#Alan Plater

[motionpicture-lover]

"Oliver's Travels" (1995)

Films and series I've watched in 2023 (9/?)

Full series (5 episodes. The picture quality isn't the best but if you can get past that it's very well worth a watch):

[missanthropicprinciple]

How to tell you’re in an Alan Plater television programme:

Average Joe Englishman, seemingly unremarkable hero, often a northerner

slow-moving plot

the Forest of Arden is mentioned

soft jazz is always involved

football

Dad Jokes/witty comments

strong women who don’t take BS

the setting involves academic life/a polytechnic/a high school

a yellow car/station wagon

a mystery plot unraveling through a series of random things that irritate and intrigue the main protagonists

police corruption and/or incompetence

[scotianostra]

Happy Birthday Bill Forsyth the Scottish film director and screenwriter.

Born in Glasgow July 29th 1946 and educated at Knightswood School. On leaving aged 17, he answered an advertisement for a “Lad required for film company” and spent the next eight years helping make short documentary films.

Leaving documentary production in 1977, Forsyth wrote the scripts for Gregory’s Girl and That Sinking Feeling in the hope of breaking into feature films.

Obtaining finance, however, proved frustrating and problematic. The BFI Production Board rejected Gregory’s Girl three times. Forsyth later said, “I remember one torment of a meeting when I tried to explain that Gregory’s Girl was really a structuralist comedy… I suspect my script was too conventional although nobody actually told me as much.”.

That Sinking Feeling was eventually made in 1979 with amateur actors from the Glasgow Youth Theatre, including John Gordon Sinclair (who later took the lead in Gregory’s Girl , its tiny £5,000 budget was raised from a variety of sources.

Forsyth’s distinctive voice as writer-director is already apparent in this tale of a robbery of stainless steel sinks by a gang of unemployed Glasgow teenagers - intensely humanistic and humorous yet with an underlying seriousness of purpose. This ability to create a self-contained yet believable world with a keen sense of the absurd and bizarre in the everyday is perhaps only rivalled by the work of British television writer Alan Plater. The film opened to great popular and critical success at the Edinburgh and London Film Festivals but was unable to secure more widespread distribution.

Gregory’s Girl was Forsyth’s breakthrough film. This acutely observed story of adolescence and first love set in a Scottish new town was rapturously received by both critics and public alike. Forsyth’s reputation seemed to be secured by the success of his next venture, Local Hero, a first collaboration with producer David Puttnam.

In 1999 he made Gregory’s Two Girls as a sequel to Gregory’s Girl, with John Gordon Sinclair playing the same character, but it received mixed reviews.

Gregory's Girl, to me, is still a very funny film, but it feels dated, that's not to say that it hasn't stood the test of time with some folk, indeed The Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT) showed a 4k version of the 1980 cult classic last August 1which was followed by a Q&A session with some of the cast including Gordon Sinclair(Gregory), Clare Grogan.

In 2022 the popular Scottish actor Peter Capaldi spoke of how Bill Forsyth saved him from living off pakora and lager after featuring him in Local Hero. The Doctor Who and The Thick Of It star praised the Scots film director in an acceptance speech after receiving a Bafta Scotland Award for Outstanding Contribution to Film & Television.

I love Capaldi's affection for our country, speaking to the audience while holding his Bafta, Capaldi said the award was “for getting lucky, and for being lucky enough to be born in Scotland”.

He said: “Forty years ago I was just up here (in Glasgow) as an art student, living off pakora and lager for breakfast.

“Bill Forsyth scooped me up and put me in Local Hero.

“It was an act of kindness and confidence that baffled me and much of the industry to this day, but I wouldn’t be here without him and nor would a lot of others.”

Capaldi landed this breakthrough film role aged 24 playing Danny Oldsen, a naive young oil industry executive, in the film.

A number of actors, including Dee Hepburn, will be a part of a celebration of the films of Bill Forsyth at the Outwith Festival of music and arts which takes place in Dunfermline from September 3-8. It will also screen That Sinking Feeling and Local Hero at the city’s Carnegie Theatre.

[nikos80sbandsmvtblog]

Phone Call [Duzzy]

warnings: sight smut, mainly just teasing

BRIIING! BRIIIING! BRIIIIIIING!

Duff hopped up to answer the phone. "Hello?.....oh hey alan........ no im not busy........."

Izzy saw this as the perfect oprotunity, being to horny bastard he is, he made his way to duff. Izzy plopped down next to duff with a shit eating grin platered on his face. He pushed duffs brown/ blond hair aside revealing his pale neck.

Duff lifted the reciver away from from his face 'stop' he tried to whisper but it came out more of a whine.

Izzy simply shook his head and continued down to his collar bones sucking light pink brusies in contrast to his almost white skin. Izzy proudly listened to duffs breath shake and watched him bite his lip to hold back moans. But no, no, no this wasnt enough for izzy. He wanted to see his lover completely give into his touch and he was close but no quite there, yet. Doing the next most effective thing izzy lowered his hand down duffs chest still kissing and biting on his neck. He moved his hand down until he hit the goldmine- duff's hard on. He gave it a good squeeze before palming him. Meanwhile izzy had let go of duffs neck and lowered himself onto his knees, licking duffs chlothed erection, earning a low moan from the taller male.

"you know what, alan? Maybe now is a bad time...." duff whimpered

"Okay...well you two have a good time and tell izzy i said hi." Alan responded so noschlontly. Duff and izzy both blushed hard as duff hung up the phone.

"You asked for this you little shit." Diff sneered now taking control of the situation, pushing Izzy into their shared bedroom.

[georgefairbrother]

Inspired by @robbielewis and his brilliant ongoing series featuring a pictorial history of the Northeast, this is the first in an occasional series of posts on film, theatre and television luminaries with a strong personal or professional link with Northeast England, beginning with John Nightingale.

There doesn't appear to be a great deal of information available; he was apparently born in Burnley, Lancashire, in 1942, and attended St Cuthbert’s College, Durham University. He also spent several years with the National Youth Theatre, and while with the NYT made his television debut, which was noted by the Durham University paper, Palatinate, in 1964.

John Nightingale's highest profile role was in the BBC’s When the Boat Comes In, a gritty social and political drama set during the years after the Great War in the struggling Tyneside community of Gallowshields. Appearing in 39 episodes over 1976 and 77, he played the troubled but likeable Tom Seaton. It was a standout performance in the company of some very fine actors, including James Bolam, Susan Jameson, Edward Wilson, Jean Heywood, James Garbutt, Malcolm Terris, Ian Cullen, Madelaine Newton and Michelle Newell.

John Nightingale’s other television credits include appearances in Crown Court, in three episodes of Alan Plater’s dramatisation of the AJ Cronin novel, The Stars Look Down, the epic drama-documentary Fall of Eagles, and the Thames political drama, Bill Brand, as well as a handful of appearances in BBC television plays.

He passed away in 1980, aged just 37, from cancer. His challenging role in When the Boat Comes In demonstrated that he was one of the most gifted actors of his generation, and makes you wonder just what he could have achieved given the chance of a long life and career.

Thanks (again) to @robbielewis for a little additional history of Durham University.

[peterviney1]

Fortunes of War - 1987

I started a pithy short review of Olivia Manning’s FORTUNES OF WAR TV series (FOLLOW LINK), written by Alan Plater with award-winning performances by Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh, let alone a support cast wit Ronald Pickup, Charles Kay, Robert Stephens, Alan Bennett. It was acclaimed as the best fictional work on WW2 and was also the BBC’s most expensive production up to that point. My short…

[mariocki]

Katy Manning - in her first ever screen role, and credited as Katie - makes awful coffee and has a good nose at some industrial action, in Softly Softly: Task Force: Standing Orders (1.8, BBC, 1970)

[the-aleator]

‘Ignore it. The man is clinically insane even by the standards of the teaching profession.’ -Mr. Carter, The Beiderbecke Connection (written by Alan Plater)

[mrepstein]

The Sunday Mirror - September 26, 1965

Ex-RADA chief to join Epstein

Sunday Mirror Reporter

John Fernald, whose shock decision to quit as principal of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art raised a storm earlier this year, has got a new job - with a rebel former pupil.

The pupil is Beatles manager Brian Epstein, who eight years ago walked out of RADA after only three terms because ‘I hated it.’

In London yesterday, Fernald, 59, signed - for an undisclosed fee - to direct one of the new plays which Epstein, 30, is to present in the West End this autumn.

Epstein said:

“As a student I know I failed John Fernald. But maybe I can make amends now.”

Fernald, who has been the academy’s principal for ten years, said: “Epstein showed great promise as a pupil. But I was sympathetic with his reasons for leaving and did not try to persuade him to stay on.”

Now Fernald begins casting for the play “A Smashing Day”, written by Alan Plater.

[liquidlizards]

to passion! to paradise! to pain! tonight...alan handed us this Beautiful lizardhat as gomez and morticia on a silver plater. swanky

[nextwavefutures]

For the love of jazz

The playwright Alan Plater drew on jazz to inspire and improve his own writing. Some notes on his book Doggin’ Around.

My son bought me a copy of Alan Plater’s memoir Doggin’ Around as a Father’s Day present. It’s a memoir rather than an autobiography because it looks at his life through the lens of his life-long relationship with jazz music. Plater was born in the north-east and brought up in Hull, and had a rich and distinguished writing career that started with Z-Carsin the early ‘60s and perhaps became most…

[missanthropicprinciple]

Love how the Baron Kite has the theme from Z-Cars programmed as Mr. Baxter's cell phone. Nerd.

[scotianostra]

Happy Birthday Bill Forsyth the Scottish film director and screenwriter.

Born in Glasgow July 29th 1946 and educated at Knightswood School. On leaving aged 17, he answered an advertisement for a “Lad required for film company” and spent the next eight years helping make short documentary films.

Leaving documentary production in 1977, Forsyth wrote the scripts for Gregory’s Girl and That Sinking Feeling in the hope of breaking into feature films.

Obtaining finance, however, proved frustrating and problematic. The BFI Production Board rejected Gregory’s Girl three times. Forsyth later said, “I remember one torment of a meeting when I tried to explain that Gregory’s Girl was really a structuralist comedy… I suspect my script was too conventional although nobody actually told me as much.”.

That Sinking Feeling was eventually made in 1979 with amateur actors from the Glasgow Youth Theatre, including John Gordon Sinclair (who later took the lead in Gregory’s Girl , its tiny £5,000 budget was raised from a variety of sources.

Forsyth’s distinctive voice as writer-director is already apparent in this tale of a robbery of stainless steel sinks by a gang of unemployed Glasgow teenagers - intensely humanistic and humorous yet with an underlying seriousness of purpose. This ability to create a self-contained yet believable world with a keen sense of the absurd and bizarre in the everyday is perhaps only rivalled by the work of British television writer Alan Plater. The film opened to great popular and critical success at the Edinburgh and London Film Festivals but was unable to secure more widespread distribution.

Gregory’s Girl was Forsyth’s breakthrough film. This acutely observed story of adolescence and first love set in a Scottish new town was rapturously received by both critics and public alike. Forsyth’s reputation seemed to be secured by the success of his next venture, Local Hero, a first collaboration with producer David Puttnam.

In 1999 he made Gregory’s Two Girls as a sequel to Gregory’s Girl, with John Gordon Sinclair playing the same character, but it received mixed reviews.

Gregory's Girl, to me, is still a very funny film, but it feels dated, that's not to say that it hasn't stood the test of time with some folk, indeed The Glasgow Film Theatre (GFT) will show a 4k version of the 1980 cult classic on August 17th, which will be followed by a Q&A session with some of the cast including Gordon Sinclair(Gregory), Clare Grogan, tickets go on sale this Monday (31s) at 12 noon.

Last year the popular Scottish actor Peter Capaldi where he spoke of how Bill Forsyth saved him from living off pakora and lager after starring him in Scottish cult classic Local Hero. The Doctor Who and The Thick Of It star praised the Scots film director in an acceptance speech after receiving the Bafta Scotland Award for Outstanding Contribution to Film & Television on Sunday.

I love Capaldi's affection for our country, speaking to the audience while holding his Bafta, Capaldi said the award was “for getting lucky, and for being lucky enough to be born in Scotland”.

He said: “Forty years ago I was just up here (in Glasgow) as an art student, living off pakora and lager for breakfast.

“Bill Forsyth scooped me up and put me in Local Hero.

“It was an act of kindness and confidence that baffled me and much of the industry to this day, but I wouldn’t be here without him and nor would a lot of others.”

Capaldi landed this breakthrough film role aged 24 playing Danny Oldsen, a naive young oil industry executive, in the film.

[firstnightdesign]

Archive Interview • MARK BABYCH • Blonde Bombshells of 1943 • 2007 Alan Plater’s drama about an all-women swing band in the Second World War began life as an award-winning TV film starring Judi Dench and Ian Holm.

[ljones41]

Adaptations of Anthony Trollope Novels

Below is a list of television adaptations of some of Anthony Trollope’s novels:

“The Pallisers” (1974) - Written by Simon Raven; starring Susan Hampshire,         Philip Latham and Caroline Mortimer

“The Barchester Chronicles” (1982) - Directed by David Giles and written by Alan Plater; starring Donald Pleasance, Susan Hampshire, Geraldine McEwan and Alan Rickman.

“The Way We Live Now” (2001) -  Directed by David Yates and written by Andrew Davies; starring David Suchet, Shirley Henderson and Matthew Macfadyen.

“He Knew He Was Right” (2004) - Directed by Tom Vaughan and written by Andrew Davies; starring Oliver Dimsdale, Laura Fraser and Bill Nighy.

“Doctor Thorne” (2016) - Directed by Niall MacCormick and written by Julian Fellowes; starring Tom Hollander, Stefanie Martini, Harry Richardson, Rebecca Front and Ian McShane.

[michaelcarroll]

Some of you might recall that last year I mentioned that Leonia and I have a tradition we call "A Book at Bedtime." In the week leading up to Christmas I pick a book and read a few chapters a night to her as she snuggles under the duvet. Previous books have been (roughly in order):

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens The Princess Bride by William Goldman Truckers by Terry Pratchett The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton Labyrinth (movie novelisation) by A.C.H. Smith Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams The Beiderbecke Affair by Alan Plater

This year's book is Who Goes Here? by Bob Shaw