Posts Tagged ‘tv’
Mma Ramotswe – Traditional Build
Mma Precious Ramotswe finds herself alone in the world with enough money to be able to please herself and do what she wants and she wants to open a detective agency. She moves to the big city, Gaborone, rents an old post office and builds a community around her. She is a warm-hearted lady with a body to match and is proud of her size, describing herself as a lady with a traditional build. By the end of the first feature-length episode she has solved several cases and has received a proposal of marriage. It is based on the book of the same name, No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith.
Just like everyone else I’ve spoken to I absolutely adored the books. They breathed the Botswana I’d like to know. They were colourful and just oozed beauty. Jill Scott plays Mma Ramotswe in the series and does a very nice job, she has just the right amount of everything. The other actors also do a wonderful job. I haven’t checked, but one face I noticed that seemed familiar was in a crowd shot and it looked like the gentleman who played the lead in The Gods Must Be Crazy, I don’t want to check and see I was wrong and I don’t want to check and see they haven’t credited actors without lines, basically I just want to think I’m right.
The funeral scene was the most beautiful funeral I’ve ever seen. The singing was just lovely and I felt it would have helped the grieving process. If that’s the way they do funerals out there then I think we could learn from them. They couldn’t have done anything about the scenery, it was so beautifully fabulous.
The only thing I noticed that was wrong is that in the TV series Mma Ramotswe addresses Mr Matekoni as Mr Matekoni and in the book she’s always much more formal and calls him Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. It’s a little thing and I can’t wait until next week, we’ve only got 60 minutes for the second and subsequent episodes, I’m sure it’s not going to be long enough. I totally recommend you tune in next Sunday night at 8:30pm to Aunty ABC and watch the magic unfold.
Elisabeth Beresford and The Wombles
If you’re my age (and no, I’m not telling you), then you’ll probably remember some enchanting creatures in both book and TV form. The Wombles were just fabulous and helped teach kids about cleaning up and recycling. I absolutely adored them.
I was gob smacked last month to hear of the author’s death. Elisabeth Beresford was born on the 6th August in 1926 and was 84 when she died. I was really upset. I have such fond memories of Great Uncle Bulgaria and Tobermory, not to mention Orinoco. What I didn’t realise at the time, and I don’t quite understand how come as I have the song going through my head, is that there was a TV series, I really only remember the books. Seriously, how does one only know the books and yet have the theme song from the TV series running through their heads?
Just because you need the theme song too.
In 1973 and 1975 Filmfair made two series of five minute episodes using stop motion. Bernard Cribbins voiced all ten of the Wombles featured. If you’re a Doctor Who fan you will have seen him as Donna’s grandfather in the David Tennant series. He also did a song called Right Said Fred where the men are trying to move a very large piece of furniture, they stop for a cup of tea at frequent intervals and the furniture is left on the landing.
Buffy, well actually Joss Whedon
This is another of the panels I attended at Aussie Con 4, the real title was High stakes: The Television Worlds of Joss Whedon and it was talking all about his various television productions and how good they were. This will be a shortish post as I don’t want to give away spoilers for those people who have just discovered him or are considering watching his works.
There are various things that are key to Whedon’s brilliance. They are as follows:
Now, I could explain each point but that would mean giving examples and that’s spoilers. I know his works have been around for quite some time, but some of the people in the session had barely started watching Buffy and others had seen everything he’d done. At the time I’d seen bits and pieces of both Buffy and Angel so it was quite interesting to me to get other people’s viewpoints and see some of my own ideas come back to me.
New book!!!
I sort of promised people an article yesterday and it had to be an article with photos. All fine and dandy except the battery in the camera gave up the ghost in the middle of the photo session so it had to wait until after I’d charged it. I’ll go against convention and give you a photo of the book first before I talk about it and the author.
Addams Family Album
I got it through freecycle which a wonderful organisation for getting odd things. I am very careful with the things I collect through freecycle and only ask for things I want to keep. I never ask for or offer to pick up things I want to sell.
I’m always excited by eclectic books that retrace my childhood and when I saw this book…well, you guessed it, I was excited. You’ve seen the front cover and the pictures inside are all really great. They’re all so reminiscent of the TV series I saw in my childhood, funny about that as the original cartoons predated the TV series. I’d tell you about my favourite character but I can’t pick one, they’re all my favourites.
So, a bit of useful stuff for you before sending you off to look at the Charles Addams’ website. Charles Samuel Addams was born in New Jersey in 1912, he was 21 when he was first published by The New Yorker and continued to be a contributer until his death in 1988. The TV series first appeared in 1964 and coalesced the 50 or so drawings they were based on into something a bit more concrete that has lasted through the decades. You can find far more information about Addams and his legacy on the website.
The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was originally a television adventures series first released in 1964. The books followed fairly close behind starting in 1965. They were a wonderful series full of tongue in cheek references, humour and great actors. Ian Fleming had a big hand in developing this series and there were references to James Bond.
Napoleon Solo was played by Robert Vaughan (currently playing Albert Stroller in Hustle), Ilya Kuryakin by David McCallum (currently playing Dr Donald Mallard in Navy NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service) and Leo G. Carroll played Alexander Waverly. This was the basic cast and many stars of the day had guest roles. William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy paired together two years before Star Trek, the gorgeous and glamorous Barbara Feldon (from Get Smart), Robert Culp, Vincent Price, Joan Collins, Terry-Thomas, Nancy Sinatra, Leslie Nielson, Kurt Russell and Angela Lansbury among many others.
There appear to be 23 books in the core collection and others in the periphery as well as some spinoffs. For many years I thought I had the whole collection until tonight when I thought I’d talk about them and in doing some research discovered I’m quite a way off. I have numbers 1 through to 16, The ABC of Espionage and The Girl From Espionage numbers 1 and 3 and the best one of all is one I can’t name as it’s in Hebrew. And just to make collecting harder I’ve been checking the titles I have with this list on Wikipedia and they don’t match up so I have no idea which ones I’m missing. I’ll be keeping an eye out for more.
I’ve read all of the English ones several times and the magic has been the same each time. I’ve also managed to pick up some recordings on VHS of some of the episodes. How I picked them up is an interesting story and I only have my part of it. Some amazing person had carefully recorded many, many series and movies from the TV. They had taken great care to remove as many ads as possible, labelling the cases with the appropriate clipping from the The Age’s Green Guide and a catalogue number. I can’t believe the amount of work and care that went into amassing this collection, when we saw them outside the house there were three big boxes and more arrived some time later. We managed to pick up some treasures including a couple of episodes of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Dad’s Army.