Louise Penn archive television, ballet, blogging, books, cinema, cinema buildings, classic cinema, comedy, concerts, creative writing, dance, documentary film, exhibition, Film, local interest, masterpiece theatre, music, music film, musicals, news, opera, other, photographs, silent cinema, sport, television, theatre

Welcome to loureviews.blog!

About this blog

I started this blog in 2011 to report back on shows I have attended, mainly theatre but also some concerts and sporting events.

It has also become a vehicle for some film, television (current and archive), book reviews, and some more personal pieces.

About me

On a professional level I worked for twenty-five years as a librarian, and also am a published writer – academic articles, poetry, popular culture – and spent five years editing a journal for a major publisher. If you would like to know more, see my LinkedIn profile.

As of 2019 writing and editing has become my main job, and I am very keen to engage with productions, outlets, and arts organisations to expand my coverage and my reviews.

Social media channels

Please feel free to browse through my work on here or via my Twitter feed (@loureviewsblog). I am also developing my YouTube channel | Pinterest | Instagram | Facebook and will be launching a sibling blog to this one to concentrate on DVD releases during 2019.

Contact me

If you feel you have some news or events which would be a good fit for loureviews.blog, or would like me to review your show or product, please let me know.

You can contact me at louise@loureviews.blog and I will respond to you as soon as I can.

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Louise Penn archive television, masterpiece theatre

Masterpiece Theatre: Shoulder to Shoulder (1974)

Shoulder to Shoulder (1974), directed by Waris Hussein and Moira Armstrong.

Starring Siân Phillips as Emmeline Pankhurst, Patricia Quinn as Christabel Pankhurst, Angela Down as Sylvia Pankhurst, Georgia Brown as Annie Kenney, Sheila Allen as Mrs Pethick-Lawrence, Maureen Pryor as Ethel Smyth, Judy Parfitt as Constance Lytton, and Fulton Mackay as Keir Hardie.

6x episodes, written by Ken Taylor and Midge Mackenzie.

This series, based on the birth and progress of the suffragette movement, has been sadly unavailable on commercial video for years and only one episode, the one focusing on Annie Kenney, has been broadcast in the past fifteen years.

It’s a sad fate for a series which is both celebratory and controversial about issues such as force-feeding, the death of Emily Wilding Davison at the Derby, and the in-fighting between the Pankhurst family themselves. The actress-singer Georgia Brown came up with the idea and also sings the theme, Ethel Smyth’s stirring anthem ‘March of the Women’. Her Annie Kenney – the working class mill-girl whose blunt speaking balances the cultured speeches of Christabel Pankhurst and her call to arms.

Covering the whole period of conflict and change, this production from Verity Lambert retains the power to engage a viewer, to shock and even at times amuse, and to put across the facts (as they were understood in the 1970s) of this life-changing era of the women’s movement.

Great performances across the board, but a nod must go to Parfitt who only features in one episode but who is deeply convincing as the aristocratic invalid who barely survives her treatment in prison. Also good is Phillips as the redoubtable Mrs Pankhurst, who starts off a reasonable person and almost becomes a heartless monster in search of personal glory at the expense of her daughter Sylvia and friends the Pethick-Lawrences.

Louise Penn archive television, classic cinema, masterpiece theatre, music film, musicals, silent cinema, television, theatre

My DVD Library – a gallery!

Louise Penn archive television, masterpiece theatre, television

Masterpiece Theatre project: The First Churchills

The First Churchills (1969), produced by Donald Wilson.

Starring John Neville as John Churchill Duke of Marlborough, Susan Hampshire as Sarah Churchill, Margaret Tyzack as Queen Anne, James Villiers as Charles II, James Kerry as James Duke of Monmouth, and Jill Balcon as Abigail Hill.

12x episodes, written by Donald Wilson, based on the book by Winston Churchill.

The first production to air on Masterpiece Theatre, this programme was somewhat unique in not being a dramatization of a classic novel.  It was not highly regarded by series presenter Alistair Cooke, who nevertheless introduced it to American audiences on the strength of Susan Hampshire’s performance (she was familiar to the target audience from her appearance as Fleur in The Forsyte Saga).

Viewed now the series does drag in places, but remains a reasonable depiction of a time in history which perhaps does not have the same romance and excitement as the Tudors.  It does help if you have some prior knowledge of the period so you can follow who the various characters are, for example knowing of Sarah’s friendship with Anne and their correspondence as ‘Mrs Freeman and Mrs Morley’ makes sense of the Churchills’ eventual fall from favour as Sarah loses her place as favourite to her poor relation, Abigail Hill, who is presented her as something of a schemer against her powerful cousin.

The best thing about this series for me, though, isn’t in Hampshire’s performance, good though it is, but in a rare television appearance by John Neville, one of gravitas and dignity against the more emotional centre of his ambitious wife.  There are a few too many period wigs, and photographed backdrops in lieu of expensive location filming, but this series has a certain charm if you make allowances for the time it was made.

Louise Penn archive television, masterpiece theatre, television

Masterpiece Theatre project: Cold Comfort Farm

Cold Comfort Farm (1968), directed by Peter Hammond.

Starring Fay Compton as Aunt Ada Doom, Rosalie Crutchley as Judith Starkadder, Alastair Sim as Amos Starkadder, Brian Blessed as Reuben Starkadder, Peter Egan as Seth Starkadder and Sarah Badel as Flora Poste.

3x episodes, written by David Turner, based on the novel by Stella Gibbons.

Stella Gibbons’ 1932 novel Cold Comfort Farm parodied popular rural novels by the likes of Mary Webb, and as such presents a broad comic vista with highly dramatized characters.  The Starkadder family are distant relations of the recently orphaned Flora Poste, and they are full of dark secrets, neuroses, and emotional issues, which Flora determines to sort out, bringing her relations into the modern world.

As a TV production, this version succeeds as a comedy more than the John Schlesinger-directed version almost thirty years later, mainly due to the ripe and beautifully judged characterisation of God-fearing Amos by Alastair Sim.  balanced by Badel’s unassuming but clever Flora, who charms her cousins and brings a breath of fresh air to the farm.  At three episodes, it is enough to give time to the story and give even the smaller roles (including a young Peter Egan as a primitive Seth) a chance to make an impact.

Performances are generally strong, from the world-weary Crutchley through to the basic machismo of Blessed.  This production is forty-five years old but still feels fresh and relevant, funny and watchable.