BBC

An excellent audio production with Michael Sheen in the title role. Full of all the angst, gorgeous speeches, and tragedy that I love about this play. Honourable mention to Ellie Beaven's choices for Ophelia when she goes mad - she opts for a lot of childlike delight intermixed with sudden moments of grief as opposed to other versions I've seen where Ophelia is just devastatingly sad throughout. If you like the play, this is a decent way to experience it.

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2644084.html

This was a collection of short radio pieces broadcast at the rate of one a day throughout 1999, the year after the Good Friday Agreement when the peace process seemed to be lurching back into crisis. Very simply, each day someone who had been affected by the Troubles got a couple of minutes to reflect on their story. The very first one, told on 1 January, gave me an instant shock of recognition: it was the account of someone who I vaguely know, who show more actually shares my surname, of the death of his mother, killed in a Loyalist bomb attack on her home in a Belfast street which I know very well, 32 years ago today. And I think for a lot of people there will have been a shock of recognition as each voice gave a human dimension to incidents which we might or might not remember having happened - Omagh, Bloody Sunday, Loughinisland, Brighton, Kingsmills, come up several times, but many accounts are just of isolated incidents, forgotten except by those who were most closely affected. And we hear from all angles: the paramilitary, the policeman, the soldier, the businessman, the bystander, the mother, the father, the brother, the sister, the orphan, the widow.

It's tough reading, and I think it would be even tougher listening. Grief and horror are not easy subjects. Some have found it difficult to move on from loss, and resent the failure of the state and of politicians to give them closure through justice. Some have moved into numb forgiveness, rejecting all sides. Some have found the grace to move into reconciliation. One can admire the last of these while sympathising with the others. These are awful things to have to deal with.

Putting my comparative hat on, I think Legacy is remarkable. It is genuinely broad and diverse. Many post-conflict initiatives - including also some in Northern Ireland - concentrate on telling only one side of the story. That offers a certain catharsis to those involved, but also entrenches narratives. It is of course a political choice, to emphasise the common humanity of suffering rather than seeking to portray one side's experience as noble and discount other perspectives. But it was the right political choice.

Unfortunately this excellent work is not very widely available. A handsome package including hardback book and 12 CDs was published in 2007, several years after the initial 1999 broadcast, and seems to be now out of print (and cost £25). A dozen of the stories were originally uploaded to the BBC website but have disappeared now. It's a real shame that this particular moment in time, really crucial for the embedding of the peace, has almost been lost. show less

C (Indifferent).

An alien travels through space and time with a human girl.

The casting is pretty much the only thing I like about this season. The writing is about 50% incomprehensible, and 25% riddled with plot holes. The remaining 25% is a strong attempt to Have Fun, which I appreciate, but it can't make up for the story problems.

What bothers me most about this season is how they've abandoned science and gone fully fantasy. In a couple episodes, it even has a spiritual angle - not from show more characters' perspectives, but clearly from the writer's perspective. Critical thinking is almost less important to this Doctor than faith (despite contradictory dialog claiming the opposite). It's a deeply upsetting turn for a kid's show to take.

(Nov. 2024) show less

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1532448.html

Another up-tick in the quality of the annuals; the stories are actually rather good, though confusingly six out of nine feature Jo Grant rather than Sarah Jane Smith who was now the established companion (and in those that do have Sarah, she is depicted as blonde). The best of the stories is the second of the two comic strips, "After the Revolution", with art by Edgar Hodges (though author of the text unknown), which has the revolutionary leader show more still in charge decades after he came to power as a bottled brain; just a little political, perhaps. Apart from the obvious fact that none of the illustratorts had ever seen Elisabeth Sladen, the art is generally rather good too, and the prose fillers a bit less silly than the previous year. show less