Coughs, sneezes and comfort TV

I didn't stray very far from the sofa today. Curled up with my box of tissues, hot lemon and honey drinks, a book or two and the remote control for the television, I was determined to enjoy my enforced inactivity.

I watched an old interview of Paul Newman on Inside The Actors' Studio. What an interesting, intelligent man he was and how well he handled those supposedly deep and revealing questions put to all the interviewees by James Lipton. Q. "What is your favourite curse word?" A. "I wouldn't want to favour one above the rest."

Later, I watched the 2004 dramatisation of Nina Bawden's book Carrie's War and then I recorded Swallows and Amazons to watch another day. If you are going to indulge in a day of viewing then it is good to scroll through all the Sky channels and you might stumble across a gem like a recording of Pink Floyd's The Division Bell concert on Sky Arts. The MM and I watched it this evening. We were there at Earls Court in October 1994 when the concert was recorded.

As I said in an earlier post, this is not Pink Floyd...........but this is........

I hope you enjoy it without the accompaniment of coughs and sneezes!

Christmas at Lark Rise

Flora Thomson describes Christmas Day in Lark Rise to Candleford:

"Christmas Day passed very quietly. The men had a holiday from work and the children from school and the churchgoers attended special Christmas services. Mothers who had young children would buy them an orange each and a handful of nuts; but, except at the end house and the inn, there was no hanging up of stockings, and those who had no kind elder sister or aunt in service to send them parcels got no Christmas presents.

Still, they did manage to make a little festival of it. Every year the farmer killed an ox for the purpose and gave each of his men a joint of beef, which duly appeared on the Christmas dinner-table together with plum pudding – not Christmas pudding, but suet duff with a good sprinkling of raisins. Ivy and other evergreens (it was not a holly country) were hung from the ceiling and over the pictures; a bottle of home-made wine was uncorked, a good fire was made up, and, with doors and windows closed against the keen, wintry weather, they all settled down by their own firesides for a kind of super-Sunday. There was little visiting of neighbours and there were no family reunions, for the girls in service could not be spared at that season, and the few boys who had gone out in the world were mostly serving abroad in the Army."

Anyone who watched last night's episode of Lark Rise to Candleford on BBC television might wonder why there is no mention of the ghostly Cinderella Dee and the wassailing Twister. My guess is that Bill Gallagher never actually got around to reading the books.

I really don't mind Victorian costume dramas filled with artificial snow and sentimentality at Christmastime. My husband had to leave the room because he found it turned his stomach but I thought it was one of the best comedies of the year. I just wish the BBC had come up with an original name and not stolen the title of one of my favourite books. Perhaps Frolic Rise to Clichéford?

Bagpuss for healthy brains

There have been lots of posts paying tribute to Oliver Postgate who died a few days ago. We have all been exchanging memories of The Clangers, Noggin the Nog, Ivor the Engine and, of course, Bagpuss. It appears, though, that we would have been reading about these national treasures this weekend anyway. According to this article in the Sunday Telegraph, the slow pace of those old stories was ideally suited to the intellectual development of young children.

I know that for every report of a piece of scientific research there is a contradiction waiting to be published, but these results do look pretty convincing. Maybe Teletubbies and In the Night Garden should carry this health warning:

Television affects, among other things, the development of sustained attention, something that is crucial for learning. A report from the American Academy of Pediatrics' journal found that children who watch television between the ages of one and three had a significantly increased risk of developing ADHD-type attention problems by the age of seven.

Moreover, TV viewing between the ages of five and 11 has been linked with short attention span, poor concentration, and being easily distracted later in adolescence.

Of course the solution could be simpler - Bring Back Bagpuss!

A magic story

I have been away from home all day and so have only now heard the news of Oliver Postgate's death. 60goingon16, Musings from a Muddy Island and Bread and Roses all carry tributes to this creator of childhood favourites. I loved the Clangers and Noggin the Nog but my favourite was always Bagpuss.

The Sergeant effect

I usually avoid television programmes with 'Celebrity' or 'Stars' in the title. The one exception is the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing, which brings a bit of old-fashioned glamour to our screens to cheer the dismal November evenings. It is also one of the few shows in which the participants do not hide behind their celebrity. They work really hard at a punishing schedule to acquire new skills and I really admire their commitment.

The current series has been spoiled for me by the 'John Sergeant factor'. It didn't matter in the early stages that the viewers showed their appreciation for his attempts to master a few basic dance steps; those who lost their places would have been going out sooner rather than later anyway. Now, however, the competition is getting to a serious stage, with people who have invested a great deal of time, effort and emotion into reaching a very high standard having to compete for a place against the might of Facebook. For John Sergeant has become a cult figure.

As a political correspondent, John Sergeant must know that the public is very fickle. The people who are voting for him are probably just doing the great British cocking of a snook at anyone in authority, in this case the judges. Hopefully, they will soon get bored but just imagine if they don't and he ends up winning the competition! Who will his friends be then? And the last example of light entertainment will be gone from our screens because it would undoubtedly be the end of Strictly come Dancing.

The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

What a way to brighten a cold and miserable holiday! For two hours last night, we were transported to Botswana to meet the characters from Alexander McCall Smith's books in the flesh.

I suppose we all knew that we were safe in the hands of Richard Curtiss and Anthony Minghella and that AMS had given his seal of approval to the production but I hadn't really expected it to be SO good. Jill Scott was perfect as Precious Ramotswe. I hope that the promised 13-week series of the rest of the books goes ahead despite the untimely death of Anthony Minghella and that the same authentic setting and great character actors will be used.

If the promised adaptation of the Palliser novels is as good as this, we are in for some very good viewing this year.

Farewell to Donaldsons

The magnificent building, Donaldson's, has been the centre for the education of deaf children in Scotland since the 1850s.
The history of education for deaf children in Britain begins in Edinburgh. The first school, the Braidwood Academy, was established in Edinburgh in 1760 but moved to England in 1810. Several of the teachers remained to teach in the Edinburgh Institution for the Deaf and Dumb which, in turn merged with Donaldson's Hospital in 1937. Over the years, the name changed from Hospital to School and finally College but it will always be remembered as Donaldson's.

In 1830, James Donaldson, an Edinburgh printer and bookseller, left a legacy for the foundation of Donaldson's Hospital. It has always been an enlightened establishment, having equal numbers of deaf and normally-hearing pupils until 1938 and using sign-language at a time when the rest of Europe had adopted a totally oral education system (to the detriment of the Deaf, but that is a story for another day).

I did my studies in the Education of the Deaf at Oxford, but was greatly influenced by the ethos of Donaldson's and I spent many years campaigning for English educational establishments to adopt Scottish methods and attitudes. I recall a BBC documentary on Donaldson's School, shown some time in the 1970s, which illustrated the 'Donaldson attitude'. The interviewer was speaking to a teacher while her pupils were getting on with their work. As she was speaking , the teacher was simultaneously signing her responses and the interviewer asked her why she was doing that when the children were not included in the conversation. Her explanation was that a class of hearing children could overhear or deliberately listen in to a conversation if they chose to and she wanted Deaf children to have the same opportunity. A small incident but one which had a profound influence on my classroom practice and on everything I've written and spoken about in my professional life since.

Today's edition of See Hear on BBC 2 featured the move of Donaldsons College from the wonderful William Playfair building in Edinburgh to this modern campus in Linlithgow.
The old building, which Queen Victoria considered to be grander than any of her palaces, is going to be 'redeveloped', doubtless into luxury apartments. I'm sure the new facilities at Linlithgow will be excellent but more important will be the transfer of the real spirit of Donaldson's from the old buildings to the new. I wish all the staff and students well in their new home.

You can see this episode of See Hear on BBC iPlayer for the next seven days and it will be shown again in the overnight Sign Zone on BBC 1 on Tues 26/Wed 27 February.

The wisdom of Mma Ramotswe

I have begun a re-read of the Number 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith before the film is broadcast at Easter. I remember how much I enjoyed reading them the first time, waiting impatiently for each book to be published; I have finished reading the first book again and found it just as enjoyable as then.

Alexander McCall Smith's books must be read in the appropriate accent. The 44 Scotland Street and The Sunday Philosophy Club series demand a genteel Edinburgh inner voice, while Hugh Laurie's is the only voice to do justice to the Von Igelfeld books and the Ladies' Detective Agency books require the gentle, deliberate, clipped enunciation of Southern Africa. Sometimes, when I've been interrupted while absorbed in a book, I have answered the intruder in the persona of Domenica MacDonald, Isabel Dalhousie or Precious Ramotswe and I've seen my family making notes of these incidents, with very concerned expressions and exchanging knowing looks.

This book is full of humour, mostly subtle but occasionally outrageous:

"She felt terribly sorry for people who suffered from constipation, and she knew that there were many who did. There were probably enough of them to form a political party - with a chance of government perhaps - but what would such a party do if it was in power? Nothing, she imagined. It would try to pass legislation, but would fail."

Mma Ramotswe encounters scoundrels and corruption and sometimes worse but she tackles each situation with an effective mixture of simplicity and cunning learned from her teacher Mma Mothibi, whose 'rules for being good' were very straightforward:

"A boy must always rise early and say his prayers. Then he must clean his shoes and help his mother to prepare the family's breakfast, if they have breakfast. Some people have no breakfast because they are poor. Then he must go to school and do everything that his teacher tells him...... For girls, the rules are the same, but they must always be careful about boys ......"

The adult Mma Ramotswe still sees everything and everyone as Good or Bad: men cheat, women still have to be careful about boys, there is poverty but there is also peace and growing prosperity and Botswana is the best place to live. Sitting in her garden or driving along in her little white van, she ponders on the land and people she loves so much and her musings are profound in their simplicity: "I am just a tiny person in Africa, but there is a place for me, and for everybody, to sit down on this earth and touch it and call it their own."

I had forgotten the warm glow that comes from reading these books, they are funny and charming and full of wisdom. I do hope the film does them justice. Now I'm going to start on The Tears of the Giraffe.

Lark Rise to Candleford#3

I get a lot of silent visitors to my Lark Rise posts following the showing of the BBC series on Sunday evenings. You are all most welcome and I'd love to hear your comments.

I realised during the first few minutes of the first episode that I would only be able to watch it if I could forget that it was meant to bear any likeness to Flora Thompson's books. Wintry Sunday evenings cry out for a bit of gentle period drama, so I determined to swallow my indignation and my literary taste and to think of it as a sort of nineteenth century prequel to Jam and Jerusalem.

I have tried to enjoy it, really I have! BUT .... the dialogue is terrible, the accents are atrocious, the stories and characters thin and wooden .... I could go on but I know that lots of people are enjoying it. Please, won't someone tell me what I'm missing?

The Number 1 film

I discovered last night that this gorgeous book has been adapted for the screen. It is to be shown on BBC television at Easter and the rest of the world will see it later.

In view of my recent posts on the quality of television adaptations, I feel rather sheepish about saying how delighted I was to catch this news. I do hope the film does justice to the book. These pictures of Alexander McCall Smith suggest that he is happy with the production.

I'm just off to a weekend conference and I think I might smuggle my copy of No 1 Ladies in with me; I hope I don't laugh at inappropriate moments during the keynote presentations!

Translations and adaptations

Recent adaptations of classic literature for television dramatisation have left me wondering about the role of the adapter. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, an adapter is a person who makes slight changes to a book, play or other piece of text so that it can be performed. What word, I wonder, should we use for a person who makes major changes to a book so that it can attract a large television audience?

In my early years of teaching, I used to collaborate with a colleague on adapting children's stories for performance in school. We always kept in mind the authentic voice of the author, only making those changes necessary for narrative to become dialogue and for the action to take place within a limited time. Even when we had a go at a musical adaptation of 'The Selfish Giant' the work obviously belonged to Oscar Wilde and not Butcher and Graham. I know that our audience never numbered more than a hundred but we felt the same responsibility towards our production as we would had we been writing for the London stage.

We saw in the recent production of Cranford that it is possible to make quite significant changes to a work, in this case three books, and still retain the integrity of the original. The same cannot be said of other television adaptations, where the behaviour of characters is changed, new characters and storyline are introduced and even, in some cases, the end of the story completely changed from that of the original book. Take, for instance, the recent Andrew Davies adaptation of Sense and Sensibility: much of the dramatic tension of the novel lies in the reader's ignorance of Willoughby's true nature and his connection with Colonel Brandon, yet Davies' adaptation opens with the seduction of Brandon's ward by Willoughby. Is this Andrew Davies improving on Jane Austen?

I'm sure that in a previous age, when honesty and integrity were quite commonplace virtues, programmes such as Lark Rise to Candleford would have been presented as having been 'based on an idea by Flora Thompson'. Then we would not expect to find a feckless Dawn French character, a benevolent squire with an unhappy wife or two communities pacing out the distance between hamlet and town in the book of the same name.

The role of the adapter is very different from that of the translator. I have been thinking a good deal about this since reading Irene Nemirovsky's Suite Francaise, translated by Sandra Smith. The book is so beautifully written that I wondered how much of that is attributable to the author and how much to the translator. Here is what Sandra Smith has to say about translating:

Translation is always a daunting task, especially when the translator has so much respect and affection for the author. It is also a creative task that often requires 'leaps of faith': a feeling for tone, sensing the author's intention, taking the liberty to interpret and sometimes to correct.

I suppose I must brush up my rusty French and look to the original in order to make a real judgement, but my instinct tells me that this book is true to the author's intention. I am looking forward to reading more of Irene Nemirovsky's books, all translated by Sandra Smith: Fire in the Blood, Le Bal and David Golder are on my reading list for 2008.

I've been playing around with semantics all day: adaptation, interpretation, translation, transliteration. Then on to concepts and qualities: integrity, honesty, authenticity, leaps of faith and taking of liberties. I'm too lazy to read books in their original language but I want to know that the translator is trustworthy. I love costume dramas and I think the works of Dickens and Trollope, in particular, lend themselves to dramatisation but I want to recognise the characters and events portrayed. Perhaps there should be a Code of Conduct for those engaged in this work.

Lark Rise to Candleford#2

Oh dear! Whoever asked Bill Gallagher to adapt Flora Thomson's Lark Rise to Candleford for the BBC forgot to tell him to read the trilogy first. I watched the first episode, screened last night but, apart from a few names, there was nothing bearing any resemblance to the book I love so much. We had been warned that characters and events had been 'extended' for the sake of dramatic effect, but 'invented' would have been a more accurate description.

Lark Rise to Candleford is a detailed account of country life in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, seen through the affectionate but honest eye of a close observer. Every aspect of life is dealt with. She describes 'THE BOX' which every farm labourer's wife sent to the Rectory for, when a new baby was born. "It contained half a dozen of everything - tiny shirts, swathes, long flannel barrows, nighties, and napkins, made, kept in repair, and lent for every confinement by the clergyman's daughter. In addition to the loaned clothes, it would contain, as a gift, packets of tea and sugar and a tin of patent groats for making gruel." The contents of the Box could be kept for a month, until the baby could be dressed in 'short clothes', thus the poorer families were saved the expense of providing a layette.

At the other end of life, we see what happens to the elderly who were 'not in comfortable circumstances': "... as soon as they got past work, they had either to go to the workhouse or find accommodation in the the already overcrowded cottages of their children. A father or mother could usually be squeezed in, but there was never room for both, so one child would take one parent and another the other, and even then, as they used to say, there was always the in-law to be dealt with. It was a common thing to hear ageing people say they hoped God would be pleased to take them before they got past work and became a trouble to anybody."

In between these extremities of life, we find accounts of home, school, play, men working in the fields or trade, women calling on each other for a 'bit of a tell'. Then there are the high points of the year such as Harvest Home and the very special celebration of Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1887. The fundamental feature of Flora Thompson's writing is her love and respect for the people she grew up with and the places they inhabited: "She was never to see any of these again, but she was to carry a mental picture of them, to be recalled at will, through the changing scenes of a lifetime...... the threads which were to bind her to her native country were more enduring than gossamer. They were spun of love and kinship and cherished memories."

The BBC production of Lark Rise to Candleford may prove to be a pleasant way to while away an hour on a Sunday evening if all you want is a little costume drama but, whatever you do, don't confuse it with the book of the same name.

Lark Rise to Candleford

I have to spend the next few days re-reading Flora Thompson's trilogy about life in a tiny Oxfordshire village in the late nineteenth century. The BBC is about to start showing a ten-part dramatisation of Lark Rise to Candleford.

This is my favourite edition of the book; although it is an abridged version, it contains wonderful illustrations. Every flower, leaf and shrub mentioned in the text is pictured alongside and there are many contemporary paintings of rural life, now housed in municipal and national museums and galleries. It is a joy to look at it.

While I am delighted that the BBC is indulging our need for quality drama, I do wonder why we they have to lump them all together. Lark Rise to Candleford starts at 8.40pm on Sunday, immediately after the third episode of Sense and Sensibility. I may well have to record it to watch during the week. I like to savour such treats, not gulp them all at one sitting.

The cast looks very interesting and you can preview some more of them and their costumes here.

Sense and Sensibility again

Jane Austen fan though I am, I tuned in to the latest BBC offering last night with some hesitation. Their last offering of Oliver Twist had made me very wary and, after all, there have been so many film and television versions of Sense and Sensibility in recent years.
Five minutes in to the new Andrew Davies adaptation, though, I was captivated. Hattie Morahan was superb as Elinor Dashwood, much closer to the Jane Austen character than Emma Thompson was in the 1995 film. Dan Stevens is far more convincing as Edward Ferrars than Hugh Grant was, but then, who wouldn't be?
I suppose I could be a little prejudiced by the fact that the programme was filmed here in North Devon. The stunning coast and countryside at Hartland have featured in RD posts on coastal walks already. The Dashwoods cottage is on the Hartland Abbey estate and last night we saw this cove. I am looking forward to seeing more of our local scenery in future episodes.

It looks like an excellent production, so why am I not feeling more enthusiastic? Perhaps it is the fact that we keep seeing the same stories re-worked. Did we need another version of Sense and Sensibility at this time? Why not tackle some other authors? Suggestions welcomed.

Christmas ballet

The BBC saved the best of the holiday programmes for this afternoon: the delightful Frederick Ashton ballet, Tales of Beatrix Potter.

I have loved Beatrix Potter all my life. One of my earliest memories from nursery school is of being allowed to play with the little wooden figures of Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddleduck and the rest of the characters, which sat beside the books on Mrs Pendlebury's special shelf. One had to have been very good to win this privilege.

I loved and indeed, still love, to handle the books; what an inspiration to make them such a perfect size for little hands. The illustrations are wonderful and the stories are perfect for children and adults. I enjoyed having them read to me when I was small, then being able to read them for myself; I never tired of reading them to my own children and guess what my first purchase was when I knew the first grandchild was on the way!


The complete works are here, waiting to be read and perhaps I'll let a really good grandchild look at my Beswick figures of Pigling Bland, Pig-Wig, Aunt Pettitoes and Little Pig Robinson.

The ballet represents the characters perfectly and the costumes are amazing. Our video of the 1971 film has been worn out so I hope there is a DVD available to replace it, but there is nothing quite like the live ballet. I couldn't get to Covent Garden and I'm not sure they would have let me in without a child in tow, but sitting in my armchair with the remains of the Christmas chocolates was a satisfactory second best. Thank you BBC, my licence fee was well spent.
I always wondered if my own little ballerina might be Jemima Puddleduck one day, although Hunca Munca might have been more in character! I think this photo was taken at the last exam before she gave up classical ballet for modern dance. Oh well, a mother can dream.... perhaps the grandchild will .....

Autumn viewing

At last there is going to be something good to watch on television. The first of five episodes of 'Cranford' will be shown on BBC1 tonight. The Beeb will be getting back to what it does so well, but so rarely nowadays, first rate dramatisation of literary classics. That will be followed by 'The Blair Years.' It is much too soon to get a balanced view of the ten Blair years but I shall watch with interest. I don't expect to see any regret but I hope for some honesty and I hope, too, that credit will be given for the achievements which have been overshadowed by the war and the shame of spin.

ITV will be competing for viewers with its own classic brand: 'I'm a celebrity get me out of here', 'Katie and Peter unleashed' and a darts championship. Was ITV taken over by the Sun newspaper or The News of the World when I wasn't paying attention?

I suppose I should be grateful for two watchable programmes in one evening. Last night, having trawled through all of the listings, the only programme I could find worth watching was a selection of favourite scenes from 'The Vicar of Dibley' on Sky. The MM and I were surprised at how funny and touching those scenes are still. We had intended to watch just for a short time over a glass of wine but we watched the lot and finished the bottle!

The Amazing Mrs Pritchard?

I really enjoyed this far-fetched fantasy of a general election without politics (BBC 1 Tues 3 Oct). Jane Horrocks is always superbly funny and she kept the thin and outlandish plot moving almost to the end when, sadly, it started to take itself seriously. Then I realised it wasn't the end at all but the start of a series. I don't know where it can go from here, especially as the writers appear to have debunked to the Conservative Party Conference to advise David Cameron on politics with no policies.