Thoughts on The Brittas Empire (1991-97)

I’ve recently rewatched all of the episodes of The Brittas Empire, the somewhat surreal 1990s BBC situation comedy set in the health and fitness industry. Rather than viewing from start to end, (for a change) I watched the 7 series and 52 episodes in a random order.

The Brittas Empire is set in (the fictional) Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre in Southern England, and based around its title character, the Leisure Centre’s manager Gordon Brittas (played by Chris Barrie). Brittas is, in short, a decent, well-meaning person but a disastrously bad manager. Nurtured by his father to have total confidence in himself, Brittas is dedicated to the idea (that he calls “The Dream”) that most of the world’s major problems can be fixed by his example through his work in sport and leisure.

Despite being fuelled by this worthy (if somewhat unrealistic) utopian ideal and also very well-versed in management ethos, Brittas is in fact a one-man chaos machine. Of his many flaws, he is maddeningly pedantic and obsessed with bureaucracy; the running of the centre under his management is ruled by red tape. Brittas insists on customers and staff filling out vast amounts of paperwork (such as membership forms and paperwork) to their frustration. He also polices the rules in an rigidly pedantic way (on one occasion declaring a sponsored swim null and void due to an entrant failing to swim the correct way).

Furthermore Brittas is infuriatingly intransigent (he struggles to take on board the feedback he gets from people), tactless (as the members of the weight loss class at the centre well know), and (fundamentally) incompetent. He has a mesmerically dominant personality that tends to cow the younger members of his staff (apart from Laura and Julie), expressed through an irritatingly nasal estuary twang.

As a result of Brittas, life at the leisure centre is never anything less than living on the edge of disaster. Quite often an idea or intervention by Brittas will lead to a problem or accident, which his staff unintentionally will help inflate into a bigger crisis. Sometimes a bewildering catastrophe occurs, causing death and destruction and maybe leaving the centre in ruins. To give one example, In “The Lies Have It” in series 5, Brittas’ fussiness over safety procedures within a building site causes a fire extinguisher to fall on a workman’s head, knocking him out. This then causes a unguarded blowtorch to heat a pipe, which leads to an electric cable to be severed. The loose cable falls on the working party’s van, electrocuting the occupants inside.

The Brittas Empire is crammed full of such events, indeed its trademark is a penchant for unfortunate accidents and comically violent deaths on a routine pattern not really seen in other mainstream family sitcoms.  

At a lower, personal level, Brittas frequently leaves his staff bemused and annoyed by his ill-thought out schemes and by-the-book moral code. His relations with the users of the leisure centre are generally poor: he offends and alienates normal people, and in worst cases drives them to madness (memorably in “Bye-Bye Baby” where a guess speaker on stress management cracks up in front of the staff). Day-to-day, the leisure centre has few users (when it isn’t being closed by Brittas for all day staff training) and makes little income, which leads the local council to repeatedly attempt to remove Brittas, who has the luck of a cat in keeping hold of his job. At home (and more often visiting the centre ) is Brittas’s wife Helen, an unstable and erratic woman who lives on pills (and whose wayward behaviour contrasts with the rigid morals of his unsuspecting husband).

The Brittas Empire operates in a few different ways: most notably as a surreal comical farce as small problems or misunderstandings gradually become disasters. It’s also a satire on management (and health and safety culture). The show’s creators (and its writers for the first five series) Andrew Norriss and Richard Fegen do an excellent job of exploring these themes and the question of Brittas’ backstory: how he became (and thrives at being) such an overbearing and incompetent manager. Finally, The Brittas Empire is a good example of an ensemble sitcom, full of engaging characters and excellent performances.

The cast is very good. Chris Barrie is suitably domineering as Brittas, full of self-importance and even a degree of swagger. So much so that I found Brittas a very hard character (as an adult) to like, as his faults and irritating personality are so manifest that they rarely allow his better aspects to appear.

The 2^nd major character is probably Laura (Julia St John), Brittas’ effective deputy and (in stark contrast to him) a calm, forbearing, efficient and very competent manager. Laura is the voice of reason and the main cause of the centre operating efficiently at all. Although Laura is the adult in the room and the straight character in the show, she is also very dry and witty, particularly in managing Brittas.

Harriet Thorpe (as the overwrought and  quite unlucky receptionist Carole) and Pippa Haywood (as Brittas’ very erratic wife) are two joys of the show: two splendid comic actors who make the most of their roles: Carole and Helen are for me the two funniest characters in the show. The most memorable member of Brittas’ staff is the lovable (if physically repulsive and rather incompetent) handyman Colin (Mike Burns), Brittas’ most loyal defender as well as the colleague most likely to cause chaos (in “Laura’s Leaving”, Brittas fails to register that Colin is concussed – a confused Colin, told to heat the swimming pool, ends up lowering an electric fire into a baptism ceremony).

The cast is rounded out by Julie (Judy Flynn), the sarcastic and lazy secretary; Linda (Jill Greenacre: enthusiastic and righteous; and the partners Gavin (played by Tim Marriott – mild and caring) & Tim (Russell Porter – volatile and jealous). Linda, full of energy, is happy to support Brittas wholeheartedly most of the time; the more sceptical Tim & Gavin lack the assertiveness to stand up to him and tend go along with his half-cooked ideas and crisis solutions (“The Boss” in series 5 is about Brittas testing Gavin’s management skills by putting him through a series of ridiculous fake crisis scenarios, even though the centre’s activities are ruined in consequence). Julie is a fun character, the rebel of the team (there’s a clever joke in “Mr Brittas Changes Trains” where she fools everyone into thinking that she’s under hypnosis in order to get a snog from the unsuspecting Gavin).

So watching the show: the Fegen and Norriss years (series 1-5) are the best. The programme is developing in series 1, and is effectively fully formed by the 2^nd. It peaks in the excellent 4^th series, with a string of superior episodes climaxing with Brittas being finally being fired (in “The Chop”) and then reinstated (in “High Noon”, after proving a hero when the leisure centre is destroyed in a gas explosion). The 5^th series, which features a narrative arc of Brittas applying for a role as EU commissioner for sport, also has several good episodes. This 5^th run ends with Brittas’ apparent death after being crushed by a falling water tank.

Fegen and Norriss tied the series up with a Christmas Special in 1994 devoid of the normal chaos, based  instead set in the future in 2019 with a heart-warming reunion of the centre’s staff in honour of Brittas.
The show didn’t end at that point, as the BBC recommissioned it for two further series, with a set of new writers. These episodes have their moments and some good ideas, but the themes aren’t quite as skilfully handled as before, the chaos comes across as  a facsimile of the earlier scripts (things tend to be too wacky). One good thing I noticed was that these later episodes highlight the ensemble: Brittas isn’t as central which allows characters like Carole and Colin to feature more.

Favourite episodes? I think the best is “Biggles Tells a Lie” from series 4, a really good story where Colin, with Brittas away on holiday, pretends to be the manager in order to impress his long-lost daughter (with a lot of tall tales to cover for). Brittas appears however, and is enraged by this deception. However, in the end he decides to go along with Colin’s subterfuge. As the Wikipedia page on the Brittas Empire’s characters notes, this is the best thing that Brittas ever does (it’s a pity the character isn’t stretched out more)

Another standout episode is the series 3 opener “The Trial” (where Brittas is in the dock for the murder of a Bolivian drug dealer). Like with many shows, it tends to be the atypical stories that stand out: series 2 starts off strongly with “Back from the Dead” where Brittas is assumed dead (but then appears halfway through); two series 5 episodes I liked were “Brussels Calling” (where Brittas is indeed in Belgium, but capable of leaving complete chaos in his wake) and “The Lies Have It”, where the staff attempt in vain to keep a secret from him. My favourite later episode was “Gavin Featherly RIP”, where Gavin disappears mysteriously (after Brittas catches him copying a cassette tape).

The Brittas Empire is never going to be regarded as a great sitcom, which is fair enough, but it is a lot of fun to watch (even if the character of Brittas himself is quite hard going at times – although things have been stressful recently with me) and the characters and performances are great.

Book Review: The Dead Duke, His Secret Wife and the Missing Corpse (2014) by Piu Marie Eatwell

A very interesting non-fiction novel on the subject of the mysterious 5th Duke of Portland. The 5th Duke (1800-1879) was a deeply reclusive and eccentric man, famed for his avoidance of society within the labyrinth of rooms and subterranean tunnels at his country estate, Welbeck Abbey in Nottinghamshire.

The Dead Duke His Secret Wife and the Missing Corpse by Piu Marie Eatwell is a very thorough researched investigation into a bizarre mystery that arose in the late Victorian era and ran for years in the courts. In 1898 a case was lodged in the church courts to apply for the exhumation of one T.C. Druce, a successful London furniture seller who had died in 1864. The applicant Anna Maria Druce, the daughter-in-law of the dead man, claimed that the death and burial had been faked and that his remains were not in the coffin interred at Highgate Cemetery. 

The subtext behind this request was Mrs Druce’s theory that T.C. Druce was the alter ego of the 5th Duke of Portland. The Duke had led a second life as this important London retailer, with a wife and six children. And as a consequence of this, Mrs Druce’s children would be (in theory if the Duke and Druce were indeed the same person) the Duke’s legitimate descendants and heirs to the Portland title and its vast estates.

The Druce-Portland case (as it was called) fascinated the British public around the turn of the 20th century, as it shone a light into matters not supposedly open for discussion around the stifling morals of Victorian Britain. The nascent tabloid press and its readership hungrily absorbed all of the scandalous detail revealed in the series of legal trials (between a series of claimants and the Druce and Portland parties in opposition).

The Dead Duke is skilfully constructed by Eatwell over a vast canvas: T.C. Druce’s story begins in 1816, and the legal business ends in 1908. The 20 chapters are structured within different settings, detailing a phase or aspect of the Druce-Portland saga which then leads into the next chapter. They focus on the many different characters involved, from all across society (and the world). There is a lot of fascinating biographical detail and thoughtful personal notes on these various figures from across society: the fabulous wealthy and respected (the Dukes of Portland), middle class businessmen (T.C. Druce), impoverished relatives (many of T.C. Druce’s descendants), dodgy lawyers and witnesses, as well as detectives, judges and barristers.

The Dead Duke is an excellent read, especially if you like forensic historic research  type novels.

Film Review: Dead of Night (1945)

A very effective supernatural anthology. There’s a (has to be deliberate) very stiff start where a workaday architect (Mervyn Johns) shows up to do some surveying at an impressive Kent farmhouse (owned by Roland Culver and his family). However, to everyone’s fascination, he’s already met all of the family and friends present there in his dreams. These (five in total) then relate their own experiences of the supernatural, which are (surprisingly) deep and meaningful (and rather bourgeois).

Story 4 is a jolly tale featuring Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne (of The Lady Vanishes acclaim) as a pair of golfers arguing over a girl (with the loser haunting the other in consequence). Story 5 is the classic section, a fantastic tale of a ventriloquist’s haunting breakdown underpinned by an unforgettable Michael Redgrave performance.

Dead of Night is from the famed Ealing stable, and production values, casting, and the technical quality are superb (it looks great)

Book Review: Lord Jim (1900) by Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim was a novel I’d previously read a long time ago (back in December 1998), when I was binge reading several books a week trying to build up momentum for studying A-Level English Literature. The only detail that I could hazily remember of it was that the title character jumped off a boat in the Indian Ocean during the middle of the night, and that he ended up living in a village in the jungle. Oh and that it was a very tough read – that was the primary recollection of Lord Jim. The sensation of repeatedly getting lost in the narrative structure, or coming to a dead end trying to sense a meaning from a statement or a passage was very strong with this one.

So to March 2026 and a reread (now as a 45 year-old instead of a 17 year-old student): Lord Jim is still a challenge to the reader but this time I appreciated it much more: it’s truly a marvellous novel. It appears on the surface an adventure story of a young English sailor who ventures to the East, but this is merely a cover for an intensely psychological tale of personal responsibility, honour and disgrace, and redemption; within the enveloping setting of the British (and European) colonial heyday of the late 19th century.

Conrad inverts the story from a customary ripping yarn of British heroism under pressure into a gripping and tortuous exploration of human character. It’s very modernist and idiosyncratic, often hermetic in its structure and parsing. After a few chapters of introduction the narrative is handed to a dominant 3rd person in the form of the merchant captain Marlow, who acts as Jim’s senior, peer, confessor and ultimately (not entirely willing) mentor and benefactor. Marlow’s narrative is in the form of a lengthy, skilled but complex recounting of Jim’s story (to friends and acquaintances) over cigars and brandy. Even though this book is about Jim – a strapping son of a parson, slightly surly but engaging nonetheless – and his extraordinary story, the main character is in reality Marlow as the storyteller and whose account, reflections and musings ground the piece as presented to the reader. 

So to sign off, I found Lord Jim to be tough but rewarding (but be warned it is something of a brutal book with not much in the way of a redemption). The first half of the novel (covering the incident on the Patna and the aftermath) is the most gripping. The second half follows Jim as he escapes British and colonial civilisation to lead a village deep in the jungle. The narrative here is more in the adventure mode and is less taxing to read.

Penguin Popular Classics edition of Lord Jim (published 1994)

Bookpile January 2026

Some reviews to books that I’ve read and now done with (off to the charity shop tomorrow…),

John Peel: A tribute to the much-loved DJ and broadcaster by Mick Wall *

Mark this 100% as a cynical posthumous biographical Christmas publishing cash-in. Mick Wall does a good job though in this account of Peel’s life and career, with some pleasing reflections on how his unique approach to being a music DJ and and homely broadcasting style appealed to music lovers and (later on) the general public. Peel, dead at 65 and if showing signs of fatigue was still as active as ever, was widely and publicly mourned as a secular saint. This status alas didn’t endure – blame obsolescence and scandal – so books like this hark back to a strange time in 2004.

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins *****

This is a damn awesome piece of detective fiction. It’s narrative swirls beautifully in the mystery of a venerated Hindu diamond finding its way back to a mid-Victorian Yorkshire country house before vanishing suddenly. It’s built in the serial format of the time and is protracted with lots of twists and dead ends, but the characters – Old Betteredge, Lady Verinder, Inspector Cuff! – are so fascinatingly drawn it’s a pleasure to follow.

Addicted by Tony Adams ***

Arsenal FC’s long-serving (and very successful) captain pioneered the brutally candid sporting memoir with this story of personal collapse and redemption. Grounded in the alcohol fuelled world of eighties football, Adams lived away from the sport as an alcoholic: using his local pub to fill the hours of boredom away from the training ground and cope with the agony of defeat. After reaching a point of no return, Adams renounced alcohol and revived his life and career, developing from having an uncouth and incurious perspective on life to becoming a more open and confident person. More of a personal trial than a sporting memoir (his football is well in the background here), Addicted is a blunt picture of a flawed man (but admirable somehow).

Octopussy by Ian Fleming ***

Three short Bond stories, all decent: The Living Daylights is the pick, about an interminable assassination job in East Berlin with a twist (which made a damn good scene in the eventual film). The Property of a Lady is a minor chamber piece set in and around MI6 in London, about a sting operation using a double agent unwittingly as the trap. In Octopussy, Bond is just the background detective sent to Jamaica to take in the doomed Dexter Smythe, but the backstory of Smythe’s opportunistic plotting and murdering in order to steal a Nazi gold hoard (before retiring to the Caribbean) is a striking one.  

Hell for Leather by Robert Winder ***

Winder wasn’t a cricket writer I was familiar with; turns out that in the nineties he was a literary writer at the Independent (who seconded the cricket correspondent Derek Pringle) and covered the 1996 World Cup in India/Pakistan/Sri Lanka for that newspaper. Hell for Leather is an enjoyably wry and thoughtful book: half a travelogue (of the World Cup), as Winder criss-crosses the subcontinent to be present at matches (demonstrating impressive skills in navigating Indian transport bureaucracy); and half a droll assessment of the present state of English cricket, considering both its moribund Men’s senior team (maybe perhaps at its most dysfunctional around this time) and its place in a very changing world.  

Picture This by Joseph Heller ***

An examination of the historical echoes – cultural, economic, political – of Rembrandt’s masterpiece Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer, hanging today in the Metropolitan in New York City. Heller jumps back and forth between the golden ages of Athens and Amsterdam before coming – much as the painting does after 300 years – to a end in the American century.  It’s not really fiction, more dazzling history as Heller narrates the histories of Rembrandt on one side, and Pericles and Socrates on the other, along with their societies. It’s really a story of imperial and mercantile development across the three societies and the reality that things rarely change (and seldom improve much). There isn’t much Heller wants to do with poor old Aristotle, beside have his representation in paint sit and observe glumly his slowly changing surroundings.

We All Live in a Perry Groves World by Perry Groves **

A much more light-hearted football memoir – Perry Groves was a lively winger who was plucked from lower division Colchester United by Arsenal in 1986 (joining Tony Adams). Primarily a back-up on the subs bench, he ended up with over 150 appearances and 21 goals for the club (as well as several winners medals), but primarily became an enduring cult figure (figure of fun) amongst the club’s supporters. Groves is a humorous and lively character – since retiring he’s built up a career as a radio pundit – and the book echoes this, although he’s not afraid of demonstrating his sharp and wicked side. For me the most interesting section was the account of his formative struggles to get into the professional game and his early days as a promising youngster stuck in the mire of lower league football.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service by Ian Fleming ****

James Bond falls in love, tracks down Blofeld (via the College of Arms) to Switzerland, destroys his base (located on an alp), but finally suffers a shattering loss. This is pretty much classic Fleming – the 1969 film is devoted to the material, amps it up, even improves on it. He has a mastery of the detail, how each disparate element (whether character or setting or piece of action) enters the narrative and adds to it. My favourite passage has to be Bond’s time undercover at Blofeld’s base Piz Gloria, a country club hiding a bio-weapons laboratory, where the tension around Bond’s increasing tenuous cover story is thrillingly built up.   

Fatty Batter by Michael Simkins **

Reminisces of an amateur cricketer: a self-confessed cricket nut but alas an abject no-hoper player. The first half of Fatty Batter, covering the authors schooldays in Hove, is the best section evoking a long-lost 1960s world of unappetising hard boiled sweets, crusty outfitters, dreary afternoons at the beach and ignominy on the grammar school playing fields  of Brighton. A shortish interlude follows narrating brief encounters with the Test Match Special team of the 1980s and an attempt to become engaged as a club commentator. In the final section we find that by the 1990s our author runs his own club side (his day job being a regular character actor often in television). He has now metamorphosed into a reasonably competent club player and in this last part regales us with a series of stories about the eccentricities and ups-and-downs of recreational club cricket in the South of England (which by the 4^th or 5^th story have started to become a little monotonous).

The authorized biography of Ronnie Barker by Bob McCabe ***

An biography of the masterly comic actor released as he approached his final days, prior to the Two Ronnies sketchbook series appearing in early 2005 and his death later that year in September. It’s a fine if unenthralling account of his middle-class upbringing in Oxfordshire, his early acting career in repertory theatre in the regions of Britain then the switch to comedy and his gradual development into radio and then television, before 20 years of stardom. Ronnie B comes across as very steady and level-headed: he knew he was good, knew what he liked, and had definite, very high standards.

From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming ****

Another standout Bond novel. Here James Bond is lured to Istanbul by a sting operation where he will be disgraced and killed (planned by Soviet intelligence in the novel as a grand act of terrorism in order to discredit Britain, but in the film by the crime syndicate SPECTRE). Fleming devotes the first eighty pages of this to a fascinating dive into the detail of the Soviet plot and the personalities involved: primarily the psychotic state murderer Grant, the ruthless boss Rosa Klebb and the innocent cipher clerk Tatiana Romanova. Then with this trap prepared Bond enters the narrative and we follow his trip to Istanbul (not as deep as I’d figured it might be) and perilous trip home on the Orient Express. The film (1963) is loyal to the book, but embellishes and streamlines where necessary, and improves on it.

TV Review: Maigret (1960-63)

Night shadows play on a rough wall marked with poster fragments. A hand appears and strikes a match, then moves to light a tobacco pipe held in the mouth of a solid, intelligent, phlegmatic face.

The famous title sequence of Maigret, the BBC’s adaptation of Georges Simenon’s prolific series of novels and stories of the cases of Inspector Maigret of the Paris police.

Introducing the 52 episodes produced between 1960-63, these memorably stylish opening titles were about the only thing left of the series to posterity. Despite the series sitting complete in the BBC archive (an anomaly in respect of almost every other TV series of the period) Maigret was more or less out of circulation for half a century: no VHS or DVD releases at all and rarely repeated: looking at the BBC Genome database, just five single episodes were repeated after 1965, the last showing in 1991.

Then in 2021, out of the blue the (late lamented) label Network Distribution gave Maigret one of its superb restoration treatments and released it on DVD and Blu-ray box set. Soon after the vintage nostalgia channel Talking Pictures added the series to its schedule. Viewers could – after sixty years – finally assess the series on its content and not just the nostalgia of its titles and Ron Grainer’s evocative accordion title theme.

After such a long time, would the 1960s BBC Maigret turn out to be a classic example of early TV drama? My answer would be a “no”, a “nearly but not quite”.

I will start with the postives. The lead and the main supports are enjoyably good and we the viewer certainly like their characters. As Inspector Maigret, Rupert Davies is substantial and convincing as Simenon’s detective with his heavy build, Liverpudlian burr and a soulful Rembrandt visage. “C’est Maigret, c’est Maigret” Simenon famously exclaimed on meeting him.

Ewen Solon as Maigret’s sidekick Lucas is equally worthy: genial but tough. Solon ably handles most of the physical action in the series and memorably broke his foot filming the second season episode The Winning Ticket jumping ten foot off a walkway when chasing a thief into a street. Solon – evidently a trooper – managed to complete the take (and the sequence).

The remaining regular characters – Maigret’s two other detectives Torrence (Victor Lucas – bearish and gregarious) and the somewhat wet behind the ears Lapointe (Neville Jason) – and also Helen Shingler as Maigret’s admirably tolerant spouse (whenever her husband suddenly leaves his dinner behind to follow up a hunch) – are all welcome presences as and when they appear (from time to time they have some influence on the plot).

Maigret is visibly a prestigious series and (for the time) the production values are excellent. There is a plenitude of location filming in Paris and further afield into rural France and the coast.

Within the studio Eileen Diss’s set designs across the whole 52 episodes are effective and full of detail: bars, bedsit rooms and chateau interiors look realistic. The series’ setting achieves the ambience of early 1960s Paris.

Now for the prosecution and the criticisms the cruellest of which is that the series is for the most part rather dull. Often it’s hard to get through an act without nodding a little. The first series is conspicuously the most lacklustre: the stories tend to have uninspired scripting and direction (the producer Andrew Osborn is a notable culprit over 12 episodes). As a result the stories sag and then resolve and climax in a sudden manner that feels contrived (even when it probably isn’t).

The weekly supporting performances are regularly insipid and/or mediocre, with the occasional way over the top turn, usually from the villain (Liberty Bar and The Wedding Party two good examples of this). This state of affairs was not helped by the brutal, unforgiving tightrope of early television production, where even for recorded drama one single take was all you had and fluffed lines had to be worked around. The best explanation I have is that the pool of supporting actors in television in 1960 just wasn’t that deep or that Maigret was too challenging a production for the general cast to shine in.  

Maigret does improve from the second season onwards with livelier direction (Rudolph Cartier directs a few) and more robust guest performances (my standouts from the whole run were Patrick Troughton (of course), Margaret Tyzack and John Carson). To the end, some Maigret episodes are quite decent, some pretty bad (e.g. most of those located on the Riviera) but nothing presents itself as really standout television, with the exception perhaps of the penultimate (and 51^st) episode Peter the Lett, when there is a genuine sense of danger and doom to Maigret and his detectives.

By the time I got to the end of watching the second season, I had visited my local Waterstones and selected  three random novels – Maigret Gets Angry, Maigret Takes a Room and The Saint-Fiacre Affair – in order to answer the question if the reason the programme was often boring was due to the source material. After the first couple of chapters of …Gets Angry, not at all: Simenon’s writing was superb, full of atmosphere, detail and psychology, particularly though his masterly handling of the main character.

So perhaps it is the conception that is the problem: to translate this special literary human atmosphere into a typical 1960s British TV drama, with its primitive limitations of cramped sets and poor cameras.

The artistic result probably would have been improved if shot all on film and at feature length. On this latter point, the ninety-minute 1969 revival Maigret at Bay is an improvement, but still has some of the original faults. It too drags before a sudden and not quite satisfying ending – it also uncannily moves our dramatic canvas from 1960 Paris to 1968 Paris (where fashions have greatly changed and Citroën DS’s have now replaced the old Traction Avants).

But the series we have is (from the second series onwards) watchable and quite enjoyable, particular for the substantial presence that Rupert Davies brings to the main character. But it’s still a disappointment that something that was prestigious (on the face of it) is in realisation a bit too workmanlike: the stories and supporting performances are really not quite at the level.

Depeche Mode Album Reviews 1981-86

A few years ago my Dad came back from the car boot with a pile of eighties pop albums: some Eurythmics, a few Pet Shop Boys and five early Depeche Mode studio albums (with a singles compilation as well).

So I thought, why not listen to them and then write a brief review of each? That would be great!

I’d first come across DM at a Belgian rock festival in 2013, then a few years later liked their singles on the Top of the Pops repeats; so this little writing effort would be a nice way of getting into their body of work.

However, this creative challenge has proved to be something quite hard to get going with. I’ve listened to most of the five albums repeatedly, have enjoyed their melodic, poppy charms and appreciated their minor flaws, but I still am unable to figure out what it is that I can say about them. But I refuse to scrub out Depeche Mode Album Review from my list of personal projects…

Speak and Spell (1981)

Vince Clarke’s single album at the helm of the band is a typically bold and upbeat work. Most of the album’s appeal comes from the energy of the synth melodies. The music is awash with optimism although the lyrics and mood is often darker (Puppets, Sometimes I Wish I Was Dead, Martin Gore’s two contributions on side two). A punky aggression is also manifested through the bovver boy energy of the excellent Boys Say Go!. The album is topped and tailed by the band’s two first hit singles, New Life and their signature piece Just Can’t Get Enough.

A Broken Frame (1982)

With Clarke gone, a three-piece DM returned with this rather good second album. The edgy yet buoyant opener Leave in Silence, one of my favourite singles of theirs, starts off proceedings well.  See You is another fine single; although follow up The Meaning of Love is (for me) the weakest of their eighties efforts. The album treads an atmospheric path split between melodic songs (My Secret Garden, A Photograph of You, The Sun and the Rainfall) and slow, moody downbeat pieces (Monument, Shouldn’t Have Done That). Gore’s callow lyrics aren’t a strength but the band have a sense of ambition and a frothy energy here.

Construction Time Again (1983)

A mixed affair this time – again, the singles are terrific: the reflective and textured Love in Itself and the euphoric classic Everything Counts. Again, the band move their sound forwards to their credit, but too many of the tracks are either too busy, somewhat gauche or just a bit tedious.

Some Great Reward (1984)

DM are moving themselves towards refining a style: gothic and industrial and with a tortured, emotive take on human affairs and sexual politics. The opener is a hangover from the previous album, but Lie to Me is the first song that resembles their prime a few years ahead. Martin Gore’s vocal presence is also fully established here with the two love songs (Somebody and It Doesn’t Matter), while Dave Gahan’s presence and power is increasing all the time. The singles are again spectacular.

Black Celebration (1986)

DM’s development finally culminates in this, their first album which is very good. Gore’s forbidding mood and atmospherics, Gahan’s charismatic vocals and Alan Wilder’s dense arrangements gives the piece a dynamic and doomy presence. The album is very well sequenced: the title track and the particularly morbid Fly On the Windscreen lay down the tone, with a trio of slow pieces to follow. The singles – Stripped is a standout even for this brilliant singles band – are here clustered towards the centre. Black Celebration feels like DM reaching the point of maturity.

Film Review: Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1951)

My last post was a review of the BBC’s 1971 serial of Thomas Hughes’ evergreen Victorian schoolboy classic; now I go back twenty years to the 1951 film adaption, directed by Gordon Parry and starring John Howard Davies as Tom Brown and Robert Newton as Doctor Arnold.

I found it somewhat crinkly and ponderous. In contrast to the BBC adaption, Hughes’ lengthy prologue at Tom’s home prior to his arrival at Rugby is thankfully disposed of: we begin with him boarding the coach to Rugby – with the incongruous presence of Max Bygraves as his coachman. It does pre-empt the later piece by adding the theme of Arnold’s politicking with his masters and also extending Flashman’s presence as the villain (across the length of the piece) through the plotting of his dispute with a neighbouring farmer.

The film does have some appeal as an engaging period piece – the setting of the genuine Rugby School is a boon – and is characterful in shades. John Howard Davies is OK – his (shall we say) lack of manly presence does become obvious in the film’s second half. Robert Newton is an authoritative and dignified presence as Arnold (more in line with Hughes’ subdued Doctor than Iain Cuthbertson was). Diana Wynard and  Kathleen Byron are not well utilised in (effectively) cameo roles. On the other hand, the supporting players – e.g. James Hayter, Michael Hordern and Hermione Baddeley – are reliably good. John Forrest stands out as the foppishly violent Flashman, albeit his sneers become programmed after a while.

The main problem is that the direction and script doesn’t handle the challenging source material well. The film has to crossover Hughes’ (dramatic/educational/Christian) themes; as a result the narrative becomes limp; and the dramatic moments dilute and simply don’t land well. I suspect that to get to 93 minutes quite a lot of narrative had to land on the cutting room floor, leaving the colour behind.

TV Review: Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1971)

BBC1 – broadcast 14^th November to 12^th December 1971

This five-part dramatization of the classic schoolboy novel had a poorly realised opening instalment but redeemed itself (to my pleasant surprise) with its spirited cast of young actors and colourful schoolroom tales of skulduggery and violence.

The serial is based on the celebrated 1857 novel by Thomas Hughes. Set in the early 1830s, in the book young Tom Brown arrives at Rugby School a gauche country boy and, under the general oversight of the reforming headmaster Dr Thomas Arnold, gradually develops into a manly, confident and openly pious young gentleman. Along the way, there is a lot of moral reflection on the part of the author, and lots of incident as Tom finds himself thrust into the current of school life: studies and lectures; football (Rugby, of course) & cricket; hare & hounds; poaching and fishing. And of course, the systemic school bullying, embodied by the arrogant and mighty fifth former Gerald Flashman who tosses Tom in blankets and roasts him in front of the common room hearth.

So, what of this adaption for TV, written by Anthony Steven and directed by Gareth Davies. Well, the first episode is a markedly awkward piece of TV drama. The root of its troubles is with the source material and Steven’s handling of it. Hughes’ prime theme of moral reinforcement doesn’t align well with the prerequisites of TV entertainment and neither does his wise, kindly, narrative voice. Steven mostly keeps the preaching well in the background, in favour of the incident. He also wisely largely truncates Hughes’ lengthy prelude – sixty pages weaving Tom’s early days and schooling with a paean for the lost bucolic world of the pre-railway age.

To this desired effect of heightening the drama (and the sense of danger and violence), he tackles the problem of Flashman – who Hughes oddly uses as a transient presence in the book – by underscoring his role as Tom’s nemesis, extending his presence right until the end and giving him a backstory element in the form of his villainous father Sir Richard.

In in the opening episode, Tom returns home to the rural Wiltshire after his first school closes due to an epidemic. He visits his old haunts and is playing with his childhood pals, when they encounter Sir Richard Flashman. Tom bravely stands his ground when the man of distinction horsewhips a mentally deficient boy for his perceived impertinence. Later that evening, when Sir Richard is now an honoured houseguest of the Browns, Tom prevents him from taking advantage of their young housemaid.

Not being the sort of man to have misgivings about taking a 12-year-old boy that he’d only just met as a sworn enemy, Sir Richard devises a dastardly scheme. He talks Squire Brown into sending Tom to Rugby School so that Gerald can then be in the ideal position to make his school life hell. And so, Tom heads to Rugby on the mail coach and enters the unique world of the English public school.

The problems with this episode are legion. The first 30 minutes are an attempt to provide a rebooted prelude with the backstory of Tom making an enemy of the Flashman’s after returning home. What the viewer gets are dull scenes that drag on, while we wait for the actual drama to start. The main problem is with the characters. Except for Tom (winningly portrayed by the complete novice Anthony Murphy, in his only professional acting role) and Gerald Flood’s frothing Richard III impersonation as Sir Richard, the other characters in the Brown household are dull, flimsy and ultimately pointless. Unfortunately, there are some very good actors lumbered with playing them, like John Paul as Squire Brown – splendid in Doomwatch, but here hopelessly adrift from a meaningful character and furthermore sporting an appalling wig – and Louise Jameson, doing what she can here as the Brown’s simpering housemaid. Things are made worse by these first 30 minutes being shot on film location, something BBC directors often seemed to struggle to handle.

The problems persist, right up to the closing scene where Tom is introduced to Dr Arnold (the mighty Iain Cuthbertson – even he is not safe here) and leaves such an immediate impression on the great educationalist that his response to the new boy is as if having received a visitation (one that guided him to immediately contemplate knocking through his supporting wall). The events and characters in this episode are incoherent and dissatisfying.

The point – to me at least – seems to be that it was a wasted exercise not starting the drama at the School. Davies struggled with the 30 minutes of film drama and Steven tried but ended up filling a hole in the masonry with Polyfilla. Steven was a prolific TV writer, which makes his failure here seem odd, but then he will be best remembered for a disastrous later foray into science fiction with the notorious Doctor Who serial The Twin Dilemma).

The only thing that episode 1 achieved was a strong emotion of venom in the viewer towards the piece. I suspect Michael Palin and Terry Jones may have had a similar experience, based on the content of their Tompkinson’s Schooldays (the first Ripping Yarn comedy, broadcast in January 1976). This was a quite savage parody that targeting this production: for example, grown actors playing prefects (Ian Ogilvy as “School Bully”), the aping of the visuals (the reveal of school boys being nailed to the school exterior parodies Tom’s arrival into the Rugby quad); an inversion of the schoolboys wholesome morals and home life (Tompkinson’s maid asking “do you want a bit?”).

Happily enough, the four episodes that follow are much better and save the production from disaster. It finds its feet with a move into in the BBC studio and much more multi-camera VT (which Davies seems fine with). Steven handles the story much better, initially focusing, in line with Hughes’ narrative but with some embellishments, on the various incidents Brown (and his pals East and Sunning) encountered in his first year at Rugby. He successfully fleshes the out the role of Arnold (unsurprisingly seeing as they engaged Cuthbertson). Finally, Steven majors on his revisions to (the flagrantly corrupt) Flashman who, after failing to see off Brown in his first year (much to his father’s ire), eventually concocts a grand and very dramatic conspiracy to disgrace Brown over a poaching scandal which he very nearly pulls off.  

Much of the credit for this improvement is due to the talents of the band of young actors playing the Rugby school boys. Rather like with Lindsay Anderson’s anarchic school drama If…, they rise to the challenge admirably of convincingly selling the narrative of Tom Brown’s Schooldays, despite some of the older seniors being a little overgrown for the part. This being 1971, none of them needed a wig supplying to look the part of 1830s schoolboys. Of these actors, Richard Morrant is excellent in bringing the nascent villainy of Flashman to the screen (otherwise, no Ogilvy as School Bully) and I also enjoyed the performances of Simon Fisher Turner as Scud East, David Hampshire (as Brown and East’s ally Diggs), and Barry Stokes as the House prefect Brooke.

Iain Cuthbertson, as you would expect, also delivers as Dr Arnold (mainly from the comfort of his study). As the great Victorian reformer, Cuthbertson stays mainly in his noble and genial mode, but capable of profound persuasion and vengeance, whether in persuading his teaching staff to give up their sinecures; or the equally reluctant governors to invest in upgrading the sanitary accommodation; or most notably dealing with the Flashmans at the story’s climax.

Even though the story and setting place it in the realm of children’s drama, the scenes of corporal punishment (and general violence) in Tom Brown’s Schooldays are surprisingly graphic, especially for a Sunday teatime serial. Steven’s emphasis on Flashman does also have the knock-on effect of concentrating the viewer’s attention on his unwholesome qualities at the expense (at least until his own self becomes disgraced) of the hero, who sinks into the background for an episode or two.

Tom Brown’s Schooldays was never going to be the ripest material for a TV classic, and an inept start hampered this version. It isn’t a prime example of fine multicamera VT drama, but the script slowly warms up and the performances generate much appeal. After despising the thing after Episode 1, I ended up quite liking it in the end. American audiences took to it too, as after being shown as part of the Masterpiece Theatre strand, the programme won an Emmy (the knowledge of this success felt weird given the strength of my initial misgivings about Tom Brown’s Schooldays).

Concert Review: Dexys at The Halls, Wolverhampton – 16th September 2023

I was expecting this to be good: it certainly was. I went along as more of a casual admirer of Dexy’s Midnight Runners (and its individualistic lead singer and composer Kevin Rowland); someone who listened to and liked Too Rye Ay and (in particular) Don’t Stand Me Down. My brother (someone a little more of a Dexys fan) asked me back in the spring if I wanted to go and see them. As it was a long time since I last went to a gig (late 2019) and knowing that Dexys only tour one or two times every decade, I was pleased to have an autumn night out in Wolverhampton to look forward to.  

On the night, as we were heading towards the venue we came across Kevin Rowland and the band (just before the doors opened at 7 o’clock). As we were walking across the Civic centre plaza in Wolverhampton, he and the rest of the band were emerging down the steps of St Peters Church from the right. It seemed a very Kev Rowland thing, going for a stroll just before a gig in a big pink beret. Too shy by half to approach him, we sheepishly followed them round to the Civic Hall, a 1938 building in the classical idiom: well-scrubbed on the exterior and stylishly refurbed inside. Also inside were eye-wateringly expensive drinks: a glass of Moretti served in a plastic mug (that resembled a surgical container) and a bottle of Oasis came to £11.

Act one of the concert was a full performance of Dexys’ recent release The Feminine Divine: nine songs exploring Rowland’s typical themes of love, emotion, maturity and sexual politics, in his (too brutally honest for comfort) manner. The opening songs looked back at his early adulthood and evoked the aggressive, masculine perspective of a young man in an early relationship. Then Rowland made a startling 180 degree turn with a series of confessional songs – titled My Goddess and My Submission – of a converted (adulatory) feminist. I found it startling, although I well understood that Rowland is a performer and composer who pushes boundaries. My brother was well put off by the onstage dramatics – he only liked the music, which was indeed excellent. Rowland’s support was five multi-instrumental players, performing Dexys’ familiar sound: pop-rock with vivid horn and fiddle flourishes (and plenty of spoken dialogue passages). His voice also was in good shape: soulful with a black country twang.

After the interval the show resumed with a greatest hits set of nine more songs, six from 1982’s Too Rye Ay. As the band opened with Plan B, the audience (who had sat for the opening half) rose to stand for the rest of the show. We two – just past forty – were visibly younger than the rest of the crowd, who all looked in their fifties and beyond – I couldn’t spot any student Dexys fans in the auditorium (tickets weren’t inexpensive – we paid £40 to sit towards the rear of the stalls). That noted, the audience lapped it all up. The band played the cathartic classics: Geno, Jackie Wilson Said (with the famous darts-related backdrop projection present) and of course, Come on Eileen. Nervous at the start of the evening, by the end Rowland was visibly affected by the rousing reception he received from his hometown audience.

Verdict: Superb show from a classic group – terrific to see Kev Rowland perform live. 9/10.