Edu-Programming Hits Prime Time
BBC2’s surprise-hit documentary series of the summer, Coast, had several local-interest segments (on Poole Harbour, Studland’s nudist beach, and the Jurassic Coast). That it was a hit, beating out both C4’s Big Brother and Ricky Gervais’s new BBC series in the ratings surprised many as it was actually an “educational” programme, and thus went against conventional tv-executive wisdom the public is not interested in education. It was actually a co-production with the Open University, part of their new brief to produce shows that can be aired in ‘normal’ viewing hours – as opposed to the graveyard slot the OU has had since it began on BBC2 in the 1970s. The BBC had in fact decided that even with the possibility of taping off-air, BBC2 should be concentrating more on documentary and less on ‘light entertainment’. The coverage in The Times noted that thousands had signed up for the guided coast walks advertised at the end of each episode. (The series website, with walking guides, is here.

Centenaries
The 100th anniversary of the birth of director Michael Powell, whose inspiration to other directors (such as Martin Scorcese) is commemorated annually via The Michael Powell Award, was celebrated nationally with a programme of film showings and radio and tv documentaries. (Powell grew up partly in Poole and the New Forest, returning to the area to stay in 5-star hotels, and filming the classic bomb-defusing finale of The Small Back Room on Chesil.)
Another centenary [June] was that of the birth of Shaftesbury-born actor Robert Newton, which was commemorated by a blue plaque there. Newton's enduring popular legacy of course remains his classic Long John Silver character, for which he drew on his youthful familiarity with West Country accents. His eye rolling, 'r' rolling, interpretation is still the subject of many imitations and pantomime caricatures of the 'Arrrr Jim me-lad' type, but is not generally understood. His great innovation, just a few years before he died of alcoholism, was to utilise the antiquarian West Country speech idiom that was dying out but that he had grown up around, for his irascible pegleg sea-dog, Silver. (If you want to see an authentic example, courtesy of tribute site Mooncove.com, hover your mouse on the image.)

Never Give Up Till The Fight Is Done
Southampton-born veteran maverick film-maker Ken Russell, 78, who had filmed in the area since the 60s, was in the news because of his refusal to accept the end of his career after winning a lifetime-achievement award in Istanbul. He was seen in BBC One's Ken Russell - A Picture of The South [June], where he revisited locations he had used across the region, from Larmer Tree to Portsmouth to Wight, and was interviewed at his New Forest home, where he lives with his 4th wife (whom he met via the internet). He told how he had been unable to get his scripts produced and been reduced to shooting films using a hand-held digital camera, such as his straight-to-DVD The Fall Of The Louse Of Usher. The title, which is not a misprint, offered a clue as to why he can’t get commercial backing, the clips of this and other recent works showing that he had become a self-caricature of his earlier enfant terrible persona, now doing schoolboy sendups of his distinguished earlier arts-documentary work, from which clips were also shown.

Debuts, Discoveries & Retrospectives
The latest in a line of ex-Sherborne School pupils found screen success, following in the footsteps of John Le Mesurier, Jeremy Irons et al, in a role previously played by Brando. Somerset-born James Purefoy, seen last year in ITV’s The Mayor Of Casterbridge, played a Marc Anthony who was not a tortured idealist as with Brando in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, but a sardonic, not-too-bright hedonist who could still be a dangerous political adversary, in HBO/BBC’s big-budget drama serial Rome - a 2nd series of which is be shown in 2006.
Another Bournemouth schoolboy was chosen straight out of school (as Christian Bale was for Empire Of The Sun), and was hired -- after losing the chance to play young Hannibal Lecter -- to portray Euan Blair in the upcoming feature The Queen (starring Helen Mirren as HM).
BBC’s Xmas TV bonanza included retrospective coverage of a couple of earlier, now deceased, celebrities who spent their boyhood in Bournemouth. There were a pair of documentaries on Tony Hancock, and a new one-off dramatisation of Gerald Durrell’s humorous expat-childhood memoir My Family & Other Animals (which BBC had adapted as a series in 1987), followed by a BBC Four documentary profile of Durrell.
And after receiving his knighthood from the Queen, actor Sir David Jason at his press call outside the Palace mentioned [Dec] that originally he had been ‘discovered’ as a talent in the 1960s while performing in an end-of-the-pier show in Bournemouth.

Madonna Unseated
Press coverage of the past two years on how the pop and film star turned children’s writer Madonna has reinvented herself as a lady-of the-manor country sportswoman got an unexpected boost in August. She and her husband, film director Guy Ritchie, had purchased a 1,132-acre country seat at Ashcombe House near Tollard Royal on the Dorset-Wilts boundary, and had just fought, and largely won [May], a court battle to keep the public off the estate to use it exclusively for private shooting, and riding. While celebrating her 47th birthday, she fell off her horse and broke various major bones, though recovering by year’s end.

Curse Of The Furry Things?
There was an odd story re Wallace and Gromit’s debut feature (after 3 shorts), The Curse of the Were-Rabbit – did it have its own curse? National press coverage [Oct] was generated when locals on Portland objected to the word ‘rabbit’ on posters, as it was taboo due to an ancient superstition, the locals using euphemisms like "furry things". But the exhibitors declined to change the posters or title (‘Curse of The Were Furry Things’ does lack a certain something). When the film opened in Weymouth, the curse struck – the film broke and melted, and the showing had to be cancelled, generating more coverage. The entire warehouse containing Ardman’s props also burnt up.

In Development
A local-interest feature film was announced [June] on the rise, fall and recovery of an amphetamine addict, based on the memoir Addict by Stephen Smith, who in the late 1970s went from London high life to sleeping rough in Boscombe. The project had in fact been announced before, in the late 1990s, but the signing-up of Johnny Depp as star and Andy Serkis (Gollum and King Kong) as director put it back in the news. A sequel to the successful 1998 Cate Blanchett film Elizabeth focussing on her onetime favoured courtier the Sherborne MP Sir Walter Raleigh, played by Clive Owen, is in the making; the 1998 film used Athelhampton and Montacute among its many stately-home locations. Pierce Brosnan, who named his son after the poet Dylan Thomas, is financing Caitlin, on Dylan’s stormy marriage, with Miranda Richardson as Caitlin. Their first home together was actually at Fordingbridge on the edge of the New Forest – though of course this may turn into another runaway production, shot in Ireland. David Frost announced he was remaking The Dam Busters, a story with several local connections (e.g. the bomb was tested at Chesil Beach). The fact 2006 is the centenary of the birth [Aug] of Poet Laureate John Betjeman (who had various local connections) means a series of radio and tv documentaries will now be in development for next summer, some no doubt incorporating his own witty and charming b&w architectural documentaries.

Publishers Cut Back
In publishing, the area’s largest magazine group, Bournemouth-based Highbury Entertainment Ltd, which earlier took over the Paragon group, and publishes around 30 IT-consumer magazines, announced [Dec] it was in financial difficulty due to over-expansion, and the fact its planned sell-off to Future Publishing was blocked by the OFT, and some local staff jobs were now in question. Its executive chairman, former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie, resigned before Xmas after he was unable to resolve the crisis.

The Best And Worst Venues Win Awards
Highcliffe’s 5-star Chewton Glen Hotel, where film stars such as Minnie Driver and Cate Blanchett and other VIPs stay (Sunday Times restaurant critic Michael ‘Death Wish’ Winner often mentions it), was voted [Oct] by Conde Nast Traveller magazine as best in Britain, and 2nd-best in the world, although the Daily Mail’s "An Inspector Calls" mystery hotel-guest columnist promptly rubbished it as dowdy.
Voted the worst, and a candidate for demolition in the public interest, was Bournemouth’s Waterfront building. This contains the closed-down Sheridan IMAX cinema, now only open to suggestions as to future use as a venue – hotel, casino, swimming pool, ice rink? This depressing five-year saga had just ended predictably with news [Oct] of its being foreclosed by its leaseholders (for failing to re-open once again), when it featured on C4’s Demolition [Dec]. In this Saturday-night TV series polling the ugliest buildings in Britain, Janet Street-Porter was bussed in to gawk at it with horror at how it looms over the Pier approach, spoiling the view of the bay, which won it the title Worst Building In England.
Another form of anticipated demolition failed to materialize. In November, press photographers from around England converged on Bournemouth town centre, after drunken street rioting was predicted in England’s ‘Clubland’ capital when 24-hour drinking came into effect.

What Has The Da Vinci Code Ever Done For Us?
The most interesting ‘non-story’ was how what is called eso-tourism or Esoteric Tourism has failed to develop locally. This is the latest variation of the fad for ‘set-jetting’ --where people visit locations of films or novels they’ve enjoyed. Eso-tourism, inspired by novels like The Da Vinci Code, with visits to ‘esoteric’ or mysterious sites involving Knights Templar etc, failed to happen here, despite the region possessing a wealth of mystery sites and associated legends....

****