, it’s not difficult to see its strategic location! What was useful in those days, today we would say was a stunning view.From Krak we went on to Hama, famous for its waterwheels, or norias. Hama is the fourth largest city in Syria, but its appeal was all about the norias! Historically used for irrigation, today they are purely kept for the decorative appearance. In the early 1980s, Hama had emerged as a major source of opposition to the Ba’ath government during the Sunni armed Islamist uprising, which had begun in 1976. The city suffered some damage during its 2011 siege. The next day we carried on north, reaching the ruins of the Church of St Simeon Stylites. 19 miles outside Aleppo, this is where the ascetic saint St Simeon Stylites lived for 37 years on a pillar. This is all that remains of the pillar.It’s a beautiful ruin, with some exquisite carvings. This beautiful site hasn’t survived the recent conflict well. Much of it is now in ruin. It didn’t help that pilgrims and visitors kept helping themselves to stones to take home as relics. But it seems that an air strike by the Russian Air Force in May 2016 has destroyed most of the site. Irreplaceable history lost for ever. From the Church of St Simeon Stylites we retraced our steps back to the fascinating city of Aleppo. At the heart of its city, the citadel. A popular destination for school trips too! One of the oldest and largest castles in the world, the citadel is a medieval fortified palace. Here’s the relief on the main door! And who can resist this decorative cat gargoyle?! As you’d expect, the view from the top is (or rather, was) commanding! This is the entrance to the Throne Hall with its extraordinary ceiling But the throne isn’t there! You could get lost for hours in there I think this external gate has been damaged in the 2012 Battle of Aleppo, sadly. One of my main memories of Aleppo was of its remarkable Grand Souk. This, too, sadly, is largely destroyed. Just ordinary people, like you and me, going about their business, trying to make a living. Although we didn’t buy it in the souk, one of the things we did take home from Aleppo was a good quantity of their remarkable olive soap. But shopping was great in Aleppo. And the fruit drinks were simply wonderful.The next day we made our way from Aleppo to the desert jewel that is Palmyra. I could just blitz you with endless photographs… ok perhaps I will.

Possibly the most remarkable place I’ve ever been. This is our favourite photograph, combining ancient and modern:

Leaving Palmyra, you get to see exciting road signs like these:

And we even stopped off here! Which was actually a wonderful little place, but I don’t think it’s there any more. Like the Apostle Paul, we were now on the road to Damascus. In the way that Jordan felt remarkably British in its vibe and personality, Damascus feels remarkably French. The traffic is chaotic, the people very demonstrative, the cafe culture was alive and bright. And, just like Aleppo, it was thronging with children! Not sure where this is, but the red domes are very striking!

Here’s the statue of Saladin It’s a very lively place But the traffic is something else

It too has its fair share of amazing souks

Including M. Stephan’s shop with these amazing old pattern machinesThe world famous Umayyad Mosque is a sight to behold Look at the gold And inside is majestic too But if you thought Damascus was only about Islam, think again. It’s a very important Christian centre too. St Ananias’ House is a popular place for Christian pilgrims. So many memories of so many extraordinary places in this amazing country. Not forgetting the bread. I’m so glad we had the opportunity to visit. I expect tourism will never be the same again there.

Review – The Final Sunday Online Comedy Zoom Gig by The Comedy Crate and the Atic – 28th March 2021

Posted on March 30, 2021 by therealchrisparkle

All good things have to come to an end. And even though it’s not a good thing, let’s hope the pandemic is one of them. But before that, Sunday night saw the last (allegedly) of the excellent online comedy gigs hosted by The Atic and The Comedy Crate through the unbelievably helpful Zoom.Once again our host was Ryan Mold, getting to know some of the online attendees, including part-time actor and recycling expert David, who may have to instruct our new local council in all things Green Bin – important work! Ryan also shared some of his new material relating to the pleasures of Facebook Marketplace, which is funnier than it sounds!

Five acts for our entertainment again, and first up was Laura Lexx, with a very sparky and confident approach to the world of zoom comedy, looking back on all the most dreadful moments of the lockdowns, including home haircuts and the unashamed purchase of a pricey dog. She also had some great material contrasting natural feminism with the need to be in comfy clothes. Very engaging and funny!

Next up, and new to us, was Philip Simon, who used a very showbiz backdrop to make us feel we really were at a comedy club. By contrast he has a rather gentle delivery, and enjoys clever wordplay in his material, giving rise to excellent observations about Geordie sheep-shaggers, withdrawal agreements, and how to make a man happy. He also had some entertaining material about home-schooling, which is something a lot of people can relate to!

After Ryan was concerned about one of the audience members who had gone off – only to discover he was doing the washing-up (such is the dynamic of a zoom gig), our third act was Nick Page, also new to us, who has a very wry and dour persona; the kind of comic that makes you laugh even though he himself never breaks into a smile once. I really enjoyed his material about posh relatives, and the joys of becoming a father at the age of 50. He communicated a lot with individual audience members which integrated really well into his act – that can be a risky strategy online, but his natural authority meant no one wouldn’t dare co-operate! Very entertaining, and someone we would like to see again when the world gets back to normal.

Then came Eshaan Akbar, whom we’ve seen a few times now and always mixes great observational comedy with food for thought. I really enjoyed his sequence about getting annoyed that people don’t pronounce his name properly – which has a nice sting in the tail, his struggle to get the attention and affection of his father, and why the Covid vaccine is the perfect Empire product. He always delivers his material with great fluidity and pinpoint accuracy, and I look forward to seeing him again sometime soon too.

Our headline act was Paul McCaffrey, who had appeared on one of the other gigs earlier this spring. He also has great style and attack, and I loved all his stuff about marketing clothes through what celebrities wear, and also his observations about Twitter. He did repeat some of his material from his previous gig – but, if you hadn’t heard it before, it was very funny!

So this has been described as the last of these zoom gigs as we start to emerge from the blur of lockdown – but I wouldn’t be remotely surprised to see more online comedy from this team in the future!

Review – The Three Sections, Online Performance for Ffin Dance, 27th March 2021

Posted on March 29, 2021 by therealchrisparkle

From the very beginning of Lockdown 1.0 it seemed to me that dance was the most “at risk” sector of the Arts. Like sports players, dancers train from an early age to reach a physical peak probably in their early 20s and then they have, what, ten good years to perform to the best of their ability, before injuries start to take their toll? Dancers simply don’t have that many years to perform at their best. And when you lose complete years out of your repertoire – well that’s tough. Fortunately, even a pandemic can’t extinguish the desire to create and find new ways for artistic expression. Of course, live theatres are not an option right now; but performers may have a new friend in the form of Zoom. A year ago, we’d barely heard of it; today, where would we be without it?

In an action-packed fifteen minutes, Liam Riddick’s new work for Ffin Dance, The Three Sections, takes the restrictions enforced on it by both Zoom and the pandemic, and works them to its advantage. He has taken Steve Reich’s 1987 composition The Four Sections for its vibrant musical accompaniment, dropping its longer string first section and leaving us with the remaining three parts in all their quirky orchestral splendour. It’s a great choice for contemporary dance, as it challenges both performer and audience to react to and interpret all its different moods and meanings.

By inviting us into the private living spaces of the dancers, Riddick has created an intimate but expansive piece, which reveals not only the claustrophobic imprisonment of working within one room but also the desire to reach out and spill into others. With Catrin Lewis beside her bed, Georgina Turier-Dearden accompanied by a chest of drawers and Julian Lewis in front of his TV set, Riddick gives us a virtual dolls’ house; you’re aware that in real life those rooms aren’t in the same building, yet the movement builds a connection and a story that unites them. At first performing independently, the links start to forge between the dancers, sometimes two by two, sometimes all three, so that their movements start to harmonise.

Despite the inevitable problems and frustrations they will have faced during the creation of this piece (during Lockdown 2.0) with all four people being in separate buildings – indeed, different countries! – together they have created a lively, charming, witty and strangely moving piece that both highlights the individual performers’ characters and encourages them into an ensemble.

Even though individual small spaces have their natural limitations, it’s great to see how combining them can create a much larger performance space. With the dancers sometimes clinging to their back walls, at other times coming right out into the camera at the front, you really get a surprise feeling of performance on a grand stage.

I particularly admired that inexorable progress towards performing as a perfect trio. By linking the dancers and their separate spaces with dynamic choreography, flashes of humour, yearnings for freedom and their tacit shared understanding of how they all relate to each other, The Three Sections not only leaps from room to room but also successfully makes the big jump from the screen into our homes too. Technically superb, and exciting and entrancing to watch – a beautiful new work for the online age.

The James Bond Challenge – The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

Posted on March 25, 2021 by therealchrisparkle

In which James Bond sets out on an unofficial mission to track down Scaramanga, who has sent MI6 a golden bullet with 007 carved on it; he has to find Scaramanga before Scaramanga finds him! However, there are no photographs of his enemy, so no one knows what he looks like – whereas everyone knows what Bond looks like. A big task for 007, but is he up to the challenge? Of course he is!

For a pay cheque of $240,000 plus 2.5% of the profits, Roger Moore was willing to reprise the role of Bond for a second shot. This would be the last time that producers Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli would work together as Eon Productions; after the film was released, Saltzman sold his 50% stake in Eon’s parent company, Danjaq, to United Artists, the legalities of which delayed the appearance of the next film, The Spy Who Loved Me, for three years. The Man with the Golden Gun was a box office success, although not as successful as Live and Let Die, grossing $97.6 million at the box office on a budget of $7 million.

Ted Moore was once again engaged as Cinematographer, but was replaced during filming by Oswald Morris, due to illness. Morris didn’t want the job, because he’d been in the position of taking over from another cinematographer several times before, knew the pitfalls, and he didn’t enjoy it. But he was wined and dined by Cubby Broccoli and allowed himself to be bribed into it. Morris was a seasoned cinematographer whose first film, The Card, was made in 1952, and whose last, The Dark Crystal, was in 1982. This was Morris’ only work on a James Bond film; and it was also Ted Moore’s last, even though he remained active in the industry for the next eight years. Raymond Poulton returned as editor, along with John Shirley; Guy Hamilton returned for his fourth and final time as Director, refusing to do more Bond films afterwards as he had run out of ideas. Regular composer John Barry returned to score the film but only had three weeks to work on it, and considers it the least successful of all his scores for Bond. Design was by Peter Burton, who had designed Thunderball, and the screenplay credits were shared by Tom Mankiewicz, who wrote the first draft, and Richard Maibaum, who was brought back to revise it.

The Man with the Golden Gun was published posthumously in 1965 and was the twelfth and final novel in Ian Fleming’s series of books, although Octopussy/The Living Daylights was published later as a collection of short stories. Fleming wrote it in the first few months of 1964 but ill health prevented him from enhancing the bare bones of it, and the relative thinness of the plot is probably due to the fact that Fleming never had the opportunity to fill the story out at a second re-writing stage. As often happened, some of the characters were based on people Fleming knew in real life; he was at school (and often fought with) a boy he loathed by name of George Scaramanga.

The film is a very loose adaptation of the book. In both, Bond works his way into meeting Scaramanga, whose weapon of choice is a gold Colt 45 that shoots golden bullets; eventually he corners Scaramanga and kills him. Beyond that, the film and the book diverge. In the book, Bond had been brainwashed in the Soviet Union into attempting to assassinate M – fortunately he fails; Scaramanga’s evil plans are to destabilise the Jamaica sugar industry, with drug running and smuggling prostitutes as side interests; and Bond meets up with old CIA pal Felix Leiter who helps him to kill Scaramanga. The book is largely set in Jamaica, but the production team thought that was too repetitive after Live and Let Die, so they relocated the story to Macau, Hong Kong, and Thailand, which allowed them to cash in with some karate and kung fu scenes that were very popular at the time – but nothing to do with the book. The characters of Nick Nack, Andrea Anders, and Pepper were all creations for the film.

Perhaps unexpectedly, the book received polite, if lukewarm reviews. Knowing that its writer was ill when it was written, and had since died, reviewers tended to give Fleming the benefit of the doubt. The Observer commented “perhaps Ian Fleming was very tired when he wrote it. Perhaps … he left it unrevised. The fact remains that this posthumous Bond is a sadly sub-standard job.” Time magazine was less generous, saying “it may have been just as well that Fleming died when everybody still thought he could do no wrong.” Ian Fleming’s biographer, Henry Chandler, noted that the novel “received polite and rather sad reviews, recognizing that the book had effectively been left half-finished, and as such did not represent Fleming at the top of his game.”

The film, however, couldn’t blame problems with the screenplay on a largely unfinished novel. The Guardian was savage with its critique, saying that “the script is the limpest of the lot and … Roger Moore as 007 is the last man on earth to make it sound better than it is.” The New York Times considered the film to suffer from “poverty of invention and excitement”, criticising the writing and Moore’s performance and finding Hervé Villechaize as Nick Nack and Christopher Lee as Scaramanga, as the only positive points for their “sinister vitality that cuts through the narrative dough”. Of the more recent reviews, American critic Danny Peary wrote that the film “lacks invention … is one of the least interesting Bond films” and is “a very laboured movie, with Bond a stiff bore, Adams and Britt Ekland uninspired leading ladies”.

As usual, the opening credits begin, with Maurice Binder’s iconic glimpse of Bond walking across the screen whilst being captured by the barrel of a gun, only for him to turn around, see us, and shoot; and then for the blood to start filling up the screen. What makes it slightly different in this film is the rather jaunty, easy-listening treatment given to Monty Norman’s James Bond Theme, with some enjoyable strings and brass.

The opening scene features Scaramanga and Anders on a beach, being brought some champagne by Nick Nack – her sensually drying him off providing the cue for some visual humour with the fizz popping and spuming in time with the sexual undertones of the scene. Then there follows a rather long and drawn out encounter between a Chicago gangster who’s been engaged to kill Scaramanga both as an exercise for keeping Scaramanga alert and on top of his game, and also for the chance for Nick Nack to inherit his money if the gangster were to be successful. After being confused and disturbed by a number of fairground attractions, that have been installed in Scaramanga’s lair, Rodney the gangster is disadvantaged and Scaramanga eventually kills him instead. However, it’s all rather slow and humourless, and comes across as probably the least interesting opening scene of any Bond film so far.

Then the credits resume with Lulu’s performance of The Man with the Golden Gun, an innuendo-filled theme that has not stood the test of time at all well. “He has a powerful weapon […] Love is required whenever he’s hired […] Who will he bang? […] He’ll shoot anyone with his golden gun.” The silhouette of a naked dancing lady cheers the title sequence up a bit, but for the most part it’s a rather unimaginative series of faces and bodies distorted by water reflection. They’re insufficiently artistic to impress you with the artistry, and insufficiently sexy to inspire you the other way. In fact, the film doesn’t have a lot going for it so far!

And the locations? The original plan – which sounds bizarre today – was to film in Iran, and in fact the creative team travelled out there to spec out locations. But on their way back, the Yom Kippur War started and that put an end to that plan. So Plan B was for Bond to track Scaramanga down through an eastern Odyssey of Macau, Hong Kong and Thailand, plus, of course, M’s office in London. Some of the filming took place around the capsized Queen Elizabeth in Hong Kong Harbour, before the authorities removed it. Whilst filming in Hong Kong the cast and crew stayed at the Peninsula Hotel, which also features in the film and looks every inch the best place to stay. As does Hai Fat’s pad in Bangkok – the location for filming his Pad Thai (sorry, I had to include that pun) was the Hong Kong Dragon Garden, in the New Territories. The outside of the Bottoms Up strip club was filmed in Kowloon, although the interiors were filmed at Pinewood; and they used the floating Casino de Macau because there weren’t any casinos in the more “puritan” Hong Kong.

Bond, James Bond. Although he received quite a lot of criticism for his performance, I thought Roger Moore warmed into Bond better than he did in Live and Let Die. He’s less smarmy, less of a smart-arse (although I’m sure you can blame the scriptwriters for that), a little more animated and a little more believable. He does get to say the magic words, Bond James Bond – in fact, the full “Good evening, my name is Bond, James Bond” when he introduces himself to Beirut Belly Dancer Saida, played with enthusiasm by sometime Royal Shakespeare Company actor Carmen du Sautoy (the “du” is omitted from the credits on the film.) He also says it when he introduces himself to Lazar. A rather dark tone is set by having the character of Bond noticeably more sadistic in this film. He gives Andrea several slaps about the face, he rejoices in aiming to shoot Lazar in his nether regions, and he even pushes the souvenir-selling boy out of the boat. Apparently, Moore wasn’t happy with either his treatment of Andrea or the boy, believing that Bond would have worked out a more elegant solution to both problems. Lazar’s goolies, however, seemed to be fair game.

Boo-boos. As always, a few mistakes made their way onto the screen. When Andrea Anders is sitting, dead, next to Bond, you can see Maud Adams move twice; once her nostril flares, and another time you can see the level of her hat go up and down in time with her breathing. And when Nick Nack starts flinging the wine bottles at Bond to keep him at bay, hardly any wine splashes out from the bottles – because they’re fake, empty bottles! And then when Bond and Goodnight walk around all the glass debris, they don’t cut themselves. When Bond gets roughed up in Saida’s dressing room, you can see the reflection of camera and crew members in her full length mirror; and you can also clearly see the actor who plays the mannequin of Al Capone blink twice.

The Bond Girl. As usual, it’s not entirely clear at first who is going to develop into the role of Bond Girl at the beginning of this film, and to be fair, the honours are shared by having two Bond Girls. First we see Maud Adams, as Andrea Anders, Scaramanga’s lover, reclining sexily on the beach; and as her part in the story increases, she starts to switch sides to Bond’s favour. She reveals to Bond that it was she who sent the bullet to MI6, to encourage Bond to seek Scaramanga out and kill him, because she saw that as her only chance of escaping his clutches. However that disloyalty dooms her to an early death; thus she’s the tragic Bond Girl in this film. Maud Adams was born in Lulea, Sweden, in 1945 and also plays “The Bond Girl” in Octopussy, in 1983. She’s enjoyed a long and successful career as an actor and model.

Playing the more positive and sunny aspects of Bond Girlhood is Britt Ekland as Mary Goodnight, who was originally written as Bond’s secretary in the novels by Fleming, but by the time of The Man with the Golden Gun, Fleming had imagined her as an agent based in Kingston, Jamaica. Britt Ekland plays Mary Goodnight with more vacuousness than is really good for her – part intentional, and part not. The Sunday Mirror described Goodnight as “an astoundingly stupid blonde British agent”. Britt Ekland was also born in Sweden, in 1942, and has also enjoyed a long and successful career as both actor and celebrity. Although there are two Bond girls in this film – for the first time in the series – although I think Goodnight trumps Anders, to be considered as the main Bond Girl – if only because she’s still alive in the final reel.

What Bond Girls Are Like. Apart from the Japanese heritage that sets You Only Live Twice’s Kissy apart from the rest of the Girls, our currently agreed list of attributes common to the Bond Girls is: sexy, exotic, unpredictable, as equally likely to attack Bond as to support him, strong and self-reliant up to a point, sometimes tragic, professional, scary, vengeful, bossy – but with a vulnerable side. How well do these two Bond girls conform to the role? Goodnight has some of those qualities – she definitely gets resentful when she thinks Bond is with another woman – and she’s also rather dumb and liable to get things badly wrong, such as when she turns on the Manual Overide (sic) button with her bottom, without realising it. Where Goodnight brings a certain clumsy charm to the Bond Girl persona, Andrea Anders brings sophistication as well as being dangerously vulnerable. So, on the whole, both girls fit the bill pretty well.

The Villain. In an unusual structure for a Bond film, we meet the villain in the first few seconds. Francisco Scaramanga, played by Christopher Lee, is a top-notch assassin, charging a million dollars per kill, known for his personal secrecy and anonymity. From that point of view he is a million miles away from the likes of Goldfinger, who lives a brash and showy lifestyle. He has a fascination with all things circus, because his father used to run one. Allegedly, the boy Scaramanga was a trick-shot pistol marksman at the age of ten and by the age of fifteen was an international assassin-for-hire. I blame the parents. Whereas most Bond villains are very snappy dressers, always appearing immaculate in their expensive suits, Scaramanga is a much more casual type, frequently found loafing around in his open necked shirt. Nevertheless he is charming and urbane, and generous in his appreciation of others’ talents. He’d still kill you as soon as look at you, though. Christopher Lee, best known for his appearance in countless horror movies, was actually Ian Fleming’s step-cousin, and Fleming’s own first choice to play the role of Dr No back in 1962. He was born in 1922 and died in 2015 at the age of 93.

Other memorable characters? Probably even more memorable than the villain himself, is his sidekick Nick Nack, who acts as his personal servant, butler and henchman, enabler of villainy, encourager of challenges and all-round aide-de-camp. Unusually, he doesn’t actually die at the end of the film, he’s simply hoist inside a dangling cage on the junk sailing out to sea. He was played by Hervé Villechaize, a French-American actor born in Paris in 1943, who got his big break with this role, and who went on to spend seven years as Tattoo in the American TV series Fantasy Island. Despite his success and popularity, his is a sad story; he died by suicide in 1993, unable to endure the chronic pain he suffered from having internal organs too large for his small body.

Clifton James returned as the loutish Sheriff J. W. Pepper, a creation of the writer Tom Mankiewicz, who had written him into Live and Let Die. He was given this extra role because Guy Hamilton had really enjoyed him in the previous Bond film. Here he is on holiday with his souvenir-hunting wife Maybelle, first getting splashed by Bond being chased, and then being pushed into the canal by a baby elephant. He accidentally gets caught up in Bond’s car chase – an experience he thoroughly enjoys. Personally, I thought he was a dire inclusion in Live and Let Die, but provides a good comic interlude in this film.

Elsewhere, Richard Loo played Hai Fat, the millionaire Thai industrialist who had paid Scaramanga to assassinate the inventor of the Solex energy device so that he could steal it. It’s an enjoyable, no nonsense performance. Richard Loo was originally a businessman, but the Wall Street Crash made him think again, and he ended up appearing in around 120 films, The Man in the Golden Gun being his last film appearance.

There’s also a nice performance by Soon-Taik Oh as Lieutenant Hip, Bond’s contact in Hong Kong and Bangkok. Born in Korea, his family emigrated to the United States just before the Korean war, and he enjoyed a successful acting career on stage, TV and in film – his biggest success being the voice of Fa Zhou in Disney’s Mulan. His agent was Bessie Loo – the wife of the aforementioned Richard Loo! And Marne Maitland played the self-confident but ultimately outsmarted Lazar, the gunsmith who creates Scaramanga’s bullets; he appeared in many TV programmes and films over the years, including Pandit Baba in Granada TV’s The Jewel in the Crown.

As usual, Bernard Lee and Lois Maxwell reprise their roles as M and Moneypenny; she just for one scene, but M, unusually, appears in four scenes, because he travels out to Hong Kong to keep an eye on what Bond is up to. His secret office is located on board the capsized Queen Elizabeth, in a piece of genius set design and imagination. Q is back, having missed out on Live and Let Die, still played by Desmond Llewellyn, and is given a couple of opportunities to dismiss and disapprove of Bond’s tactics and demands.

And what about the music? John Barry was his own worst critic for his soundtrack for this film, and is quoted as saying “It’s the one I hate most… it just never happened for me.” Ironically though, I feel that the oriental instrumentation on the familiar themes makes rather a pleasant change on the ears. There’s not much in the way of incidental music though, and what little there is, is rather repetitive. Lulu’s voice for the title theme doesn’t feel as though it suits the style of the song to me at all, and it certainly doesn’t feature in the list of iconic Bond themes and performances.

Car chases. There’s one exciting car chase where Bond, accompanied by a buoyed-up Pepper, drives a car out of a showroom (directly through the plate glass) and takes it on a mad run, following Scaramanga and Nick Nack through the streets of Bangkok; with the inevitable accompaniment of also being chased by the police. There’s one particularly exciting scene where Bond performs a corkscrew jump to cross a river, but it’s ruined by a ridiculous comedy swanee whistle sound effect, which John Barry later regretted because it undermines the entire stunt. Before then, there’s also a boat chase through the klongs of Bangkok, with Chula and others from the Karate School tracking Bond over water, until their boat gets stopped by another turning around, and Bond takes the opportunity to slice it in two by driving through it.

Cocktails and Casinos. No cocktails here, just plenty of champagne, including a bottle that pops saucily on the beach in the opening credits, another bottle opened between Bond and Andrea after he’s given her the rough treatment, the bottle of Phuyuck (not strictly champagne, and an obvious pun intended) that Bond shares with Goodnight at the Thai hotel and one that Scaramanga treats as target practice when he greets Bond as he arrives on his island. There is also one casino scene – it’s at the Casino de Macau where Andrea receives the golden bullets from Lazar.

Gadgets. There are some gadgets, but the majority of them are used by the enemy. Lazar’s gun, made for a client missing two fingers, where you squeeze the butt rather than pull a trigger; the Solex Agitator itself (“the essential unit to convert radiation from the sun into electricity on an industrial basis”, according to Q), the false third nipple that disgusts Q, the homing button on Goodnight’s dress. The golden gun itself is a cleverly constructed piece of kit, as it gets made out of three other golden accessories! But the crowning glory must be Scaramanga’s car that converts into an aeroplane.

In Memoriam. In a running count of deaths in Bond movies, Dr No previously held the record for the lightest number of fatalities at around 11; Thunderball is looking pretty heavy at around 50 people; but Diamonds are Forever is lethal at around 70. How does The Man with the Golden Gun compare? Let’s briefly look back at those who gave their lives so that Bond can finally have his junk and a good night (with Goodnight):

Rodney, the gangster
3 guys in Saida’s dressing room (but they might not be dead)
Gibson
Two men who die in fights to the death at the Karate School (one of them is definitely dead, the other might just be stunned!)
Ten or so left clinging on to life at the Karate school (who knows how many of them are dead?)
Hai Fat
Andrea
Scaramanga
Kra

That’s actually a very modest toll for a Bond movie.

Humour to offset the death count. It’s a sad reflection on the film that there are very few of the regular smart-alec bon mots whenever someone dies or whenever someone has a sexual encounter. The few funny lines that there are, tend to be given at other plot points.

When Saida realises that her belly-button charm is missing after the fight in her dressing room, she cries “Ah! I’ve lost my charm!” “Not from where I’m standing” replies Bond.

When Bond catches Andrea in her hotel room shower, and she opens its door to reveal a gun pointing at him, he asks, “a water pistol?”

When Bond explains that Hai Fat invited Bond to dinner, he tells Hip, “he must have found me quite titillating.”

Goodnight talking of how she killed Kra (by pushing him into the absolute zero helium tank): “I laid him out cold”.

Bond, to M, who wants to speak to Goodnight on the phone whilst Bond is making passionate love to her: “She’s just coming, sir.”

Any less frothy elements? So once again it’s time to consider if there are any outstanding themes or elements that don’t sit well with today’s audience, and perhaps surprisingly there’s not a lot to go on. There’s a little latent racism from Pepper towards the locals; and the creepy henchman Kra, treating Goodnight’s body as a plaything doesn’t feel entirely right. But this is an under-written Bond, so there’s little scope for offence.

Bizarre other stuff that occurred to me and a few observations.

My original reaction to the film was that it’s quite dull, boring and with very little story! Watching this film, it felt for the first time that my James Bond Challenge could be an arduous experience. There are two main scenes of exposition – the first two that feature M – where we find out what Bond’s tasks in the film are. Everything else is how he does or doesn’t meet those tasks, so it feels very pedestrian. However, I must admit that after watching it three times, I warmed towards it a little – it has an understated elegance which is quite appealing. It does, however, truly miss out on humour.

Although Oswald Morris was unhappy at taking over the role of cinematographer from the ailing Ted Moore, visually this film is superb. It’s down to the script that sometimes you feel like it’s more of a travelogue than a spy movie, but it always looks luscious.

It’s never explained why the three thugs attack Bond at the Beirut night club. If they’re working for Scaramanga and guarding Saida’s bullet-belly-button-charm, so that no one can trace it back to him, you can’t help thing there are easier ways of keeping that charm safe.But as someone said many years before – it’s best not to think too hard about the plots of Bond films. It was a nice touch for Bond to squirt the great smell of Brut into one of those henchmen’s faces, as Moore had been part of an advertising campaign for the company.

The fascination regarding solar power seems very old hat now! Many people now have their own solar panels on their roofs. It’s hard to believe it was once seen as a route to world domination.

A duel to the death seems remarkably formal and traditional – but it was a feature of Fleming’s novel. It was based on the duel in the 1955 film, Shane. Scaramanga describes it as “the only true test for gentlemen”. Although the script is slight, the fact that Nick Nack will inherit all Scaramanga’s wealth if Bond kills him does add an unexpected twist to the final showdown.

The actors who played Hip’s two young lady companions – his “nieces”, whom Bond at first tries to protect, but turn out to be karate experts – were actually members of a local judo club. But are they really his nieces? Maybe Bond is not the only womaniser on MI6’s side.

Wei Wei Wong, who played the topless waitress at the Bottoms Up club, and who also danced in the opening titles, appeared in a few films but was best known for her Saturday night BBC TV appearances as part of the light entertainment dance troupe, The Young Generation.

Why did Hip and the two karate girls drive off and leave Bond behind?

Awards: None!

To sum up: Despite a few nice moments and surprising subtleties, I’d say this was the worst of the Bond films so far. The primary problem is with the script, which is lifeless and boring, and doesn’t provide any memorable lines or jokes. Although it may not have been Britt Ekland’s sparkling vocal delivery that got her the job in the first place, her performance tends towards the bland and faltering. Moore is better than in his first role, and the cinematography is excellent. Otherwise this is a very disappointing film! There would be a three year wait until the next film, The Spy Who Loved Me. Let’s hope it’s worth the wait!

My rating: 2 Sparkles

All photos from the film of course belong to their various copyright holders.

Lockdown Armchair Travel – Spain – Granada, 2017

Posted on March 23, 2021 by therealchrisparkle

Time for another Lockdown Armchair Travel memory, and we’re still on the letter S. And S is, of course, for Spain, a country I’ve visited so many times during my life, from the Costas to the cities to the islands, and I always love it. I hummed and hahhed a lot deciding where in Spain I should pick for this travel memory and decided on the beautiful Andalucian city of Granada, which we visited for a long weekend in June and July 2017. So, what do you think of, when you think of Granada (apart from the Manchester ITV station and TV rental sets of course!) Probably here:

The Alhambra! And where better to start our roaming around the city. I was lucky enough to go there when I was twelve, on holiday with my mum, and it’s a place that’s full of history, and beauty and memories.

Doors and alleyways lead you into room after room of Moorish moreishness!

Arabesque archways and Islamic calligraphy abound

And you just get lost in the beauty of it all

The Courtyard of the Lions is probably the most famous part

With those lions everywhere

In the Alhambra, there are no trials and tribulations, only tiles and tessellations!

The Courtyard of the Palace of Carlos V is used for concerts

And the views from the top are stunning!

And the Generalife gardens are the perfect place to relax after a couple of hours’ intense sightseeing

I have an old guidebook from my 1973 visit that quotes a rather over-the-top and dramatic poem: “Give him alms! There is no greater tribulation in life than being blind in Granada”. Those were different times.

Hard to believe, but there’s more to Granada than just the Alhambra. The cathedral is magnificent.

It’s one of those cathedrals that lends itself to exciting angles and moody corners

Not to mention the ridiculous wealth of the gold inside, of course

Elsewhere, the city has traditional Andalucian architecture

The city also looks beautiful at night

It’s a terrific place and you come home with great memories of charm and grandeur

Not to mention lions!

Review – The Penultimate Sunday Night Comedy Zoom Gig with the Comedy Crate and the Atic – 21st March 2021

Posted on March 22, 2021 by therealchrisparkle

If it’s Sunday at 6pm then it’s time for the next comedy zoom gig courtesy of those nice people at the Comedy Crate and the Atic. For this show, usual host Ryan Mold handed the reins over to the excellent Rich Wilson, whom we saw MC’ing one of their shows in the garden of Northampton’s Black Prince last year. He treated the show very much as he would have a real live show, starting off by chatting individually with a lot of the audience to warm us up for what was to come. This isn’t always easy on a zoom gig but he committed to it perfectly! Amongst his introductory gems were the pros and cons of TikTok and why you never see ghosts in the nude. He’s truly a dab hand at this game, and he kept the pace going nicely throughout the entire show.

Apart from Mr W, all the comics in the line up were new to us, and it’s been many a year since I’ve been able to say that! First up was President Obonjo, the alter ego of comedian Benjamin Bello, who seized control of the Lafta Republic by means of an “election”. It’s a wonderful comic creation, with so much scope for the boot’s on the other foot comparisons between first and third world countries – especially post-Brexit. I loved the idea of a new Live-Aid; and the Good President’s address turned into an advert for tourism to his unfortunate nation. Very funny, and I’d love to see him in more natural surroundings sometime soon.

Next we had Gareth Berliner, clearly a naturally funny guy, whose cam angle made it look as though he was begging us for mercy from somewhere down below. No need to beg, as he had some lovely observations about life in lockdown. He conjured up a nice image – whilst missing real gigs, his wife MC’s him into the lounge to make him feel at home. I loved his alternative idea to being clinically vulnerable, and how he befriends burglars, just for company. There’s also a very funny visual punchline with his tattoo of Sweden – don’t ask. Very enjoyable.

Third up was Rachel Jackson – definitely not the Prime Minister’s sister as I originally feared – who risked her ten minutes on their being horror fans in the audience – which elicited just one voice of support! Nevertheless she strode courageously on with some material about the film Saw, (which we never did) – but a lot of people had, so at least they got the jokes! Despite our not getting some of the references, she’s a gifted deliverer of material, with a lively madcap persona and bundles of enthusiasm; and we also really enjoyed the idea of her sexting the government. Oh, and if you’re a fat guy – you’re in. Cue all the fat guys preening to cam.

Our fourth act came to us all the way from New York City – Gianmarco Soresi. What a brilliant comic he is! A breath of fresh air from the start, he had us in hysterics from the word go, with hilarious and effortless observations, all delivered with a truly adroit turn of phrase. Among his superb nuggets was the wonderful insight into why Catholic jokes never get old, his dating experiences with masks, and how you can date en famille. His humour has an element of self-deprecation (actually more of self-creepery if such a thing exists) and works incredibly well. I do hope we get to see him perform live in the UK, as he could be The Next Best Thing.

Our headline act was Brennan Reece, a very engaging chap who tells wayward and meandering tales, where the fun is more in the getting there than in reaching the final destination. There were some excellent sequences including the door to door vaccine salesman and the depressed dog, but the joy of his performance was more in the throwaway side observations and turns of phrase. He’s another naturally very funny guy, and a great way to end the show.

Only one more of these Sunday night gigs to come. Will you be there? We will!

The George Orwell Challenge – Hop Picking (1931)

Posted on March 18, 2021 by therealchrisparkle

Despite his middle class background and apparent financial security (or maybe because of it?) Orwell spent several periods of his life deliberately homeless, to find out for himself what it actually felt like to be destitute – and so he could write about it afterwards. His equivalent today would be one of those undercover journalists who hide a microphone somewhere discreet about their person and then infiltrate an organisation under an alias to reveal the truth about what they get up to. His diaries show that for three weeks in September 1931 he journeyed down to Kent to work in the hop fields, getting to know the type of people involved in this activity, and in particular befriending a chap called Ginger. Orwell describes him in his diary as “a strong, athletic youth of twenty six, almost illiterate and quite brainless, but daring enough for anything. Except when in prison, he has probably broken the law every day for the last five years.”

Accompanied by other characters populating his diaries, he and Ginger travel, work, sleep and generally survive side by side throughout the whole exhausting adventure. Never averse to using pseudonyms, Orwell (Blair) adopted the name P S Burton when roaming around the country, assuming a cockney accent, and seemingly fitting in very well with his new-found companions, although he never shies away from judging these people – he often weighs them in the balance and finds them wanting.

Following these experiences he wrote up the essay Hop Picking which was published in the New Statesman & Nation on 17^th October 1931, under his real name of Eric Blair. For the most part, it’s a piece of factual reporting, explaining what the work entails, how much people earn from it, what kind of people work there, and the reality of their day to day existence/survival. But Orwell never attempts to conceal his natural concern for and disgust at the conditions and exploitation faced by the working man (and woman, and child).

Just as in his diaries, he’s quick to cast judgment where he feels it’s appropriate. The essay starts with quotes from two experienced hop-pickers, “a holiday with pay” and “keep yourself all the time you’re down there, pay your fares both ways and come back five quid in pocket” – and instantly Blair remarks that these experienced workers “ought to have known better”. He then sets out his basic tenet about hop picking: “hop-picking is far from being a holiday, and, as far as wages go, no worse employment exists.”

He explains that the work entails long hours, but is basically a simple process. He accepts that it’s “healthy, outdoor work” but quickly points out how painful the inevitable cuts to your hands are, as a result of the plant’s spiny stems, and the revulsion you feel as plant-lice crawl down your neck. He also explains the system of payment; piece-work, with the usual rate being six bushels of picked hops for a shilling – in other words 2d per bushel. At today’s rate, that shilling is now the equivalent of about £2.40, so a bushel would have earned you 40p. But it’s not that straightforward; depending on who was accepting and measuring the bushels, it was perfectly easy for the hops to be crushed down low into the bushel, so that what one man might measure as a bushel another would measure as only half a bushel – so if you were unlucky – or victimised, or exploited – you could end up having to work twice as hard for the same income. Blair estimates that he and Ginger earned about nine shillings a week each (£21.60). Even the best pickers in their gang earned only an average of 13/4 each – today’s equivalent being £32. The manipulation of the language used to describe the payment system is not lost on Blair: “six bushels a shilling sounds much more than “fifteen shillings a week””.

As well as being tricked into working twice as hard, there were other ways in which the employers’ rules could reduce the hop-picker “practically to a slave. One rule, for instance, empowers a farmer to sack his employees on any pretext whatever, and in doing so to confiscate a quarter of their earnings; and the picker’s earnings are also docked if he resigns his job.” Then there were the sleeping conditions: “My friend and I, with two others, slept in a tin hut ten feet across, with two unglazed windows and half a dozen other apertures to let in the wind and rain, and no furniture save a heap of straw; the latrine was two hundred yards away, and the water tap the same distance. Some of these huts had to be shared by eight men – but that, at any rate, mitigated the cold.”

But Blair being Orwell – or vice versa – this is no turgid piece of dry journalism. Using that same appreciation for the sensuousness of language that he used in A Hanging, he is able to transport the reader into experiencing the same hardships – or indeed pleasures – with his words. With the phrase “the spiny stems cut the palms of one’s hands to pieces” you can feel the sharp stem digging into you, just as you can feel the uncomfortable irritation of “the plant-lice which […] crawl down one’s neck”. You can sense the slow dull progress of “trying to coax a fire out of wet sticks”. But you can also smell the scene and sense the welcome cool with the sentence “on hot days there is no pleasanter place than the shady lane of hops, with their bitter scent – an unutterably refreshing scent, like a wind blowing from oceans of cool beer”. Who couldn’t resist breathing deeply to enjoy the wind from oceans of cool beer!

With good journalistic balance, he notes that hop pickers come back year after year, so despite the hardship they have to endure, “the Cockneys rather enjoy the trip to the country” and it still “figures in the pickers’ mind as a holiday.” Part of his conclusion is that “whatever the cause, there is no difficulty in getting people to do the work, so perhaps one ought not to complain too loudly about the conditions in the hop fields”.

From my own experience, I know that in the late 20s and early 30s my mother and her brother worked on the hop fields with their parents, and I don’t recall her saying how terrible an experience it was. This is a fascinating, personal piece of journalism, written directly from the writer’s current experience, balancing the rigours and hardship of the activity with its unexpected popularity and the cheerfulness with which it was endured. It’s also a description of a now historical activity that has thankfully been taken over by machinery. Orwell got it right when he says “hop-picking is in the category of things that are great fun when they are over.”

Review – Dream, immersive theatre of the future, from the Royal Shakespeare Company, 16th March 2021

Posted on March 17, 2021 by therealchrisparkle

Not a very catchy summary of a show, I must admit, but that’s the nearest I can get to describing the online experience that we enjoyed last night. When I was a kid, I had the double album “BBC 1922 – 1972” (I always was trendy) which commemorated the first fifty years of the Beeb, and featured dozens of fascinating and entertaining ancient recordings. One of the earliest was from Station 2MT (which would soon develop into the BBC), with one Captain Eckersley broadcasting from an ex-army hut in Writtle, Essex, with the words This is Two Emma Toc, Writtle testing, and enthusiasts around the country would twiddle the cat’s whisker on their new-fangled wireless machine and, miracle of miracles, Eckersley’s dulcet tones came into their living room out of nowhere. What a thrill that must have been.

This vague recollection (as I haven’t played that album for a good many years) came back into my head as we watched, and interacted with, the new online production, Dream, inspired (no surprise) by A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with your host Puck, accompanied by four sprites, each of whom has their own special power to help you through the perils of an enchanted wood. The chief element that I took from the show was the unlimited potential that this new technology has for transforming the arts in the future.

The timing of this innovative approach to combine theatre with immersive technology couldn’t be more perfect. It’s almost exactly one year on from when I last set foot in a theatre, and, with the best will in the world, I – and I’m sure many others – still wrestle with a reticence about the safety of joining a real-life mid-pandemic (or even post-pandemic) audience in the coming months. So, if there is one thing the arts needs right now, it’s to find new ways of exploring online and virtual methods of getting drama into people’s homes.

This is where the Audiences of the Future initiative comes in. It aims to examine and explore ways of combining immersive technologies as part of the audience experience in the fields of art, culture, heritage and entertainment. Thus Dream is not only an artistic work in its own right, but also a piece of research and development within this wider framework. Audiences log in on their laptops, phones and tablets to watch five actors perform live at the Guildhall in Portsmouth; for yes, these performances are all live, all that’s recorded are the musical contributions of the Philharmonia Orchestra and Nick Cave (yes, he of the Bad Seeds) as the Voice of the Forest. Prospective audience members have two alternatives for experiencing Dream; you can simply turn up and watch a show, live, for free, or for the princely sum of £10 you can upgrade to being an Audience Plus member. This makes you a virtual firefly, with the ability to influence the characters and action with the aid of your mouse.

You arrive at the Dream Lobby in advance of the show starting; that’s the place to pick up tips on how best to enjoy it and how to interact with it. When the show starts, EM Williams, who plays Puck with great charm and warmth, welcomes you in, and invites you to follow them through the forest for a magical adventure. The show is constructed so that you can get glimpses of both the backstage gubbins and the full product at the same time, which offers you a truly fascinating insight into how the whole thing works.

So let’s concentrate on the good things, because there are good things a-plenty. The technology is outstanding. Over 7,200 devices logged into yesterday evening’s show, and there was never a hint that the Internet wouldn’t be able to take the load. The picture and the sound were of the highest quality, as were the performances and choreography, because this show relies heavily on movement. The visual design of the forest was exciting and intriguing, colourful and intense; and the presentations of the characters themselves – the term avatar is being used, but I know nothing about gaming – are inventive and hugely creative. Puck appears as a disconnected collection of rocks, Moth is a free-fluttering floaty thing made of leaves, Mustardseed a moving bundle of branches, Peaseblossom an assembly of flowers, and Cobweb is a spooky eye emerging through cobwebs in a tree. The imagination behind and execution of these dreamlike beings are just superb.

Also really impressive is the use of a clever little piece of software called Gestrument, that creates perfect musical accompaniments to the movements of the characters, adding magic and colour to the presentation. The luscious, pre-recorded music, played by the Philharmonia Orchestra, are three excerpts from a recording made just before Lockdown 1.0, composed and conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. In fact, the whole production is a testament to collaboration between so many different companies and specialists, and it is an absolute credit to them that it has come to fruition so successfully.

It’s important to take this current production for what it is – a piece of research and development, one step in finding a way through the tricky troubled times of right now to find innovative answers for the future. As a result, it would be wrong to gloss over what didn’t work about the production. The interactivity, whereby you basically lob a few fireflies into the action to illuminate the way, is great in theory, and clearly lends support and direction to the cast. But it’s a damp squib to the audience, who only get a vague sense of where their firefly might have landed, in amongst a sea (wrong metaphor I know) of other firefly trails, all landing higgledy-piggledy in the forest. My fairy trajectories weren’t up to much anyway, but then I’ve never been much of a Pinball Wizard. If you’re going to invite the audience to influence the action (and indeed charge them for the pleasure), then the reward must be more obvious and more beneficial. The technology is brilliant, but that alone is not enough to give you a satisfactory audience experience. In addition, whilst it’s great to discover that it’s possible to create this work live, the live element didn’t as such offer any greater meaning or pleasure to the audience experience than if it had been recorded. But, of course, with different content, performing it live could be a whole new kettle of fish.

This is clearly the gateway to something more significant stretching into the future. It needs a much bigger brain than mine to grapple with all the possibilities that this technology offers, but anything that extends the reach of the theatre into the home can only be A Good Thing in my book. We’re only at the Writtle Testing stage right now, but, who knows, in ten, twenty, thirty years’ time… the ether’s the limit.

This Royal Shakespeare Company co-production is a collaboration with the Manchester International Festival, Marshmallow Laser Feast and the Philharmonia Orchestra, and offers performances at different times to suit different time zones and continues to play until 20^th March. For more information, click here!

Production photos by Stuart Martin for the RSC

Review – Yet another online zoom comedy gig with the Comedy Crate and Atic – 14th March 2021

Posted on March 15, 2021 by therealchrisparkle

The online comedy gigs courtesy of Zoom, the Comedy Crate and the Atic keep coming on Sunday nights, and last night we enjoyed another great show with top class comics. Our host Ryan Mold kept things fast and punchy – including a quick hello to us at the beginning, where I confused him over the details of my ex-career – it’s not an easy thing to explain in a sentence or two! A lovely introduction to the show included Ryan’s speculation onhow Aldi staff get recruited, and what connects Abraham Lincoln to VE Day.

Our first act was the wonderful Darren Walsh, punster supreme, who made terrific use of the technical possibilities offered by Zoom – having seen him before I’d forgotten how much he likes to frame his material with a dash of multi-media. He has such an inventive approach to punning, that sometimes you have to play back his words over in your head to quite work out which bit was the pun! I particularly enjoyed the Whitney Houston moment, the dentist material, the Brady Bunch and the CAPS ON gags. Always a joy, can’t wait to see him live and properly again soon!

Next was Nick Doody, a favourite from many Screaming Blue Murder shows, with some great new and highly topical material. Zoom can make it difficult for a comic who naturally relies on all the things happening around them during the gig, but Mr D didn’t let his enforced isolation get in the way. I really enjoyed all his stuff about leaving a zoom meeting (first time I’ve seen an online call-back work!) and the fact that he can see himself performing. He’s always great value and was excellent as usual.

Our middle act was Dinesh Nathan, new to us; a friendly chap with some clever lockdown material about having to confess you’ve been walking with someone else, and preparing for a zoom call just as you would for meeting in person. I liked his comparisons between his Sri Lankan heritage and his Britishness. He’s a naturally funny guy and I’d like to see him again IRL when we can!

Next came Lindsey Santoro, whom we saw at the Black Prince only last autumn in a Comedy Crate garden gig. She has a wonderfully bubbly and madcap persona, and a no-holds-barred attitude to jokes about sex from all angles (literally). I thoroughly enjoyed her material about the Rock Climbing Wall and the profiteroles line is a great send-off on which to end the act. Her enthusiasm and enjoyment for what she’s doing really comes across to the audience and she encourages us to share in her fun. Hugely entertaining.

Our headline act, and also new to us, was American Dave Fulton, live from his garage as he introduced us to his collectable motorbikes. A lot of his material was pretty near the mental health knuckle, but he always got away with it very nicely – I particularly enjoyed his fantasising about Trump’s death, as well as his observations about life in Newcastle and Blackpool. He also talked about the unexpected aspects of adopting a child of a different race than your own; some incredibly funny observations there. But in the end, it was all about the motorbikes, as one of the audience members couldn’t contain his excitement at Dave’s collection!

It looks like there will be two more Sunday gigs before – heavens forfend! – we might be able to start enjoying proper live comedy nights come April! Here’s the details for the next one!