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Post by pulphack on Sept 23, 2013 7:06:23 GMT
As it happens, I think the writing has stepped up a notch in terms of character simply from those two things - Buchan's amorous intentions give him another dimension and you just know the supposed 'joke' of his date is going to feed into whatever is developing in his cellar (damp and mould, eh? I had a cupboard like that in the old place...). But I loved the fact that Miles is a modern art fan, and that Chandler made a stupid assumption that delayed matters and maybe will teach him something. Ray's little homily to our neurotic artist red herring was also a nice touch. A different writer has given a slightly different perspective and a new edge, which for me proves the argument for multiple writers on a series. Looking forward to Wednesday...
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Post by dem bones on Oct 1, 2013 6:42:49 GMT
As it happens, I think the writing has stepped up a notch in terms of character simply from those two things - Buchan's amorous intentions give him another dimension and you just know the supposed 'joke' of his date is going to feed into whatever is developing in his cellar (damp and mould, eh? I had a cupboard like that in the old place...). But I loved the fact that Miles is a modern art fan, and that Chandler made a stupid assumption that delayed matters and maybe will teach him something. Ray's little homily to our neurotic artist red herring was also a nice touch. A different writer has given a slightly different perspective and a new edge, which for me proves the argument for multiple writers on a series. Looking forward to Wednesday... One of few known surviving copies of Edward Buchan's Murder In Whitechapel, discreetly withdrawn from sale and pulped on "advice" of HM Govt. What are they trying to hide? Painting: Chrissie DemantA familiar moan, but I'm really surprised that to date there have been no spin-off publications. If Steve Pemberton isn't up for it, you'd think Ben Court and Caroline Ip would either do it themselves or hire someone to ghost Ed Buchan's The History Of Murder for public consumption. True Crime books are plentiful, but one more wouldn't hurt. Alternatively, Ed could pen a Gazetteer, The Black History Of Whitechapel or some-such, in the tradition of Inspector Morse's Oxford, The Avengers On Location, Midsomer Murders on Location, etc, etc. Anyway, part two of the Pemberton-scripted story was a red herring fest on a par with Robert Bloch's Night Of The Ripper. When the latest chief suspect, a young emo doppelgänger of Ian McCulloch circa Porcupine, is alibied from contention, we've less than fifteen minutes in find our demented vigilante, about whom all we know is that he models himself on Judge Jeffries, and wears a leathery death mask taken from his murdered mother's face whenever he's about to administer 'justice'. Poor Ed Buchan, who has been having a particularly trying time of it since the book launch, very nearly pays the ultimate price for going that extra mile, and he's not even on the payroll! So much to resolve in the final two parter. Who or what is haunting DC Miles/ the police station? Why is Kent's sister canoodling with a louse like Mansell? What's with Megan's sudden skin condition - has she been contaminated by the mildew threatening Ed's crime archive? Where's Stella Knight disappeared to, or is she a mistress of disguise, masquerading as a sinister old lady who is an ever-present at the latest crime scene (in episode 4 she was glimpsed chatting to a police officer while Chandler and Miles were arguing the merits of using a psychic). Of one thing we can be certain: the final two-parter will be outrageous.
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Post by pulphack on Oct 3, 2013 6:48:44 GMT
A Whitechapel cook book - after last night, that would be nice. Actually, it appears that tie-ins generally don't sell anymore for drama or comedy shows - look at the number of remaindered Mitchell&Webb and Armstrong&Miller books there were, even though they were rather good - whereas a cookery book or a travel book with lots of coffee table glossy pics goes down rather well with gift buyers, which is why they all come out for the Xmas trade. Sad for me, as I loved a tie-in, and could also have found some work perhaps, but in the age of boxed sets and on-demand, I can see why it's dwindled (though the USA still does a fair trade).
Anyway, I shan't say too much about last nights until next week, but I had comment on the fact that old girl lived at 66b, which shows the devil gets all the rottenest jokes... The cutting and darkness make more and more sense and I'm overcoming my old bloke's prejudice to them... and this is shaping up nicely for the last episode. Also, the zombie role play at the beginning went down well here as mrs ph didn't see the last part of last week's*, and assumed it was a recap, spending a good five minutes asking me what was going on and getting more and more wound-up when I said I didn't know. The look on her face when she realised what was going on showed me how effective that opening could have been for the new/casual viewer...
(* she's worse than me for catch-up)
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Post by pulphack on Oct 3, 2013 6:50:07 GMT
Incidentally - a coffee table book about coffee tables? I'd buy that, having had a fetish for late fifties/early sixties ones at one stage and having cleared at least half a dozen from the garage when moving...
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Post by dem bones on Oct 3, 2013 12:00:17 GMT
. Also, the zombie role play at the beginning went down well here as mrs ph didn't see the last part of last week's*, and assumed it was a recap, spending a good five minutes asking me what was going on and getting more and more wound-up when I said I didn't know. The look on her face when she realised what was going on showed me how effective that opening could have been for the new/casual viewer... (* she's worse than me for catch-up) It threw me too, thought I'd missed one! Much of Vault interest in last night's penultimate episode, with a crazed cryptozoologist, a baby-eating hack reporter, and a Sawney Beane tribute clan at large in the city beneath the city. Even the role play game which the team prove so rubbish at is called Zombie Apocalypse. It seems the subterranean cannibals are targeting Whitechapel's good Samaritans, dragging them down below to face a grisly doom. What, with his OCD and cleanliness fetish, DCI Chandler is not a great one for trawling filthy, rat-infested sewers strewn with disembodied corpses and pig intestine, but then he's far from the only member of the team on the verge of a nervous collapse. Ed's still traumatised by his near miss at the scissors of the psycho court stenographer. Megan has deliberately cultivated her boil until it's visible on the London skyline, and Miles' Roman Catholic upbringing conspires to convince him that there's a demon on his trail. Even Mansell is, for once, shown in a sympathetic light. Kent is still as furtive as ever, but maybe he knows something about his twin-sister's nature that his smitten colleague doesn't? The initial suspects are ropey as ever, notably Mark Hooper, a particularly creepy cryptozoologist, is obsessed with the 'Black Swine', a mutant strain of Victorian sewer-dwelling pigs with an appetite for human flesh. When Chandler shows Hooper a photo of an eviscerated jogger, it's all Cooper can do not to orgasm in his jeans. At last! Proof he's not wasting his life chasing after an Urban myth! Meanwhile, the sinister old dear wanders in and out of shot as the mood takes her ...
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Post by andydecker on Oct 3, 2013 18:55:00 GMT
Incidentally - a coffee table book about coffee tables? . :)I hope you don't have a neighbour named Cosmo
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Post by dem bones on Oct 12, 2013 5:57:20 GMT
Warning; this post brought to you from Spoilers R Us inc
Why Whitechapel? What is it about Whitechapel that inspires such mental crime dramas? The storylines have always tended toward the loopy, but Ben Court & Caroline Ip excelled themselves with the series 4 finale. Our cannibals, quite simply, weren't anything of the sort, but merely the local Doomsday cult, attempting to prevent the end of days by sacrificing nice people. The only other occasion our molemen and women emerged from down below was to deliver their snazzy leaflet. It's such a shame Mary Whitehouse is no longer with us as she'd surely have appreciated the re-enactment of the Last Supper in a sewer.
If i've a criticism of series' 3 & 4, it's that the scripts are too busy to fit everything into the three two-parter format. The loaded sub-plots fizzled out one after another, and almost all of the 'supernatural' elements were explained away to the complete satisfaction of nobody. More successful, Chandler overcoming his pride to have Miles contact a psychic, who passes on a vital tip off from beyond the grave. A furious Chandler is too much the sceptic to even read the message - it's from his late father - setting us up for a macabre killing joke just when things finally seem to be going swimmingly. Louise Iver, the old dear first encountered at Buchan's book-launch proves a genuine enigma; is she merely a mean-spirited old bag, or is she at best the Grim Reaper, at worst Lucifer personified? The motive for her personal vendettas against first the M15 spook, then Chandler and the team , either escaped me altogether or was never explained. Who cares? My one disappointment was a lack of voiceover during the credits assuring that Whitechapel will return for a fifth series next year, or preferably, next week.
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Post by andydecker on Oct 13, 2013 18:23:11 GMT
having seen season 3 a while ago I share your views, dem. It is a bit much compared with other series. A little more breathing space would be a nice thing. The plots in these things tend to be overcomplicated.
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Post by pulphack on Oct 14, 2013 5:37:04 GMT
I'm going to have to contrary and say that although it was a bit fast and threw away some subplots, I actually liked that about it. Having sat through Broadchurch and Dancing On The Edge this year, a bit of speed is no bad thing. I enjoyed those two shows, the latter looking wonderful, but to be frank they could have had an hour or two trimmed easily off the total length. But yes, leaving aside how refreshing that ended up being after the longer shows, if I was the script editor I'd be pushing for 2x3 episode stories on the next series, just to give it time to breathe.
Will there be a next season? They've set it up nicely to be all about Louise Ivers and what she really is, with the idea of Whitechapel being ome kind of nexus toned down from the hyperbolic pitch it reached, and perhaps more brooding. A malicious old biddy with a grudge rather than Satan in a twin-set and pearls? I like the idea of a malicious old girl cackling as she caused havoc, but then if you'd met the wife's mother... (Next year - the Les Dawson revival tour) But seriously, if you HAD met her...
With all the less than subtle angel imagery, I'd convinced myself that Chandler was going to be the lamb and the series would end with him being slaughtered - on his part a kind of atonement for his perceived failures. So when he wasn't, it was rather nice, really. Did love the black joke at the end, too: I see what you mean about his suddenly calling in the psychic being a bit out of step and a plot device, but at the same time it makes sense if you consider how stressed he was, how the OCD was taking a hold, and so his judgement was out of whack and that of a desperate man succumbing the to the influrence of what was around him. His regretting it made that work for me. He was also very irritating in the sewer, and if I was Miles I would have hit him. But then that just shows how intolerant I am.
Overall, a cracking end to this series and makes me vow to catch up on the bits I missed last series.
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Post by dem bones on Oct 14, 2013 20:05:42 GMT
a bit of speed is no bad thing. Oh, I agree, and nobody could accuse the show of dreariness. That 50 or so minutes zips by. I thought Chandler might be set for his Wicker Man moment too - which almost certainly would have sounded the death knell for the show - but what transpired was so ridiculous it bordered on genius, even when you realise the entire Last Supper sequence was dreamed up entirely for the benefit of the subsequent black punchline (which, i thought was great). Now the series is finished, we can all consult the very generous press pack, featuring interviews with all the main players. When Rupert Penry-Jones is asked "Would you like to do more of Whitechapel if the series continues?," his response offers reason for cautious optimism. "If it’s going the way it’s going I think we’d be crazy to stop." If it comes back, i hope Louise Ivers returns, and they could also make more use of Stella from the intelligence services, and Buchan's publicist from hell, Daisy.
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Post by dem bones on Oct 17, 2013 14:58:15 GMT
Peter Ackroyd - London Under (Vintage, 2012: originally Chatto & Windus, 2011) Blurb London Under is an atmospheric, imaginative introduction to everything that goes on under London, from original springs and streams and Roman amphitheatres to Victorian sewers, gang hideouts and modern Underground stations. This book tunnels down through the geological layers, meeting the creatures, both real and fictional, that dwell in the darkness – rats and eels, monsters and ghosts.
From the Anglo-Saxon graves under St Paul's, to the hydraulic device in Kensal Green cemetery which lowered bodies into the catacombs below, to the fossils uncovered when the Victoria line was built and the gold bars within the Bank of England's vaults, London Under takes you into a hidden world, just beneath our feet.
`This book is not a straightforward history of London's relationship with the day on which it stands but a poetic invoking of what Ackroyd perceives as the diabolic terror of the earth' - Metro
`Other worlds lurk below London, and Ackroyd revels in them. The book is both an absorbing history of those parts of the capital that lie beneath our feet and a meditation on the meaning we give them' - Adrian Tinniswood, Literary Review
`A literary, cultural and topographical sat-nav for going underground in London... With quick, deft stitches he sews the fantastical and the familiar into a macabre sampler of the city that exists beneath the feet of its citizens' - The TimesSome weird serendipity/ vault voodoo in play. Within 48 hours of reading about the Gnaws episode of The New Avengers in Alwyn W. Turner's Crisis? What Crisis?, it showed up on ITV4, and on Monday, with the insane concluding Whitechapel two parter fresh in mind - it's unlikely to be forgotten any time this milleniun - this showed up in the Spitalfields Crypt Charity Shop (Aldgate Chapter). A slim-line spin off from the same author's highly recommended London: The Biography (2000), as the title lets on, this takes the story down into the sewers, vaults and tunnels where who or what you'll encounter depends on your luck. We've yet to encounter any subterranean cannibals or black swine, but there sure are a lot of rats down here - though not as many as during the days of Queen Victoria, 'The Great Stink,' and the Toshers, scavengers who'd brave the very real threats of disease, lethal fumes, exploding gasses, hungry rodent hordes and other toshers, in the hope of salvaging some lost valuable from the dangerous slime. Patron Saint of these desperadoes was 'Richard The Raker,' a pioneering sewage worker who became the industry's first martyr when, in 1324, he lost his footing and "died monstrously in his own excrement." To read of their colourful if sometimes improbable adventures is to experience the same guilty thrill one gets from the most hilariously ghastly moments in Gary Hogg's lovable Cannibalism & Human Sacrifice. The city beneath the city may be the greatest secret adventure playground of all, but you trespass at your peril; "It may offer safety for some, but it does not offer solace. London is built on darkness." Then, today, a copy of this comes my way via Jambala in Bethnal Green. It's like the Omen! Robert Milne-Tyte - Bloody Jeffreys: The Hanging Judge (Andre Deutch, 1989) Blurb: No judge in the entire history of the English legal system has earned more notoriety than hard-drinking, loud-mouthed George Jeffreys, scourge of the West Country rebels who, in 1685, supported the Duke of Monmouth's abortive attempt to overthrow the newly enthroned King James the Second. Jeffreys' reputation was sealed by the aftermath of Monmouth's rebellion, the so-called Bloody Assizes, but well before that his arrogant, bullying style and his terrifying visage had made him feared and hated in courts up and down the land. Lord Chief Justice at the time of the Bloody Assizes, soon afterwards, at the age of forty, Jeffreys became Lord Chancellor, to this day the youngest man ever to have held the post. But his out-of-court activities, particularly his nightly roistering with a band of sycophantic drinking companions, contrasted sharply with the gravity of the offices he held. Ironically, it was a stone in the bladder, not the demon drink, which eventually led to his demise in the Tower of London precisely 300 years ago.
By any standards, Lord Jeffreys was a fascinating, larger-than-life figure — fanatical Tory, furious hater, harsh judge; but controversial as his career was, his death opened the way for his enemies to attack his reputation without hindrance. Now Robert Milne-Tyre looks with critical suspicion at the hostile propaganda which has long been attached to Jeffreys' name, and sets out to assess the true character of the man. He charts in colourful detail the rise and fall of this ardent royalist and devout supporter of the Church of England, and describes Jeffreys' memorable encounters with the republican-inclined Whig party, the protagonists of the Rye House Plot (the scheme to assassinate Charles II and his successor) and the odious Titus Oates, whose outrageous lies led to the judicial murder of some thirty-five Catholics and a tidal wave of anti-Papist sentiment throughout Britain.
Bloody Jeffreys is a lively, authoritative and immensely readable study of the life of one of history's most intriguing and infamous figures.Re: Crisis? What Crisis? (again). Alwyn's chapter on the environment also references such rodent infested masterpieces as James Herbert's The Rats, Bowie's Diamond Dogs, the Stranglers' Rattus Norvegicus, the "histrionic magnificence" of the Doctors of Madnesses fifteen minute epic, Mainline, and episodes of Doomwatch ( Tomorrow, The Rat), Dr. Who ( The Talons of Weng-Chiang), and Nigel Kneale's Beasts ( During Barty's Party).
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Post by andydecker on Oct 17, 2013 16:50:40 GMT
I stumbled upon a few titles by Judith Flanders. The Invention of Death: How the Victorians reveled in death and detection; The Victorian City; The Victorian House.
Does anyone know this title? Sounded interesting from the descriptions.
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Post by pulphack on Oct 18, 2013 5:47:35 GMT
Ackroyd's great on London, and seems suitably obsessed in the novels I've read, too. Anything by him is underscored by the occult, in all sense of the word... There was also, in the early nineties, one of those heavily illustrated books about the tunnels under London - the post office railway, the tunnels built to service the tube, anything like that. It disappeared when I got divorced and at this remove I can't remember title or author. Worth having a search for, which I shall be doing. As I recall, dry text but lots of fascinating facts, and great pictures. I shall try to come back with that one...
A sideline on Alwyn Turner's musical taste - the one thing about the Trash Fiction site was that he was convinced anything not glam, punk, or kitsch was crap. Which is probably whey there's no mention of prog rock, etc, as you pointed out, Dem. But what about if you like Bowie, Bolan AND Savoy Brown and Genesis? All of whom spent some time on an equal footing at the start of the decade before singles and albums became a badge of divisiveness? However, I can forgive him anything for loving the Doctors Of Madness' 'Mainline' - the first album is by far the best, and a bit like Deaf School they were just that bit ahead of the curve to be thrown out with the bathwater when punk hit. I first heard 'Mainline' in 1978, catching up on a second hand album just when they broke up, and I still think it's one of the great tracks of its time - especially when Richard Strange mangles his guitar for the epic solo. You can keep your virtuosos when you have an idiot with blue hair strangling his strings.
Back on topic, the idea of London being built on darkness is one I love. Moorcock's story 'London Bone' is a good riff on this,and well worth reading (the rest of the collection that carries that name is good, too, and there's a non-fiction piece about forgotten London authors that's worth the price of entry alone),and I spent most of last year on a script optioned by some bloke in Florida that was about darkness, the occult, and corrupt coppers in a fictional manor that sits somewhere to one side of Custom House. Of course, he ran out of money and now it's option-free and will never get bloody made. At least book publishers actually get things on the street (well, in the shops and online, to be accurate).
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Post by dem bones on Oct 18, 2013 9:37:13 GMT
Ackroyd's great on London, and seems suitably obsessed in the novels I've read, too. Anything by him is underscored by the occult, in all sense of the word... There was also, in the early nineties, one of those heavily illustrated books about the tunnels under London - the post office railway, the tunnels built to service the tube, anything like that. It disappeared when I got divorced and at this remove I can't remember title or author. Worth having a search for, which I shall be doing. As I recall, dry text but lots of fascinating facts, and great pictures. I shall try to come back with that one... might the book you're thinking of be Richard Trench & Ellis Hillman's London Under London: A Subterranean Guide, first published by John Murray in the mid-eighties, and since revised several times? If it's the one i'm thinking of, it is indeed excellent. Had it from the library many moons ago when "researching" some pile of nonsense about cannibal tribes in the tube tunnels (didn't find much), and it's possibly where Ben Court & Caroline Ip learned of the black swine. Alwyn isn't all over punk in the book, seeing the whole thing as far more influential than its commercial popularity merited, although he clearly still holds T. V. Smith in the highest regard, quoting a dirty great gob from the Adverts' superb The Great British Mistake on title page of Part Three; Sense Of Doubt 1976-79 alongside a spiky quote from Terry Thomas ("If I didn't laugh at people like Thatcher and Callaghan, I'd want to blow my brains out."). The Hanging Judge is a huge disappointment in that it puts to bed some of the nastier myths surrounding one of English history's most reviled monsters, so we can safely ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist. My copy comes complete with snippets of post-it notes bearing cryptic messages in really nice handwriting attached to many of the pages, so obviously it is that used by Mr. Edward Buchan to investigate the flaying fiend of Wapping and shall be treasured accordingly. I stumbled upon a few titles by Judith Flanders. The Invention of Death: How the Victorians reveled in death and detection; The Victorian City; The Victorian House.
Does anyone know this title? Sounded interesting from the descriptions. I hadn't until you mentioned them, but they look worth chasing up. Am also putting in a library order for something called Black Swine in the Sewers of Hampstead: Beneath the Surface of Victorian Sensationalism by Thomas Boyle (Hodder & Stoughton, 1990)
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Post by Dr Strange on Oct 18, 2013 12:44:02 GMT
Wow - it never occurred to me that the "Black Swine" mentioned in Whitechapel weren't just an invention of the writers.
I've read a couple of Ackroyd's - including Hawksmoor and The House of Dr Dee - interesting, but very definitely "literary" (and it probably helps if you know the geography of London).
For a less literary take on "occult London", I recently read London Falling by Paul Cornell, which was OK - it's part of a new series mixing the police procedural with the supernatural (the next one apparently has Jack the Ripper returning), which I might follow up on provided it doesn't get too "urban fantasy". From his bio, it looks like Cornell's done mostly TV screenplays plus some recent Dr Who books - speaking of which, I hear Ben Wheatley is lined up to direct some of the episodes for the next series!
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