Period pieces 1: Miss Marple / Mapp & Lucia

An investment for those long winter nights is a reasonably priced boxset of all 12 BBC Miss Marple stories featuring Joan Hickson as the intrepid detective of that perfect 1950s English village St Mary Mead. Hickson, usually seen in comic roles (YANKS, UPSTAIRS & DOWNSTAIRS, PLEASE TURN OVER etc) is just perfect here.

The 1960s Marple films with Margaret Ruthrford were comic trifles, and much as I like Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie their later Marples were all wrong, and the films silly and stuffed with guest stars (step forward as usual David Walliams).

The main Marple stories like MURDER AT THE VICARGE, 4.50  FROM PADDINGTON, and my particular favourite AT  BERTRAM'S HOTEL are all iincuded and it will be a pleasure to see them again. See Miss Marple label for review of this,

I already have the 80s series of MAPP & LUCIA,  the blissful comic capers of those two warring ladies in Tilling in Sussex, in that perfect period between the wars, with Geraldine McEwan, Prunella Scales and Nigel Hawthorne all perfectly cast, as are all the other characters. I have reviewed this in more detail at Mapp & Lucia label. 

RIP continued

Geraldine McEwan (1932-2015) aged 82. Geraldine was a unique talent with an individual voice and mannerisms, sad to see her depart soon after that other great British actress Billie Whitelaw, also 82. I will have to dust down my MAPP & LUCIA boxset, as she WAS Lucia (with that marvellous range of vocal tics and inflections) for me - 
and of course we long remember her in ORANGES ARE NOT THE ONLY FRUIT, that ground-breaking tv drama, for which she won a BAFTA as the religious mother of a lesbian daughter, and more recently THE MAGDALENE SISTERS where she was that terrifying mother superior, and I loved her witch in the Kevin Costner ROBIN HOOD in 1991. I did not care for her MISS MARPLE series though, they were dreadful versions of the originals, over-stuffed with cameo roles, but McEwan had a long career on stage (playing with the likes of Olivier, Richardson, Gielgud, and in the first production of Joe Orton's LOOT with Kenneth Williams, that must have been a scream) and television, with plays like A FLEA IN HIS EAR and THE DANCE OF DEATH - Mrs Proudie in THE BARCHESTER CHRONICLES was TV another success, she also did THE PRIME OF MISS BRODIE on television. Geraldine excelled in high comedy as well as deep drama and could "purr like a kitten or snap like a viper". She was as individual as Maggie Smith or Joan Greenwood (there is no higher praise) and she also played Lady Bellaston (as Joan did in TOM JONES) in a later adaptation of the Henry Fielding novel. I would love to have seen her Judith Bliss, Lady Teazle or Millamant on stage. Au Reservoir indeed! 

Rod McKuen (1933-2015) aged 81, poet and song-writer. Rod wrote hits for Sinatra and Streisand, and that theme "Jean" for the film of THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE in 1969. He also wrote the hit "Seasons in the Sun" and was often referred to as the King of Kitsch. His work was also used in Madonna's RAY OF LIGHT album in the track "Drowned World/Substitute for love". His "If You Go Away" was a reworking of Jacques Brel. Dusty Springfield and others covered his work, and he wrong "Love's Been Good To Me" for the Sinatra album " A Man Alone", and he won two Oscar nominations. He was a best-selling poet too during the 1960s.  He worked with the Beat poets like Ginsberg and Kerouac, and became a folk singer. He certainly did well for a boy who ran away from home aged 11.

Demis Roussos (1946-2015) aged 68. Greek singer who had international hit records ("Forever and Ever", "My Friend the Wind" etc) in the 1970s after being part of group Aphrodite's Child (which also incuded Vangelis). Famous for his hair and caftans, Demis was also immortalised in Mike Leigh's play ABIGAIL'S PARTY where Beverely (Alison Steadman) wanted to hear Demis playing on the record player...

Lotte Hass (1928-2015), aged 86. Back in the 1950s Hans and Lotte Hass were popular chroniclers of animal wildlife on television nature programmes - a rarity then, like Armand and Michaela Dennis chronicling African wildlife or Jacques Costeau's underwater explorations. Hans and Lotte were also diving underwater as Lotte photographed sharks and other wildlife, quite risky sometimes. Lotte's looks were a plus for their popular shows as they filmed at the Red Sea, being the first to capture footage of mantra rays and other exotic (then) underwater denizens. 

Christmas TV treats: Tom, the Royles, Mapp & Lucia

Here at the Projector we love Tom Courtenay as Billy and Helen Fraser as Barbara his nicer than nice, too perfect but bossy girlfriend (Billy of course has 2 other girlfriends, the cafe waitress and free-wheeling Liz (Julie Christie's breakout role)).... thats the 1963 classic BILLY LIAR, see Tom label. It was delightful therefore to see them re-united a few years ago in a Christmas edition of the hit British comedy THE ROYLE FAMILY, about that family who just sit around watching telly all the time. In this festive edition Tom and Helen play the very square parents of daughter Denise's dopey husband Dave, as they all gather to celebrate the season with dinner at Denise and Dave's,with predictably hilarious results - 

they forgot to defrost the turkey for a start! and lazy Denise's first course is 'cuppasoup' with a twist - its in a bowl instead of a cup! This hilarious series is of course written by Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash, who are both perfect as Denise and Dave, while Ricky Tomlinson and Sue Johnston do sterling work as workshy Jim Royle and his put-upon wife, Barbara. Tom and Helen though are priceless in this christmas edition, with his motoring gloves and their Ford Mondeo! 
We have a couple to watch in the New Year with Tom playing gay: in THE DRESSER and a tv film from a Noel Coward tale: ME AND THE GIRLS from 1985.

A new perfect treat should be the new 3-part MAPP AND LUCIA, though (as per label) we like a lot the 1983 series which is perfectly cast with Prunella Scales as Mapp, Geraldine McEwan as Lucia and Nigel Hawthorne as her screamer friend and later husband, Georgie, with his wig (right) and his devoted servant Foljambe; that 10 part series was scripted by Gerald Savory and directed by Donald McWhinnie. 

Steve Pemberton (of BENIDORM) has scripted the new series and plays Georgie - even shaving his head so he can wear that fussy wig! Mark Gatiss is Major Benjy, and the two terrors are Anna Chancellor as Lucia and Miranda Richardson gnashing her false teeth as Mapp - and cult favourite Frances Barber plays the Italian contessa who visits and whom Lucia and Georgie have to avoid as they do not speak Italian though they pretend they do. Lets hope the other characters in their thrall are well cast too: Diva Plaistow, Quaint Irene, Mr & Mrs Wyse with their rolls royce, and the Padre and wife. It is of course set in Rye in Sussex which plays the part of that ideal village, Tilling. E F Benson fans should be in for a treat. 
Well not quite the treat I had imagined - it might have worked better if Gatiss had played prissy Georgie, and the rather beefy Pemberton played Major Benjy. No denying Pemberton's dedication to the role though, and scriptwriting as well.

Also fun for the holidays should be a new David Walliams THE BOY IN A DRESS and a new Victoria Wood comedy musical THAT DAY WE SANG, featuring Michael Ball and the stupendous Imelda Stuanton, whom I will be seeing on stage in April in the latest revival of GYPSY - yes she is Momma Rose, and she should be as wonderful as she was in GUYS AND DOLLS a decade or so ago.

TV: A new Mapp & Lucia !, and back to Lillie ...

I have done several posts here on MAPP AND LUCIA, the 1980s British tv series based on the 1930s novels by E.F.Benson. The comic adventures and social snobbery of  Mapp, Lucia and Georgie Pillson were spread out over 6 books, and made a perfect 10 part series in 1983. They have just been repeated here actually, and the dvd is also available, and there are in fact at least 4 new novels. written in the style of E F Benson, so it seems Mapp and Lucia are here to stay. Left: the original 1980s trio. 

Quaint Irene with Georgie ?

I am now surprised to see that the BBC in its wisdom has made a new 3-parter titled MAPP AND LUCIA, also filmed at Rye, where E F Benson lived, and where the original series was shot. As it is just a three-parter I imagine it covers just the main book of when Lucia moved to Tilling (Rye actually) and became the queen bee in the town, supplanting the envious Miss Mapp (soon Mrs Mapp-Flint!) who tries every trick in the book to get the better of Lucia, but is always thwarted. Lucia's friend Georgie (soon to be her husband) assists Lucia and it is all deliciously comic, what with their servants and local friends also playing their part.

Anna Chancellor and Miranda Richardson are the new Mapp and Lucia, or rather Lucia and Mapp - though each could play either part. Georgie though is Steve Pemberton, who seems an odd choice - he is terrific in BENIDORM as the tightwad father of the Garvey clan, but as he is also scripting this it must be a labour of love for him. Here he is, with Georgie's wig and moustache!  It screens sometime this autumn, and the Benson purists will be out in force to see this latest incarnation of our favourites. Mark Gatiss is also in the cast as Major Benjy - I would have thought he and Pemberton would be better cast if they swiched roles ?

More blissful costume drama re-runs. I liked the 1974 British series JENNIE, LADY RANDOLPH CHURCHILL again recently, where Lee Remick made a marvellous Jennie (Remick label). ITV also did another perfect costume series in 1978 - LILLIE - about The Jersey Lily, Lillie Langtry,the beauty who fascinatated the likes of Oscar Wilde and the Prince of Wales, as she quickly charms her way through London society and wins the heart of the Prince. I have the dvd, but it also is being repeated now. 

Egan as Oscar

Oscar calls her "The New Helen" and champions her. Francesca Annis is simply marvelous here, so cool and poised and radiant as she soon drops her mourning outfits to dazzle society drawing rooms. Whether out riding side-saddle, or coping with her boorish husband, or indeed the King of the Belgians who goes too far during those morning visits of his .... It is a big series of 13 episodes (directed by John Gorrie, Christipher Hodson and Tony Wharmby) with a large cast, and was very popular, as our tempestuous and calculating heroine (she could give Scarlett O'Hara a run for her money) fights adversity, it also covers Oscar's rise and downfall ...  

Polanski's MACBETHs 

Annis was a child actress and is still working now. She was CLEOPATRA's handmaiden in 1963, and then one of those PLEASURE GIRLS in 1965 (Annis label), and indeed was Lady Macbeth for Roman Polanski in 1972 with Jon Finch, and also effective in later tv hits like CRANFORD, but LILLIE is her crowning moment. She also played Lillie in 1975 in a series BERTIE about the Prince of Wales, and intriguingly played the Romy Schneider part in a BBC version of GIRLS IN UNIFORM in 1967, opposite Virginia McKenna. Prince cast her in his UNDER THE CHERRY MOON, and she even played Jacqueline Onassis in a 1988 ONASSIS telemovie! as well as DUNE and a MADAME BOVARY in 1975, plus those early 60s items WEST 11 and SATURDAY NIGHT OUT (reviewed at Annis label), and she famously played Gertrude to Ralph Fiennes HAMLET on stage ...

Dennis Lill (Major Benjy in the original MAPP & LUCIA), is the Prince, with Sheila Reid (also in BENIDORM as Madge!) as his mother Queen Victoria, Anne Firbank as Princess Alexandra, and Jenny Linden (WOMEN IN LOVE) as Lillie's confidant. Peter Egan makes a perfectly exquisite Oscar Wilde, with Brian Deacon as artist Frank Miles.
John Castle is another Prince and one of her loves, by whom she has a child. Poor Mr Langtry (Anton Rogers) gets short shift though. Its all perfect of its kind, as we see how high society arranges its assignations and how smart professional beauties make their way in the world. Make-up and costumes are excellent too as the characters age ... Mrs Langtry (1853-1929) went on the stage where she did very well, tourng America, and continued to fascinate .... and wrote a lively menoir "The Days That I Knew". Ava Gardner played her in Huston's THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JUDGE ROY BEAN in 1972. 

Summer reads: Carol, Arthur, John, more Mapp & Lucia ...

Some fabulous summer reads, for dipping into, or greedily reading from cover to cover, as per those new MAPP & LUCIA items!

First a couple of perfect show-business memoirs, and a terrific new biograpy on skating legend, John Curry, a story that resonates very strongly now that athletes and sports people can come out without fear, how different it was then....

AMONG THE PORCUPINES: Carol Matthau was one of those originals I had heard about from various sources (and yes, she was the original for Holly Golightly). How marvellous to find she penned an engaging memoir back in 1992. Copies are still available folks! Carol was one of those people like Lauren Bacall, Dirk Bogarde or Rock Hudson who knew just about everybody. Here is the choice dust-jacket blurb:

A celebrated original in both New York and Hollywood, Carol Matthau (nee Grace) epitomizes a kind of glamour not known today: wife of William Saroyan (twice) and Walter Matthau (still), lifelong friend of Gloria Vanderbilt and Oona O'Neill Chaplin; muse and confidante to some of the century's most renowned writers (James Agee, Kenneth Tynan and Truman Capote - who divined his Holly Golightly as they breakfasted together in front of Tiffany's windows). But just beneath the look-no-further glitter lie the unique wit, wisdom and charm forged from private tragedy, privilege and a deep, powerful knowledge of love.

In her inimitable voice - salty, sly, incisive, hilarious - Carol tells the tales of her extraordinary roller-coaster life: from a lonely childhood in Depression-era foster homes to a fairy tale adolescence as a Park Avenue debutante, from terrifying bouts with Saroyan to sweet trysts with Matthau; from the high-society fetes of the Forties to glitzy Hollywood dinner parties to the ultimate social spectacle - the Oscars.

Filled with delicious meditations, anecdotes, and portraits of friends (Kay Kendall and Rex Harrison, Maureen Stapleton, Carson McCullers, Richard Avedon, Isak Dinesen and others), this is a tour of the high life on the arm of the original blithe spirit. 

Well yes, today's celebrities have a lot to learn before they are as effortlessly stylish as Carol Matthau. She died in 2003, aged 78 (Walter had died in 2000), but leaves a marvellous story. Her affectionate portraits of Kay and Rex are perfect too and nicely compement the memoirs of Rex and Lilli Palmer. Its the kind of book one does not want to end (like Lilli Palmer's CHANGE LOBSTERS AND DANCE) or Simone Signoret's NOSTALGIA ISN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE). 

Arthur Laurents (THE WAY WE WERE for which he wrote the screenplay aired on tv here over the weekend) was of course cut from a different cloth. Waspish and difficult he seems to have been disliked by quite a lot. He too wrote a fascinating memoir - I quoted from it in my review of SUMMERTIME (see below). - covering Broadway and Hollywood in the Golden Age, when he was one of the high fliers. Laurents (1918-2011) lived to be 92, his writing credits include Hitch's ROPE (below, right - Hitchcock was intrigued by Laurents' relationship with Farley Granger), ANASTASIA, THE TIME OF THE CUCKOO (the play which SUMMERTIME was based on), a favourite of ours: BONJOUR TRISTESSE, THE WAY WE WERE and THE TURNING POINT and the books for WEST SIDE STORY and GYPSY, among others. 

He too was very well connected so I am looking forward to a good read;  he also won numerous awards and directed productions of LE CAGE AUX FOLLES. He knew Barbra Streisand from the start of her career, when she was in I CAN GET IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE, before FUNNY GIRL. She rang him shortly before he died, just as he was sitting down to Sunday breakfast, so he told her to call back later - she did, as she was trying to get a new production of GYPSY up and runnng, despite now being too old to play Mama Rose ...

Like Gore Vidal, he was also a prominent gay, having a relationship with Farley Granger in the '40s and '50s, and then a long lasting relationship with an actor, Tom Hatcher. 

Now, ALONE - The Triumph and Tragedy of John Curry, by Bill Jones, a handsome new hardback, which just arrived today, I will be starting it right away. Curry seems a forgotten figure now, but in 1976 he skated to Olympic glory and overnight became world famous. He was awarded the OBE and showered with honours. Yet he remained a mystery to the world that had been dazzled by his gifts. 

Curry had changed his sport from marginal curiosity to high art. Men's skating was supposed to be muscular, not sensual and ambiguous like this. But with Olympic gold came the revelation of his secret as he informed the world that he was gay. In the extraordinary years which followed, Curry battled to transform skating into a theatrical sensation worthy of Nureyev. At his magnificent peak he brought The Royal Albert Hall and the New York Met to their feet (I saw one of his spectaculars about then with my pal Sally who was besotted about him). But behind his epic struggles lay a tortured, lonely man of labyrinthine complexity (wasn't it ever so?).

It is a story of childhood nightmares, sporting rivalries, homophobia, cold war politics, financial ruin and deep personal tragedy. Here is revealed the restless, impatient, often dark soul of a man whose words could lacerate, whose skating moved audiences to tears, and who - like many of his closest friends - died of AIDS, aged just 44, in 1994.

This chimes in with my reviews of THE NORMAL HEART and MY NIGHT WITH REG recently (gay interest label) and the fact that more Americans died of AIDS than in Vietnam. Also we realise now that today's actors and sporting stars have it easy when they come out with all the support they get on social media and from the press (Ben Whishaw had a big spread and cover story in last weekend's "Sunday Times", while Tom Daley and Ian Thorpe are the latest sports stars to come out to universal approval). How different it all was in the '70s ... Curry too had a secret relationship with actor Alan Bates (who visited him before he died), which shows how one could keep things under wraps in that pre-internet, pre-cellphone world. 

And now a return to Tilling, and the delightful books about MAPP & LUCIA, by E.F. Benson, and the television series (now on dvd) made in 1982 where Geraldine McEwan, Prunella Scales and Nigel Hawthorne are perfection, as indeed are all the cast, as it captures that 1930s dreamworld where well to do people had domestic staff. It was filmed too at Rye, where Benson lived, as per my previous post on them, as the Mapp & Lucia label.  There were six book intially, but there are now four more, written in the style of Benson taking the characters forward through the war years and after. Indeed the latest one, AU RESERVOIR, kills them all off interestingly in old age, so I don't imagine there will be any more. 

LUCIA IN WARTIME and LUCIA TRIUMPHANT by Tim Holt are great reads, but LUCIA ON HOLIDAY and AU RESERVOIR by Guy Fraser-Sampson are simply too much. LUCIA ON HOLIDAY takes us to Italy, Lake Como to be precise, where the Mapp-Flints (thanks to a generous Majarajah) follow Lucia and Georgie to their luxury hotel, and Georgie - now with his opera singer muse Olga Braceley - becomes entranced with his superb, handsome new valet Francesco (who is not what he seems) with his addictive 'turksh' cigarettes. 
Real people are also written in, we get the famous writer and poet Gabriele D'Annunzio here, while AU RESERVOIR writes Noel Coward and John Gielgud into the story as they appear in several chapters, as Mapp tries (in vain of course) to prove that Lucia does not know them. How it is all worked out is simply too delicious for words. Perfect summer reading.

Mapp and Lucia

British television has produced some great series over the recent decades like I CLAUDIUS, ELIZABETH I, BRIDESHEAD REVISISTED, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, PERSUASION, CRANFORD etc, but up there with the very best, and - unlike the others - still endlessly rewatchable is the ITV series MAPP AND LUCIA, made in '85 and '86. There are 2 series (10 episodes in all - like FAWLTY TOWERS it didn't outstay its welcome) adopted from the "Mapp and Lucia" novels by E.F. Benson, depicting life in the genteel town of Tilling in the 1920s and 1930s. Here social life (where the well to do have domestic servants) revolves around marketing (daily shopping), afternoon tea parties, bridge games, evening dinners and general one-up-manship as practised by the two leading lights of Tilling society: wealthy widow Mrs Emmaline (Lucia) Lucas and Miss Mapp whose territory is threatened by newcomer Lucia, aided by her devoted cohort (and later husband) Georgie Pillson. Add in Lucia's Mozart recitals and Mapp's Art Committee and the stage is set for deadly rivalry...

The series perfectly captures the flavour of the books [6 in all], which are endlessly re-readable in themselves, with perfect period decor and settings, but the cast is a dream. Geraldine McEwan is the perfect Lucia, always seeking to put one over on Mapp - another of Prunella Scales' definitive roles (like her Sybil to Basil Fawlty), she perfectly captures Mapp's endless "carping and criticizing" as Lucia thwarts her yet again. Nigel Hawthorne is of course ideal as the camp, fussy Georgie. The other roles are played to perfection too, capturing the essence of Diva Plaistow, Quaint Irene, the Wyses with the Rolls Royce, the Padre with his fake Scottish accent, and blustering Major Flint who gives in and marries Mapp.

Whether its Mapp trying to get the recipe for Lucia's "Lobster A La Riseholme" and the ladies being swept out to sea and presumed lost, Lucia's garden fete, Mapp having to sell her beloved home 'Mallards' to Lucia or the Tilling ladies swopping residences for the summer (with crafty Mapp earning the most) and then the battle to become The Mayor of Tilling, endless amusement is guaranteed. Their servants too are ideally realised: Lucia's Grosvenor and Cadman, Georgie's Foljambe and Mapp's Withers. Also on hand are Rosalind Knight as the Wyse's Italian Contessa whom Lucia and Georgie must avoid (or they will be unmaksed as not speaking perfect Italian!), Anna Quayle as opera singer Olga Braceley and the wonderful Irene Handl as Poppy, the Duchess of Sheffied. It was filmed in the Kent seaside town of Rye (well worth a visit, where Henry James resided, as well as E.F. Benson). Series scripted by Gerald Savory and directed by Donald McWhinnie.

I had the series as two brick-sized double VHS packs, but its now a much slimmer dvd edition and should be an essential in every home. Au reservoir!