Monday, November 19, 2018

Quarter 3 Reviews- 002 Historical Drama- Old


002 Historical Drama – Old

An earlier episode of Tommies also makes the list.  4 May 1915 is one of the better and more poignant Tommies from the early run, in which Mickey Bliss (Lee Ross) goes almost psychopathic after suffering a disappointment (his superior Captain Roger Patton [Damian Lynch] won’t listen to his insight that the Germans are listening into field telephone conversations) and a yearning for Celestine de Tullio (Pippa Nixon).  He foments a fight in which he destroys a car and attacks a blameless soldier, while Jemhedar Parvin Jodha (Rudy Dharmalingum) helps him face that this stupid lack of judgment may quite literally be the end of him.  Miraculously, not only does Patton get Mickey out of this scape, he also recommends him for promotion; that way, Mickey can influence Signals policy more directly.  Thus, I finally get to understand why and how Mickey goes from Sergeant to Captain Bliss.  The poignancy comes from the autistic character “Spiridon” (Adrian Scarborough) whose helpful singlemindedness avails him of nothing when the lorry in which he is trying to get back to camp after a rest day is blown up.  To that end, the story ends with a sing-song instead of the usual Nina Perry music. Written by Jonathan Ruffell and directed by David Hunter.  It also starred Matthew Watson, Mark Edel-Hunt, David Cann, Elaine Claxton, and the commentator was Indira Varma. 

I believe I’ve expressed before some interest in the varying fortunes of Martyn Wade’s radio drama.  Well, he can add another feather to his cap with Gondal from 1992, re-broadcast for the bicentenary of Emily Brontë’s birth.  It’s a familiar story:  as children, Branwell, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë play with a set of toy soldiers given to them by their father.  They create a fantasy world, which Branwell and Charlotte give up as they reach maturity but which to Emily (Janet Maw), the reclusive, self-centered, passionate sister, cleaves almost until the end of her life.  As Wade makes very clear, it’s here that Emily develops the stories and relationships that will fuel her only novel, Wuthering Heights, whose genesis is developed as a bit of one-upmanship with Charlotte, with whom she feels a (un)healthy rivalry as well as sisterly understanding.  Emily pretends not to mind that Jane Eyre sells better than Wuthering Heights; she pretends to be above such things as romantic attachments, when in truth she has never been able to find anyone to meet her exacting standards.  But back to Gondal, one of the fantasy realms the children develop, in which Lady Augusta (Amanda Quick) is the proud, tempestuous (anti)heroine clearly modeled on Emily and prescient of Cathy Earnshaw, and where Angelica (Moir Leslie) is the sweet-tempered riff on Anne.  In this vaguely medieval saga, Augusta marries badly but longs for the mysterious, dark-featured Fernando (Nathaniel Parker), who loves her in turn.  They have no happy ever after, basically paving the way for each other’s destruction, with Angelica’s father Alfred (Clive Francis) getting caught in the middle.  The only character who features in both worlds is Augusta’s mother’s maid, Tabitha (Linda Polan), who is also the Nelly Dean-like servant in the Brontë’s household.  It was occasionally difficult to tell the voices of Augusta and Emily apart, though it was appropriate that sometimes in the middle of a sweeping Gondal moment you would be interrupted by Emily having to do some mundane task.  I found it quite moving as it ended with Emily’s death.  It was directed by Cherry Cookson.

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