Was cracking. Or at least it seemed that way to me. Through no fault of my own I’d been drinking most of the day and so turned up late and rather beyond usefulness but everyone seemed to have been enjoying themselves before I got there, and my arrival didn’t seem to dent anyone’s night…
I think we have a new good way to spend a monday…
Warm your soul by following this unwieldy link – http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00nrxkp/Archive_on_4_Radio_Hollywood/ to the BBC iPlayer and this week’s edition of The Archive Hour which tells the story of the Lux Theatre…
No, I’d not heard of it either but apparently in the Golden Age of Hollywood, before TV, the Lux Soap company fostered and unlikely alliance with the studios and sponsored a radio show which staged new productions of big screen hits. The most amazing thing is that as well as bringing in a dose of red curtain theatricality which would have made Baz Lurhman whoop with delight, they also tended to recast the classics with whichever stars were available…
This radio programme contains absolutely delicious clips from these shows including Alan Ladd and Heddy Lamar in Casablanca, Vivienne Leigh in Rebecca, Edward G Robinson as Sam Spade and Orson Welles in A Tale Of Two Cities… it’s dizzying and delicious, a glimpse into an alternate universe and well worth you listening to it right now. If only for the 1940s soap adverts.
Or for the bit where John Wayne starts randomly SHOUTING his diaLOGUE as IF ITs the first TIME he’s seen it WRITTEN DOWN and he doesn’t KNOW what IT MEANS?
Genius.
Apparently in order to get to Cheltenham for the Screenwriter’s Festival tomorrow I have to wake up at half past five in the morning. This seems like bad plotting.
