Elvis in 'No Surrender' (1985) debuts on DVD

[Otis Westinghouse]

Nice one! As stated above, no thesp. I enjoyed seeing Michael Angelis, as in Lucien frm the wonderful Liver Birds, who, coincidentally, was rabbit obsessed.

[Dr. Luther]

Thought he was quite good hosting Letterman. Frasier was pretty cringeworthy.

Agreed.
I thought that the Letterman stint was fine.

[johnfoyle]

GBH is making it's U.S. dvd debut next Feb. ; a 'Biography of Elvis Costello' will be a extra-

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/GBH-DV ... nced/12955

[johnfoyle]

Now on Amazon-

http://www.amazon.com/G-B-H-Robert-Lind ... _rhf_p_t_1

[johnfoyle]

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-enter ... 55707.html

In from the cold: Alan Bleasdale on his return to television after a decade in the wilderness

He proved himself the finest TV writer of his generation. So why has it taken more than a decade for Liverpool's finest, Alan Bleasdale, to make his way back to our screens?

Robert Chalmers

Sunday, 12 December 2010

( extract)

GBH, his seven-part, 10-and-a-half-hour drama produced in 1991 by Channel 4, took his writing to another level in terms of imagination, subtlety and scale. While it is traditionally summarised as a drama about the pernicious influence of political extremism in a Northern town, the depth of characterisation in GBH is such that, had Bleasdale only ever written the scenes between Michael Palin's chronically hypochondriacal character and his Scottish doctor – a comic tour de force that ends episode three – he would have been remembered for ever.

Bravura performances from Palin, Robert Lindsay and Lindsay Duncan, among many others, were complemented by an award-winning score by Elvis Costello, who describes Bleasdale as "the elder brother I never had – my best friend and the one editorial voice to which I would attend and for which I would amend".


"It perhaps bears repeating," Elvis Costello told me, "that he has the keenest ear in the language for the comedy and absurdity of both petty and misguided authority and human resilience in the face of it. He is also unsentimental in finding the necessary sympathy for damaged individuals who otherwise display all the unlovable vanities of power, or for those who cannot face their own weaknesses."

"It is an indictment of the timid standard of television drama that Running Scared, the third part of what might otherwise have been regarded as a trilogy of masterworks, still waits to be produced or even published," Elvis Costello says. "It had something very bleak to say about the way we were living under the Blair Experiment and would be positively poignant to view as we witness the further, cynical division of society by this current shower of shites. It has been galling to see his work, over many years, undervalued, mistreated or dismissed in favour of trite decorative dramas, exercises in nostalgia or ritual humiliation, and shouty programmes about motor cars."




Robert Chalmers profiled Elvis in 2009

http://www.elviscostellofans.com/phpBB3 ... s&start=25

[migdd]

It has been galling to see his work, over many years, undervalued, mistreated or dismissed in favour of trite decorative dramas, exercises in nostalgia or ritual humiliation, and shouty programmes about motor cars." [/b]

HEYYY NOW! My 12-year-old son LOVED Top Gear . . .when he was nine.

[Top balcony]

Thanks John,

I had assumed that he is the Alan B listed on NR amongst the Council of Wise Men
and Women, this article seems to confirm that guess. He is a regular attender at EC's
Liverpool shows, and I saw him cadge a ride on the tour bus when, for some
unfathomable reason in 2003, EC played Manchester rather than Liverpool.

Mr B lived next door to my parents-in-Law for about 5 years around the time of the writing of "Boys from.." they always regarded him as a decent bloke. For a period of about 6 weeks your correspondent was also living next door to him whilst house searching.

No mention of it anywhere but I'm hoping that our hero will do the soundtrack
for "The Sinking of the Laconia"

Colin Top Balcony

[johnfoyle]

I've just noticed that the Independent On Sunday link has this new-to-me colour photo-


Andrew Schofield as Liverpool footie fanatic Francis Scully and his train-spotting brother called Henry (Elvis Costello), 'Scully', Channel 4 , 1984


............and some footage of 'Henry' -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QtlLy-E ... re=related

[Man out of Time]

"The Sinking of the Laconia" will be broadcast on BBC2 in two parts on 6 and 7 January 2011 (8 January in Wales) at 9pm.

The BBC Website does not include any musical credits:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00x9cjj

IMDB does better and lists original music by Adrian Johnston. Mr Johnston seems to specialise in music for TV series or TV Mini-series.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1504261/fullcredits#cast

No EC input to "The Sinking of the Laconia" then, it appears, unless a few bars of "Shipbuilding" or "Last Boat Leaving" are slipped in somewhere.

MOOT

[Top balcony]

Disappointingly no discernable EC content - unless the twins were making their small screen debuts as extras?

Anyway I thought tonight's episode was terrific.

IMO UK TV is v.poor - being mainly a triumphal procession of celebrity/soap/cooking - this drama and the McGovern series - Accussed - being very notable exceptions.

Roll on part 2

In a certain light ... Nancy Banks Smith (http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/ ... h-40-years)

[Top balcony]

Wasn't just me thought episode 1 was great:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/ ... tin-clunes

Nancy

[Top balcony]

There's obviously only me watching, so i'm telling myself that episode 2 was great too.

Think I'll watch it again via the BBC I-Player.

NBS

[Fishfinger king]

It's not just you.
I've been off sick with the flu and spent quite some time (when conscious) on iPlayer.
I thought Sinking of the Laconia was extremely good.
Totally agree that it was completely out of sync with the vast amount of drivel on UK TV at the moment.

[snapyou]

Programme of the year (or was it last year?)

Anyway,catch it while you can.

[charliestumpy]

The 2 shows were o.k. (my wife liked them more than I did). They weren't very HD, but I (many others I suspect) now know about U-156/Herr Hartenstein the Kapitan etc/Americans in their B24 'Liberator' bombing the survivors.

The follow-up 30 min show showing real survivors added real illumination.

I like most of Bleasdale/Costello, and generally dislike most war.

I agree that this sort of ficti-documentary is better than TV-religion-shows based on too much money/meaningless celebrity.

[Top balcony]

The Sinking Of The Laconia is nominated in the Best Drama Serial category in the BAFTAs this year;

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpoo ... -28588722/

Winners are announced on 22nd May

Incidentally the photo from the Echo shows AB with the Royal Court Theatre in the background, the scene of many of our hero's triumphs, back in the days when he played gigs in the UK.

Colin Top Balcony

[johnfoyle]

Another Costello classic goes digital.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005 ... d_i=468294

http://www.theartsdesk.com/index.php?op ... Itemid=107

DVD: No Surrender

Wednesday, 20 July 2011 02:57

Written by Graham Fuller

1985 was an annus mirabilis for harsh Liverpool comedies, both of them. Letter to Brezhnev, about two Liver birds wooed by Soviet sailors, was the quintessential grassroots production of the British Film Renaissance. No Surrender, Alan Bleasdale’s sole foray into cinema, was a £2 million epic farce about sectarian fury erupting when two coachloads of OAPs are double booked into a Stanley Road nightclub one New Year’s Eve. (A group of infirm geriatrics, wailing and flailing, also materializes.) Arriving on DVD this month, it has lost none of its edge as a bracing blend of reality, absurdity, and caustic Scouse wit.

As head of the NFFC, Mamoun Hassan invited script proposals from Bleasdale after seeing some of Boys From the Blackstuff. Bleasdale suggested No Surrender, which Hassan greenlit when he formed an independent company. As he says in a supplementary interview, Bleasdale writes great characters (as opposed to great images, which would be director Peter Smith’s domain) and he wrote several here. The most formidable is Ray McAnally’s steely Orange Lodge leader, who has renounced violence but is saddled with a blackmailing Protestant murderer (J.G. Devlin); their scenes together indicate a lethal mutual history.

Three Blackstuff boys participated: Michael Angelis is beautifully deadpan as the manager vaguely keeping the Protestant and Catholic oldsters from each other’s throats, while dealing with gangsters led by Tom Georgeson; Bernard Hill is the bequiffed and homophobic bouncer. Joanne Whalley, in her glory, plays a would-be chanteuse (pictured right) who fancies “a fook” with Angelis, Elvis Costello an inept conjuror, and James Ellis a Catholic Blind Pew. Alongside the golden oldies, watch for cherubic Ian Hart as a nervy mugger.

Hassan and Smith are candid in the “making of” featurette: the seniors were game but moved slowly and delayed the shoot; Bleasdale resented cuts to the script; the film’s had its biggest success on VHS. The chaos was worth it, however, for No Surrender is a dark delight.

[Man out of Time]

No EC, but good to see that some of Alan Bleasdale's TV work is being made available:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-36853841

"Alan Bleasdale's first TV work, Early To Bed, released

Alan Bleasdale's rarely-seen first television work, Early To Bed, has been released by the BBC in a collection celebrating his screenwriting.
The 1975 drama, featuring a young Alison Steadman, was written by then-school teacher Bleasdale in four days for a BBC Two new writers strand.
The Alan Beasdale At The BBC collection also includes the rarely-shown The Muscle Market and his best known work Boys From The Blackstuff.

Early To Bed - which also starred Doctor Who and EastEnders actor David Warwick - tells the story of a married woman who starts an affair with her young neighbour.

The Muscle Market, which has not been broadcast since it was first shown in 1981, sees Pete Postelthwaite as a crooked business owner.

The 1980 play The Blackstuff, and its Boys From The Blackstuff spin-off, were critically-acclaimed portrayals of Margaret Thatcher's Britain and featured Bernard Hill as the troubled Yosser Hughes.

The series famously saw the unemployed Hughes develop the increasingly desperate catchphrase of "Gizza job" as he searched for work, asking everyone he met including his professional footballer lookalike, Graeme Souness.

The controversial 1986 drama The Monocled Mutineer, which starred Paul McGann and told the story of a World War One mutiny, is also included.

Alan Bleasdale's last TV work was a 2011 two-part film about the sinking of the Laconia in World War Two"

When I have seen Alan Bleasdale outside the stage door of the Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool after one of Elvis's shows there, he has sometimes been carrying a shopping bag with a script or scripts in it, and I remember him telling me (and others there) that he has a lot of TV scripts that have yet to be produced.

MOOT