Friday 15 November 2013

WOTSONTELLY, DEATH OF A FRANCHISE, ITV3

Such days,  
they were the good days.


 But now, c'est fini.

'Astings, mon ami, look 'ow we 'ave come to our end. 
 It is tres ignominious, non?



You an' me, 'Astings, we 'ave  solved the murders tres mysterieuse and we 'ave solved them in the most glorious of your English stately 'omes; 


 we 'ave solved them in the finest of Art Deco buildings - homes, offices, 'otels and even factories; 

 
 we 'ave flown on vintage aircraft from especially refabricated aerodromes, 



 
 

we 'ave sailed on les steamers magnifique.......but this show, 'Astings, 'as not even le open-topped voiture sportif 


or the steaming train, 
  

there ees no hotel grand, not even, mon ami, the sort of coaching inn suitable for the chief Inspector Japp to recline in, with his smelly socks and his pork pies,   thees show, eet ees, 'ow you say, bucket scrapings....

Good Lord Poirot, do you really think so??? 
And it's barrel, by the way.

Comment?

Barrels, barrel scrapings, not bucket scrapings.

Oui, d'accord, bucket scrapings. Le metaphore Anglaise, eet is a mystery to Poirot an' ees leetle grey cells.  But no matter. Regardez,  bien, mon cher ami, I am in the accursed wheeling chair.  


 Moi, the great  'Ercule, in this episode finale I am to be pushed around as though I were le sack of pommes de terre......


Spuds, Poirot, sack of spuds.....



Oui, d'accord, spuds, eet is the staple diet of you English. You boil them up until they are inedible, fit only for the bin of swill and then you pulp them up with the watery milk and the margarine so foul  and then slop them on plates an' expect persons of le refinement gastronomique to eat the wretched mess....Poirot would not feed it to le petit chien.


I say, Poirot. I rather think that Bangers'n'Mash is a jolly good tuck-in...

A jolly good tuck-in????? The brains and foreskins and the lips and eyelods  of le cochon, all minc-ed up an' wrapped up in ees intestinal tract and then incinerated in a blackened frying pan and placed, just-so, on top of le spuds mashee?  Thees ees what you call le jolly good tuck-in?  'Astings, mon ami, you are, 'ow you say, a real teat.....


Treat, Poirot, a real treat...

Exactement.  But look, look at thees sheethole in which we must act, eet ees like the penitentiary, non? And freezing.  And le furniture, eet looks to 'ave been made from the orange box an' the tea chestings,  Mon Dieu, 'Astings,  the 'ole place,  it is like the jumbling sale of l'Armie Salvationique. An' the lights, 'Astings.....

What's wrong with the lights, old man...?


What's wrong with the lights, you ask of Poirot?  What's wrong with them?  They do not light, that is what is wrong with them,  they are dim, 'Astings, rather like your good self, mon pauvre cher ami,  they do not cast any light.  The servants, they should be instructed, most firmly, to light the candles or even the flaming brands;  the electricity in this 'ouse it is the big joke, n'est ce pas? Is generated, peut etre, by the hamster or the gerbil, on the treading mill?   That actors of our calibre, our experience and stature, that we should stumble about in the dark, in this, our last episode, eet is infamy.  What 'as 'appened to the budget, these past four episodes; instead of glorious, brilliantly-lit interieurs and sunny locations we 'ave been plunged into the long night of cheap franchise-milking.  We may as well 'ave made the shows down on the site most dilapidee of  la Rue Coronation or Les Eastenders.


Good Lord, Poirot, that's a bit harsh......

And the company, 'Astings, l'ensemble, who are these nincompoopings,  in my long career - before I was le detectif indefatigable et magnifique I acted, you know, 'Astings, with your Royal Shakespeare Company among the luvvies from, 'ow you say, the Top Door..... 


Drawer, Poirot, drawer...

Oui, merci, le top door.....and I was in filmes propre, in the cinema  among fine screen actors.  But this cast?  Poirot 'as never seen or heard of them, apart from one - Madam Leach, 'oo, let us make the face at it, is no Dame Judi Dench - they ave all been carefully selected from les societies most dismal of amateur dramatistes, the very highest they should have aimed is to play the role of some 'ousewife adultereuse, in le Farme Emmerdale or a police constable in the unspeakable Law'n'Order UK with the actor turned quizmaster, the ghastly et tres terrible  Bradley Wotsisname. 



 These people, this cast, 


they  do not belong, 'Astings, in the same shot as you and I.  
Rememberez vous, mon ami, 'ow we used to 'ave l'ensemble tres precise and accomplished, a quartet most versatile whilst being at the same time most reassuring;
 


  there was yourself, the tres obedient Miss Leh-mon, the chief inspecteur Clodhopper and last but not lost, myself, the greatest detective televisual in history.

Eef money ees so important, the producers should have set us amongst proper corpses, borrowed, for a small fee, from the local undergravers....

Takers, Poirot.....

Takers, 'Astings, of what do you speak, what is this takers?


Under Takers, Poirot, old man, undertakers,  that's what we call them, not undergravers.

Merde, 'Astings, it is all the same. Mistreating les cadavers and stealing from the bereaved, the entire filthy charade masked with the clothing sombre and the sympathy synthetique.  But please not to endlessly correct Poirot,  you know perfectly well of what I speak.  And if you continue so to do we will not finish the show, about which I 'ave sold an article to the great journal, le Daily Filth, and you, mon ami, will find that your work may dry up, even in  such rubbish as the series most execrable, M'sieu Sharp, where you play the Duke of Wellingtons

  

 alongside the actor  made of woods, le boeufcake blonde, M'sieu Sean Beans..... Non, 'Astings, interrupt me not  




Your time, as 'Astings, 'Astings, it has been, n'est ce pas, the most rewarding of your career;  you 'ave had the work most regular and lucratif.  For twenty-five years you have played the loyal idiot and now it is all come to dust.  We are filming in a freezing ruin, acting with stiffs,  and Poirot must now go and do his deathbed scene, leaving you, ma cher ami, scratching your brains of lard and probably trying to make  a living doing the over-voices for M'sieu TESCO, or entering the jungle celebree avec les politicians de merde, feasting on the dung beetles and sleeping among vermin, if Mademoselle Dorries will permit.      

 
I tell to you. 'Astings, Je suis desolee.  That our career should end in death and darkness, you to be unemployed and me, Poirot, to tour the chatting shows for the rest of my days....well. what can I say,  is, vraiment, as mr ishmael say to me many times, There is no business like the showbusiness.

And now,  mes amis, mes audiences, adieu,

  
The great one, il est mort.
The late David Suchet is available for a small very large fee for after-dinner, cruise-ship and televison speaking engagements.

I loved Poirot, I came to love it, the meticulous lavishness of the sets,  the locations,  the props, the costumes, the vehicles, the make-up, everything was a fantastical, glorious, showy, art deco collage, exquisitely filmed and fabulously over-acted by all concerned, especially by Suchet.

The last four episodes, however,  were as depressing as could be, drab, dark and ominous; maybe a different production team, maybe a directorial impulse towards the noire, maybe, as Poirot says, above, a final greedy visit to the milch cow. I wish I hadn't seen them. 

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

Basil Rathbone had cine/tv detectives all wrapped up for me. Got a soft spot for Columbo, Peter Falk, too. I like to get half-cut and watch Basil, with Nigel Bruce stumbling around, and wish I had been born a hundred years earlier.

Tried with Poirot but could never get past the frog accent.

Always seemed to end with the family in the drawing room or the Captain's cabin, squabbling about the will, with not enough information for the viewer to be able to work out who had dunnit, allowing the writers to lever in a long lost love child with a penchant for poisoning.

Jeremy Brett made a decent stab of Sherlock too.

Vincent


call me ishmael said...

Shame, mr vincent, that it didn't work, as we now say for you; it was a tour de force but I did say that I CAME to love it, largely for the production values and only eventually for the characters.

Jeremy was, as he would say, divine, I thought; a beautifully arch yet subtly vulnerable Holmes; a manic depressive, it is suggested that his perfectionism killed him.

I sometimes come in in the middle of Columbo, and it doesn't matter how often I see him Oh-and-there's-just-one-more-thing-Sirring it makes me smile to my toes. 'Sfunny, he was a dreadful actor otherwise, saw him in some war movies and he was fucking embarrassing. Died a few months back.

Sometimes wonder if televised detective fiction isn't the real rock'n'roll.

Anonymous said...

I think one of the reasons I am fond of Sherlock and the like so much, aside from Basil's perfect diction and the use of words like 'splendid' and 'felliow', is the fact that I am not going to be subjected to a stream of filth., as I likely am with modern movies. The harshest words will be along the lines of ''cad' or 'blaggard', the death scenes will be mostly left to the imagination, ably assisted by a dramatic score and clever lighting.

I am not going to see someone graphically smashing someone else's face in, or a stab-fest. There will be no sweating and grunting between leading man and his lady, in a scene completely surplus to needs of the plot. Most of all there will be none of this computer generated scenery and effects garbage, which seems to me to have turned most modern day stuff into glorified cartoons. Cinema is, obviously, a visual stimulus, but today's direction of films seems to be so dependent on gratuitous sex, violence and computerised trickery that some, a lot, of magic has been lost. The reliance on sex and hate and comics and exploding helicopters has seen a dramatic decline in the skills of both the writers and actors, to my mind at least. Plots serve not to entertain the mind but as a vehicle for hate-porn.. But I'm always moaning and thinking stuff was better years ago.

The fact I can remember the bloke's name is testament to his amazing skill and foresight : Ray Harryhausen. Surely his art and craft was something to behold, unique. But nowadays some spotty brat on a computer can achieve in an hour that which took Harryhausen a month.

I'm moaning again. I'll stop now, for today at least.

Vincent

popcorn productions ltd said...

yes, it all seems like yesterday, dunnit? shocked to hear you break the news of his recent passing tho'...although i'm sure it's all just a crafty ruse to allow the dear old dog-eared dick to investigate the disturbing death of popular television drama. as for favourite falkearian extra-columbo activities, try tune in tomorrow for a real out-loud laff.

they don't make 'em like taxi any more neeeva.

call me ishmael said...

Sorry, gotta go and see a man about a dog, four hunded miles away, back tomorrow night, DV.

jgm2 said...

Point of order Mr I. I think that's Shoreham aerodrome and it looks just like that today. No fabrication required.

DtP said...

Jeremy Brett's missus kicked le bucket and, from what I heard, he went off piste, thinking he was Holmes for a few months and then suicided! Tres trajic. This new boy, Cumberbatch, silliness discarded, seems a decnt cove. All about the sidekick. Ustinov did Poirot and his Hastings was a fucking mong - destroyed the film; had Niven once maybe and, strangely, he was too good. Who'd be a caster, eh?

Alphons said...

Very nice critique, Mr Ishmael.
I got "hooked" on Agatha's writings due to the travelling involved in my days of employment.
Fortunately most airports had her offerings on sale.
I did not start on Hercule until I had read a good number of Miss Marples, but once I got on to him Miss Marple had to take second billing, good as she was.
I certainly think Sushet has been the best Hercule of all.

Anonymous said...

Well, Mr Ishmael, was D indeed V?

I bet He was.

Photos?

Vincent

call me ishmael said...

I thiught they did a recreation of Croydon Aerodrome, mr jgm2, is this what it was?

I didn't care for any part of the Ustinov Poirot, mr dtp, and for me Brett's Holmes is unsurpassable. Yoiu are right about the tradidional importance of the sidekick, maybe, like lewis and the ghastly Morse, 'Astings will get a fresh series, starring himself, although I doubt
it; maybe,instead, we'll get Poirot, The Early Days but I hope not.

There is a poster, here, on occasion, calls heself agatha, maybe she can offer a definitive work on the Christie ouvre, outside of the Suchet TeeVee adaptations, mr alphons, O don't care for her.

call me ishmael said...

I, I don't care for her.

call me ishmael said...

Six hundred road miles and one long and one shor, stormy ferry crossings in less than twenty-four hours, mr vincent; God was willing, I should say so.

Photos in due course, the wee man is a bit confused the noo but he is in a better place, his people were cruelly ill. I guess we just have to keep talking to him, handling him and reassuring him for a wee while.

He gave me a right good barking-at when I showed up, so there's not much wrong with him

Woman on a Raft said...

How lucky you've got that Aga or whatever model it is. Nothing more reassuring to a dog than a place by a hearth or warm stove. I know this because a neighbour has both dogs and a stove.

When visitors come the dogs are supposed to give up their place. They deal with this by giving me the sad-eye and sighing, asking to be petted. Then they somehow ooze back in to the space between us the stove. It is like a slow tide flowing back in.

call me ishmael said...

Harris mooching aound the manse, jumping on the furniture, dozing by the Rayburn, woof-barking at the cats and challenging the furry and prickly wildlife, all that, too, mrs woar, is like a slow tide flowing back in.

DtP said...

Hickson's Miss Marple is slightly priceless. Edward Hardwick should be given awesome credit for his weary pragmatism, his orders and routine - to walk into Brett's extravagence and understated exasperation is ace casting. Cumberbatch has a 'mind palace' whereas Brett had coke; plus ca change and all that jazz - tit!

Albert Finney was, as per usual, total shite.

Hope Mr Harris is working it out.

jgm2 said...

Yes Mr I, pretty sure it's Shoreham. I flew out of there once or twice when I was young and immortal. Oldest purpose built airport in the UK or something ISTR. Famous for its Art Deco terminal building.

Birmingham Airport used to have a nice old Art Deco terminal back when I was a kid too. I remember standing up on a set of kitchen scales before boarding. I'm sure they were 737s so God knows why they were so precious about passenger weights. Aer Lingus used to give you boiled sweets too. Another throw-back to flimsy, unpressurised aircraft no doubt.

mrs narcolept said...

I am simply going to pretend the final four episodes did not happen, like the last three series (?serieses) of Frasier. I didn't like the last Foyles, either, with poor Sam looking gaunt and grey and instead of marrying lovely Milburn lumbering herself with that dreary politician.

Your posts on seafaring, warcrimes and motorbikes were deeply appreciated in the narcolept household, but not more than news of the most recent ishmaelian. A long journey for a little dog, but it sounds as if he knows he is in the right place.

call me ishmael said...

It is as though the producers and - in Suchet's case - the stars break the contract with the viewers; we suspend our disbelief in exchange for a sixty or ninety minute diversion, something we have done since we were in the caves - Listen, I wanna tell you a Storrry.

The darkening of Poirot, mrs narcolept, was a pissing in the face, really, of what had been a reliably affectionate transaction; if I want noire I will watch The Wire or countless other examples of the hard-core stuff which mr vincent so regrets.

It is one of TeeVee's inevitablity's that it will wring the last penny from anything; Foyle's post-war was unwatchable, it was the same group of singers, more or less but the song didn't remain the same. MI5, MI6, Christ, haven't we had a bellyful of that convolutred rubbish from the dreadful le Carre man?

Harris is his own bloke; although we try to soothe his every anxiety, goodboy our every word, he still tries to boss us around. It's his testicles. But not for long.

It was a big journey for him in many ways; his territory, recently confined to a mobility scooter's coverage of a tiny council estate, is now vast. The need for love, though, in he and us, remains.

Mike said...

Come on Mr I, get the photos up and stop teasing us.

BTW, re testicles, since "de-sexing" my pug, I cannot get rid of a feeling of guilt.

call me ishmael said...

No, mr mike, don't, don't feel guilt. It's not their world and their testosterone makes it even more dangerous for them, especially the little bugges, like Harris, who were bred for killing; they go chasing bitches in heat and get run-over, they are intolerable to live with and they keep mounting people's legs.

It is, I know, a mutilation but there're enough dogs, more than enough, far too many; I'd rather there wewre fewer, properly cared for and I'd rather that my blokes didn't hurl themselves under cars, chasing their oats.

The whole business is anomalous and unnatural, keeping another animal for no purpose other than pleasure - food and labour are the conventional, historical purposes of animal husbandry; once we bring them indoors as friends we have already modified them and they us.

I used to say Keeping an animal in the house is the same as keeping shit in the fridge. And it is. House pets are entirely contrary to any notion of good, hygienic housekeeping. So there we are, the whole process is one of compromise and blind-eye turning; Harris will live longer and better without his nuts and maybe our guilt is of the What-If kind, what if it was me?

call me ishmael said...

THE SHITEGEIST

Turned on the box late last night just after replying to mrs narcolept and Fuck me, Jesus but there is John le Carre talking to Mark PotatoHead about his latest, greatest novel of espioshite, of how he loves to inhabit the language of his characters - Oui, d'ccord, 'Asting, mon ami - and of how he wrenches and hews his literary imaginings from his unconventional childhood. Wow, great writers, aren't we lucky to have them, peddling us their wares.

Anonymous said...

I didn't immediately understand your 'shitegeist' heading as a pun on zeitgeist, rather one on poltergeist.

I had a chuckle when I realised, as I had pictured a ghostly apparition, surreptitiously shitting on everything of value whilst the true owners of the house were asleep.

Bit like governments, really :-)

Vincent

DtP said...

Le Carre's a decent cove - he writes engagingly, which is good enough most days, and I genuinely thought the Hamburg connection Potato head put in right at the beginning of the programme was good. He adds value but I think i've been spoiled with Le Carre simply because of Alec Guiness' Tinker Taylor (on tonight btw).

Im having it as some sort of Pinteresque identical in that pauses identify thought and Guiness' performance is exactly what MI6 can aspire to be. Not doing down Pinter, never read or seen him, but Le Carre's Smiley done by Guiness was a noir Daily Mail - a tabloid venture into espionage but unsentimental, believable, unglamourous and totally fantastical. I'm popping it down as Guiness' best gig and, by his record, one of the best TeeVee adaptations ever. Whoa - bold words - but I don't think about Guiness as an actor when I watch him - he is the part, any film, Lavendar Hill, Kind Hearts, Man in the White, Our Man in Cuba etc etc. For Guiness to do both Smiley & Tinker Taylor is when TeeVee was glorious - when it was home theatre. Le Carre got lucky with Guiness and maybe the other way round too.

The hagiographies they're rightly having for Kennedy are quite moving as it's pretty fucking obvious it was a coup. My ol' dear's Oirish Catholic and she still goes mental over it and reckons it was Oswald and that it's fuck up rather than, yer know, a sniper in the boot of the car or something but back then that was when intelligence mattered. Le Carre got resigned as soon as his book The Spy who Came in from the Cold became popular and yet still submitted draft to committee for later books so one wonders - how did he remain current if not a mouthpiece?

They had a biog of Philby on before Potato and it was dull except for the last snipet which was that that singular and specific search led to a generation of internal investigation and that it was assumed a generation of moles lasted 20 years - ppphhhhwwww - lot of work is that - and that they also shread everything (shocked!), even important stuff because they're idiots. But 20 years on total alert - no wonder the civil service is fucked up if these clowns are triple guessing.

1963 seems like a pivotal year and, frankly, i'm glad I missed it.

call me ishmael said...

I think it was my friend, stanislav, who felt that zeitgeist was a word over-used by people too lazy to say synchronicity, too up their own arses to say fashionable and too worthless, really, to live. I think that's it, mr vincent.

Good stuff, mr dtp but this old cynic couldn't help but scoff at the coincidence of the PBC broadcasting the interview with le Carre the night before its own le Carre Greatest Hits SHow, which is on now. I think you over-value PotatoHead, he's just an ugly version og Michael Parkinson, simpering at and arse-licking his interviewees.

I saw the Philby thing - another re-hash, save for the effervescent scepticism of the hundred-year old Chapman Pincher. It isn't just in espionage that Oxbridge betrays us, it's everywhere.

If you want something less languid, knowing and protratced than all that Smiley stuff then Adam Hall's Quiller novels explore the same Berlinerism but with far more pace and I believe he was the originator of the forensic thriller - detailed knowledge of ballistics, pharmaceuticals, languages and so on mingling with the isolation and mistreatment of the weary hero. The film was rubbish but the books are quite novel novels.

The Kennedy killing and its aftermath are too complex to go into, save to say that its all horsehsit, all of it and we will never know the truth of it.

The relatively slight efforts of Mr Snowden and the horror which they have engendered just go to show, don't they, that these really are the unintelligent services. How on Earth could a private contractor be given access to all that stuff? And if he was, how many others were? What sort of security is that? Cunts, all of them.

Woman on a Raft said...

We still have not got a satisfactory explanation for how that young spook came to be in a bag and the decision that he did it himself, which I admit is theoretically possible.

I can't decide about his mum. On the one hand, in a normal job I would not expect the employer to go rushing round to find him but this was not a normal job; it was precisely the kind of work where if an employee does not turn up, you should bang the panic buttons in case he's run off with classified material or is being held hostage. I don't say they could have saved him but it is an example of an unintelligent service if you don't even notice that one of your spies is missing.

call me ishmael said...

The man in the bag, yes, he's an extension of PMQs; some filthy scoundrel stands up and tells a pack of lies, over and over again and skymadeupnewsandfilth report it as truth. This is one of the more preposterous stories of my lifetime, that a man zips and locks himself in a bag as a form of suicide, just to keep people guessing.

You only have to think about the people involved in the Secret State, people like Big Ali Campbells dossier mate, John Scarlett to know that they are fucked-up, murderous filth, national heroes, my arse.

Agatha said...

“There is a poster, here, on occasion, calls herself agatha, maybe she can offer a definitive work on the Christie ouvre, outside of the Suchet TeeVee adaptations, mr alphons, I don't care for her.”
How very kind of you to remember me, Mr. Ishmael. My nom de plume is derived from Agatha Raisin, the creation of MC Benton - who was named in sly mockery of Agatha Christie. I’m not actually a great fan of Christie, despite (or in consequence of) having read a vast amount of her output. Preposterous plotting, shallow characterisation, no empathy for her creations and snobbishly upper middle class, with never a thought to the great mass of suffering humanity. She even became very bored with Poirot and came to loath the characteristics with which she’d imbued him - his damn egg-shaped head, for example. However, Suchet takes all of that and turns it into gold. The TV shows are greater by far than the silly fiction from which they derive - and that is particularly to do with the between-the-wars setting, the polished beauty of the sets, the props and the clothes, and the splendid ensemble of Hastings, Japp and Miss Lemon - who were all rather minor characters in a handful of the original stories. The later Poirots simply did not have the magic of that ensemble. So I agree with you, Monsieur Ishmael, I also prefer the sunny uplands of the Deco Poirots.

Agatha said...

“There is a poster, here, on occasion, calls herself agatha, maybe she can offer a definitive work on the Christie ouvre, outside of the Suchet TeeVee adaptations, mr alphons, I don't care for her.”
How very kind of you to remember me, Mr. Ishmael. My nom de plume is derived from Agatha Raisin, the creation of MC Benton - who was named in sly mockery of Agatha Christie. I’m not actually a great fan of Christie, despite (or in consequence of) having read a vast amount of her output. Preposterous plotting, shallow characterisation, no empathy for her creations and snobbishly upper middle class, with never a thought to the great mass of suffering humanity. She even became very bored with Poirot and came to loath the characteristics with which she’d imbued him - his damn egg-shaped head, for example. However, Suchet takes all of that and turns it into gold. The TV shows are greater by far than the silly fiction from which they derive - and that is particularly to do with the between-the-wars setting, the polished beauty of the sets, the props and the clothes, and the splendid ensemble of Hastings, Japp and Miss Lemon - who were all rather minor characters in a handful of the original stories. The later Poirots simply did not have the magic of that ensemble. So I agree with you, Monsieur Ishmael, I also prefer the sunny uplands of the Deco Poirots.