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Post by ltd on Mar 23, 2024 7:52:36 GMT
Great character actor
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Post by ltd on Mar 21, 2024 17:55:59 GMT
The scene where Lawson stands up in the pub and belts out the national anthem before damning all the customers who stayed seated ('"You see what's wrong? They won't stand. IT'S THEIR OWN NATIONAL ANTHEM, AND NOT ONE OF'M STOOD!''), is a scene that for some reason stayed with me for many years after first seeing it as a kid. Dunno if that is a good or bad thing!
I'd forgotten that scene. Very powerful scene. Says a lot about the UK's lack of pride in itself - or the fact that "being proud to be British" is seen (very wrongly, IMHO) as being insulting to people who are not British but who live in the UK.
Or maybe the pub customers just thought our national anthem was a dreadful dirge. I don't see that it's particularly patriotic in itself, it's more a hymn of submission to a particular group of people who historically haven't always distinguished themselves on the national stage. As an Englishman I'd like to see it replaced with something else. Maybe Jerusalem at a pinch - I'm not much of a christian but at at least it's got a decent tune. Anyway in danger of veering off topic here. Given his activism I would guess the late Mr Culver was a republican.
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Post by ltd on Mar 21, 2024 15:24:48 GMT
Strummer for me too. I thought The Clash were a great band whereas I always found the Pistols a bit overrated to be honest. I know the latter might not be a fashionable opinion but I still think it's true. To me, it just wasn't music and I always thought Rotten/Lydon hammed it up too much. He never really impressed me. ps. Of all the bands from that era/genre, I liked Buzzcocks most. It's Wire for me, although a fair amount of their later work and live gigs can test the patience. Stiff Little Fingers I used to really like as well.
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Post by ltd on Mar 20, 2024 14:07:54 GMT
Mind you John Lydon is onto it with regards to the state of Britain today. Yes, he's really onto it living in California. He's entertaining but I don't take him seriously. He's always been the sort of bloke whose opinions change with the wind.
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Post by ltd on Mar 20, 2024 10:17:01 GMT
He was good in 'Villains' as one of the bank robbers who was a lying fantasist. I'd forgotten that one - he is really good.
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Post by ltd on Mar 17, 2024 18:44:01 GMT
Excellent excellent actor. Has been in so much I have watched over the course of my life; often as a senior Army officer, or other high-ranking official. Putting his clipped accent to good use. RIP. He's great as senior MI6 bod Dicky Cruyer in the 1980s adaptation of Len Deighton's Game, Set and Match. Apparently Deighton wasn't keen on some of the casting choices, and I can see why (although I think he was over precious about it). Michael Culver is perfect though - whenever I read the books it's always him I see if there's an episode of Dicky being particularly egregious like swanning around Mexico City shopping for souvenirs instead of nurse maiding a potential Soviet defector.
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Post by ltd on Mar 13, 2024 9:13:22 GMT
Great as Soames in Poetic Justice, Innit? A cop so horrible and vindictive that even Chisholm hated him. As others have said he was in loads of stuff and always a welcome presence. I'd like to tip the nod to his performance as the ghost in The Green Man which was supremely creepy. A superlative actor.
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Post by ltd on Mar 1, 2024 12:39:03 GMT
I really liked The Separation (although not convinced by the fate of the divergent universe Rudolf Hess) and The Adjacent. The Glamour I've read several times in different editions but still don't really "get it".
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Post by ltd on Mar 1, 2024 10:18:21 GMT
Always fascinated by his books, even when I don't understand them - i.e. a lot of the time, which isn't to say he's anything other than highly readable. I enjoyed his novelisation of Mona Lisa (under pen name Luther Novak) which was something of a departure for him.
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Post by ltd on Feb 23, 2024 18:07:24 GMT
I remember him well as the sinister Dan Mellor in 1990, but as spacecadet says he was a well established character actor and in loads of stuff - could play comedy and drama with equal aplomb. Seems to have been well liked by his fellow Coronation Street cast members.
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Post by ltd on Feb 14, 2024 12:46:58 GMT
He also performed a fantastic audio-reading of Geoffrey Household's novel 'Rogue Male', which periodically gets an airing on Radio 4 Extra. He had a mesmerising voice and I never tire of listening to that performance whenever they broadcast it. RIP I'd like to hear that - will keep an eye (or rather ear) out for it. He'd have been good in the 1976 film I think. Peter O'Toole is fine, and I appreciate the producers probably needed a name in the lead, but Michael Jayston just had that intensity about him that would have suited the character down to the ground.
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Post by ltd on Feb 13, 2024 9:59:52 GMT
Really good in arrested development playing himself as an inveterate freeloader raiding all you can eat buffets and the like. Plainly had a sense of humour about himself alongside all the tough guy roles.
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Post by ltd on Jan 27, 2024 21:43:50 GMT
The Guardian reports the death of the Minder scriptwriter who was responsible for some of my favourite episodes including Back In Good Old England, All Mod Cons and Goodbye Sailor, as well as Minder On The Orient Express. He also created Pie In The Sky and wrote for Shoestring, Lovejoy and Midsomer Murders. The recent thread about what episodes you'd show to someone new to Minder to give them an idea what it's all about - any of those three would do just fine. All Mod Cons in particular is a favourite for the way it adroitly juggles so many different sub-plots: Terry's new job, Arthur's bathroom fittings, Michael Robbins's lovenest and the Toyah sponsored illegal eviction. Great work by the late Mr Payne.
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Post by ltd on Jan 25, 2024 9:38:37 GMT
Rollerball was the first one I thought of as well, but a pretty impressive CV all round really.
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Post by ltd on Jan 12, 2024 16:28:34 GMT
I was never a regular listener of hers, but I do remember as a young grebo, being impressed by her filling in for Tommy Vance on the Friday Rock Show one night back in 1986. Always came across as genuine music fan.
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Post by ltd on Jan 11, 2024 16:12:17 GMT
Sad to read, she was always well worth watching in everything she appeared in (particularly as Budgie's wife) Dunno whether or not it was true but i once read she was dyslexic and that her very individual style of acting was down to that? Either way she'll be missed. The way she described her school days certainly suggests she had dyslexia.
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Post by ltd on Jan 10, 2024 13:58:21 GMT
www.theguardian.com/film/2024/jan/10/georgina-hale-obituary I remember her as the switchboard girl in Sweeney 2 (the second feature film from The Sweeney) who borrowed Jack Regan's front door key and replaced it by slipping it down the front of his trousers while he was asleep. Also memorable for cooking breakfast in McVicar wearing an apron and nothing else, and as Harry Crawford's mutton-dressed-as-lamb ex-wife in an episode of Boon. Also Yorkie's "acquaintance" in The Beer Hunter episode of Minder, playing a similar sort of role as she did in McVicar arguably.
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Post by ltd on Jan 5, 2024 16:53:33 GMT
Outside of TV he was notable for campaigning with Martin Bell during his "white suit" phase.
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Post by ltd on Dec 31, 2023 16:20:43 GMT
Veteran British character actor, almost certainly best known for his appearance in The Full Monty, but with an impressive list of other credits that show his versatility. I remember him well as Resnick, a gloomy Nottingham cop, in the BBC adaptations of John Harvey's novels. The beeb only filmed two of the books but whenever I've read the other novels it's always Wilkinson I picture in my mind's eye.
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Post by ltd on Dec 21, 2023 19:03:32 GMT
I loved the quip about Jimmy Saville, just shows how times and perceptions change . Hindsight puts Share-on's reaction in a rather different light than was probably originally intended - I thought she seemed perturbed/disgusted at the prospect of Arfur fixing a meet with him, as well she might.
I gather Sheila White had a lengthy musical career in addition to straight acting which perhaps accounts for her ability to sing off key so convincingly.
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Post by ltd on Dec 16, 2023 12:19:35 GMT
Watched this again the other night, very enjoyable. Max Wall really good as the ex-con, still trying to keep up the hard man image but you can see there's a kind of sadness in him at the waste of it all. And that's before he finds out he's been done over by the bank manager. Always thought Rula Lenska was a decent actress, but never really warmed to her - she looks rather good here in her leather trousers though, and puts in a nicely hard boiled performance.
DVD picture quality not great, as others have mentioned.
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Post by ltd on Dec 13, 2023 13:57:17 GMT
US actor Andre Braugher has died at the age of 61. Mostly known for his TV work but did a fair few films as well. Absolutely tore up the screen as Detective Frank Pembleton in Homicide: Life on the Street back in the 1990s. Always a pleasure watching him perform in "the box", extracting a confession from some hapless wrong 'un.
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Post by ltd on Dec 3, 2023 9:25:37 GMT
Thelma was the sex pot of the Elm Lodge Housing Estate for me.. Though outwardly prissy she had a naughty side just below the surface. Looking very sultry here
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Post by ltd on Dec 1, 2023 23:05:56 GMT
I noticed she was absent from the last series of Ed Reardon and wondered if perhaps she wasn't well, or had retired. Watched the first series of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads again quite recently. She's great as the would be suburban housewife with a core of steel. Thelma was strait laced on the face of it, but could spring the occasional surprise e.g. when she takes Terry's part at the posh dinner party. Had no idea she was a musician as well. Talented lady.
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Post by ltd on Nov 20, 2023 17:52:09 GMT
A magnificent cameo in the original Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, as Jerry Westerby opposite Alec Guinness' George Smiley, which I happen to have watched on DVD last week. I'd love to have seen him in an adaptation of The Honourable Schoolboy, but I suppose the BBC drama budget wouldn't stretch to filming in Hong Kong. He did meet up with another Smiley though in A Murder of Quality. Surprised he never showed up in Minder - can well imagine him as one of the genuinely menacing figures that appeared in the earlier episodes.
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Post by ltd on Nov 10, 2023 22:05:20 GMT
I watched all the Bergeracs a few years ago and rather enjoyed them. The series has perhaps garnered a reputation as a cosy crime show, but it could be very hard edged at times - I remember a couple of episodes with people blasted at close range by automatic gunfire. The episode with Ian "Stevo" Redford as a mercenary seeking revenge on an arms supplier for the death of his family is one that sticks in the mind as quite uncompromising. Could be educational as well, especially about the various fiddles that went on in the Channel Islands. I remember one centred on the "Sark lark" - companies registered on the island with non-executive directors drawn from the rustic populace, paid a bung to put their names to various pieces of dodgy paperwork. Bergerac is being repeated in the afternoons on some nostalgia channel and I caught a couple of episodes from series 1 and 4. I was pleasantly surprised how well it has stood the test of time and was quite entertained. My memory as a child was that it went down the gurgler in the later series though. The last series was very patchy although I liked Therese Liotard who played his French girlfriend. Roger Sloman's a fine comic actor but he was a poor replacement for Sean Arnold.
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Post by ltd on Nov 5, 2023 17:03:15 GMT
Last thing I saw him in was Seven, but even that was a quite a while back. Seems to have worked steadily up until his death though. Only seen the first of the Shaft films.
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Post by ltd on Nov 1, 2023 22:24:26 GMT
But more than that, and personally to me, he was a guitarist in Bristol band The Blue Aeroplanes in the 90s, defining the sound of their best two albums, Swagger and Beatsongs. Bury Your Love Like Treasure was a song of theirs I remember liking.
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Post by ltd on Nov 1, 2023 12:32:58 GMT
Unfortunately my dad’s sister had the ultimate cruise horror she was a regular cruise goer for about fifteen her and her in laws would go on one every year but one year there was a lot of problems sickness on board, could go on day trips due to port issues and luggage was either stolen or lost. The cruise operator gave them a free cruise as compensation this ship caught fire had total power loss and some crew and the captain abandoned ship leaving the passengers with just a few crew to help them, my aunt got a compensation payout and the cruise company paid for her to have therapy for years unsurprisingly she never went on a boat ship or ferry again. Now this is exactly the sort of thing I'd be afraid of. Sounds like one of Uncle Albert's terrifying yarns from Only Fools and Horses.
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Post by ltd on Nov 1, 2023 8:46:08 GMT
Not my sort of thing really. Don't like the idea of being cooped up on a boat for long periods. Worried about catching legionnaire's disease, or food poisoning. Not too mention that annoying couple who you just can't seem to shake off for the whole voyage! I was going to say the ghastly people but thought that might have been snobbish of me - reading the other posts it seems my first instinct wasn't far wrong.
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