strange and random happenstance

Rebecca
Based on the book by Daphne Du Maurier
Starring: Joanna David, Elspeth March, Jeremy Brett, Hugh Morton, Richard Willis, Anna Massey, Terrence Hardiman, Vivian Pickles, Leon Sinden, William Morgan Sheppard, Julian Holloway, Virginia Denham, Sylvia Coleridge, Harriet Walter, Neville Hughes, Victor Lucas, Richardson Morgan, Robert Flemyng, and John Saunders
Release Date: 1979
Rating: ★★★★
Out of Print

Mrs. Van Hopper has her own friend of the bosom. Paid to be her companion, but really acting as her dogsbody. When Mrs. Van Hopper falls ill her friend catches the attention of widower Maxim de Winter and when Mrs. Van Hopper decides to head home to New York Maxim gives the young girl a choice; New York with Mrs. Van Hopper or Manderely with him. As his wife. She hastily marries Maxim and becomes the second Mrs. de Winter. Though she worries and frets that she won't be up to the job, especially once she sees Manderely in person and meets the housekeeper Mrs. Danvers. She feels overwhelmed and Mrs. Danvers does everything in her power to make things worse for her new mistress. It doesn't help that Rebecca has left her imprint everywhere, not just physically, but emotionally. She is in the hearts and minds of the staff, the locals, and even Maxim and his family. So much is expected of the new bride, even a lavish costume ball, just like Rebecca used to host. How is she to continue when Maxim is obviously questioning the wisdom of returning to Manderely? But is it the place or the new bride he regrets more? Only the revelation of a horrible secret will show the truth to the young bride. 

If you are looking for the most accurate adaptation of Rebecca you couldn't do better than this version made by the BBC in the late seventies if you tried, and oh how I've tried. While my heart will always belong to Alfred Hitchcock's version as the obsession of my youth, this one is now my favorite, in spite of the whole last episode being out of sync. This was just chock-a-block with 1970s BBC goodness. If shows like The Pallisers, The Duchess of Duke Street, and Upstairs, Downstairs are your idea of what quality TV should be, then this one's for you! There's a nostalgic quality to shows that went for acting chops over everything else. The sets might be recycled and familiar, yes, that is the window from the maid's garret in Upstairs, Downstairs in a dowdy room in Monte Carlo, and that is the drawing room from The Pallisers transplanted to Manderley with a desk hiding a certain broken cupid, but that just gives you the familiarity that makes this adaptation feel like coming home. While I had never seen this adaptation before, Jeremy Brett and Joanna David surrounded by so many actors I have seen for years and years on the small screen just made me giddy that for once I'd found a Rebecca with less to complain about that made me feel like I was visiting an old friend.

Though, this is me, so you know I will have something to complain about; and that complaint is Joanna David, though it's through no fault of her own. Or maybe a little because I didn't like how they bracketed the show with how she was telling someone about her dream about Manderley while wearing pearls, but that was the director's fault. So the reason I had issues with Joanna David was because of the 1997 adaptation of Rebecca staring Emilia Fox and Charles Dance. Emilia Fox not only played the second Mrs. de Winter, a role here played by Joanna David, but she happens to be Joanna David's daughter. I've never really thought of them looking too much alike, but watching this adaptation from the seventies, I'd occasionally catch a similarity, the way Joanna tilted her head or pursed her lips and I wouldn't be seeing her anymore I'd be seeing her daughter and seeing the same expressions flit across her face was almost unnerving. Oh, how I wish I had seen this adaptation first. Because to constantly remind me of the atrocity that was the 1997 adaptation is a sin. Yet it's a sin that, logically, I shouldn't hold against them because this other adaptation was almost twenty years in the future. But then again I am fickle. Thankfully Jeremy Brett is no Charles Dance.

Yet then there's the perfection of Anna Massey as Mrs. Danvers to make you forget your woes. If I were to gather up all the Mrs. Danvers she would win hands down. She is perfection without ever veering too far into the crazy skid. She's not self-immolating like Judith Anderson or the only bright, yet undeniably unhinged, spot in a horrid production like Diana Rigg. She's simply perfection. Because the truth is Mrs. Danvers is a real human, not a caricature, and despite all her actions, they are rooted in her connection and love for Rebecca, no matter how obsessive that love was. I first fell in love with Anna Massey's acting when I watched He Knew He Was Right. This is a pitch perfect adaptation of Anthony Trollope's book that I love so much I even mentioned it to David Tennant that time I met him. Anna Massey stands in the way of a marriage but will break your heart when she relents to the match. After this I started searching out her work and realized I'd seen her for years in everything from Midsomer Murders to The Darling Buds of May. Yet it's the scene in Rebecca's bedroom when she shows it off to the second Mrs. de Winter that she will destroy you with her range. Going from triumph to boasting to melancholy all in the blink of an eye. Grief as restrained madness. Perfection! 

You'd think with all this superb talent that everyone is perfection in the cast. Well, you'd be wrong because there's Jack Favell... Jack is usually the character that is always gotten right even in the worst of productions. But here? Julian Holloway isn't Jack. Not. One. Bit. Jack is a slimy character, a smooth operator who has no moral compass and you could easily see as jumping into bed with his cousin. Therefore he needs to be equally repellent and alluring. Here he's just repellant. He's a "good old boy" who you'd expect to see wandering around the grounds in plus fours! Rebecca wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole! Oddly enough there's a modern equivalent acting today, Rory Kinnear. This Jack IS 100% like all the characters Rory Kinnear played for years. I have spent years bemoaning him being everywhere, especially in National Theatre Live productions. Two years ago I swear he was in every single production so I avoided that season like the plague. But for as much as I dislike him, annoying me to no end with his profuse body of work, he at least has range, and a few productions I actually liked him in. This proto-Kinnear? He has the range of a teaspoon.

There is one thing though, besides giving this version a proper release, that would easily upgrade it in my opinion, and that is if the music were fixed. The score of this adaptation is literally all over the place. At the beginning of the third part for about three minutes I thought they might have finally gotten it right and then it slid back into a mish-mash of styles. You will catch glimpses of Debussy, which might have occasionally worked, especially as it sounds like, according to my brother, that they might have been using "La Mer" which would be appropriate, but then as the happy couple approaches Manderely the music goes all old school cinema. You feel like you're watching an old reel where the dastardly villain is twirling his mustache while he ties the maiden to the tracks and waits for the train to arrive. I assume the train in this musicians mind is Mrs. Danvers, but who knows. It's almost comical in it's appearance. But for how much that music might have been too old school and inappropriate, don't worry, here are some synths thrown in to make it modern or to, I don't know, remind you it's the seventies despite the fact Rebecca doesn't take place in the seventies? Seriously, the music needs an overhaul.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Adaptation, Anna Massey, Daphne Du Maurier, Du Maurier December, Emilia Fox, He Knew He Was Right, Jeremy Brett, Joanna David, Midsomer Murders, Rebecca, Rory Kinnear, The Pallisers, Upstairs Downstairs

That Silent Night by Tasha Alexander
Published by: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: October 16th, 2018
Format: Kindle, 71 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Colin has returned to Anglemore Park to spend the holidays with his family and eat his weight in mince pies. Of course nothing in Colin and Emily's life ever goes to plan, as is evidenced by the torch wielding villagers that have arrived at their door. Thankfully they are not about to be plunged into a Gothic drama as their butler Davis worried, because they are without pitchforks and have come for their liege's help. A dozen of the residents of Dunsford Vale, one of Anglemore Park's estate villages, are awkwardly seated in the cinnamon drawing room when they reveal that their problem is the arrival of a beast born out of local legend. Dunsford Vale is being plagued by a barghest. Emily almost laughs at the suggestion of the mythical monstrous black dog that folklore says heralds death and can be warded off with coffin nails. Seeing as she's only lived in Derbyshire for eight years her stance on the barghest is expected by the locals. What Emily doesn't expect is for Colin to believe them! He's an agent of the crown, a sensible man who has thrown all sense out the window. Could Colin be appeasing the villagers while planning on doing a proper investigation under the guise of a barghest hunt? As Emily and Colin dig deeper into the sightings, the missing food, the dead sheep, one person in the village seems more troubled by the beast than any other, the unfortunate Miss Fletcher. What could the beast have to do with Miss Fletcher? And can they solve the riddle of the barghest before Christmas so that things can get back to normal?

The second Davis asked if Emily and Colin were about to be plunged into a Gothic drama my first reaction was to snort with laughter, my second was to hope it was true. AND IT WAS! Not the ghostly Gothic in a foreign land, but the monstrous Gothic complete with a fainting heroine! It was Lady Emily does The Hound of the Baskervilles! Seeing as I revel in anything the slightest bit Gothic and I had literally just re-read The Hound of the Baskervilles for book club this mash-up was right up my alley! I can't believe I'd never heard of a barghest before as it fits neatly under the black spectral dog haunting that covers everything from the grim, made famous in my mind by Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, to the ghostly huntsman and his hounds who inspired Arthur Conan Doyle, to Yeth Hounds, a possibility that Emily's most astute son points out when no one has died from seeing the barghest. While I love all Emily's adventures I have become really invested in these Christmas tales. Tasha seems to free herself of all constraints and it's go big or go home time. The more absurd, the more fantastical the idea, the more humor, the more heart, the more holiday she is able to infuse it with. Missing jewels and Sebastian the gentleman thief baiting Emily's mother, a true ghost story, and now a spectral hound!?! When are these tales going to be collected in one volume that I can place on my bookshelf? I seriously need to know because these tales are the perfect concentration of everything I love most about Tasha's writing.

Though the true test of Tasha's writing is that she is able to create these characters we never want to let go. Every time I start one of her stories I hope my favorites will appear. I know it doesn't make sense to have Jeremy, Cecile, Margaret, Ivy, Davis, Nanny, the boys, and everyone else ever featured in every story, but that doesn't mean I don't hope for the revolving cast of characters to all appear at once. This attention to character is what makes Amid the Winter's Snow standout for me. The best stories, the best mysteries, in my mind are the ones where you could just hang out with the characters forever. Who cares if the culprit is caught so long as you are entertained by the inhabitants of the pages. This is why my most favorite British TV show of all time is Midsomer Murders. Yes, it strains credulity that they still have any population after all the murders and murderers in their midst. But all these quaintly named little towns are peopled with the most eccentric folks. That is how I felt about Dunsford Vale! This was like a turn of the century Badger's Drift haunted by a hound! The little old lady who cursed the hound away, the young girl who lost her fiance but still found solace in baking for the town, the sheep farmer who was willing to admit his sheep might have just wandered away instead of falling victim to a barghest, the shopkeeper who is viewed as an outsider because he moved to town at three months old. I felt intrigued and invested in each and every one of these characters. Of course now I'm going to want them to come back... damn, it's a double-edged sword falling in love with Tasha's characters...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alexander Autumn, Amid the Winter's Snow, Arthur Conan Doyle, Barghest, Christmas, Gothic, Grim, Harry Potter, Lady Emily, Midsomer Murders, Spectral Hound, Tasha Alexander, The Hound of the Baskervilles

Persuasion
Based on the book by Jane Austen
Release Date: April 1st, 2007
Starring: Sally Hawkins, Alice Krige, Anthony Head, Julia Davis, Michael Fenton Stevens, Mary Stockley, Peter Wight, Marion Bailey, Amanda Hale, Sam Hazeldine, Jennifer Higham, Rosamund Stephen, Stella Gonet, Nicholas Farrell, Louis Shergold, Rupert Penry-Jones, Joseph Mawle, Finlay Robertson, Tobias Menzies, Maisie Dimbleby, Sarah Buckland, and Tilly Tremayne
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

All is chaos at Kellynch Hall. Anne Elliot, the daughter of Sir Walter Elliot and the younger sister of Elizabeth Elliot has tried all she could to get her family to retrench but the time has come to face reality. As her father and sister stuff their faces with delicacies the decision has been made to lease the house and move the family to Bath. The father of Elizabeth's dear friend Mrs. Clay has found a naval man without children to take the house. A perfect fit, as his wife has nothing to do but make sure the house is preserved. Though upon hearing that their name is Croft Anne is beset by emotions she thought long gone. Eight years previously she was engaged to Mrs. Croft's brother, Fredrick Wentworth. The engagement was broken as it was viewed he didn't have any prospects. He is now a wealthy captain and is coming back into Anne's life looking for a wife. Anne has no hope that she might regain his heart, instead tucked away with her younger sister Mary at Uppercross she sees Fredrick set his cap at Mary's sisters-in-law, Louise and Henrietta Musgrove. Anne is aflutter and constantly aware of his presence. He is kind, but he is no longer hers and it aches so painfully. When the party from Uppercross takes a trip to Lyme Regis the expected course of all their lives is upended. Louisa has a fall and Captain Wentworth's friends must nurse her back to health while Anne is sent off to Bath to rejoin her family. Soon Captain Wentworth comes to Bath and Anne can't help hoping that perhaps things have changed. Perhaps she can hope again. She has somehow attracted the attention of her cousin and her father's heir, Mr. Elliot, and could this jealousy spark Captain Wentworth into making his feelings known? Or will Fredrick lose the love of his life because he embraced the opposite of all that he initially regretted in Anne's behavior all those years earlier?

ITV's Jane Austen season of 2007 did a lot to rectify issues I had in previous Austen adaptations. Consisting of Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion, while Northanger Abbey easily won the day, Persuasion wasn't that far behind. What this adaptation did while not being 100% faithful to the book was to give us an intimate, introspective, and artistic adaptation that emotionally connects you to Anne Elliot. This adaptation favored music that pulled on your heartstrings instead of attempting to jam all the book's dialogue into a ninety minute movie. This allows the quiet to fill the space, to let you dwell as Anne has dwelled on the loss of Wentworth all those years ago. You can actually feel a void opening up inside you as Anne's pain becomes your own. In this adaptation Anne is always the touchstone for the audience. She is front and center, it is her POV that we take as our own. The camera work reinforces this with her always on screen while other characters are off screen, their dialogue sometimes buried in the background, not fully heard, because as Anne is our conduit we only observe what she does and a human can only see and hear so much, they're not omniscient. Yet it takes awhile for the viewer to get at what the director is trying to do. For the first few minutes all you can think of is how jittery the handheld camera work is and how close the closeups are. But then you start to realize that the agitation in the camera work reflects Anne's state of mind, and while yes, it's jittery, you realize that it also makes what would be a static image on a television screen alive. The camera and Anne have a symbiotic relationship, with the modern technology being there to reflect Anne's emotions. This can be seen when Anne looks directly into the camera. It's not gimmicky like in Mansfield Park with a wry and arched brow that makes you want to slap Frances O'Conner or just too much like in The House of Mirth where you're counting Eric Stoltz's pores, here it lays bare Anne's soul thanks to Sally Hawkins's portrayal. Sally Hawkins is such an amazing actress that the smallest facial gesture, the intimation of a tear conveys so much. So while this adaptation doesn't go for strict accuracy the feeling is correct and that can cover a plethora of sins.

Yet sometimes the lack of faithfulness results in absurdities. The main absurdity of this adaptation is Anne and the running of Bath. As in, she seriously runs all over Bath after Captain Wentworth. First she runs after him when he suddenly leaves a concert and accosts him in the entryway. Secondly she runs after him when he leaves the Elliot's residence after he was inquiring after Kellynch Hall for his sister. This then starts the main running sequence that rivals Frank Potente's race through Berlin in Run Lola Run. She runs outside and is directed to the Croft's residence where she runs into Captain Harville who gives her Wentworth's letter and sends her to the Pump Room, where the Croft's say she's just missed him, and at this point when she starts running again, you might be laughing a little, because seriously, all the running! Yes, a panting Anne finally runs into Wentworth and all is well. But seriously, ALL THAT RUNNING THOUGH! Even Anne's poor friend Mrs. Smith had to run to tell Anne the truth about Mr. Elliot and his schemes. Yes, Mrs. Smith, who in the book can't even walk due to her horrid health joins Anne on a leg of her epic race. From the Elliot residence to the Croft residence running along the Royal Crescent actually away from the main part of town and everyone's residences for those who know Bath and who know where everyone in the book lives, poor Mrs. Smith is panting out her story. She's trying to break through to a distracted Anne about Mr. Elliot and yet, all I could think of was, seriously, stop running for five seconds and hear her out! But what bothered me more than just the absurdity of this situation was that this shows a total lack of propriety. A woman in this time period would NEVER have done this. And yes, I know that by showing Anne breaking with convention it shows how her love for Captain Wentworth overrides all other concerns. But still! This is Anne Elliot! It's a total break in her character. If I wasn't so emotionally invested by this point I would have totally written off the adaptation for this need for speed. But as it is, I was there for every single second of her run panting with fervent hope that she wouldn't be too late.

Of course the observant reader will notice that this running was all necessitated by the moving of some important dialogue to an earlier part of the book. Anne's speech about women loving longest after all hope is gone is originally said to Captain Harville and overhead by Captain Wentworth, leading to him writing his soul piercing confession which reunites them near the end of the book. Instead Anne's speech is entrusted to Benwick when they are all seated at the Harville's home in Lyme Regis. In between talking about poetry and prose she decides to drop her big speech as a confidence to Benwick while Wentworth is way on the other side of the room being quite boisterous and therefore he doesn't hear it. This of course then forces the narrative to find some other contrivance for Wentworth to hope and write that letter to Anne. Here it's Wentworth coming to the Elliot's residence in Bath and asking if his sister and brother-in-law should give up the lease on Kellynch because news has reached them that Mr. Elliot and Anne are to live there once they are married. Anne of course refutes this instantly and then is interrupted by Lady Russell and the running begins. This asking after Kellynch is just too forced. Too direct. Anne and Wentworth are both stumbling in the dark unable to realize that the other is still in love with them and this just seems too active. The way Austen wrote it is sweet. It dawns on Wentworth how wrong he was and thus lays his heart bare in the only way he has at his disposal, a letter. How else is he to hope unless he overhears Anne's speech? Asking after a lease on a house, that's not romantic, it's pragmatic. Plus he goes home, then writes the letter, then has to be hunted down. It's just too much work. There's also the fact that we know how they both feel so this seems to be done just to draw out the suspense a little longer. You can't have perfect happiness without a little hurdle, and apparently the previous eight years wasn't enough for this adaptation.

But any faults can be forgiven, even the odd detail of Captain Wentworth apparently buying Kellynch Hall, by the superb cast. You couldn't hope for a better cast. Of course the casting that made me giddy was that of Anthony Stewart Head as Sir Walter Elliot. Buffy fan that I am seeing "Giles" relish playing this vain and pompous man was a dream come true. Seriously, just cast him in almost anything and I'll watch. I say almost because there's no way anyone's getting me to watch that Shondaland show Still Star-Crossed. As for the rest of the cast, yes, it's a little weird seeing The Borg as Lady Russell, but she's a far less domineering Lady Russell than other versions, and I appreciate that. But I'm not going to sit here and just list why I love every actor, and seriously, I love every single actor in this all the way down to Cully's husband from Midsomer Murders, when there are two that need to be talked of, Sally Hawkins and Rupert Penry-Jones. Sally Hawkins has been the darling of independent British cinema for years, especially working with Mike Leigh, even winning a plethora of awards for their collaboration Happy-Go-Lucky. But it's her more miniseries roots that brought her to my attention first in Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky, and later in The Young Visiters, Byron, and the Sarah Waters adaptations of Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith. Yet it's in Persuasion that you can see how she can inhabit a role so completely that dialogue isn't even needed to convey what she is feeling. As for Rupert Penry-Jones, well I might have written him off as a pretty boy with The Prince of Hearts, Cambridge Spies, Casanova, and his basically replacing Matthew Macfadyen on Spooks, but then I watched Whitechapel. Holy hell, that show is amazing and his portrayal of a driven yet completely OCD DI makes it one of my favorite shows ever. Persuasion mined the best of British drama and has a stellar cast that makes you shake your head in amazement that all these people are in one place at one time.

Though I feel that this review would be incomplete without me taking a shot at PBS. Oh PBS, I have so many issues with you. Seriously, SO MANY. Substandard releases could be brought up here, but instead I'm going to take you to task for your editing. Seriously!?! Stop it! Thankfully you've basically stopped editing the DVD releases because of the fan outcry for which I really have to thank Downton Abbey. But I'm still waiting for my Sally Lockhart mysteries with the sex scene back in... Instead I'm going to bitch about your broadcast editing. I watched this adaptation of Persuasion when it first aired in England, then when it finally aired the following January on PBS I was excited to watch it again but found it lacking. As in lacking all scenes with Captain Wentworth and Captain Harville talking to each other in and around Lyme Regis. I actually had to turn it off I was so enraged. Here's the thing about movies, television shows, any kind of visual broadcast: it's the vision of a person or group of persons that go to the trouble to make this beautiful show. That vision should NEVER been lessened, censored, or randomly changed not for "objectionable" reasons but to make more time for your sponsors! PBS made a pledge to bring quality television to America and more and more it's about the appearance of doing so without actually doing it. Even since Exxon left Masterpiece no longer theater has been in a steep decline and it's come to the point where I no longer even watch the channel. I can't abide editing, and as for speeding up the frame rate, which you totally did during season one of Poldark, it actually makes me physically sick. Also, why can't you air shows at the same time as England? I mean, you've fixed it with Sherlock so what gives!?! Yes, I know, I shouldn't end a review that is glowingly in favor of a production with a negative, but do you ever get the feeling that PBS isn't really involved in these shows at all and is just taking credit for what the BBC and ITV are doing?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Adaptation, Anthony Stewart Head, Bicentenary Ball, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ITV, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Midsomer Murders, PBS, Persuasion, Run Lola Run, Rupert Penry-Jones, Sally Hawkins, Whitechapel

Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie
Published by: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication Date: June 5th, 1939
Format: Hardcover, 223 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Luke Fitzwilliam has returned to England from police duty in the Mayang Straits. He's been away from England for years and his return is a mixed bag. He won a packet on the Derby but his train left without him when he was checking the results. Catching the next train up to London he meets Lavinia Pinkerton, an elderly lady who reminds him of his Aunt. Luke humors her and listens to her reasons about going up to London. She believes there is a serial killer in her small town who now has their sights set on the nice Dr. Humbleby and she is determined to tell Scotland Yard all about it because the other deaths were nasty people but Dr. Humbleby is a different kettle of fish. Luke thinks she's an old dear who's a little batty, but when he later reads of her sudden death as well as the death of Dr. Humbleby he remembers her talking about how murder is really quite easy and there's a look in the eyes of the killer. He decides it's only right to investigate. With the help of his friend who happens to have a cousin down in Wychwood under Ashe Luke poses as a writer researching a book on witchcraft and superstitious beliefs that still survive in small communities. Luke hopes this will let him talk about the recent deaths in the town, totaling six when he arrives in the village. But will there be more deaths? And is Luke putting himself in danger by investigating in the first place?

I started this year by reading a murder mystery by one of Christie's contemporaries oddly enough published in the same year as Murder is Easy. Going from No Wind of Blame by Georgette Heyer to Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie the shift is so dramatic it's patently obvious why Christie is the bestselling author of all time and the "Queen of Crime." Instead of waiting hundreds of pages for a crime to actually be committed, Christie starts with a high body count right out of the gate. She builds the suspense while building her characters, instead of focusing on one or the other and therefore sacrificing quality. Heyer spun things out to excruciating lengths and in the end created a book that was unsatisfying more than anything else. If you're going to do a murder mystery, you kind of need both of those elements. My most favorite mysteries are the ones that follow in the vein of Christie; high body counts with quirky characters and a fun enough journey with plenty of red herrings that the narrative is a cohesive whole. Perhaps that's why I love Midsomer Murders so much, if any show followed Christie on body count alone, it would be Midsomer Murders. Also, this isn't to say Christie is infallible... she does trip up and get stuck in her own devices sometimes, Endless Night anyone? But Murder is Easy is thankfully a classic Christie.

Though, for me, there is rarely a book that is flawless. I mean, there are people out there that actually think for something to be perfect there has to be one flaw for them to pick at. I'm not one of those people, though it might occasionally seem so to others. But Murder is Easy did have a big flaw in it's leading man. Yes, let's talk about Luke Fitzwilliam. Luke is... well Luke must not have been very good at his job out east. Or, if he was good at it, it was with a kind of straightforward bluster that can, occasionally, make a decent cop. Why I've come to this conclusion is that he has no natural ability for subterfuge. He's "supposed" to be in Wychwood under Ashe as an author researching a book... does he ever really commit to this cover? No. About five minutes in he's already telling his friend's cousin who is putting him up, Bridget Conway, the real reason he's there. Um, couldn't she be a suspect? Or is she just too pretty? All his questions to the townsfolk are obviously about the recent spat of deaths, he doesn't once really try to talk about superstition and witchcraft. Which is a shame. Because I was kind of looking forward to a witchy element to this book, especially as Christie set the stage with the town's history for supernatural activity, but then she never followed through. The murders took precedent over Luke's cover and, well, I just was annoyed.

But Luke's inability to dissemble isn't nearly as bad as the forced romance between him and Bridget Conway. Christie does seem to have a need to not only solve the crime but to match off a couple by the end of her books. Like catching the criminal isn't enough. For a true happy ending there must be a marriage to boot. It could be a product of her times, this was released in 1939, but still, think of all the romantic partnerships of crime solvers there are... in fact, could we trace this all back to Christie? OK, that's getting off course, but if she's the reason we have everyone from Nick and Nora to Caskett... I think I'll give her a slid. On most. Not on Luke and Bridget. Because seriously, there is NO chemistry between them. None. In a play or a movie you can understand a lack of chemistry, the leads just weren't able to connect. In a book, there's NO reason for this. The author controls everything and there's no moment where you look at Luke and Bridget and go, "yes, they were meant to be." Luke sees a pretty girl and just decides to fall for her. She, for no apparent reason, is willing to give up a comfortable life with a wealthy man just to what? Marry a poor man who is more in love with the idea of her than her? Seriously. They do not a couple make. But Christie needed the supposed connection for the reveal of the killer... so maybe if she had just worked backwards from that a little more convincingly?

Yet it's Christie's ability to throw so many red herrings at us that we feel as if we're at a fish market that makes her books transcend character issues. She is able to believable posit, through Luke's investigation, so many murder suspects that you're never quite sure. Yes, I am one of those people who try to solve the crime as I'm reading, but if it's a good enough ride I can be swept away and buy into the plausibility of any single person being the killer. What I particularly liked was Luke was continually making up lists with reasons why each person was guilty or innocent. Yet his lists often omitted things, or didn't quite convey what I felt was uncovered in interrogations that we got to be privy too. Therefore we are able to see beyond Luke's narrow mind and see that the suspect pool is far bigger. This allows for Christie to go wild with her red herrings. In fact, just simple turns of phrase, assumptions about how people talk, all these play into the eventual reveal. In fact, it wasn't until minutes before the reveal that I had the aha moment. Where I could fully see her intricate web and who was really at the center pulling all the threads. I used to have this wonderful t-shirt that was for Mystery! by Edward Gorey that had a tree with clues, suspects, and the red herrings being the only items in color. I loved that shirt and I think that shirt captures the feeling of reading Murder is Easy. It's all there, it's all perfect, you just have to wait for Christie to pull back the curtain. Because she really is the master at this game.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Agatha Christie, Benediction, Caskett, Chemistry, Edward Gorey, Endless Night, Georgette Heyer, HEA, Midsomer Murders, Murder is Easy, Mystery, Nick and Nora Charles, No Wind of Blame, Red Herrings, Witchcraft

The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz
Published by: Forge
Publication Date: November 1st, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 294 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Watson has always hesitated sharing this story. He felt it was too shocking and would destroy the fabric of society. But as a world war rages he once again puts pen to paper. Holmes is gone and he feels this story needs to be told, though he will request that it is withheld for one hundred years so that hopefully society will not be as scandalized. The adventure started as many did, as Holmes and Watson sat in front of the fire of 221B Baker Street. A Mr. Carstairs arrived wishing for their assistance. He was an art dealer who inadvertently got on the wrong side of a thuggish Irish gang in Boston called "The Flat Cap Gang." He has reason to believe one of the two ringleaders has followed him to London to exact revenge. Holmes and Watson quickly resolve his problem as the man, the supposed Keelan O'Donaghue, ends up dead and the case is closed. But in actuality it is just the beginning. In finding "Keelan O'Donaghue" one of the Baker Street Irregulars has gone missing. Usually this wouldn't be a cause for concern, but there's something about the way young Ross reacted to seeing Mr. Castairs at the crime scene that has Holmes wondering. As Holmes digs further into the case of Ross he starts to hear mention of "The House of Silk." Holmes is certain that if he could only find out who or what this organization is that everything would fall into place. But even Mycroft warns him to back away, and soon Holmes is in grave danger. Whomever they may be, The House of Silk doesn't want Holmes exposing them and eliminating one detective, no matter how famous, is a small price to pay in their eyes.

There is no doubt that Anthony Horowitz is talented. If his only legacy was Foyle's War he'd be good as gold. But he also helped adapt Midsomer Murders for television as well as Poirot, not to mention the wonderful mini-series Injustice he created, they are all wonderful fare. But for me he's polarizing. For every right move he makes, he makes a wrong one, like marrying Sam to that numskull Adam. That sin alone deserves some sort of punishment, like being slapped silly with a large fish. Sam was meant to end up with Andrew! But then again, Julian Ovenden doesn't seem to be able to catch a break, he loses Sam and then Lady Mary on Downton Abbey chucks him for Matthew Goode. So for all my love of Anthony Horowitz, there's some hate in there as well, and a lot of that hate is now centered on The House of Silk. This predictable mess of a mystery doesn't deserve to be endorsed by the Conan Doyle Estate, it needs to be burned in effigy as a crime against the legacy of Sherlock Holmes. There are so many good books out there that are reimaginings and continuations of Holmes it baffles me that this is the one given the seal of approval, that little mark of Sherlock in his deerstalker hat with the shadow of Conan Doyle and his walrusy mustache. The most mind-boggling thing about The House of Silk is how Horowitz seems to purposefully set out to undermine all other non-canonical books. It's not enough that he's "official" but that everyone else has to be wrong. He is forcibly trying to change every preconception other writers have given Holmes over the years. Holmes doesn't outlive Watson, Mycroft is also equally indestructible, living to an old age despite his corpulence, which Horowitz takes glee in elucidating. Horowitz is the new voice of Holmes and he won't let there be any ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Horowitz spends too much time randomly answering questions that have popped up over the years without regard to anything but his whim. Holmes wasn't at Watson's wedding, Watson had three children in his second marriage, Mary died of typhoid fever, and on and on, just throwing out little tidbits that will appeal to those with an obsessive desire to know everything about these characters. Yet these little glimpses would have worked had Horowitz proved he actually knew Holmes and his canon. It becomes quickly apparent that Horowitz is a dilettante when it comes to Holmes so therefore all these little insights come across as self-indulgent crap as he tries to leave his mark on a greater writer's legacy. The canonical issues would drive any true fan to distraction. While I wouldn't say I'm an obsessive, I would say that the least he could have done was got it right in order to earn that badge of honor from the Conan Doyle Estate. The scenario that drove me most round the bend was when Horowitz repeated almost verbatim the scene of Holmes baffling Watson with his "mind-reading" abilities that was originally in "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box" but was reused in "The Adventure of the Resident Patient." It wasn't reusing this scene for a third time that annoyed me most, it was what came after. One of the key parts of this original scenario was Watson and his newly framed picture of General Gordon and his contemplation of framing his portrait of Henry Ward Beecher to make a matching set. Yet in the bizzaro world of Horowitz where things like canon don't matter, the portrait of General Gordon came with the flat! Excuse me? Antony Horowitz broke canon, one that was doubly stated, just so that Holmes could have a throw-away line about how the walls of 221B Baker Street don't actually reflect him because he didn't chose any of the hangings. Where did I put that giant fish...

But canonical issues aside (yeah I agree that sounds unlikely), but seriously, even if we are able to do this, it can't change the fact that Horowitz isn't able to capture the voice of Conan Doyle through Watson. He isn't able to do what a children's author did with a story about mice. Wrap your mind around that if you will. Here Watson is a whiny little bitch. I kid you not. In the canonical books he's all stoic and I'll grab my service revolver and follow you into the gates of hell, while being a little melodramatic about the whole thing, and maybe once or twice staying by the fire to tend to his war wounds. Here it's all whining and whinging and oh his aches and pains. I actually wanted to punch him in the shoulder and be like, "how's your wound now bitch?" Yet it's not just about his overnumerous physical problems that I take umbrage, it's the fact that Watson is so overly loquacious and verbose, leading to the whole book feeling overwritten. If I ever thought that Watson was long winded before, I take it all back. Bring back the real Watson and get rid of this imposter! This upstart who thinks it's cool to mention all his old cases again and again. Guess what? Watson doesn't do that in actuality, he only mentions old cases occasionally, and if he does mention other cases, it's ones we've never read about, he's never so self-referential and meta. Gaw, make it stop. Yet it doesn't stop. The sloppiness with the canon and with Watson even carries over to all aspects of The House of Silk and it's writing. The book's internal chronology doesn't even work! How could Carstairs marry his wife six months before he even met her?

Repeatedly saying to myself "but if Horowitz had just..." isn't going to change anything. It's not going to magically make an editor who happens to be fluent in the canon of Sherlock Holmes appear and fix the book, because there is no way to fix this book. And there's a part of me that thinks a lot of the sloppiness might have been done on purpose. That maybe the muddle was there for a reason. At one point there's a meta aside wherein the characters discuss the tangle the two cases are making and how they seem to be getting more entwined versus less. Yes, this did piss me off, this signalling that Horowitz knew how he was infuriating me. But more importantly it shows that the muddle was on purpose. So, why would an author purposely muddle his book? Because he couldn't be bothered to create a half decent mystery and is throwing as many fish at you of the herring variety so that you won't notice this deficiency. Guess what "Tony." It. Did. Not. Work. Your book is 294 pages. You introduced the character of Ross on page 52, less than ten pages later, on page 61 I had the entire mystery solved. I had to read a further 233 pages of obfuscations and interferences and Watson's whining to have my deduction validated. Seriously, this isn't how you write a mystery. You don't read about a quarter of a book and go, oh, so this, this, and this happened, that's it. A book shouldn't be as easy to solve as a mystery on TV which can usually be deduced by the casting choices. I wanted something, I don't know, that actually made me invested in the book, that made me want to flip to the next page, that wasn't just the desperate need to make it end.

As for the mystery itself... we are supposed to find it shocking. That, after all, is the gimmicky reason that Watson withheld it for one hundred years, despite the fact that Holmes's arrest and various other incidents would have made the papers and would have therefore had to have been included in the original canon but are somehow overlooked. And the saddest thing is that the mystery isn't shocking. The book seems to be nothing more than a reflection of the British press of today. Because this is nothing more than the cover-up of another sexual abuse scandal wherein high ranking government officials are using orphans and street kids to satisfy their disgusting pedophiliac desires. Seriously, google "child sexual abuse UK" and there are over a dozen notable cases of these "rings" uncovered just within the past five or so years! Yes, this is horrifying. Yes this should be shocking, but the sad truth is that with it constantly being on our television screens and in our newspapers we have become desensitized to it but at the same time hyper-aware so that I could solve the mystery of The House of Silk in a matter of minutes. There have been other narratives of similar cases in books, films, and television. Heck, even the Inspector Morse spin-off Endeavour's pilot was about such a sex ring. This is sadly something that happens in the world, and if it's happening now it must have been happening than, so all in all, not much a mystery, just a sad reflection of reality, which most of us could do without when we are reading to escape. Plus, this has added a whole creepy undertone to the Baker Street Irregulars that I could have done without. Though the final thought I am left with is, would this case really have effected Holmes so? Would he have been moved? This Holmes was, the canonical Holmes, that's highly unlikely.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Anthony Horowitz, Arthur Conan Doyle, Baker Street Irregulars, Canon, Endeavour, Foyle's War, Inspector Morse, Julian Ovenden, Midsomer Murders, Mystery, Sherlock Holmes, Sherlocked, The House of Silk, Watson

Today the Whoverse lost one of it's own. Barry Jackson who shared the screen opposite the 1st Doctor in "The Romans" and "Galaxy 4" serials, and the 4th Doctor in "The Armageddon Factor" passed away today. Though plying his trade on numerous shows Barry is perhaps best known for his portrayal of another Doctor, Doctor George Bullard on Midsomer Murders. Appearing in over 75 episodes he was a linchpin of the series since the pilot and the death of the Rainbirds. Staying on for a mere four episodes after the Barnaby switch he was missed on the show more then I could imagine until today. Join me in a toast to a consummate actor who knew how to deliver one line to such perfection that he would steal the whole episode. To Barry!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 6:03 PM 0 comments  

Labels: Barry Jackson, Doctor George Bullard, Doctor Who, Midsomer Murders, The 1st Doctor, The 4th Doctor

Last of the Gaderene by Mark Gatiss
Published by: BBC Books
Publication Date: January 4th, 2000
Format: Paperback, 320 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Wing Commander Alec Whistler fell in love with the town of Culverton, as well as a young lady, when he was stationed there during the war flying spitfires out of the aerodrome. He might have lost the love of his life in an air raid, but thankfully he survived the war and went on to make Culverton his home. Though as the village fete approaches it is a sad day in Culverton because the Ministry of Defense has closed the aerodrome and sold it to a mysterious company, Legion International, "getting us where we want to go." When Legion International breaks the quite of this quaint town with their loud lorries and there black-shirted employees who are a little overzealous in meting out punishment on those that stand in their way, Whistler calls up an old friend with connections to get to the bottom of what is going on.

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is glad to help an old friend. Luckily The Doctor is still hanging around, though his imposed exile on 20th century earth, which included a forced regeneration, has blessedly been lifted, the Brigadier asks for him and Jo Grant to check out the situation in Culverton. The instant they arrive they know something is wrong. The head of operations at Legion International, Bliss, is an odd and secretive woman. Plus, when The Doctor sneaks into the air hangers he sees somethings that don't add up with the company's proposed purpose. Why a vertical wind tunnel? Then the very man they came to meet, Wing Commander Alec Whistler, disappears, and his young neighbor, Noah, who was doing some investigating with Whistler shows up in such a state of shock his life is feared for. Whistler isn't the only one who has disappeared... though some have returned. Different. Smiling. Strange. The Doctor calls in the Brigadier to come to Culverton. He needs his governmental clout, and if that doesn't work, he needs his weapons.

It is no surprise to me that when they chose the lineup of books to mark the 50th anniversary this year that among them was a Mark Gatiss book. Besides being one of the writers for the new series he is a fanboy extraordinaire through and through. Even if you haven't read the book's introduction, where he rhapsodizes about his new Zygon and his three different Jon Pertwee action figures, you just need to watch any one of his Doctor Who Confidentials to realize how much he knows about Doctor Who and how much he loves it. He fits into that rare category that David Tennant and Russell T. Davies occupied on Confidential, where he can just talk for hours on the subject but yet make it interesting. It didn't surprise me in the least when two of the three of these men left Doctor Who that Confidential wasn't able to endure. They were that show. In fact, Mark Gatiss can easily be credited with helping Doctor Who survive during its extended hiatus, during which time he wrote many Doctor Who books, Last of the Gaderene being one of them.

Though all these foreknowledge just made me leery that the book might not live up to the hype that I had created in my own mind. I mean, sure, Gatiss is a successful writer outside the sphere of Doctor Who, quite awhile before I even knew who he was I had picked up his first Lucifer Box book, The Vesuvius Club, based on a blurb on the cover by Stephen Fry, and I wasn't disappointed. In fact his fun camp series fits very well within the same genre as Doctor Who. But the fact has to be pointed out that while a gifted writer, he does have a tendency to stick to a proscribed series of tropes. Gatiss has a predilection for a period atmosphere, usually Victorian or WWII, and a desire to bring in the military... of course, the more I think about this, The 3rd Doctor being The Doctor of his formative years, perhaps these themes are actually a result of Doctor Who! The Doctor being stranded on earth in the 20th Century and having to work with UNIT... yes... this might explain a lot. But it also means that when asked to write a book for said Doctor, well, he didn't disappoint.

If you've picked up this book, you are obviously a Doctor Who fan. I can't really see anyone picking this book up on a whim, though I bet it would still work, but don't take my word for it. There is a chance though that you might not be too familiar with this Doctor. What Gatiss has done is given us a little glimpse, a vignette, of The Third to ease us into the story. While Last of the Gaderene takes place while The Doctor is still working with UNIT, he is no longer technically stranded on earth anymore. In a little side jaunt celebrating his freedom we get some classic Jon Pertwee moments as he races through a jungle in his puffy shirt and tight slacks, white hair haloing his head. A karate chop here and there, celebrating the "action Doctor" that he is with his cape flying behind him. In just this short little chapter you see not only his mannerisms and sartorial choices, but with his willingness to sacrifice himself for someone he barely knows, you see that compassion that is a hallmark of The Doctor. You can also feel the glee that Gatiss had in writing this camp Doctor in all his glory. A true passion for your subject can really go a long way to make the reader love the story as well.

But what made me fall for the book was it's pure Britishness. The real star of this book is the village of Culverton and it's beautiful English way of life that is shattered. The fact that the vicar and The Doctor show the most amount of concern for a tire track tearing up the edge of the village green just makes me giggle with glee, much the way I do for all of Hot Fuzz, which has a similar MO. What appeals to this yank about British television and literature is this quaint idealized way of country life. The village fetes and tombolas. The village green and the local pub. A place that is timeless whenever the story takes place. Yet it's the stories that take it one step further, the ones, like Midsomer Murders, that show us the evil that lurks beneath the surface. They break the sanctity of this idealized life. The calm that is broken with an alien invasion force in full black-shirt regalia. Yes please! I feel it in my bones that this level of campy satire with the dandy of a Third Doctor was perfectly realized with this book and is the first book in this select series which I would heartily recommend, despite the fact that oddly, yet again, we have a "legion" mind meld, telepathic thing going on, which I guess must be the theme... we'll have to see if Tom Baker stumbles onto it next...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: David Tennant, Doctor Who, Doctor Who Book Challenge, Hot Fuzz, Jon Pertwee, Last of the Gaderene, Lucifer Box, Mark Gatiss, Midsomer Murders, Russell T. Davies, The 3rd Doctor, The Brigadier, Tom Baker, UNIT, WWII

Flying Too High (Phryne Fisher Book 2) by Kerry Greenwood
Published by: Poisoned Pen Press
Publication Date: 1990
Format: Hardcover, 245 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Something is in the air and it seems to be effecting local pilots associated with The Sky-High Flying School. Bill McNaughton has been arrested for the murder of his father, William, and Henry Maldon's daughter Candida has been kidnapped. In an odd twist of fate, Phryne Fisher was called in to prevent the murder of William McNaughton, Bill's father... though sometimes things don't go to plan. Looking into William's death she realizes that he was a horrid man who abused both his wife and his daughter and, in a just world, his killer could get away with it. Sadly though, in order to save Bill, she must figure out what really did happen, because though he deserved to die, Bill is innocent, not matter what the local police think.

Then there's Candida. Plucked off the street with her bag of sweets falling into the gutter. Candida's father recently won some money in the lottery, money that is now gone thanks to buying a new home and purchasing a plane for the flying school. Though the kidnappers don't know that he is skint. Believing in wealth, they put up with Candida and her demanding ways, she did vomit quite a lot on one of the culprits. Because of helping Bill, Henry Maldon risks calling Phryne for help. She's not the police so he's not going against what the kidnappers said. Phryne knows that they have to act swiftly and comes up with quite a daring and dangerous rescue plan. Here's hoping she can pull it off and get justice for all who deserve it.

Yet again I was struck by how much I just loved this book with it's perfect balancing of the fun and frivolous with the dark and disturbed. There's something so much more that you get that isn't in the television series, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, though I dare say, the series is lovely in it's own rights. Flying Too High is not afraid to have sympathetic bad guys and unlikable good guys. There's a non-traditional feel to the narrative that makes it fresh and original. All this though comes through Phryne. It's her unique views on the world that inspire this non-traditional feel. She has interesting notions of justice which she carries out. Just because someone has been forced into a life of crime doesn't mean they are a bad person. If need be, she will be fluid with the truth if it will help that person out. Likewise, the kidnapping, which is a trope that everyone falls victim to, was made more interesting and original by the fact that Candida handled her situation in a more rational and thoughtful manner and was surrounded by criminals that had more depth, motive, and originality then your random thug. This also led to a very interesting solution cooked up by Phryne. Instead of either a) going to the police against the kidnappers wishes or b) bungling the counter plan that isn't police approved or sanctioned, she goes with c) a plan that works brilliantly.

Also, for some reason, this book really made me think more of the victim of a crime. Here I'm talking about the murder of William McNaughton. At the beginning when his wife is pleading to have his life saved, you think that he's probably a good, upstanding citizen, whose wife loves him dearly and would do anything to save him. You think of him as the good man in a bad situation. Of course, in short order your views are rapidly changing, doing a complete 180. Which brings me to my thought of the day. Why meet out justice for the bad guys? I mean, yes, it's what is legally and morally right, solve the crime no matter who the victim was... but this is fiction. Which led me to another thought. How many times have I sat around watching a murder mystery and been rooting for someone to die? Take Midsomer Murders, I often root for the death and then the more death and more death, but in the end, the killer is just as guilty and evil as the victim. Here, finding out after the death of the man's rotten soul, well, I just wanted the killer to get away. I'm not sure if this is because, like Phryne, I found out after the fact of him being evil, or because of some weird notions I have from watching one too many episodes of Midsomer Murders that if you die you deserve it. Whichever way you look at it, it made me think and made me that much more absorbed in the book.

Now, even though I have for the purposes of my Golden Summer finished reading Phryne, I have a feeling I won't be letting her rest much longer on my shelves. There's just something so compelling in these books, something that I just didn't expect, that makes me want to read more and more of them, thankfully I have quite a few! As it says on the back cover "Imagine Emma Peel as a flapper, and you have Phryne Fisher." While I think Phryne deserves better then comparisons, this is an apt one. She has the same physicality, the same sense of justice, the same remarkable wardrobe. Also the same awesome house. I didn't mention her new house yet did I? She literally bought a house whose address is 221 and then added the "B" because she thought it would be fun on the business cards. That and it's a gorgeous townhouse, with a floor all for Dot AND the funniest servants in Mr and Mrs Butler that one could hope for. I wish I could be invited round for tea just once... but then I'd end up solving crimes and hanging out with Bert and Cec... wait... I don't really see a downside to this plan... it must be put into action now!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Australia, Emma Peel, Flying Too High, Golden Summer, Kerry Greenwood, Kidnapping, Midsomer Murders, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Phryne Fisher

Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
Published by: Library of America
Publication Date: 1929
Format: Hardcover, 967 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

The Continental Op has arrived in Personville, being sent by the Continental Detective Agency's San Francisco office for their new client Donald Willsson. After setting up their meeting, but before the arranged time, Donald Willsson is killed. The Continental Op approaches Elihu Willsson, Donald's father, to try to get to the bottom of his client's premature demise by lead being pumped into him. Elihu admits that Personville's nickname of Poisonville is pretty accurate. While still the town founder and czar, to all intents and purposes, the town is run by several competing gangs. The town is as corrupt and villainous as you can imagine. Donald was trying to use the newspaper to expose this corruption, and it seems that this is why he died. The Continental Op gets Elihu to hire the agency to clean up Personville. He cunningly has him sign a document so that even if Elihu tries to go back on the deal the Continental Op has the reigns and no one to answer to, except the boss back in San Francisco, but hopefully he won't notice the lack of a daily report for a little while.

Soon the Continental Op is deep within the rivaling gangs. Rumors and hearsay, as well as rigging a boxing match, are all it takes to set them off. Lead whizzing through the streets and gunfire soon become an even more common occurrence in this little corrupt town. The bodies start to pile up all while Elihu tries to get his erstwhile employee back to the city by the bay. But Poisonville has gotten under the Op's skin and he feels he has a score to settle. When it looks like they won't get the Op in a body bag, the corrupt police try to frame him for murder. Poisonville is going to burn, if it's the last thing the Continental Op does.

Up until now I have been concentrating my reading on the other side of the pond. The cozy mysteries of the British Isles set in a manor house with, in all likelihood, a locked room and a corpse. Yet the Golden Age of Mystery wasn't just relegated to our forefathers across the waters. America had a very strong literary tradition during the Golden Age, with authors like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Yet there was a distinct shift in the type of writing. Here in America it was grittier, more gang related, more hardboiled, with a distinct authorial voice that would later come under the Noir heading. While this style is more associated with the 30s, 40s, and 50s, which modern writers like James Ellroy have emulated in their neo-noir books like L.A. Confidential, Dashiell Hammett coined this style with his Continental Op, which would be the forerunner to that most archetypal of Noir characters, Sam Spade.

Reading Red Harvest, I was easily swept up into the Noir style, I could almost hear the first person narration as a gritty voice over as the Continental Op walked through Poisonville planning his next move. I could almost see Hammett, obviously in black and white, sitting in a dingy office, smoke rising above his head, as he typed out the story. While yes, to say all this is now a bit cliched as to my imagery, I was still amazed with the distinct style, which for all it's tropes running around in my head, felt just as fresh and vibrant as if it had just been written. Though the book did have it's rough spots. Red Harvest was Dashiell Hammett's first book. Prior to this he wrote short stories, many of which featured the "hero" of this book, the Continental Op. This fact did not help him, nor did the fact that this book was serialized in four parts in the pulp magazine, Black Mask. Instead of a cohesive whole, the book is basically four interconnected short stories, which makes the narrative choppy, and almost makes you not want to continue reading because everything was brought to a close and then a new aspect of the story was brought into play in the next section. While Poisonville gives an overall framework, everything else would fall under the heading, "and meanwhile in another part of town...."

Then there's the, how should I put this, cavalier attitude the Continental Op has towards death. I mean, I'm used to death in things I read and watch, heck Midsomer Murders is one of my most favorite television shows and the bodies pile up in that County like nowhere else in fiction... till now. I mean, holy geez people, I don't even know what the end death toll was. I lost count somewhere around twenty. Yes, twenty people are dead and the Op doesn't bat an eyelash. Gangs gunned down left and right and at the center is the Op stirring the pot, getting one group to go after another. If his plan to clean up the town was to eliminate every person in the town, then, well... he's succeeded marvelously by the end. He went all blood simple as Hammett coined and the Coen's later used for their first movie. Yet, I have to ask, was this moral ambivalence meant to be a reflection on the Pinkertons? I mean Hammett worked for them and the Continental Detective Agency was unambiguously them... so was he trying to make a statement? The Pinkertons don't have the most sterling of reputations and where to be feared in that at one time their combined forces outnumbered the US army. So was Hammett writing to the new style he was creating, exposing corruption, or perhaps biting the hand that fed him?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Black Mask, Continental Op, Dashiell Hammett, Golden Summer, James Ellroy, L.A. Confidential, Midsomer Murders, Noir, Pinkertons, Poisonville, Pulp, Raymond Chandler, Red Harvest, Sam Spade, San Francisco

The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley
Published by: Delacorte
Publication Date: March 9th, 2010
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
Recommended for: Anglophiles, Mystery Mavens, Card Carrying Members of the Agatha Christie Fan Club, Those Particular Fans of Post War England, Fans of Precocious Heroines
Rating: ★★★★ 1/2★
To Buy

A mile from Buckshaw in the graveyard of Saint Tancred's, Flavia stumbles on a crying woman. Bent over a grave and weeping prodigiously. She turns out to be the beaten and bruised assistant to the famous puppeteer, Rupert Porson, who's show The Magic Kingdom, with Snoddy the Squirrel, is a huge hit for the BBC, not that Flavia would know, her father trusting televisions less then telephones. Their travelling show has hit a hitch. Their van has broken down and they have no money to repair it. The Vicar, Canon Richardson, being a huge fan of the show, suggests that they put on a performance for the parish in exchange for the ticket sales fixing their vehicle. An agreement reached, the details are ironed out, two shows on Saturday of Jack and the Beanstalk. Flavia, in more an inquisitive nature then out of kindness, agrees to help. She gets all the inside scoop on this strange puppeteer, who suffered Polio in his youth and is now a twisted man, outside and in, and avoids all the negatives of home life, mainly Feely and Daphne. Things seem to be going well, the show gets set up, and it is a little magical world where Flavia imagines sitting in Jack's mullioned windowed cottage brewing poisons... but then Flavia gets home and her Aunt Felicity is arriving the next day. So now committed to be in two places at once, Flavia does the next logical thing... gets up at dawn to help the puppeteers so as she can then meet her Aunt's train at the station later in the day. Flavia helps relocate Rupert and Nialla to Culverhouse Farm, where it will be more seemly for them to pitch their tent at the bottom of Jubilee Field, then amongst the dead at Saint Tancred's. But Culverhouse Farm holds misery and darkness. The owner's son Robin died tragically five years earlier, being hanged in Gibbet Wood, where the weird Mad Meg wanders. The fields are tended by a German POW obsessed with the Brontes and a Land Girl obsessed with him. But amongst the other eccentrics of the village, they hardly stand out.

The day of the performance shins bright and Flavia, astride trusty Gladys, whizzes to the Parish Hall. Rupert shows her a little of the magic behind the scenes with Jack and the Giant he will kill. But nothing prepares Flavia for how magical the show really is. She, and the whole audience are transported by Rupert and his puppets... one of which bares a striking resemblance to the dead Robin.... That night Flavia can't wait to see the show again. This time with her entire family in tow, put the show starts off differently. Instead of Rupert's fantastical Mozart introduction, the two old spinster's of the village who run the tea rooms, do their obligatory musical revue and then Jack and the Beanstalk commences. But just as Jack is to slew the Giant, a very dead Rupert Porson falls to the stage. With the whole village as witnesses, they are held and questioned for hours. At the end, it's no doubt that it's murder. But be sure Flavia is convinced of the police's inability to solve this case without her, and she might just be right.

Flavia is back and even more wonderful then in her first installment, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. She still is up to chemical machinations... but it's her ability to unsettle people and ask the questions that need asking and being silent when you need to be silent, that makes her the best detective Bishop's Lacey has ever seen, sorry Inspector Hewitt, you are going to have to step up your game. More fast paced, the pages just flew under my hungry eyes, I just could not put this book down. From Flavia's newest revenge on her sisters, to the Bronte loving Dieter... this book just sprang to life off the pages and made me a participant of the goings on at Bishop's Lacey. But aside from all the layers of intrigue and subplots and mysteries, it was the puppeteer who kept this book strung together.

While most people of my generation think of the Muppets when they think of puppets, the British have a much more storied tradition of puppetry. I'm mainly talking about Punch and Judy, that terrifying duo that embraces violence and hatred for laughs. Until now, I didn't think that anything would capture the malevolence of them like the "Destroying Angel" episode of Midsomer Murders, but I was wrong. Alan Bradley has succeeded where even, in my mind, Neil Gaiman failed. The thread of those two malevolent puppets that strings it's way through this story is just brilliant. I think it has to be said, that only with the knowledge of writing for television and writing for children could anyone have captured the underlying menace and messy lives of those people involved with British Broadcasting. Haven't you ever thought that the people behind such "innocent" fare, like the writer's of Camberwick Green, had to really be mentally disturbed to write that kind of show? That's why people latched onto that parody Life on Mars did... because it's secretly what we've always believed to be true! Puppetry, whilst funny and light, also has a dark, ominous, evil side that ties into the Punch and Judy zeitgeist, that Alan Bradley has tapped into here.

If there's one wish for this book, it was that the ending was a little more... messy. It seemed to tie up a little too neatly. Things might not be as dark and foreboding as they look, and I kind of wanted them dark and foreboding. I am happy that Flavia did not get held hostage again, totally avoiding the cliche of damsel in distress, that brought the previous book down a star... but still, not quite perfect yet. I might have been willing to oversea the faults if Dieter had come in again at the end. You know... I think I might have fallen a little for that POW with the Bronte complex... I don't think I've even met a more fascinating man. Why does he have to be fictional?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 3 comments  

Labels: Alan Bradley, Bronte, Buckshaw, Camberwick Green, Flavia De Luce, Life on Mars, Midsomer Murders, Neil Gaiman, Puppets, Reading Challenge, Rupert Porson, The Weed That String's The Hangman's Bag

In celebration of the newest book by Lauren Willig, The Mischief of the Mistletoe, otherwise known as my favorite root vegetable named hero gets his own book, it's time to cast some characters! As you no doubt remember, I love to cast books in my head with the plethora of BBC actors that reside therein, though they might deny that they live in my brain. Anyways... from day one when Turnip bumbled onto the scene all embroidered waistcoats and good intentions there has only been one man who could play him in the dream miniseries of my mind. I have been in love with this actor since he first foiled Rafe while loosing his love Elizabeth, ok, it doesn't hurt that he says Elizabeth over and over in the film, making it easier to fantasize, but he was a step up from Robin Hood, and I'm talking about the cartoon fox here. Nicholas Rowe who played the dashing Holmes in The Young Sherlock Holmes will always he a favorite actor of mine and also my Turnip!

Name: Nicholas Rowe

Dream Character Casting for the Lauren Willig Miniseries: Turnip Fitzhugh, always a Turnip, never a Reggie

First Impression: Sherlock Holmes, sigh...

Why they'd be the perfect actor for the Lauren Willig Miniseries: He exudes this happiness and goodwill but has the perfect features for a befuddled expression. Also he's a little goofy and I think he could pull off a Carnation themed waistcoat very well indeed, that you very much!

Lasting Impression: The first impression stuck, but I always have a little flutter in my heart when I see he's in something coming up!

What else you've seen them in: Besides treading the boards... Nicholas pops up here and there all over the BBC, from Poldark to Sharpe's, Shackleton to to the French and Saunders comedy, Let Them Eat Cake. Also to be seen in Regency garb in Beau Brummell! But he has not stayed small screen! He's been in movies by Tom Stoppard (Enigma) and starring Anne Hathaway (Nicholas Nickleby).

Can't believe it's them: Midsomer Murders! Yes, I know every British actor MUST do Midsomer Murders... but his role! In "The Fisher King" he made a mad driven insane with his lust for his wife who turns out to be his sister completely believable and compelling, in a plot point that might have devolved into pure soap opera!

Wish they hadn't: Doctor Who animated, just because it wasn't "real" Doctor Who... now if this leads to real Doctor Who, then I'm fine with it. I just don't want a repeat of let's forget that Richard E. Grant was the 9th Doctor because it was just a cartoon!

Bio: Is a talented man who has stayed a great actor now for many decades and straddles film, television and indie cult status (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) very well and I hope to see him in things for years to come. And not just in our wedding announcement.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Beau Brummell, Dcotor Who, Lauren Willig, Midsomer Murders, Nicholas Rowe, Pink Carnation Spotlight, The Mischief of the Mistletoe, The Young Sherlock Holmes, Turnip Fitzhugh

The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley
Published by: Delacorte
Publication Date: March 9th, 2010
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
Challenge: Thriller and Suspense
Rating: ★★★★ 1/2★
To Buy

A mile from Buckshaw in the graveyard of Saint Tancred's, Flavia stumbles on a crying woman. Bent over a grave and weeping prodigiously. She turns out to be the beaten and bruised assistant to the famous puppeteer, Rupert Porson, who's show The Magic Kingdom, with Snoddy the Squirrel, is a huge hit for the BBC, not that Flavia would know, her father trusting televisions less then telephones. Their travelling show has hit a hitch. Their van has broken down and they have no money to repair it. The Vicar, Canon Richardson, being a huge fan of the show, suggests that they put on a performance for the parish in exchange for the ticket sales fixing their vehicle. An agreement reached, the details are ironed out, two shows on Saturday of Jack and the Beanstalk. Flavia, in more an inquisitive nature then out of kindness, agrees to help. She gets all the inside scoop on this strange puppeteer, who suffered Polio in his youth and is now a twisted man, outside and in, and avoids all the negatives of home life, mainly Feely and Daphne. Things seem to be going well, the show gets set up, and it is a little magical world where Flavia imagines sitting in Jack's mullioned windowed cottage brewing poisons... but then Flavia gets home and her Aunt Felicity is arriving the next day. So now committed to be in two places at once, Flavia does the next logical thing... gets up at dawn to help the puppeteers so as she can then meet her Aunt's train at the station later in the day. Flavia helps relocate Rupert and Nialla to Culverhouse Farm, where it will be more seemly for them to pitch their tent at the bottom of Jubilee Field, then amongst the dead at Saint Tancred's. But Culverhouse Farm holds misery and darkness. The owner's son Robin died tragically five years earlier, being hanged in Gibbet Wood, where the weird Mad Meg wanders. The fields are tended by a German POW obsessed with the Brontes and a Land Girl obsessed with him. But amongst the other eccentrics of the village, they hardly stand out.

The day of the performance shins bright and Flavia, astride trusty Gladys, whizzes to the Parish Hall. Rupert shows her a little of the magic behind the scenes with Jack and the Giant he will kill. But nothing prepares Flavia for how magical the show really is. She, and the whole audience are transported by Rupert and his puppets... one of which bares a striking resemblance to the dead Robin.... That night Flavia can't wait to see the show again. This time with her entire family in tow, put the show starts off differently. Instead of Rupert's fantastical Mozart introduction, the two old spinster's of the village who run the tea rooms, do their obligatory musical revue and then Jack and the Beanstalk commences. But just as Jack is to slew the Giant, a very dead Rupert Porson falls to the stage. With the whole village as witnesses, they are held and questioned for hours. At the end, it's no doubt that it's murder. But be sure Flavia is convinced of the police's inability to solve this case without her, and she might just be right.

Flavia is back and even more wonderful then in her first installment, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. She still is up to chemical machinations... but it's her ability to unsettle people and ask the questions that need asking and being silent when you need to be silent, that makes her the best detective Bishop's Lacey has ever seen, sorry Inspector Hewitt, you are going to have to step up your game. More fast paced, the pages just flew under my hungry eyes, I just could not put this book down. From Flavia's newest revenge on her sisters, to the Bronte loving Dieter... this book just sprang to life off the pages and made me a participant of the goings on at Bishop's Lacey. But aside from all the layers of intrigue and subplots and mysteries, it was the puppeteer who kept this book strung together.

While most people of my generation think of the Muppets when they think of puppets, the British have a much more storied tradition of puppetry. I'm mainly talking about Punch and Judy, that terrifying duo that embraces violence and hatred for laughs. Until now, I didn't think that anything would capture the malevolence of them like the "Destroying Angel" episode of Midsomer Murders, but I was wrong. Alan Bradley has succeeded where even, in my mind, Neil Gaiman failed. The thread of those two malevolent puppets that strings it's way through this story is just brilliant. I think it has to be said, that only with the knowledge of writing for television and writing for children could anyone have captured the underlying menace and messy lives of those people involved with British Broadcasting. Haven't you ever thought that the people behind such "innocent" fare, like the writer's of Camberwick Green, had to really be mentally disturbed to write that kind of show? That's why people latched onto that parody Life on Mars did... because it's secretly what we've always believed to be true! Puppetry, whilst funny and light, also has a dark, ominous, evil side that ties into the Punch and Judy zeitgeist, that Alan Bradley has tapped into here.

If there's one wish for this book, it was that the ending was a little more... messy. It seemed to tie up a little too neatly. Things might not be as dark and foreboding as they look, and I kind of wanted them dark and foreboding. I am happy that Flavia did not get held hostage again, totally avoiding the cliche of damsel in distress, that brought the previous book down a star... but still, not quite perfect yet. I might have been willing to oversea the faults if Dieter had come in again at the end. You know... I think I might have fallen a little for that POW with the Bronte complex... I don't think I've even met a more fascinating man. Why does he have to be fictional?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alan Bradley, Bronte, Buckshaw, Camberwick Green, Flavia De Luce, Life on Mars, Midsomer Murders, Neil Gaiman, Puppets, Reading Challenge, Rupert Porson, The Weed That String's The Hangman's Bag

I was in Wonderland, probably like most book geeks out there. I tried to go in expectationless. When I saw the preview a few months back, I was not trilled, but somehow over the intervening months I had forgotten my initial bad reaction and got excited. But I have to say it was not worth the whopping $15 price tag, especially if you then tack on the $2 service charge, and they didn't have Skittles! What movie theater doesn't have Skittles? Sometimes things don't work, the stars don't align, and the apparently perfect person isn't quite what was actually needed. Despite a star studded cast, it was lackluster, it was blah, it was boring. I will say, I didn't hate it, but it just wasn't all that. Tim Burton was hoping that by adding a definable plot that you'd have more of an emotional connection to the characters. Personally, I'm all good with my connection to the characters, it's his tinkering with creating an unsuccessful Red Queen overload with dissatisfied masses that rally around Alice that doesn't quite work. By having Alice escape her world and a looming arraigned marriage to come to Underland (yes, not a typo) and be forced to become a hero by killing the Jabberwocky seemed kind of dumb. Instead of a magical world of delightful nonsense, we have a world of oppression, death, war and post apocalyptic wastelands, that are never fully explained to my satisfaction. If they had fleshed out the resistance movement, if they had made the plot even more of a plot, then perhaps... but that's just a maybe. Having everything magically hing on Alice killing the Jabberwocky seemed dumb. Why would the Red Queen loose her power if the Jabberwock died? Really, if someone knows, please tell me. I personally found the real world far weirder and more interesting, peopled with some of my favorite British actors, many of which were in The Jewel in the Crown... but then again, yet another failed adaptation of Alice in Wonderland isn't that big a shock. There is no way this will please die hard fans and I don't see it bringing in any new ones... I think Public Enemies proved Johnny Depp does not always equal box office gold. Personally I think I'm going to go pick up the book and read what no one has ever successfully imitated, translated or adapted. There's only one Alice, and she'll always be there waiting for me in the pages of my favorite book. But just to entertain those who like to feast on the carcass, here's a few of my biggest concerns with the movie:

• What's with all these new stupid made up words? Bizarre calenders and stupid times that are to come. Underland not Wonderland? And that's not explained till the end, and really, it's stupid?
• The Red Queen and The Queen of Hearts are NOT the same person! Don't care if you're combining them, you're pissing me off.
• Why is Helena Bonham Carter using her funny accent from the Merlin TV movie?
• Aren't they trying to be a bit too like Return to Oz, and didn't Return to Oz do it better and darker, cause I thought Tim Burton liked dark? Let's add some true horrors... what was the Victorian equivalent of electro shock therapy? Anyone?
• Trade routes to China were already established. Also, does this mean that Alice is going to be a drug czar?
• The foot soldiers... too Steam Punk/Looking Glass Wars, didn't feel original. When did Burton become a hack?
• Dan Scott (John Hopkins) from Midsomer Murders. Hate that prick. I know, offensive word, but it really fits his character in both appearances and totally covers my feelings for him.
• Why is Crisin Glover stretched out? Why? There doesn't seem to be a purpose.
• Guess who did the theme song? Avril Lavigne! Aren't I the happiest person in the world at this news? NOT! Apparently she's even going to do a line of clothes after Alice, oh joy unbounded!
• Ok, I get funny accents, but WTF Johnny? The random Scottish brogue? You trying to outdo Brad Pitt in Snatch?
• But, without parallel! The bizarre breakdancing interlude, oh, I mean fudderwhacking (see what I'm saying about made up words). It's not so much that it's a weird dance, it's that the music is early 90s electro pop randomly placed in a film firmly set in the 1800s!!! COuld you have tried insane bagpipes? Bagpipes are good, bagpipes are more... what's the word... not an anachronism!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 2:48 AM 4 comments  

Labels: Alice in Wonderland, Avril Lavigne, Bagpipes, Brad Pitt, Fudderwhacking, Johnny Depp, Midsomer Murders, Return to Oz, The Looking Glass Wars, The Queen of Hearts, The Red Queen, Tim Burton, Underland

Death and mayhem to continue in the most murderous fictional city in the world. And if you've been following the recent developments of this beloved show, you'll know, all was not right in Midsomer. After John Nettles announced his retirement from the show, which will culminate at the end of the upcoming 13th season, fans went into a frenzy. Who would replace the beloved Barnaby? John Nettles is worshiped by legions of fans, if you've seen the Catherine Tate Daniel Craig sketch, you know what I mean. His departure seemed like the end of an era... and for awhile it seemed like it might be the end of the show. ITV has been putting off announcing his successor for so long now, almost a full year, that fans have nervously been speculating if the show would just get cancelled. Could Midsomer Murders be the newest fatality, going the way of Tony Hill and Wire in the Blood? While the press speculated Philip Glenister or Peter Davison... you could also sense a rising sense of the shows demise. Sure Barry Jackson (Doc Bullard), Jason Hughes (Jones) and Kirsty Dillon (WPC Gail Stephens) had all been confirmed as being signed under contract. But I couldn't see Jones leading the show. In an ideal world, Troy would return, Cully would divorce her dud of a husband from Robin Hood and they'd lead the show into a new golden age... yeah, I know, wishful thinking... doesn't stop be from hoping though!

But ITV has put us out of our misery! Yes, that warrants an exclamation point, because it's good news. The show will go on! They waited until last night's episode, "The Sword of Guillaume" aired. Why you say? Because in it we are introduced to John Barnaby, the cousin of Tom, and the new star of our show. So who is John Barnaby? Well, you've seen him before in Midsomer, while Victoria Hamilton was dispatching people at the local tea room in "Garden of Death." From the show Life of Riley, to The Street, to The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries, he's been around for quite some time, and payed his dues. But Neil Dudgeon is an actor of the same ilk as John Nettles, and I can see why ITV waited for the announcement, because people could instantly see how he'll fit into the shows dynamic by watching tonight's episode.... which I must go watch right now! Of course, if you are one of those who is in mourning after 13 years of Barnaby and almost 30 years of John Nettles on our screens, read this lovely letter to John Nettles from The Guardian, and if John Nettles finds himself with spare time, remember, Elaine Figgis is waiting...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 4 comments  

Labels: Catherine Tate, Cully, Daniel Craig, ITV, John Barnaby, John Nettles, Life of Riley, Midsomer Murders, Neil Dudgeon, The Mrs. Bradley Mysterues, The Street, Tom Barnaby, Troy, Wire in the Blood

Firstly I need to state this, I know you all will hate the casting I've done of Miles. I admit it upfront and I will take full punishment, but perhaps you will waive said punishment if I say this is not my fault, it's Richard Cant's fault, or maybe my subconscious', who knows, anyway, I didn't mess this up on purpose, it just happened. For some reason, reiterated below, he's Miles in my head. Richard Cant is kind of a goofy British character actor who can't leave my brain (can't/Cant haha). He somehow wormed his way in as Miles and he's there. I try to recast but my subconscious is embracing the feeling I have of hating recasts... like the four Garys and Valenes on Dallas or the newer recast of Victoria in the Twlight Saga... I hate recasts and therefore Richard Cant is there to stay... in my head... so now I pose to you a challenge! Find someone better! Tell me who your dream actor is for Henrietta's nearest and dearest and I will post the one I deem the winner mid week. So start throwing out the Henry Cavill and Richard Armitage level men and I will do a much deserved post on that hottie. The Masque of the Black Tulip deserves the best and my mind doesn't want that, it wants Richard.
strong

Name: Richard Cant

"Dream" Character Casting for the Lauren Willig Miniseries: Miles Dorrington

First Impression: Dennis Rainbird on Midsomer Murders. He and Elizabeth Spriggs made the pilot of Midsomer Murders an episode never to be beaten... and given the quality of the show that's saying something. They even brought them back almost ten years after their first episode, not an easy feat for two characters brutally murdered.

Why they'd be the perfect actor for the Lauren Willig Miniseries: First, let me state, that for some reason, Richard Cant got into my head and won't leave. I fully admit, while a fabulous actor, he's not the "dream" Miles, in any way really. But he won't leave, so there you have it!

Lasting Impression: Adolphus "Dolly" Longestaffe in The Way We Live Now. Too funny and too perfect, now I wish they'd get on that Pallisers adaptation so we can have Richard Cant back as Dolly!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 2:00 AM 8 comments  

Labels: Bleak House, Doctor Who, Henrietta Selwick, Lauren Willig, Midsomer Murders, Miles Dorrington, Pink Carnation Spotlight, Richard Cant, Sally Sparrow, The Way We Live Now, Vicar of Dibley