Mary and the Gunpowder Plot - A Review of a Classic BBC Historical Melodrama

The 2000s saw the rise of quality of TV drama. Looking back to the previous decade it was inevitable that this was going to happen and I aim to discuss the matter in an essay on subject. However, for the purposes of this review we find “Gunpowder, Treason and Plot” riding on the wave of historical dramas with rising budgets. The US were already investing in collaborative efforts in Europe that would see series like “Rome” break new ground in terms of mainstream adult-orientated historical drama.

“Gunpowder, Treason and Plot” was a two-part TV production made for the BBC by a key Scottish crew, including Gillies MacKinnon as director. It exhibited a lot of what was to come, but still retained certain elements from the previous era. Jimmy McGovern, creator the critically acclaimed crime series, “Cracker”, wrote the screenplay. For the most part, he does a decent job framing a complex story and takes some original angles with historical characters. He also clearly had his eye on the changing face of historical dramas for an adult audience. The violence and sex scenes, although not gratuitous, ensured a wider audience. Whilst the story featured complex characters played by the principal cast. We are not relegated to a limited number of unconvincing studio sets either. Instead the entire production was shot in Romania and it convincingly recreates Scotland and England. The audience gets a real feel of scope that many previous history-based BBC productions were missing. A peculiar quirk that seems to have bene left over from the past is the peculiar decision to break the fourth wall a couple of times in the second episode. This is done to reveal the

Deceptive Docufiction

There have been many stunning documentaries. However, there have also been many shockingly inaccurate and misleading documentaries. Michael Moore is probably partly responsible for the rise in partisan documentary films. I am not against the concept in principle, although I often wonder if such films should just be categorized under the label "propaganda" and they be reviewed as such. Nevertheless, there are certainly a good number of opportunities we should afford people to give their personal insights and reflections on important issues and I don't want to deny anyone that freedom. Docufiction is an interesting way to explore certain ideas and I think we have to respect it as its own genre. When it comes to art, I am opposed to most censorship, but when it comes to delivering something that is supposed to be factual the line has been firmly crossed between personal expression and simply misleading your viewers.

Melvyn Bragg's Books

 

Melvyn Bragg has earned himself the rare distinction of being a true celebrity academic in modern times. His achievements are vast and impressive. His career got off the ground as a successful novelist in the 1960s and he has gone onto win several critical awards up until the late 1990s. I grew up seeing him as the presenter with the peculiar nasally voice, regularly lampooned by the satirical puppet show Spitting Image, who hosted The South Bank Show. Bragg had a reputation for arts and culture, but I later discovered he was a huge driving force behind science in the Radio 4 programme, In Our Time, which he took over hosting and currently still presents. The show presents itself as a history programme with Bragg hosting or, to be more accurate, chairing a panel of university lecturers on a particular event or person from history. However, in line with Eleanor Roosevelt’s regular quote regarding small minds discussing people and medium minds discussing events, the listener quickly discovers the strength in the show is its exploration of ideas. Bragg does well to keep the discussing going along certain channels and even testing certain arguments with the impartial view his role demands. Such a role reveals a broad yet in depth understanding of a vast array of subjects that straddle the worlds of imagination and fact-finding. As a fellow writer that does not like to be confined to a narrow path, I find it is truly inspiring to see now that his published work includes a wide range of subjects in both fiction and non-fiction. Therefore, I shouldn’t have really been surprised to see the hugely disparate selection of books he chose for 12 Books That Changed the World.

The Blooded Lens Filter Part 1

The Blooded Lens Filter

Distorting Horror Fiction through Cinema (Part 1)

In time for Halloween I thought I would have a little look at the way horror cinema has changed the way we view certain horror icons. Despite there being undeniable original horror movie classics created through the dark genius of great filmmakers like Wes Craven, Dario Agento and Tobe Hooper, a good number of great films have their basis in literature. It’s a great source. Many early “talkies” resemble stage plays because that is exactly what they were. Often these stage plays were based on classic novels. To this day there is a strong relationship between the bestselling novelist and the movie producer. Many book franchises from Thomas Harris’s Hannibal Lector series to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series to George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” saga have been written as their filmic adaptations have been in progress. It is often interesting to see how much the two mediums will still diverge in their depictions of characters and events, and how much the adaptation will have an influence over future instalments of the literary franchise. The moving image is overwhelmingly more powerful in conveying a concept than the written word, so if a filmmaker distorts something he can overwrite an entire mythology. Here are a few examples from the world of horror. 

Family Horror Films

Cover via Amazon

This great little piece and listing from Empire magazine shows why many of my generation had such a dark childhood. The '70s and '80s were a quirky time for kids with many films precariously set between childish imaginings and adult violence. "The Monster Squad" was a 15 certificate horror comedy featuring the Universal Studios group monster favourites being battled by a bunch of children. The film featured adult humour, including the revelation that "Wolfman  has nards!", and a fair bit of gore too. "Robocop" was not a horror movie, but it wasn't really a superhero movie either. It was an 18 certificate dark satire about consumerism and capitalism, where everything had a price, but it was marketed at children with action figures and toys associated with the movie on sale in time for its release. Its sequel also bore an 18 certificate and was even darker, but eventually we had children's cartoon series.

Ghoulish Nostalgic Nightmares

As this is the eve of my favourite festival and in the tradition of "Throwback Thursday" I thought I would re-visit an old nightmare and up-light the stage with the ghoul... 
 
The ghoul ranks amongst the highest of the unreal terrors that haunted my childhood imagination. These grave-raiding spectral monsters seem to be the bestial vestige of the almost neutered vampire figure of today's popular media. However, unlike vampires, werewolves and ghosts, there isn't a linear line to trace its development through fiction. Its iconography has branched off in several different directions and I think we probably could do with a mainstream horror story focusing on a purer form of this monstrosity. The closest I have seen of this happening appears to be in the anime series, "Tokyo Ghoul".

It is common for generations of adults to complain about the violent content of children's fiction, but I pretty much learnt the bulk of my horror education back in the 1980s before I left primary school. In fact, I read about it in primary school! This terrifying poem by Jack Prelutsky was in a book of general children's poetry I bought from our school's Puffin Book Club. The humour is dark and unrelenting. There isn't even a moral core to the story that is often used to offset the grisly content or horrid fates of children in cautionary folk tales. Like the ghoul itself, the poem is relentless in its onward progression through horridness climaxing with a chilling enough thought to give a child nightmares for weeks to come. Is it any wonder that my generation easily lapped up Roald Dahl's contributions to children's fiction.

Jonas Salk's 100th Birthday

I am going to come straight with you on this one. When it comes to leading lights in vaccinations, most of my historical knowledge ends with perhaps the man we could call the Godfather of Vaccinations, Edward Jenner. Jenner, of course, invented the vaccination for smallpox and started a revolution in medical science. As with an appreciation of the role bacteria play, vaccinating distinguishes itself to the majority of medical treatments in its proactive nature. It puts into the practice the principle that prevention is always better than the cure. By administering a controlled dosage of a disease - in Jenner's case cowpox - an individual's immune system can be activated and thus prevented from contracting a debilitating or potentially fatal disease - in Jenner's case small pox. A continued campaign of vaccinations can completely drive out a disease in a country, as it has done with many deadly diseases we all feared on a relatively short time ago.