My ultimate Christmas Survival escapes
links to add Joy to your festive entrapment!
Lets face it, Christmas for the reclusive and creative can easily become a little bit too much like an enforced, big brother zoological family experiment that can easily go wrong mentally. To keep you sane, here are some my favourite YouTube, radio and tv escapes of both natural world and human goodness of either reality or period drama to help us get through this enforcement and the dank days ahead. I’ll do another one for the New Year! Best - Arthur
Possibly the best chocolate box of ultimate period, costume British casting the BBC has ever commissioned.
Little Dorrit aired back in 2008 and saw the swan faced debutant of the remarkable Claire Foy to our screens. This televised adaption is arguably kinder than the book of Dicken’s, whose story can be very much related to todays extremes of British wealth and modern poverty, of all or nothing, of the shame and crippling of debt and of the separations, desperations to climb and merging of the British classes.
Amanda Redman and James Fleet - Little Dorrit
Amanda Redman’s role as the red dressed and dazzling Mrs Merdle says this best in her lines whilst scolding Mr Merdle’s beloved scarlet Macaw who whistles and laughs at her from its gilded cage. Sue Johnston howls as poor Affrey Flintwinch who climbs endlessly trembling up and down the stairs of the crumbling, dark twisted house of Clennam, attending to the requirements of her mistress Mrs Clennam from her wheelchair, played superbly with so much grit in each line by Judy Parfitt. I love the pace the dramas episodes have, it is not a rushed series. The desperate love between Claire Foy’s Little Dorrit and Matthew Macfadyen’s Arthur Clennam will have you screaming at the screen in later episodes as they continue to elude one another’s true feelings on the banks of London’s Thames. Their are thrilling appearances too from Annette Crosbie who is cross about toast accompanying Ruth Jones, need I put more!
In the book, the first half is called ‘Poverty’ and the second half is ‘Riches’. I last watched it during lockdown with my nan Min when thankfully it was available still on BBC iPlayer and I am delighted to find that it still is today -
I cannot believe this recording is now this old, recorded back in September of 2010, it saddens me that I don’t have Debo to write to this week as I have bought some very beautiful Silver- Laced Wyandotte hens. This is one of her best interviews, raw but wisely worded honesty involving child birth, death, marriage and a rare humour and feeling of deep love of Chatsworth, her home and the place that will see her forever indeed as a ‘lilac relic’ you’ll have to listen to the end to hear Debo’s thoughts on being such a thing!
‘And you don’t have any dogs anymore, you’ve been a dog lover all your life. I know but you’ve no idea the sadness, when they see the luggage… I can’t bear that anymore’
What chickens have you got now? I’ve got Light Sussex, White Leghorns.. oh gosh what are they called… Marans, Welsummers? Yes Welsummers, there you are see, clever.
Deborah Cavendish is 90 years old and has witnessed the 20th century up close. She has met anybody who's anybody - Churchill, Hitler, JFK. She is also the last survivor of a remarkable set of women - the Mitford sisters: Nancy, who became a writer, Jessica who became a Communist, Unity who became a Fascist - and Diana who married one. In a special edition of Woman's Hour Jenni talks to 'Debo' - the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire about her life, and the times she lived through. In her autobiography 'Wait for Me' she also talks about her own personal challenges; her husband, the Duke, had a long battle with alcohol and three of her children died within hours of their birth. She's also credited with helping to save one of Britain's great country houses, Chatsworth, which is enjoyed by thousands of visitors each year.
Follow the life of the Oak tree, through a thousand years narrated wondrously by Tom Baker. I first watched this as a boy on the night of 2000. You’ll learn about all the animals that are now beloved of the wilding movement - Jays, Nightingales, Emperor Blue butterflies and much more biodiversity appears and elements of British history feature too as the Oak grows from a sapling to a mighty tree. It is wonderful and I am glad it can be watched on Youtube. Enjoy especially the speeded up clips of a English woodland bursting into its bluebell carpet.
I loved Ruth Watson, first as the original Hotel Inspector and also for her series of Country House rescue. Most episodes were a little of a similar hymn sheet but what fabulous characters each episode turned out, a bit like a mongrel of Midsommer Murders meets a crumbling Downton Abbey then comes in Ruth in a big landrover over the cattle grid with demands of changes. Bloody great, it is a shame more of these are not available to watch. It does feel like a time long before the covid lockdown indeed and what a shame a lot of the featured places did not realise that all the British visitor really wants is a good victoria sponge and tea!
Jennifer Saunders - Desert Island Discs
Recorded and released in December 1996 - Jennifer Saunders was having a break from Dawn French and so AB FAB fever had taken over the world with the first series having aired back in 1992, there is a noticeable absence of champagne corks ‘poppin’ in the studio with Sue Lawley . Jen talks of being log woman at Christmas time and her new found love of gardening with memories of hearing the wheelbarrow along the path at dawn during teenage lie inns.
Favourite track: I Didn't Have The Nerve To Say No by Blondie
Book: Traveller's Prelude by Freya Stark
Luxury: Tribute Heads By Elisabeth Frink
I’m nearly at the end of Little Dorrit, following a friend’s suggestion, and am strictly rationing the remaining episodes as I don’t want to say goodbye to the characters. Claire Foy makes Amy’s goodness charming rather than wet (such a problem with Dickens’ Nice Girls), and Tom Courtenay makes my fingers itch to slap her father - or perhaps tweak his nose as being a more Dickensian insult. Great list, Arthur, I hope your Christmas has (many) moments of joy.
Immediately hitting play on the Debo interview! Fabulous list.