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Another Wind In The Willows Attempt...
Jan. 3rd, 2007 12:46 am...and this one could have been a lot worse.
I appeared in the Wind In The Willows back in 1994, sporting a padded 36DD bra - which contrary to popular opinion at the time, wasn't mine - and a very high-pitched approximation of a terribly misplaced cockney accent, playing the bargewoman. Since then, I have been something of a major fan of the story, and have seen many adaptations of it, both on stage and screen. None of them have lived up to my impression of what it should, and could, be if enough effort was put into it.
The one on New Year's Day added itself to this pile, though got a lot closer than most of them.
Those who haven't read the book tend to remain unaware of Otter and his difficult son Portly, missing persons leading to the visitation of Pan, the sea traveller that almost hypnotises Ratty away from the story, the relative quality of Buggins' cheese, the wayfaring gypsy with the greatest stew ever made and various other things that help flesh out the world and make it one of my very favourite children's stories. This adaptation, with a fair cast and a hundred minutes to fill, made a reasonable go, though a lot of the bases got covered very quickly and without much build up, so seemed rather extraneous to the story. Pan was there, but for very little reason and could have been dropped as the significance was not there.
The role of Toad was overplayed as usual, though not to as great an extent as has been known previously (Mole and Ratty are the two main characters of the story, where Toad is only significant for half of it and Badger is a character abstract). The clearing out of Toad Hall was handled appallingly - there are meant to be significantly more weasels, stoats and ferrets around, rather than the handful that really weren't intimidated by the entrance of the four friends at the end, and the wild wood sequence was about half as long as it should have been if they were covering Mole's naive impetuousness in the run up to it. I do like the fact that the final scene involved Toad's new mania coming to light, and what was done was done well - costuming, character acting, and medium of presentation was nice (though I'd like to see someone have a try at doing the animals with CGI a la the recent Narnia).
As the most recent attempt, it's pretty good. Roll on when they try it again in about three year's time.
I really don't want to go back to work, but it surely beats sitting around idle and wasting time when I could be writing the PhD. At least having not a great deal of free time when I get home drives me to use it for chemistry.
I appeared in the Wind In The Willows back in 1994, sporting a padded 36DD bra - which contrary to popular opinion at the time, wasn't mine - and a very high-pitched approximation of a terribly misplaced cockney accent, playing the bargewoman. Since then, I have been something of a major fan of the story, and have seen many adaptations of it, both on stage and screen. None of them have lived up to my impression of what it should, and could, be if enough effort was put into it.
The one on New Year's Day added itself to this pile, though got a lot closer than most of them.
Those who haven't read the book tend to remain unaware of Otter and his difficult son Portly, missing persons leading to the visitation of Pan, the sea traveller that almost hypnotises Ratty away from the story, the relative quality of Buggins' cheese, the wayfaring gypsy with the greatest stew ever made and various other things that help flesh out the world and make it one of my very favourite children's stories. This adaptation, with a fair cast and a hundred minutes to fill, made a reasonable go, though a lot of the bases got covered very quickly and without much build up, so seemed rather extraneous to the story. Pan was there, but for very little reason and could have been dropped as the significance was not there.
The role of Toad was overplayed as usual, though not to as great an extent as has been known previously (Mole and Ratty are the two main characters of the story, where Toad is only significant for half of it and Badger is a character abstract). The clearing out of Toad Hall was handled appallingly - there are meant to be significantly more weasels, stoats and ferrets around, rather than the handful that really weren't intimidated by the entrance of the four friends at the end, and the wild wood sequence was about half as long as it should have been if they were covering Mole's naive impetuousness in the run up to it. I do like the fact that the final scene involved Toad's new mania coming to light, and what was done was done well - costuming, character acting, and medium of presentation was nice (though I'd like to see someone have a try at doing the animals with CGI a la the recent Narnia).
As the most recent attempt, it's pretty good. Roll on when they try it again in about three year's time.
I really don't want to go back to work, but it surely beats sitting around idle and wasting time when I could be writing the PhD. At least having not a great deal of free time when I get home drives me to use it for chemistry.
