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Post by stuyoung on May 9, 2015 15:00:45 GMT
I recently watched Robin Redbreast, a 1970 episode of Play for Today. When Londoner Norah Palmer buys a country cottage she gradually finds herself ensnared in the strange goings on in the local village. Cue pagan creepiness, made even creepier by the fact that despite being shot in colour the only existing version of the episode is in black and white. Kind of a proto-Wicker Man. But with no shots of a naked Britt Ekland. Even so, it's still good fun.
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Post by stuyoung on May 11, 2015 7:43:37 GMT
Reading through the booklet that accompanies the DVD I realised that the writer of Robin Redbreast, John Bowen, also wrote for the BBC's A Ghost Story for Christmas series and that I had one of his episodes, The Ice House, on DVD. Not having previously got round to watching it I dug it out and gave it a whirl. Weird goings on at a health spa, specifically in the buildings where the owners store their ice. More oblique than Robin Redbreast, with very mannered dialogue, but still creepy in its own way.
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Post by ripper on May 11, 2015 9:11:22 GMT
I've seen 'The Ice House' and thought it was pretty good--rather different from the mostly M.R. James adaptations that came before. I have heard of 'Robin Redbreast,' though haven't seen it as yet and didn't know of its connection to 'The Ice House.' It's a shame that some of these episodes of Play for Today, The Wednesday Play and so forth are not screened nowadays. No doubt some may have been wiped but surely many will still exist in the archive.
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Post by stuyoung on May 11, 2015 12:37:08 GMT
With so many old programmes readily available these days it always pulls me up short when I hear about something that isn't available. I've been spoiled.
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Post by helrunar on Jun 5, 2016 13:32:30 GMT
Robin Redbreast is a tremendous piece of film. Freda Bamford's Mrs Vigo and Bernard Hepton's Fisher were wonderful characters, the note-perfect incarnation of creepy-folky weirdness. Anna Cropper made a very plausible heroine, holding onto her modern skepticism with increasingly frantic desperation as things unraveled.
It's grainy black-and-white, lo-fi, and very much the intrusion of nightmare Robert Graves/James Frazer territory upon the lives of a few hip young Londoners still reeling from the speed-up social shakedown of the Sixties. So, not everybody's cuppa, but one of the most memorable things I've ever seen.
John Bowen wrote another play with a character named Mrs Vigo which was produced by BBC but I do not think the latter has been released, and may not survive. It would be interesting to see.
H.
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Post by Dr Strange on Jun 6, 2016 15:28:34 GMT
John Bowen wrote another play with a character named Mrs Vigo which was produced by BBC but I do not think the latter has been released, and may not survive. It would be interesting to see. This is A Photograph, and you can find it on YouTube - www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt5VGruu6w8
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Post by helrunar on Jun 6, 2016 16:26:49 GMT
Cool! Thanks Dr Strange!
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Post by Michael Connolly on May 4, 2019 13:50:00 GMT
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Post by helrunar on May 5, 2019 23:36:02 GMT
Thanks. I found out about Robin Redbreast a few years ago when the folk horror revival group started up on social media--that and Penda's Fen are now two of my favorite British films of the 1970s.
H.
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Post by jamesdoig on May 6, 2019 1:54:40 GMT
Thanks. I found out about Robin Redbreast a few years ago when the folk horror revival group started up on social media--that and Penda's Fen are now two of my favorite British films of the 1970s. H. I watched Robin Redbreast recently and it really holds up well.
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Post by Shrink Proof on Jun 30, 2022 20:01:32 GMT
For some reason watching this when first broadcast sprung to mind, so I rewatched it on YouTube. Holds up very well, apart from some of the dodgy 1970 fashion, and the late Bernard Hepton turns in a terrific performance as the relentlessly creepy Mr Fisher. The ending's excellent too.
BUT....
Immediately after watching it I thought of posting something here (and hey, look, I am doing), so started to type. My original plan was to include a link so that any Vault inmates who so wished could watch it too, or at least check it out. Within 10 minutes of me watching it it's been blocked, supposedly by the BBC, and all comments removed.
Gulp...
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Post by Swampirella on Jun 30, 2022 20:30:15 GMT
It's still on Youtube, unless I've gone and blown that now too for everyone.
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Post by Shrink Proof on Jun 30, 2022 20:45:59 GMT
It said that it has been blocked "in your country" only. Once again the BBC doing its patriotic best for the Brits who pay for it...
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Post by jamesdoig on Jun 30, 2022 21:48:26 GMT
It said that it has been blocked "in your country" only. Once again the BBC doing its patriotic best for the Brits who pay for it... I wonder if it's youtube smarts making these connections. One day when I had nothing better to do, I created a youtube channel and loaded two documentaries. The one on Shakespeare refused to load because it said there were copyright issues. The youtube user interface actually indicated that at a certain point in the doco there is a three minute segment that is copyrighted to the BBC, and it turned out to be part of a BBC production of a play - but the system did allow me to snip the three minutes - which I did - and then it successfully loaded. Another part didn't load because there was a copyrighted song. So there's some content recognition going on there that raises a flag and tells the youtube software to stop loading - fortunately there are are options to fix it, but of course it creates some weird holes in the videos.
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Post by andydecker on Jul 1, 2022 7:57:36 GMT
It said that it has been blocked "in your country" only. Once again the BBC doing its patriotic best for the Brits who pay for it... I wonder if it's youtube smarts making these connections. One day when I had nothing better to do, I created a youtube channel and loaded two documentaries. The one on Shakespeare refused to load because it said there were copyright issues. The youtube user interface actually indicated that at a certain point in the doco there is a three minute segment that is copyrighted to the BBC, and it turned out to be part of a BBC production of a play - but the system did allow me to snip the three minutes - which I did - and then it successfully loaded. Another part didn't load because there was a copyrighted song. So there's some content recognition going on there that raises a flag and tells the youtube software to stop loading - fortunately there are are options to fix it, but of course it creates some weird holes in the videos. I wanted to watch the M. R. James adaption last christmas. But the BBC said no. I guess this is the standard procedure now in every country. Without the knowledge how to circumvent this with dodgy servers in Tonga or worse mobster locations who may transplant countless trojans on your PC or not one has to wait. It is not worth the hassle.
Currrently I get approx two calls a week on landline from those friendly folks of Microsoft East telling me that my PC has been breached and would I please share my passwords with them so they can help me? I can't believe people still fall for this that this is worth the effort.
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