In praise of the @BFI's #BFIWhatsOn visual bulletin

I love this, from the BFI (British Film Institute's cinema, Southbank, Waterloo). They've trained me to search Twitter for from:bfi #bfiwhatson if I'm near Waterloo of an evening and want to see what's on at their cinema.

The panel below comes from the search results above, restricted to images. I love the simple layout and the fact that each picture conveys every bit of information I could possibly need in the most succinct visual format. Aren't they lovely.

I don't know how long they've been doing this, or when I first noticed them but I wish that more venues did this.

At the BFI for Mark Gatiss' "Tractate Middoth" and "MR James: Ghost writer" plus Q&A

I'm a member of the BFI (British Film Institute) which is a great place with a useful library, a nice bar, tempting shop and in a wonderful part of London, on the riverside. Unsurprisingly it also shows lots of films and occasionally television programmes.

Not that long ago I wondered why they didn't show more television programmes and then discovered that they do actually show a fair few of them (I have a few more suggestions too). And last night I went to see one of them.

Mark Gatiss (clever chap) has adapted one of MR James' ghost stories (The Tractate Middoth) for the BBC to be shown at Christmas. He grew up watching BBC2's traditional ghost stories at Christmas and his contribution (his directorial debut) brings the idea back to our screens - it's brilliant. I have to confess the work of MR James was unknown to me but in the later Q&A Mark highlighted the humour in his work as well as the horror and this was definitely clear in the production. There were lots of funny touches and we all had a good giggle (the screen, NFT1 has a capacity of 450 and it was packed - it's really fun watching television programmes on a big screen with a big audience).

There was a properly unsettling bit on a train though, scary yes but more disturbing, and rather well filmed so that it crept up on you. Mark mentioned a particular type of camera thingy that they used to achieve certain effects - I think it was a Lensbaby. A couple of people next to me jumped and I was surprised that I didn't but I might have had my eyes closed at that point...

We also got to see Mark's new documentary on the life of MR James and I think after you see it you'll wish that Mark would run holiday tours of French churches and cathedrals and the English countryside. I'd definitely sign up for that! Anyway it was a warm portrait of an interesting character.

We then had a Q&A with Mark, John Das (the producer), cast members John Castle and Sacha Dhawan and hosted by Neil Brand who presented the wonderful BBC Sound of Cinema series on BBC Four recently (also produced by John Das).

Given that it was a bit of a special event I bookended it with the loveliest journeys I can take in London. I walked from my office near Mile End to Tower Gateway and took the heavenly RV1 bus to Royal Festival Hall. It's the finest bus journey in London and passes Tower Bridge and London Bridge station before heading off to Southbank / Waterloo / Covent Garden. Afterwards I took the Thames Clipper ferry home and saw all the lovely twinkly lights of the Thames.

Scheduling
Keep your beadies open for the Tractate Middoth and MR James: Ghost Writer making an appearance on BBC2 at Christmas.

• The Tractate Middoth BBC2 9.30pm Christmas Day 
• MR James: Ghost Writer (straight after Tractate Middoth) BBC2 10.05pm Christmas Day

Further reading

• BBC Press release for Tractate Middoth and MR James: Ghost writer 
• On a bus back from the BFI as I type - mini review of the event
  
  "Plus, more shallowly, lots of lovely suitness, many scenes of Gatissian bike riding in said suit, and acres of page turning hand porn. If only I could gif with my eyes. Several moments that got quite a laugh too - as well as making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end."

David Arnold's introducing You Only Live Twice at BFI in January - need to be a member and apply for free tickets

Edit 10 December 2013
The members' ticket ballot has now finished and the event is sold out / full. Members have until 20.30pm on Friday 13 December 2013 to claim the ticket(s) they've won in the ballot and if they don't claim them then any remaining tickets will be made available from Saturday for other members to buy. If you want a ticket you need to be (a) a BFI member and (b) get ready to buy on Saturday. If that fails then try again a bit nearer the time (and on the day too of course) as someone may return a ticket at the last-minute.

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Oh this sounds cool!

BFI Screen epiphanies in partnership with American Express present
David Arnold introduces You Only Live Twice
https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/davidarnoldyouonlylivetwice
Thursday 23 January 2014
8.30pm
NFT1, BFI, Southbank

David Arnold is talking about and introducing You Only Live Twice which is one of the films and film scores (music by John Barry) that inspired him to become a film composer (and he's scored a fair few Bond films himself).

I like David Arnold and have heard him speak at a couple of events. He's funny, thoughtful and knowledgeable and has a really good strategic overview* of what it is that needs to be done in terms of creating music for the screen. Not to mention he's written some lovely music for all sorts of films and television programmes. Highly recommended.

*Yeah I was looking for something a bit less business-speak but I suppose that will do.

To get tickets...

• You need to be a BFI member
• You need to apply for a ticket in the ballot (one is free but you pay for a second if you want two).
• Or, if you have an American Express card you might be able to get tickets that way but they don't seem to be listed yet. 

NFT1 has a capacity of 450 seats.

If you like John Barry you might like:
Blow the bloody doors off! An evening of film music from Michael Caine films at Barbican on 6 February 2014, including The Ipcress File (John Barry), Alfie, Get Carter and The Italian Job

See also

• Nice things said in an academic journal article about David Arnold's scores for James Bond - quite right too (8 November 2013)
• Is there a Songkick for films? (4 March 2012) - I always feel that I hear about these types of events through good fortune rather than good advertising, think of what I might miss though ;)

Here's what I might put in an imaginary film / TV festival of weird British stuff

Edit: 22 October 2022 - I've updated the videos as most of the links had stopped working!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

When I came across the Belbury Parish magazine [now resolves to Ghost Box records - "a group of artists exploring the misremembered musical history of a parallel world"] I had a bit of an 'aha' moment and understood better all the slightly odd cultural reference points I'd grown up with. It was all a bit weird in the 70s and 80s though I'd probably not really noticed it at the time.

"There's nothing wrong with men in their forties enjoying shared tastes and nostalgic triggers, but do they have to be so po-faced about it?" The Quietus

If I was running an imaginary film festival / celebration of television programmes at the BFI here are some of the things I might put in it. Of course there'd be anti-deep-vein-thrombosis breaks every couple of hours otherwise I'd just sit watching the entire thing for a day, lost in a dwam.

I've put small versions of the YouTube videos below but just click to enlarge / watch them at YouTube.

The Clangers (1972)
Narrated by Oliver Postgate (who also narrated the marvellous 'The Alchemists of Sound', a 2003 about the history of the Radiophonic Workshop) with music by Vernon Elliott.

The Clangers - The Music of the Spheres.

The original video is no longer available but showed Tiny Clanger helping to get a flying machine to actually fly by using notes from the musical tree proving that you just need the right music to get going.

See also: Ivor the Engine


Dr Who (1974-ish)
Beyond the wonderful Tom Baker and co I remember very little about the actual storylines, it's really just the music - written by Ron Grainer and arranged by Delia Derbyshire, and tweaked by various people throughout the series' life that grabbed me.

Mark Ayres explanation, in the The Alchemists of Sound, of how it was put together with tape loops is one of my favourite bits of recorded television. It's at 15m 40s (see below). 

See also: Blake's Seven

Children of the Stones (1976)
"...widely regarded as the scariest children's television serial ever made. It's chilling theme music, eerie atmosphere sending a generation of terrified youngsters scurrying behind the sofa" - so says the continuity announcer for Stewart Lee's Radio 4 programme about the serial. I never saw it - I found it by accident while I was looking for another kids programme (not found it yet, bunch of children, something to do with an amulet, but it's not Children of the Stones).

I watched this last Christmas in full, loved it.




Sherlock Holmes (1984)
The Devil's Foot (1988)
Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke head off to Cornwall and while there investigate some mysterious deaths. It involves a rather good bit in which Holmes experiences a sort of botanical acid trip with some colourful cinematography and some strange music, at about 36 minutes in.

If there ever was a Sherlock prom I think I'd secretly quite like it if they included the theme tune from this series as well (edit: they did!).


 

Robin of Sherwood (1984)
I watched this religiously (along with Sherlock Holmes) every week when it was on, usually round at the house of family friends. We loved Michael Praed and the pagan references. And the music of course.




Box of Delights (1984)
I actually have no recollection of this at all - I discovered it last year after reading a blog talking about strange programmes from my childhood. Not sure how I can have missed it but it's a little bit magical and has a great theme tune. 




The Moondial (1988)
I was 18 when this was broadcast so probably getting a bit old for this sort of thing but I loved the opening theme music and secretly wished I was called Araminta ;)




Alchemists of Sound (2003)
The only programme I've seen since the 1980s that really captures some of my childhood, thanks to the music of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. I saw it when first broadcast and stayed up until 3 in the morning to watch the repeat. Fortunately it's now available on Daily Motion (note there are audio ads in it).

Berberian Sound Studio (2012)
Peter Strickland's evocative film about sound effects / Foley. It's wonderful and spooky, set in a 1970s Italian studio while making a film about witchcraft with a lot of women screaming, the on-screen violence is never shown, only through sound effects - it's also very funny. Soundtrack is by Broadcast, the Quietus quote above comes from the article (they like the soundtrack, just complaining about the term 'hauntology'). Toby Jones plays an English sound engineer who goes to the studio to help them with their sound effects, he doesn't have a very lovely time there.