Is really wishing I lived in the UK about now.

[pat grimshaw]

I heard peeps say the Isherwood bio was lame.

 

[gingentleman]

Most BBC productions are available on DVD and u can get them at your local lending library, and if they do not have the item u are looking for in stock, they can usually do an inter-library loan for u at no charge. I have utilized this service at my local library many, many times and have been most satisfied with the results. Cheers!

 

[braex27]

Hmmm.... can't wait for "Christopher and his Kind". "Hattie" looks great too - I love movies about the movies.

"Toast" - didn't like it so much. Thought it was rather BLAH.

 

[NineOfClubs]

You know, I looked in on BBC America tonight and all that was playing was complete CRAP.

They really need to step up the game here, and soon.

 

[lambdaboy]

Christopher and his kind was excellent. If you ever read the book you will see that.

 

[pat grimshaw]

Christopher and his kind was excellent. If you ever read the book you will see that.

?? we will see that the Isherwood stories are excellent or the abbreviated TV adaption was excellent

 

[kallipolis]

A poorly written review of Christopher Isherwood and His Kind:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/mar/20/christopher-and-his-kind-review

The comments following the article are worth a read.

I will watch this film when it eventually arrives in Greece, but I am not anticipating much in the way of imaginative drama.

 

[pat grimshaw]

…I am not anticipating much in the way of imaginative drama.

we have just seen the BBC biography of Gracie Fields which was inept.

Re-reading 'A Single Man' last year made me realise what a minor repetitive writer Isherwood was.

 

[kallipolis]

Re-reading 'A Single Man' last year made me realise what a minor repetitive writer Isherwood was.

We'll have to disagree on Isherwood's talents as a writer.

 

[pat grimshaw]

…Isherwood's talents as a writer.

Perhaps I should explain myself. I consider my favourites novelists to be Woolf, Waugh, Spark and the contemporaries Toibin and Hensher.

But as for Isherwood--
I discount his collaborative works with Auden.

I’m tempted to discount 'Mr. Norris’ and ‘Goodbye to Berlin’ as ‘reportage’. He is, as he says, a camera who passively reports what is in front of him.

The memoirs are the same mere repetitious ‘reportage’– ‘Lions and Shadows’ ‘Christopher and His Kind’, ‘Lost Years’ ‘Kathleen and Frank’.
I haven’t read Prater Violet’ but it again seems to be ‘reportage’.

There are the three original fiction works--’The World in the Evening’ ‘Down There on a Visit’ and ‘A Meeting by the River’, all of which I found heavy-going.

I do appreciate ‘A Single Man’ though I suspect Gore Vidal told him in 1962 to write it as an exercise to pitch to the movie bosses.

 

[kallipolis]

^Your appreciation is as valid as another's.

Each of us discovers something appealing that attracts us to particular authors.

By the same token an author's works might also evoke a sense of depressing boredom, even repetitive narrative that does nothing to provoke our imagination.

 

[pat grimshaw]

… to provoke our imagination.

Isherwood's gossipy diaries of LA in the 50s provoked my LUSTFUL imagination.

 

[kallipolis]

Isherwood's gossipy diaries of LA in the 50s provoked my LUSTFUL imagination.

John Rechy's, "City of Night" although fictional, was much more enlightening and vastly more entertaining.

http://www.johnrechy.com/city.htm

 

[pat grimshaw]

… I do think it could have been better if it was 2-3 episodes long rather than the one 90 minute episode…

Film distributors often go against the wishes of the film-makers.

They decide if it's going to be released on TV, DVD or cinema, as one episode or 3.

 

[timboy]

I watched Christopher and his kind on BBCIplayer last night , really enjoyed it despite the fact that the Doctor Who guy annoys the crap out of me

 

[pat grimshaw]

… the Doctor Who guy annoys the crap out of me

all the 'doctor' actors annoy me