How Germans remember the Nazi past
We need more of these programmes that question the habitually mush mooshed into our eyes and eyes by the media as they pass off their version as the truth. Saturday morning's BBC Radio 3's Building a Library this week is Stravinsky's Rite of Spring showing the musical difference between volcanic thrill and leather seat. They said there was a podcast but I can't find it. And BBC Four has actor Simon Russell Beale (currently in Major Barbara at the Royal National Theatre) presenting the history of Sacred Music, something most people listen to with one ear on the radio (not literally, come on...though on some planets...) but is a surprisingly little explored topic outside the specialist programmes judging from episode 1. Vanesssa Redgrave speaks of her musical passions in BBC Radio 3's Private Passions - advocating that we don’t need more consensus but more people learning to play the same chord together.
And now that Easter thing is over of moving the rock or finding the bunny or whatever happens (I get a bit religo-dyslectic sometimes – for years I thought the catechism was the cataclysm, no wonder ‘they’ wanted me to attend Hebrew school instead), I can mention the The Mighty Boosh (out on DVD) (and Wiki seems accurate) taking over BBC 3 for a night (a sort of BBC 1 and 1/2 -TV execs never quite sure if they should go the extra half pint – American readers need a Brit translator to understand that bit). (Think Flight of the Conchords grounded at Heathrow and forced to eat nouveau Labour beau-berries for 72 hours, alright: Conservative and Lib Dem berries can be pretty hallucinogenic too...) Hurry up please, it’s time. It’s time. (I thought there were 24-hour or at least extended New Labour drinking hours. I’ve never been able to find one of those pubs, though: the New Labour ‘ploughman’s lunch’. What? I told you Yanks you needed a translator. Now where were we, floods or daffodils?
Would the 5-8 year-olds of today be kept occupied by Bewitched - The Complete Sixth Season: 30 episodes (25min) on 4 discs (Region 2) in colour (orig B/W but colourised for syndication)? I didn’t have a guinea pig over Easter, but I doubt that Harry Potter has ‘staled their infinite variety’. The seasons started being released by Sony in 2005 as a tie-in to the Nicole Kidman film (Season 6 hits Region 1, May 6). It’s a brilliant TV format (Sol Saks) and ran for a record 8 US seasons between 1964-1972. Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) is a blonde witch who’s married a “low-grade mortal”, Darrin Stephens a successful advertising executive (Dick Sargent in his first season - 1969/70 - as Darrin) and they live the suburban life portrayed in HBO’s (currently on BBC4) Mad Men. Like all families, Samantha has a meddling mother Endora (Agnes Moorhead) but the boredom is relieved by the fact that she’s also a witch - “show me another mother who sharpens her teeth in the morning,” says Darrin - as is her entire family, and Samantha has a young daughter Tabatha (Erin Murphy) who in this season gets a baby brother. Samantha’s dad Maurice (Maurice Evans, one of the many ‘hammy’ Brit thesps popping up shedding English gloom for LA sun) casts a spell on the new born baby Adam, such that all who lay sight upon him are besotted. A jest at the advertising world? The fact that Darrin and Sam are a mixed couple is another of the many sly moral themes woven into the series. “I don’t know why we don’t just tell people we are witches then everyone will know what nice people we are,” says Bambi-eyed Tabitha to her mum in the Halloween ‘trick and treating’ episode. “Everyone’s entitled to believe in what they want,” says Sam in Tabatha’s ‘Santa Claus’ episode. But Darrin forbids Samantha to use her powers for their advancement, the compromise being the witchy maid Esmerelda (Alice Ghostley) who when sneezing “materialises the thought nearest my cerebellum”, so we get Caesar himself as she attempts Caesar salad (he and Cleopatra explained away as part of Darrin’s ‘Tiger cologne’ ad campaign). The only cavil is that there aren’t any extras (though 5 language options) and one is left wondering (or heading for the internet) to find out what became of all these wonderfully fun, talented people.
And for some early cinema magic, US silent film specialist Flicker Alley has just issued 13 hours (5 DVD’s) of the complete George Méliès 1896 to 1913.
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