Hi Honeys,
Welcome back, it's day 21 of Blogtober and I thought today, after sharing some of our favourite American TV box sets in a recent post, I'd share some favourite British series too...
This might take a while dear ones, why not go grab a cuppa, and maybe a cookie or two, and I'll meet you back here in a few minutes...
Welcome back dear ones, do you have your cuppa? Cool, me too ☕ Let's take a look at some of my favourite British TV series then, shall we?
The Prisoner
Back when we bought our very first dvd player, we, of course, gradually started buying our favourite films and TV series (again) on dvd.
This was the very first dvd box set we ever bought, to replace our VHS version, and I love every episode as much now as when I had to plead and beg to stay up late to watch this fabulous series as a child 💖
The Prisoner, starred the wonderful Patrick McGoohan, and follows the attempts of a former Government agent to escape an island he has been imprisoned on. We're never told his name, only shown in the opening credits that he was angry about something, resigned his position and drove home, only to be drugged and to then wake up in a chalet in a place only known as The Village.
I can't imagine anyone hasn't seen even a little of this awesome series but if you haven't honeys, it's so worth watching. Be seeing you.
Wallander
This is the BBC English language version of the books written by Henning Mankell which centre around the cases of police detective Kurt Wallander. This is such a wonderful series honeys, everything from Sir Kenneth Branagh's moving portrayal of Kurt to the gorgeous theme song (called Nostalgia and sung by Emily Barker and her band The Red Clay Halo) is hauntingly beautiful.
This much loved box set sits on a bookcase upstairs alongside all of the box sets of the Swedish TV versions starring Krister Henrikkson, and the one box set they've released so far, also in Swedish, starring Rolf Lassgård.
I so love these stories honeys, every one of them. Trying to choose a favourite, or worse a favourite Kurt is actually painful, so I'm not even going to try. If you haven't watched them, please go seek them out but remember to read the books too. Henning Mankell wasn't just an incredibly talented writer he worked for so many years helping others. The world is a much darker place without this lovely man in it.
Luther
If you haven't watched Luther yet honeys, oh my, have you got a treat to look forward to!
If you haven't seen all five series of Luther, the fabulous programme starring Idris Elba, go watch honeys, it's awesome! It's beyond awesome, they'll have to invent another word for awesome to describe it's level of awesomeness.... I kinda like this series a little, did you guess? 😄
Luther is a BBC detective drama series but by far one of the best series on TV in ages. There have been, so far, as I said five series following our hero (mine anyway) John Luther and allowing us a little glimpse into his world. I literally don't want to write anymore because I don't want to spoil this fabulous series for anyone who hasn't seen any of it!
It can be violent at times, but so is the world Luther lives and works in, but the stories are all.... whatever that new word for awesome is 😄 Also, Idris Elba... I mean, I've had the same expression whenever I've seen him on TV since Luther first appeared in 2010. It sort of looks like this 😍 Hearts where my eyes used to be 💗😊 Go watch, you'll love it.
Inspector Morse
My heart just had a sharp pain in it honeys. There are no words for how much this series means to me. None.
I still vividly remember how excited I was waiting for the very first episode of this incredible series to air in January of 1987 having been a fan of Mr Thaws for many years. I still have the scrapbooks I kept over the years with interviews and articles from various TV magazines and newspapers.
We collected the stories on VHS as they became available (yes, I know honeys, VHS 📼) then on dvd. Among my treasures are the wonderful books this beautiful series is based on, with the last ever novel signed by their author, Colin Dexter. A sweet, kind lovely man I'll never forget meeting.
I've always said, over the years, that when I watch an episode of Morse it has the same effect as placing a cool cloth over my eyes. These wonderful stories relax me and the fabulous cds of music from the series got me through my exams in college 💖
Possibly one of the best made drama series ever, it has the dreaming spires of beautiful Oxford, fantastic stories and the legendary John Thaw, a wonderful man, forever loved, forever missed. Forever a favourite series.
Sherlock Holmes
Not the Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock, although that's a great series and yes we have them on dvd. I'm talking the Sherlock Holmes. The wonderful, incomparable, never to be forgotten Jeremy Brett's interpretation of Holmes is the standard by which I think every actor who ever takes on the role of the great detective will be forever judged.
I first discovered Holmes as a child of ten or eleven. I was a sickly child, ill every winter with lung problems and absent from school for weeks at a time. When recovered enough from the latest bought of bronchitis to sit up in bed I was allowed, if I'd completed all of the school work that was diligently collected for me from school, to sit on the sofa, snuggled under blankets and propped up with pillows to watch TV in the afternoons.
It was while watching afternoon TV that I discovered Holmes. A screening of one of Basil Rathbone's Holmes movies. I was hooked honeys.
In my first year at Secondary school, aged twelve, thanks to the school library, I read all fifty six stories and four novels. So began my passion for the foggy, gas lit streets of Victorian London and the enigmatic detective.
While many actors have played Holmes, before and since the incomparable Granada TV series, and I've tried to see as many as I could, there was (in my humble opinion) only one other true Sherlock. The awesome Boris Rathbone, and the box set in the photo above gathers all of his films together. It was a gift from Hubby (thank you sweetheart x) and it's one of my treasures.
Every Holmes fan will have their own favourite Sherlock and Granada TV's Sherlock Holmes series, with dear Mr Brett will, forever and a day, be mine. These precious box sets will always be treasured.
Jonathan Creek
Jonathan certainly isn't the usual TV detective. He isn't a policeman, he actually creates magic tricks for a (in the series) famous television magician and he lives in a windmill.
Jonathan Creek is one of the cleverest, most original series of "whodunnit" stories ever. I love it. He has an eye for detail that not only helps him to create illusions but also helps him to pick up on details missed by others.
If you haven't seen any of the Jonathan Creek stories, I would highly recommend them honeys. If you like a really clever detective story that you just can't figure out until Jonathan explains it all so easily at the end, this is the series for you.
Kidnapped
I can't tell you how excited I was that Network released this dramatisation of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel. Kidnapped is my favourite book honeys. I read it as a child and completely fell in love with the character of Alan Breck Stuart, in the series played by Scottish actor David McCallum.
I remember so clearly hurrying home from school every week to watch this fab series on TV. It was screened in half hour instalments and I loved how close it seemed to how I'd pictured the story in my head while reading the book.
I still have my childhood copy of Kidnapped, with my name written inside in a very childish scrawl, it's been read so, so many times over the past forty years and means a great deal to me. I Love it.
As a wee Scottish girl, any book that allowed me to go on an adventure, running through the Scottish highlands with a dashing hero would, of course, be a favourite and honestly this wonderfully atmospheric TV version is my favourite dramatisation of this awesome adventure story.
Dinnerladies
It's been over three years since Victoria Wood, the incredibly talented writer, comedian, singer and actress, was lost to us, but she left us such a wonderful body of work that she'll never be forgotten.
Among this huge body of work is Dinnerladies, a sweet, funny, wonderful series written by and starring Victoria.
Dinnerladies follows the lives of the ladies who work in the staff canteen of a large manufacturing company in Manchester, and of their co-workers and the people they come into contact with. This marvellous series is a perfect example of why Victoria's writing, and Victoria herself, are so loved.
Her characters come alive honeys, they're real people, with hopes, dreams, sadness. She filled every one of her characters, in Dinnerladies and in everything else she created, with so much life they walked right off the page and made everyone smile, laugh and cry.
I've watched this box set so many times I can recite whole conversations 😊 There can be two or three conversations going on at the same time in a scene and you follow each one because her writing was that good. If you haven't seen any of this series honeys, try to watch it. The characters will live on in your head, and heart, long after the credits roll. 💖
The series theme appears as an instrumental piece on every episode except one, an especially poignant episode, when it's accompanied by the lyrics sung heartbreakingly by Victoria. To this day this beautiful song always makes me cry. You can see Victoria sing it here honeys.
As a bonus I'm recommending a six part series of self contained comedies, again written by and starring Victoria, and again filled with the most exquisitely written characters. In each half hour episode Victoria puts a different situation under the microscope as only she could and examined all of the stories and characters to be found there
A completely awful health farm specialising in weight loss, a friend trying video dating for the first time, an airport delay with the worst co-travellers all waiting to head off on a package holiday and a disastrous walking/camping trip with a friend are all included and are all absolutely marvellous!
Its just not fair that the world lost such a talented lady so early, I'm sure she had so many more stories and songs to write and so many more characters to give life to. It's not fair and she is so missed.💔
Desmond's
Another beloved favourite programme and for some I-just-can't-fathom-why reason Channel Four dvd has only, to date, released the first two series!
Desmond's is the name of the title character and also of his barber shop in Peckham. He and his wife Shirley came to London from Guyana as newlyweds and their little barber/hairdressing shop is the centre of their local community.
Desmond's dream is to save enough money to return to Guyana, build a little house and retire there but Shirley, as she's forced to admit in one episode where Desmond becomes ill, doesn't want to leave their life and their children in London and Desmond could never leave her.
Every episode of this sweet, funny series has laughs but some episodes have tears too. I hope and pray that Channel Four dvd decide to release the other four series, I would so love to have them in our collection. This really is a sweet, funny, wonderful, joyful, much loved series, and I always wished that Shirley and Desmond had been my Mum and Dad.💖
Fawlty Towers
There can't be anyone who doesn't know who Basil Fawlty is. Fawlty Towers is a classic BBC sitcom, set in Basil's hotel, the fictional Fawlty Towers, in Torquay.
It's difficult to believe that such a much loved programme only ran for two series and that, for all everyone can quote from their favourite episodes, only twelve were ever made!
Of all the careers that Basil Fawlty could have chosen, why ever did he choose to be a hotelier? The assorted guests and visiting tradesmen he interacts with only seem to infuriate him and he isn't the most hospitable character created.
That though is the point honeys I think. Basil is living in, for him, a living hell. Stuck with the job of welcoming people he wishes would just go away, putting up with his very bossy, shrill wife who is constantly and very obviously disappointed in her choice of husband and trying to communicate with a very kind natured but completely inept Spanish waiter called Manuel whose grasp of English is as poor as Basil's grasp of Spanish.
Just writing about it makes me want to go upstairs and get the dvds (I think I'll fetch the box set when I go upstairs later to watch when I go to bed) and that's it's power honeys. It's impossible to ever get bored with this fabulous programme. I know that I never will. Come back and ask me in twenty years and you'll find that I'm still watching and loving Basil, Polly, Manuel and maybe even Sybil 💖
Blackadder
Speaking of wonderfully written programmes that will never age and be forever loved, there is of course Blackadder. Edmond Blackadder is an anti-hero. He isn't evil as such but certainly he's a schemer 😊 Oddly enough, I can remember not being a huge fan of the first series of Blackadder when it was first shown, only of Rowan Atkinson which is why I watched. I've grown to love it over the years though 😊
Blackadder follows Edmond as he interacts with historical characters through the ages, with the first series, The Blackadder, being set near the end of the Middle Ages with Edmond being the second (and least favourite) son of the (fictional) Richard IV who became king after Edmond accidentally killed Richard III after the battle of Bosworth.
In the second series our anti-hero is still scheming happily but is a gentleman in Elizabethan London and frequently visits with "Queenie" at the court of Elizabeth I. The third series takes part in Regency England with Edmond acting as butler to the Prince Regent, Prince of Wales (played by Hugh Laurie) while in the fourth series Edmond finds himself in the trenches of world war 1.
There were also three specials made too, one of which was a time travelling story written for the millennium. You may not find a lot of historical accuracy in the Blackadder stories but you'll find a whole world of laughter and if you've ever watched the final episode of Blackadder Goes Forth and didn't cry at the last scene... well... I don't believe you dear ones. 😢 Perfect, timeless and altogether wonderful.
Another box set I've been watching (a lot) recently is Upstart Crow, a comedy also written by Ben Elton (who co-wrote Blackadder series 2-4) that follows the adventures of William Shakespeare. It's beyond wonderful honeys, I highly recommend it 💖
Bless This House
I have such happy memories of watching this when I was young and it's another great vintage TV release from Network dvd. It's wonderful to be able to see it again with older eyes and I've loved watching them again. This twelve disc box set has all sixty five episodes of the series as well as the feature film.
Bless This House is a sweet, funny comedy series starring Sid James and Diana Coupland as Sid and Jean Abbott, parents of two teenage children who are watching the world and society change around them. It's very much of its time, it was filmed between 71-76, but it is a family based sitcom. It feels to me like a perfect bubble of time caught in a dvd box. I recognise the family dynamics because I was a child in those times.
Mums stayed home and looked after their houses and children and married men went out to work and got up to shenanigans like trying to brew homemade beer in their garden shed with disastrous results 😊
The stories can be a wee bit predictable but they're charming enough to get away with it and in case anyone gets all offended over my "Mums stayed home and looked after their houses and children" comment, I happen to think that is still a very valid life choice. Choice being the operative word after all.
Good grief this turned into a really long winded post! Thank you for keeping me company honeys, it means more than I can say. What are your favourite TV programmes? Past or present, I'd love suggestions to watch. Have you seen any of the series I've written about in this post? If so, what are your thoughts?
It's getting late dear ones, till next time, smile lots and hug even more 💖 Hugs always x
No comments:
Post a Comment