Comments on: Troy Kennedy Martin is dead

By: Gary

Gary — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 06:59:36 +0000

The Clapton soundtrack to EOD has haunted me for the 22 or so years since I first heard it.

By: belle le triste

belle le triste — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:15:39 +0000

Time for a very topical remake: a gritty drama about the daily problems of being parachuted into a high-profile quasi-govt tabloid-bait role to address some single-issue folk panic like drugs or crime or binge-broken Britain. To be called Z Czars.

By: Phil

Phil — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:01:09 +0000

Delia – it was on too late for me, alas. Thanks for the Youtube link – that must have been one of the first things I learned to sing in a foreign language (if you don’t count Welsh).

By: Phil

Phil — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:57:56 +0000

in implicitly putting OFITN above either “Boys from the Blackstuff” or “Cracker”, you’re wrong

I’ll give you BftB, but Cracker doesn’t begin to compare with OFITN. (My uncle worked with T. Dan Smith. The original of Robert Carlyle’s serial killer driven crazy by the aftermath of Hillsborough was… er, there wasn’t one.)

By: deliasmith

deliasmith — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:27:59 +0000

This was brilliant:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0159910/

But it was elevated to a class on its own by the theme song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFnY-TP8468

Which is all that survives.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 23:58:38 +0000

Chris, you’re not often wrong, but in implicitly putting OFITN above either “Boys from the Blackstuff” or “Cracker”, you’re wrong. (the episode of Cracker which launched Robert Carlyle’s career was more or less the best thing I’ve ever seen on TV, including Edge of Darkness).

By: Barry Freed

Barry Freed — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 17:46:51 +0000

It’s a shame that “Da Vinci’s Inquest” gets no love.

By: vivian

vivian — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 01:11:52 +0000

Actually, the Italian Job remake was not too bad. The story/acting wasn’t wonderful, but the giant chase was re-imagined and done really well. It’s worth sitting through the first part of the film.

By: jdkbrown

jdkbrown — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:12:02 +0000

I take it that the advice “avoid the crappy remake” also applies to The Italian Job?

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:30:47 +0000

#21 – well make sure you get the original Singing Detective with Michael Gambon and Joanne Whalley rather than the crappy remake.

By: jdkbrown

jdkbrown — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:58:12 +0000

I’m happy to concede bert’s point about Band of Brothers, though the noble adversary claptrap is largely confined to the last few installments. (I think the series starts to go downhill after Market Garden.) Still, the high points are so high that BOB deserves a mention.

And so my contributions to this thread aren’t entirely off-topic: I haven’t seen any of Troy Kennedy Martin’s work before, and this post sent me scurrying off to add it—along with the rest of Chris’s top 5—to my Netflix queue. Thanks, Chris.

By: Harry

Harry — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:25:47 +0000

Nobody has mentioned Z Cars? Probably no-one remembers.

By: Chris Williams

Chris Williams — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:06:05 +0000

re 16 – much of the time, it’s easier to tell stories about you enemies than about your allies, after the show ends. Either they did more work than you (in which case, they are blowhards who lack a picture of the overall situation) or you did more work than them (in which case, they are ungrateful hangers-on and cowards). Brits, coming in 3rd in the ‘we beat the Nazis’ stakes, thus have it slightly easier than the 2nd-placed Yanks, since it’s blatantly obvious from 3rd place that allies were necessary. The 4th-placed French probably also have a lot to complain about, having been pretty much written out entirely.

By: dave heasman

dave heasman — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:50:07 +0000

When I was 18 I was very impreassed, to the point of remembering it pretty well for 45 years, by this

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0496977/fullcredits#cast

By: bert

bert — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:10:02 +0000

I’d not heard about the Mel Gibson remake, by the way.
As Jedburgh, Ray Winstone.
..!