TV detectives

[DracoM]

I just do not know how the originators of this series could possibly have seen Lassgard as the Wallander of Manekll's novels.

In almost no way that he is spoken about in those books, does he fit the profile. It is so counter-intuitive that you wonder if Lassgard owns or part owns the company that makes the films and this is a vanity project. His Wallander comes over on screen as a self-absorbed, slow-thinking, sweaty, self-loving slob

Is that anyone's idea of Wallander?

Just think of Barbara Windsor playing the Sarah Lund part in The Killing and you've got it.

[Northender]

Is that anyone's idea of Wallander?

Just think of Barbara Windsor playing the Sarah Lund part in The Killing and you've got it.

Well, he's certainly not mine . I'm not sure how Nordic viewers would react to BW's 'giggling drain' laugh.

[Bert Coules]

Brian Cox would be BRILLIANT as Rebus. If not on TV, then why not on radio?

Perhaps because Cox is established on radio as nineteenth century Edinburgh police detective James McLevy. Radio 4's Rebus (in several serials to date) is the excellent Ron Donachie.

[Resurrection Man]

I just do not know how the originators of this series could possibly have seen Lassgard as the Wallander of Manekll's novels.

....

Well said. I started watching Sidetracked but gave it up as a bad job. Then watched a recording of the first episode of the 'new' series. Turgid.

[DracoM]

'Murder' on BBC2, directed by Birger larsen [ The Killing] was IMO utterly brilliant in concept, structure, superb editing and acting. One hour of superlative TV.

[Nick Armstrong]

Interesting 'cross-over' for fans of The Killing and the BBC Sherlock series:

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s129/sherlock/news/a502068/sherlock-casts-the-killings-lars-mikkelsen-as-new-nemesis.html

[Pabmusic]

Interesting 'cross-over' for fans of The Killing and the BBC Sherlock series:

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s129/...w-nemesis.html

Conan Doyle based Charles Augustus Milverton on Charles Augustus Howell, an art dealer and heavily-rumoured society blackmailer and swindler (he once managed to swindle Whistler over a writing desk, leaving the artist having to pay two clients to whom Howell had sold the same desk on Whistler's behalf). He accommodated Swinburne's 'unusual' private tastes in a London flat and then demanded money from Swinburne's parents not to publicise it (at least, that was Swinburne's story). He also persuaded D. G. Rosetti to dig up his dead wife so that Howell could get hold of Rosetti's poems, which he'd buried with her.

Howell was found dead in the gutter outside a Chelsea pub. His throat had been cut and a coin wedged between his teeth. He must have had influence still, for the cause of his death was recorded as pneumonic phthisis (or TB*).

You couldn't put it in a story. Here's a blog about him:

http://from-bedroom-to-study.blogspo...butchered.html

* [Terminal blood-loss? Terminal breathlessness?]

[amateur51]

Conan Doyle based Charles Augustus Milverton on Charles Augustus Howell, an art dealer and heavily-rumoured society blackmailer and swindler (he once managed to swindle Whistler over a writing desk, leaving the artist having to pay two clients to whom Howell had sold the same desk on Whistler's behalf). He accommodated Swinburne's 'unusual' private tastes in a London flat and then demanded money from Swinburne's parents not to publicise it (at least, that was Swinburne's story). He also persuaded D. G. Rosetti to dig up his dead wife so that Howell could get hold of Rosetti's poems, which he'd buried with her.

Howell was found dead in the gutter outside a Chelsea pub. His throat had been cut and a coin wedged between his teeth. He must have had influence still, for the cause of his death was recorded as pneumonic phthisis (or TB*).

You couldn't put it in a story. Here's a blog about him:

http://from-bedroom-to-study.blogspo...butchered.html

* [Terminal blood-loss? Terminal breathlessness?]

What extraordinary stories, Pabs - many thanks

[mangerton]

What extraordinary stories, Pabs - many thanks

Indeed. Quite fascinating.

And thanks for the 'cross-over' news, Cali.

[antongould]

Continuing from post 54, I thought I'd look up some Edmund Crispin quotes. Here's a passage from Frequent Hearses (1950), which is set in a film studio to the NW of London. Gervase Fen has been retained to advise on the script of a new film (he is, after all, the Oxford Professor of English Language and Literature), but his meeting with a member of the music department at the studio is interrupted by a phone call:

'"Damn," she said. "Excuse me... Yes, put him through... Good morning, Dr. Bush - Geoffrey, I should say... Triple woodwind? Well, I imagine it might be managed; I'll ask Mr. Griswold... It'll be the Philharmonia, yes." Dr. Bush crackled prolongedly. "No measurements for reels four and five yet? All right, I'll nag them... Yes, I know you can't be expected to write a score if you haven't got any measurements... No, there's not the the least chance of postponing the recording; you'll just have to work all night as well as all day.... Have you sent any of the score to the copyists yet?... Well, you'd better get on with it, hadn't you?... See you at the recording... No... Certainly not. Good-bye."

She put down the instrument. "A composer," she explained soberly, like one who refers to some necessary but unromantic bodily function.'

(Bruce Montgomery (aka Edmund Crispin) and Geoffrey Bush were good friends, as was Philip Larkin.)

Here we meet composer Broderick Thouless, in The Glimpses of the Moon (1977, but mostly written in the 1950s). He's naturally a gentle romantic, but became type-cast by writing the music for a successful horror film years ago:

'Thouless had launched himself at the task of manufacturing the Bone Orchard score like a berserker rabbit trying to topple a tiger, and by over-compensating for his instinctive mellifluousness had managed to wring such hideous noises from his orchestra that he was at once assumed to have a particular flair for dissonance, if not a positive love of it. Ever since then he had accordingly found himself occupied with stakes driven through hearts, foot-loose mummies, giant centipedes aswarm in the Palace of Westminster and other such grim eventualities, a programme which had earned him quite a lot of money without, however, doing anything to enliven an already somewhat morose, complaining temperament.'

[It's autobiographical, of course. Montgomery had struck it lucky writing the score for Doctor in the House; there then followed years of British comedies.] '"Come in and have a drink," he called [to Fen] "The recording isn't till Monday week, and the only section I've got left to do is where they fail to destroy it with an H-bomb. Though why they want music over that, God alone knows...The effects track's going to be so noisy that no one'll hear a note of that section, I can tell you. Still, good for one's performing rights, I suppose, that's if they leave it in, which they probably won't.'

You have to get used to dialogue like this (which annoys some people):

'"But who is the Botticelli murderer? [asks one character of Fen]

"I don't know."

"But you must know by now, my dear fellow," said the Major plaintively. "We're practically at the end of the book."

There's nine novels and two volumes of short stories, of which the best short story (and best title) is probably We Know You're Busy Writing, But We Thought You Wouldn't Mind If We Just Dropped In For A Minute. It's about a frustrated writer with a novel idea for growing cabbages.

There has been very little of his music recorded, though this seems to be available, and has the Concertino for Strings, which is good:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/English-Stri...8796715&sr=8-6

The wonderful (OIMVVHO) Kate played a piece by Montgomery yesterday morning - Concertino for String Orchestra …. very much of its time but I enjoyed it …… appears to be the first bit of non Carry On music of his to be played for ages …..,

[Nick Armstrong]

The wonderful (OIMVVHO) Kate played a piece by Montgomery yesterday morning - Concertino for String Orchestra …. very much of its time but I enjoyed it …… appears to be the first bit of non Carry On music of his to be played for ages …..,

… will look that out.

(Prize for “thread resurrection of the month” btw, anton! )

[antongould]

… will look that out.

(Prize for “thread resurrection of the month” btw, anton! )

I accept the award and would like to thank my parents and my history teacher

[Nick Armstrong]

I accept the award and would like to thank my parents and my history teacher

Given your clearly outstanding ‘search’ skills, I’m putting you forward for Chief Superintendent of the Forum’s “Cold Thread Unit”

[smittims]

Sadly, only one movement of the Montgomery Concertino was played, but then Kate said only that it was 'worth a whirl sometime' which suggests a lack of wholehearted enthusiasm for the work.

[Dave2002]

The wonderful (OIMVVHO) Kate played a piece by Montgomery yesterday morning - Concertino for String Orchestra …. very much of its time but I enjoyed it …… appears to be the first bit of non Carry On music of his to be played for ages …..,

See https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001gyvg around 1 hour 39 minutes in.

Interesting come back from the dead thread this - Pab's stories about terrible goings on are a real treat!