An Inspector Calls, The Go-Between, Cider with Rosie and other BBC "autumn classics"

[Richard Tarleton]

Ken Stott particularly superb - and Thewlis too.

Terrific performances both. I didn't discover Ken Stott - padded out for this part? - until the magnificent Your Cheatin' Heart in 1990 - what a fine actor, great at exuding menace.

I was in the possibly unique position of never having seen the play, done "straight" or otherwise, but it was easy to see this treading an uneasy line between literal (the non-JBP scenes with the girl) and ghost story. They plumped for the latter when the Thewlis character vanished from the ward near the end. Perhaps people's attention spans or acceptance of theatrical conventions too limited for it to have been done "straight" on TV....

[Pianorak]

Ken Stott was excellent in Tennessee Williams' play "The Rose Tattoo" which I saw in London in the early nineties. KS and Julie Walters playing the parts portrayed by Burt Lancaster and Anna Magnani in the film version.

[Nick Armstrong]

I was in the possibly unique position of never having seen the play, done "straight" or otherwise,

Not unique - same here! (Hence my 'spoiler' concern! )

[Richard Tarleton]

Started on the BBC Go-Between - can't quite see the point of it yet, lots of 'Silvikrin-advert' style drifty soft-focus summer closeups, generic 'Anglo-Arvo-Pärt' soundtrack, the odd banal dialogue cliché ('good things come in small packages'). So far, key moments of menace (e.g. the first time Mrs M / Marian trap Leo into lying) seem to have gone almost for naught, and the little lad playing Leo is understandably not a patch on Dominic Guard...

Not sure this deserves a thread of its own....nicely done although I too couldn't quite see the point of doing it, again.....I thought Lesley Mandeville as Mrs M was particularly fine.

Can anyone remember who played the older Marian (by now the Dowager Lady Trimingham) at the end of the Losey film? Was it just Julie Christie in old makeup? The part is not separately credited in the online listings (Wiki, imdb etc.) so perhaps it was. It would have been a stretch to make up this Marian to be so much older. I see Edward Fox won a BAFTA for best supporting actor for Lord T.

A touching moment, as Mrs Maudsley was rushing little Leo out at the end to find the saucy pair, was the way they passed the ribbon-bedecked bicycle, Leo's birthday present, in the hall. Just a split second. Did he ever get the bicycle? They really were all foul to him, except Lord T.

[Conchis]

Not sure this deserves a thread of its own....nicely done although I too couldn't quite see the point of doing it, again.....I thought Lesley Mandeville as Mrs M was particularly fine.

Can anyone remember who played the older Marian (by now the Dowager Lady Trimingham) at the end of the Losey film? Was it just Julie Christie in old makeup? The part is not separately credited in the online listings (Wiki, imdb etc.) so perhaps it was. It would have been a stretch to make up this Marian to be so much older. I see Edward Fox won a BAFTA for best supporting actor for Lord T.

A touching moment, as Mrs Maudsley was rushing little Leo out at the end to find the saucy pair, was the way they passed the ribbon-bedecked bicycle, Leo's birthday present, in the hall. Just a split second. Did he ever get the bicycle? They really were all foul to him, except Lord T.

It was indeed a heavily aged-up Julie Christie - shot in mottled light, of course, so the 'work' wouldn't be so obvious. Christie was 28/29 when the film was shot, so already a good ten years too old for the part.

A great bit of casting in the film was Margaret Leighton as Mrs. Maudsley - she did actually look like Julie Christie's mother.

I can recall being taught this book at A level by a somewhat virginal spinster teacher: she got terribly flustered when describing the 'symbolism' of clouds being pierced by church spires, cricket bats and wickets and (iirc) the bicycle and its saddle. A few knowing looks were exchanged among us students.

As to Inspector....I'm wondering if I've ever actually seen the play performed? I've read it and seen the Alistair Sim film but I'm not sure I've seen a stage production. Priestley was a master of the 'vaguely intriguing potboiler' - but I don't think any of his plays are that good and none of them have aged well (hence the tinkering by a 'contemporary' dramatist). Even in the forties, this was hardly radical storytelling - but still, today, probably too 'radical' for some (including my stepfather, who reportedly snorted 'You call that a plot?!' when it finished).

[Nick Armstrong]

It was indeed a heavily aged-up Julie Christie - shot in mottled light, of course, so the 'work' wouldn't be so obvious. Christie was 28/29 when the film was shot, so already a good ten years too old for the part.

A great bit of casting in the film was Margaret Leighton as Mrs. Maudsley - she did actually look like Julie Christie's mother.

Agreed about Leighton - gave me the creeps far more than Lesley Manville!

But the Julie Christie 'aged' face for me was the only weak link in the Losey film, so clearly latex...

[Conchis]

Agreed about Leighton - gave me the creeps far more than Lesley Manville!

But the Julie Christie 'aged' face for me was the only weak link in the Losey film, so clearly latex...

Ot, but the same mistake was made in the film of ANOTHER COUNTRY, where Rupert Everett (in his early 'twenties at the time) was 'aged up' to his fifties/sixties. He was also shot in quite explicit light, which just made things worse.

Not a great (or even a good) film, anyway - Anna Massey's marvellous performance apart.

[Nick Armstrong]

I hope johncorrigan won't mind that I have adjusted the title of this thread to bring all the above 'on-topic'.... !

[Tevot]

Hello there,

These lines have stuck with me since I first saw AIC at Bradford Playhouse nigh on 30 years ago...

"And I tell you that the time will soon come when, if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish"

Saw the Alastair Sim version over the summer while in the UK... Certainly a curio... not really sure that Bryan Forbes' interpretation of Eric Birling worked...

Looking forward to seeing Thewlis though ... but in some kind of parallel universe wouldn't it be great to see Samuel L Jackson star as Inspector Goole ?

By 'eck. That would be retribution and a half

Best Wishes,

Tevot

[Barbirollians]

Have now watched, thanks!

Have just read Stanley's post about Sim's performance, thanks for that (and for the warning ferns!).

Apart from the ambiguity at the end (the nature of the "Inspector" and Priestleian 'time slip'), the thrust of the play, the messages about thoughtless / callous capitalists &c. &c., aren't exactly subtle are they...

But I can't imagine the thing being better acted than by that troupe - all fleshing out the characters in a completely convincing way (Ken Stott particularly superb - and Thewlis too).

Started on the BBC Go-Between - can't quite see the point of it yet, lots of 'Silvikrin-advert' style drifty soft-focus summer closeups, generic 'Anglo-Arvo-Pärt' soundtrack, the odd banal dialogue cliché ('good things come in small packages'). So far, key moments of menace (e.g. the first time Mrs M / Marian trap Leo into lying) seem to have gone almost for naught, and the little lad playing Leo is understandably not a patch on Dominic Guard...

I thought that The Go Between was excellent and that young Jack Hollington was in fact much better cast than Dominic Guard . The Losey film for all its splendour especially Julie Christie was a different piece because both Guard and Richard Gibson were much older than 12 . There was something much more unsettling and abusive about the adult's treatment of Leo in this version .

[Nick Armstrong]

I thought that The Go Between was excellent and that young Jack Hollington was in fact much better cast than Dominic Guard . The Losey film for all its splendour especially Julie Christie was a different piece because both Guard and Richard Gibson were much older than 12 . There was something much more unsettling and abusive about the adult's treatment of Leo in this version .

There's a gauntlet thrown down! I disagree with you, but good for you I'm probably the stick-in-the-mud, the equivalent of having Klemperer's reading of something hard-wired into my brain and then hearing Zinman do the same piece!

[Serial_Apologist]

There's a gauntlet thrown down! I disagree with you, but good for you I'm probably the stick-in-the-mud, the equivalent of having Klemperer's reading of something hard-wired into my brain and then hearing Zinman do the same piece!

From my own viewpoint Leo would have been at best ambivalently treated for his relative lack of social standing, but especially given the way in which, once exposed, his unwitting role as go between would have been taken as a slight against his "generous" hosts, who would probably have treated his presence as reinforcing the "superiority" of their status and capacity to deign to having their son's schoolmate to stay and spend money on a birthday gift the boy's (one assumes) single parent mother would not have been able to afford, remembering that Leo had arrived with only one change of unseasonal clothing.

The callous way in which "arrangements" had been made to dispatch Burgess to the fortunes of war was also revealing of a prevailing attitude towards social "inferiors".

In addition, an earlier poster's objection that the Julie Christie representation would have been a good deal older than the character in the book would have made little difference in terms her age towards the scandal of the revelation that one from an upper class household would have unleashed, back in 1900.

[Nick Armstrong]

Barbs - you have the Telegraph critic on your side!

Referring back to my first impressions (#30 above), my "'Silvikrin-advert' style drifty soft-focus summer closeups" are to the critic "impressionistic glances and lush screen grabs of floating pollen and wafting corn", and my "generic 'Anglo-Arvo-Pärt' soundtrack" becomes in his words "Christian Henson's swooning soundtrack"...

Oh well, eye of the beholder, de gustibus, &c. &c....

[Barbirollians]

Barbs - you have the Telegraph critic on your side!

Referring back to my first impressions (#30 above), my "'Silvikrin-advert' style drifty soft-focus summer closeups" are to the critic "impressionistic glances and lush screen grabs of floating pollen and wafting corn", and my "generic 'Anglo-Arvo-Pärt' soundtrack" becomes in his words "Christian Henson's swooning soundtrack"…
Oh well, eye of the beholder, de gustibus, &c. &c....

I didn't find the relationship between the protagonists anyway near as believable as that between Bate and Christie - and there was rather more of the slightly impoverished rich about Margaret Leighton's household . I just think that for all the quality of the acting changing Leo from a 12/13 year old to a 15 year old changes the whole tone of the story and made it all a bit more knowing .

The new adaptation was able to hold its head up high in the company of the 1971 film .

[Conchis]

From my own viewpoint Leo would have been at best ambivalently treated for his relative lack of social standing, but especially given the way in which, once exposed, his unwitting role as go between would have been taken as a slight against his "generous" hosts, who would probably have treated his presence as reinforcing the "superiority" of their status and capacity to deign to having their son's schoolmate to stay and spend money on a birthday gift the boy's (one assumes) single parent mother would not have been able to afford, remembering that Leo had arrived with only one change of unseasonal clothing.

The callous way in which "arrangements" had been made to dispatch Burgess to the fortunes of war was also revealing of a prevailing attitude towards social "inferiors".

In addition, an earlier poster's objection that the Julie Christie representation would have been a good deal older than the character in the book would have made little difference in terms her age towards the scandal of the revelation that one from an upper class household would have unleashed, back in 1900.

No, but asaicr, Hartley described Marianne as being 'around 18.'