Portmeirion Perspectives

A helicopters eye view

Mythical creatures seem to fit in here

It costs £10 to get in now

Through the round window

Sorry, wrong number

Sir Clough Williams-Ellis does his rounds

Some interesting views of the Welsh Portofino, from a 1994 documentary called 'On Show: Portmeirion'.

The Prisoner: Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling

‘Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling’ is an odd one, mainly because Patrick McGoohan ain't in it (he was away making ‘Ice Station Zebra’, Howard Hughes favourite film, and appears only in old footage and via a slightly hammy voice over). Instead, Number Six’s mind has been transplanted into the body of a Village agent (Nigel Stock). The story is fairly daft – Number Six is transplanted into another body because Number Two needs to track down the scientist who will be able to reverse the process – and although nothing about this series is rubbish, the episode certainly suffers from the absence of its charismatic star. We do, however, discover that Number Six has been in The Village for a year, and that he has a fiancée (seemingly not very high up on his list of priorities, as she has had no previous role in his plans or thoughts).

The climax of the episode has a Baron Frankenstein on the NHS feel to it, and although the final twist is slightly obvious, it has the bitter irony of some of the earlier episodes, as Number Six outwits his captors, yet remains a prisoner. He’s not bothered, though, he’s still going to escape.    

The Strange World Of Gurney Slade

'A half hour television show. Half an hour to put the world right.
What can you do in half an hour? I need at least forty minutes'.

'The Strange World Of Gurney Slade' was originally shown between the 22^nd of October and the 26^th November, 1960. It’s one of the most radical pieces of television ever shown in this country, not because it attempts to turn the world upside down (although it does, in a small way) but because of how far away it was from the entertainment of the time. Indeed, it's still slightly baffling today.

Ostensibly a sitcom, the show stars polymath / show off Anthony Newley. Newley is the semi-forgotten man of British entertainment, perhaps because he disappeared off to Hollywood as quickly as he could. A man of several formidable talents: songwriter, actor, pop star, writer, egomaniac, Newley had been acting since his teens, and been having big hit singles since 1959. ‘Gurney Slade’ must have appealed to his well-developed sense of the absurd, his intellectual, sardonic sense of humour and his life-long desire to appear slightly hipper and smarter than everybody else. It also contained pathos, and Newley loved pathos – and his sad clown’s face was always able to communicate it brilliantly.

We begin by watching a scene familiar from dozens of soap operas, a friendly chat around the living room. There’s a fairly typical family unit and an annoyingly friendly neighbour, the talk is of roses and the weather and how you like your eggs doing. At the edge of the group, however, is a little man who is becoming increasingly agitated. It’s Gurney Slade. Eventually, he stands up and puts his coat on. Offstage they try and feed him his lines, while the rest of the cast try and stay in character but Gurney gets up and leaves the studio shrugging off objections from a young Geoffrey Palmer and escapes out onto the street.

Free at last?

And that’s it in terms of plot. From here on in, anything can happen, from Gurney holding conversations with dogs and dustbins to dancing with a girl who appears out of a Hoover poster. It’s Una Stubbs, by the way, and she certainly can cha cha cha. Each episode has a different focus, a different feel, a different subject for Gurney to meditate upon (he spends a lot of one show pondering the counter sunk screw). In early episodes it's part Hancock, part Camus, part Buster Keaton, but it gets progressively more idiosyncratic as it goes along. It’s not quite a stream of consciousness, but the preferred delivery method is internal monologue, and some of the drama is strange and blurred and dreamlike - a stream of unconsciousness, if you like.

Although developed and written in collaboration with Dick Hills and Sid Green, 'Gurney Slade' is an early exploration of two of Newley’s life long personal and artistic obsessions - himself, and the battle of the ordinary man against society, the fight for survival of the self against conformity and drudgery. Newley’s next project was the phenomenally successful musical ‘Stop The World, I Want To Get Off’ in which he played a character called ‘Littlechap’, a malcontent permanently searching for spiritual and sexual fulfilment - at the expense of those who really do love him.

In his later x-rated film musical 'Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?' (1969), an epic flop and masterpiece of artistic self-indulgence, profligacy and experimentation (like 'Gurney Slade' it was post-modern before the term gained common currency), Newley turns the most intimate details of his real life (his divorce, the death of his first child) into garish knockabout farce. 'Gurney Slade' is the first manifestation of this contradiction: the show off who wants to be left alone; the introvert who tells you all his business. At the end of the first episode of 'The Strange World Of Gurney Slade', for instance, a dyspeptic Gurney walks into the distance, dragging a hoover behind him and ranting:

“I'm a walking television show. I can't get away from 'em. Big Brother is watching me, and Big Dad and Big Mum. The whole family's watching me. I'm like a goldfish in a bowl. I'm a poor squirming squingle under a microscope. Leave me alone. Leave me alone, will you? I've got a right to my privacy...switch me off."

How typical of Newley to make a tv show about not wanting to make a tv show. 

Tony and Anneke Wills. They had a child together.

Gurney flexes his mandibles.

Gurney Slade is a real place, Cuckolds Comb not so much.

Dreamscape / bizarre bomb site.

As anyone who has seen both shows will have noticed, there are definite parallels between ‘The Strange World Of Gurney Slade’ and that other masterpiece of oblique British telly ‘The Prisoner’. Like Number Six, Gurney resigns without disclosing his reasons, walks out, and, like Number 6, finds himself adrift in a surreal, artificial world where everyone is playing a part. There is seemingly no escape, and no real explanation, only the desire not to be subsumed by the system. Ultimately, there will be answers of sorts, but they won’t necessarily be particularly welcome. The similarity is not just thematic: the structure of two of the episodes prefigure ‘The Girl Who Was Death’ and ‘Fall Out’ respectively.

Although the critics liked it, 'The World Of Gurney Slade' was not a big hit with the general public, and, after three episodes, with reactions running from bemused to annoyed to bored it was moved from prime time to an 11.10pm slot - in a world where most telly watching people went to bed at half past nine. As it became apparent to everyone that 'Gurney Slade' was not going to be a success, Hills, Green and Newley took it to new levels, even incorporating the negative reception of the programme into the programme itself. In the fourth episode, Gurney is put on trial for having produced a poor show and having no sense of humour. He is found guilty.

The last episode of the series has Gurney confronted by his own characters, figures of his imagination made flesh who, at the end of the show, will simply disappear. This Pirandello-esque conceit works well especially when, in a brilliant and disturbing twist, it becomes clear that Gurney Slade is as much an invention as they are. It’s hard to think of any British television show with such a bizarre ending.

Gurney's evil side.

Invisible Elephant.

On Air.

Nine characters in search of an exit.

The Crooner.

The Dummy.

Newley, of course, went on to bigger things, then, eventually, when his flops outweighed his hits and he started to get tired and drunk, much smaller things. His last appearance was as a weary gangster in ‘Eastenders’, but illness prevented him from becoming a regular character. He died in 1999, too early, of renal cancer and a surfeit of living, his ‘Richard III’ musical only partially completed.

The Talented Mr. Newley.

Newley was a rare and unique talent, but his genius was always odd and brittle, slightly ridiculous and prone to falling over at crucial times - at his best he is always trying hard, going too far, doing too much - deeply brilliant, deeply  flawed - but that's got to be better than boring old perfection, hasn't it?    

The Purse Stealers

I love the detail of this 1971 Public Information Film: the grey and brown polyester fashions, the bedraggled hair, the rotating rack with Joe Loss and Pinky and Perky records on it...and yes, that purse snatcher bloke does look familiar, doesn't he? Well, he would, as it's 'Body Stealers' star, Neil Connery.

Big brother Sean was originally offered the part but was already committed to making something called 'Diamonds Are Forever' and was forced to decline. His loss, Neil's gain.

Can The Earth Survive?

It has recently been announced that Louis Tussauds in Great Yarmouth may close, not because of falling visitor numbers but because the owners are now in their eighties and need to retire. The museum opened in the 1950’s, and I have visited it perhaps thirty times since my first trip round it in the early seventies. Its potential closure is something I am still trying to process, but it has made me assess my feelings towards the place, which are full of warmth, but also laced with contradiction.

Louis Tussauds is a place that succeeds brilliantly in its primary function, to interest and entertain, but is somewhat hit and miss in its secondary function, i.e. as a museum, even of wax figures. I have argued before that the majority of the exhibits are, facially at least, very good  likenesses, but they are let down by odd, slightly disproportionate bodies and low budget costumes and, in some cases, by a lack of maintenance. The contradiction is that this is a place that I hold incredibly dear and find fascinating, yet I also know is actually fairly ridiculous. My abiding feeling for this odd little corner of Britain is, overwhelmingly, of love – a love that accepts the imperfections and, indeed, is strengthened by these foibles. I’ll miss the place very much.

All of which brings me, eventually, to my main point: in the new issue of ‘Bedabbled!’, friend of the Island and Mounds and Circles contributor Fearlono makes a valid observation: why do people writing about British horror tend to focus on the negative, to disparage and dismiss, instead of celebrating its brilliance? As someone who writes about horror, and has been guilty of taking the piss quite a lot, this question gave me pause. British horror (and sci fi and almost all points inbetween) is very rarely flawless but, by Christ, it’s lovable.

I can’t in all honesty review a film and say that the script is a work of genius and the performances brilliant and the effects astounding if they’re not, and I won’t. It’s also in my nature to make a joke about almost everything, so I’ll carry on doing that, too. But please know this: ‘Island Of Terror’, and the work I put into it, is not driven by a desire to denigrate the subject matter, it exists to celebrate it and to share the deep admiration and enthusiasm I have for it. I couldn’t live without British horror films, they’re an absolutely integral part of my life and, if I occasionally point out the wires or a hole in the script or a scenery chewing performance, I do so because, for me, that’s part of the appeal. The fact that they exist is enough, if they are good then that’s a bonus. Like Louis Tussaud’s, the love is not sensible or rational, but it is enduring and unconditional.          

And so, finally, to ‘The Body Stealers’, a highly enjoyable sci fi romp about military parachutists disappearing mid jump, kidnapped by stranded aliens who need their expertise on their home planet. Done on the cheap, the film benefits from a distinguished cast (Maurice Evans, George Sanders, Robert Flemyng, Allan Cuthbertson) and a star turn from the chin and voice himself, Patrick ‘Barratt Homes’ Allen. Sean’s Connery sibling Neil is in it, too, and does a passable impression of his big brother, down to the toupee. Allen’s entrance is brilliant - laying under the wing of his private plane dressed in a pair of ball bag splitting slacks, he hungrily kisses a dolly bird before jumping up from their picnic to hop into a waiting helicopter on his way to save the world. The daft / brilliant contradiction in action.

Oh, in case you wondered about the connection between ‘The Blood Beast Terror’ and ‘The Body Stealers’ (I try to have the films in the  double bills complement or link with each other) it’s quite simple: both films were products of  Tigon, a company founded by Tony Tenser which, from 1966 to 1973 were responsible for a heady mix of horror and smut films, including a huge number of Island (and ‘Mounds & Circles’) favourites. Click on the link for more details of their amazing output. You won’t regret it

The Body Stealers

The Vampire Beast Craves Blood

I'm not a scientist, but a couple of things bother me about 'Blood Beast Terror'. I can can just about believe that a professor of entymology could create an enormous man, sorry, woman sized Death's Head Hawkmoth in his laboratory but why would it specifically crave human flesh and blood? That's one thing. The deal breaker is how the hell he could create a massive, murderous acherontia lachesis that, most of the time, is actually a pretty, if rather forward, young woman? It just doesn't make any sense - and even if you disengage the make sense meter before you press 'play' it still itches your udders, especially as the film makers make no attempt whatsoever to show us their workings out.

So, yep, fundamentally flawed, and that's before we take into account the numerous non sequiters and dead ends, the characters who are given elaborate back stories just to be killed five minutes later, and the scenes that go on just a fraction too long, or start about a minute too late. Oh, and Roy Hudd's in it, providing comic relief (it's certainly a relief when he stops). It's all a bit of a mess and, fatally, gives what it has away far too soon.

Wanda Ventham plays the deadly girl moth, and although she's in 'UFO' and is attractive and all that, she's just too arch and knowing for the role. The moment she sashays onscreen, all cleavage and cow eyes, you know she's a wrong 'un. The supporting cast is good, but not given much good to do. Even the super reliable and sharply intelligent Peter Cushing plays a policeman who, knowing he is on the trail of a killer beast, takes his daughter (pouty Vanessa Howard, from 'Girly') along as cover and then acts surprised when she disappears.

'Blood Beast Terror' is undeniably slow and slightly defective, but it carries its insane (il)logic through to the very end, when the psychotic half human furry thing catches fire after, yes, making the school moth error of flying too close to a flame. Priceless, absolutely priceless.

PS The title of this post comes from the re-named US version of the film, which makes even less sense.

The Blood Beast Terror

Interesting Postcards

Sunset On The River Thames
Published by John Hinde Ltd.
6 Rupert Street, London W.1
Photo: E. Ludwig

Psychedelic night falls in the most wonderful and annoying city on Earth, that London.