Speaking of which, in a laughingly half hearted effort to turn my body into a temple, I treated myself to one of those fandango fancy dan Wii Fit thingies last month and spent most of the month wondering in a state of extreme puzzlement as to why when it was telling me to put my left foot on the balance board, etc, I was having to reverse it and put my right foot on, etc...until I finally realised it was because I had the balance board round the wrong way!!!! Yes really! Channelling Judy Bryant, I did have to ask myself, "Oh my Gawd, are you out of your moind?!!!!" That was a rhetorical question, by the way!
Incidentally, with all their hissy fit error messages, computers are such drama queens aren't they?! My favourite is "Catastrophic Error!" I always say to mine, "Calm down, dear, it's not the end of the world, I'll just switch you off and then back on again and you'll be absolutely fine!"
Anyhoo, on with the task at hand! I was chatting to one of my friends on the phone last night and saying to him that I had no idea what on earth I was going to talk about this weekend! I mean, there are so many things in my mangled mind to chat about in the way of Prisoner but sometimes it's just trying to pluck one from the wreckage and attempting to think of something (relatively!) coherent to say about it! I was saying to him that so far I've tried to pick some kind of theme or topic on which to hook my ramblings, but nothing was coming into my empty old head for this week.
He said, "Well, you usually start with a topic and then ramble away off the point, so why not start rambling away and it might eventually turn into a topic?!" What a clever John! That reminds me of one of the best putdowns I've ever heard in my life. I work with another guy called John, well actually I work with two guys called John and we've even got a little Jonny too! Every office should have one! Actually, that sounds a bit rude! No, but really we have! Anyway, one of the Johns was speaking to a guy on the phone one day and as usual he began to politely introduce himself, "Hello, you're speaking to John..." and the guy replied, "Just like a million others!" What a thing to say!
Speaking of the fun factory, last week my pal who sits opposite me said to me in a voice of great concern and feeling, "How do you feel about the news of Jason Donovan getting married?"
I replied, "Well, I thought he was married anyway, but I really wish him all the best..."
I went on to melodramatically elaborate how when I read his autobiography I wanted to hate his girlfriend/now Mrs Jason Donovan, but I found myself really liking her and thought she could have been one of my friends herself. One of the other girls rolled her eyes and interjected drolly, "The way you two are going on, anyone would think he was your ex or something!!!"
Well he was my dreamboat when I was growing up, and I still carry a little torch for him in my heart...aw! My bedroom was plastered with posters of Jason and I'd cut out the lyrics to all his songs from teeny magazines like Look-in and Smash Hits and stuck them above my bed! Would you like me to give you a rendition of his greatest hits? Erm...maybe not then!
Scrabbling around desperately to make this bear any relevance to Prisoner whatsoever, of course quite funkily both his parents were in the show, his Mum was the TV interviewer who introduced us to the heinous Helen Masters, and his Dad (the legend that is Terry Donovan!) came into it much later on as Bob Taylor, the guy who takes in Auntie Joan's little Shane! When you come to think of it, the calibre of actors even just passing through the show in relatively minor roles is just outstanding... Norman Kaye, Bill Hunter, Cornelia Frances, Rowena Wallace, Beverley Dunn (I really love her work!), Val Jellay, Bud Tingwell (we are so not worthy!), and so many, many more! We are really spoilt!
Speaking of such riches, another brilliant actor in the show I think is Alan David Lee in the role of Tony Berman, Judy's sidekick at the Halfway House/object of Maxine's unrequited love. Digressing a little, fancy having three names! Well, I've got a middle name too actually but I'm not telling you mine unless you tell me yours! When I was a whippersnapper, I once kissed a boy in a bus shelter just because his middle name was Aloysius! What am I like?! That's a confession you make to good friends over a bottle or three of lovely wine, not in the cold light of day to a world of random strangers! Oh well, anyone who's a friend of Prisoner is a friend of mine!
Anyway, I thought Alan David Lee was brilliant as Tony Berman - so well played and naturally acted he was another one who came across as almost a real guy, and also a bit of a spunk too, which is always a bonus! I've been watching him in The Cowra Breakout recently and thought he was absolutely outstanding in that too. I thought that was an interesting piece, especially given it was based on a true story and in the care they took in terms of balance in showing it from the Japanese perspective as well as the Western side. Very thought-provoking stuff, plus there's a few other familiar faces to look out for in the way of Prisoner escapees/prescapees - Carole Skinner, Norman Kaye, Tracy Mann, Glenda Linscott, Simon Chilvers, so yes, I'd say it was worth a look if you get chance to get hold of a copy.
In other news from the Planet Lily, I've got a lovely old Auntie I've fondly nicknamed Aunt Pingu, because after marathon three hour ear melting telephone conversations with her she sounds like Pingu the penguin in my ear as I'm busy multi-tasking washing the dinner and cooking the clothes, etc! Ha ha! Anyway, I was enthusing to her about my blog the other week. Given the last time she was near a computer was to have a go at my Paperboy game for the Amstrad back in about 1987 (!!!), she wouldn't know what a blog was if someone hit her over the head with one, bless her, but she did warn me not to fall off that there blog of mine! Well, as I promised her, I do try, but it does get a bit wobbly at times, especially without the aid of a safety net!
I was away on holiday with her for a week last year (in a kind of less exotic/eventful version of Travels With My Aunt in that we only got as far as Torquay!) and I tried in vain to get her to love Prisoner! I especially chose one of my favourite episodes of the show, 272, where one of my favourite actresses and characters out of the whole shebang delivers what is in my eyes one of the most spellbindingly superlative performances of this, that or any other television programme or production I've ever seen!
The one where Olivia Hamnett as Dr Kate is at the zenith of her spectacular insanity! Or is she...? Such is the genius of Prisoner and Dr Kate that you can read into it what you will! Really, Olivia Hamnett was born to play Ophelia in Hamlet! I must do a proper entry about her and what I think is her really outstanding contribution to the show at some point. *jots down Erica style meemo to self!*
Anyway, I nearly went spectacularly insane myself because Aunt Pingu was so enthralled by it that she fell asleep about five minutes into the episode! Can you imagine such a travesty?! *sigh!* There are none so blind as those who will not see!
Talking of which, I've just passed Belinda Johns little sojourn in the show, which was noice, different, un-ewe-sual (do you see what I did there with my little Jane Turner link, Kath & Kim fans?!)! I must say, I did chuckle at Cass Parker's reassurance, "Don't worry Belinda, we'll keep an eye out for you!"
Fancy having a blind inmate and calling her BeLINDa though! Only in Prisoner! Right up there with the prostitute they called Penny Seymour! Tell you what, it would cost you more than a penny to see more of her, even back in 1982!!!! Back to Belinda, one of my mates calls her Belinda Sabbatt! Geddit?! You'll have to say that aloud several times before the penny drops! It took another of my dear friends about three attempts!
I'm watching this run of the series in synch with him, and he's watching it through for the very first time so he never knows what's going to happen next, which is all very exciting! He's become so immersed in it that he said he was nearly crying the other night when lovely old Stan Dobson retired (if you can imagine a big tough Scotsman blubbering like a baby at such a thing!), and he's been fretting to me about Colleen Powell's wellbeing seeing as we've just seen her family go out with a bang! He was fretting to me on the phone the other night, "I'm so worried about Colleen, she really needs to see a doctor!" as if she were a real person, bless him!
It was the same with Ann Reynolds when she wouldn't have her lump checked out during the breast cancer storyline, he kept worrying away to me that she needed to get it checked out! Bless his heart, he's got so involved in it that he cares about them like they're real people! I guess that shows you just how good Prisoner is at its very, very best when it can affect you like that.
I mentioned this before in one of my episode reviews (by the way, I honestly haven't abandoned them forever, I promise!), but I think Gerard Maguire captured the appeal of Prisoner in this respect perfectly in an interview he gave to The Wentworth Star fanzine, in saying that at its root was the degree of heart in it.
"You somehow got involved with those characters. You lived their lives, you cared about them and I think that I'd be very happy if anything that I produced achieved the same degree which could move people as much as Prisoner did in all sorts of ways. Caring about the characters, I think that's it, it's the heart of the series that's what it's about."Well said, Gerard! Or should I say Mr Maguire! Hark at my overfamiliarity just because he played a character in my top show! That reminds me of a funny story Kenneth Williams told about a random painter who winked an aside in passing with his little paintbrush and paint pot to the playwright W. Somerset Maugham, immersed in a suspenseful moment in one of his plays being rehearsed at the time, "Another winner there, Somerset!"
Anyway, back to my abortive attempt to indoctrinate Aunt Pingu into the way of Prisoner, I thought I might have managed to hook her in because she likes that other prison series Bad Girls, but alas, it was to no avail! Although in saying that, I've never got into that myself funnily enough, so there's no accounting for taste! Well, there's certainly no accounting for mine, at any rate!
I have dipped into Prisoner prototype Within These Walls however and was blown away by the fact that the Governor in that, Faye Boswell, *is* Erica Davidson! I splashed out on a box set of the first series some time ago last year and giggled my way through the first episode at the parallels between those two! That cut glass Alexandra Palace enunciation, all those "very wells", "you leave me no alternative...", "the most important function within a prison is rehabilitation..." in fact, just about everything she said could have come out of the mouth of Erica! It was nectar!
I can so completely see why they were originally hoping to cast Googie Withers as Erica, although I can't tell you how glad I am we ended up with Patsy King, because I can't imagine anyone else as our Erica! I'm so sorry, I really can't help myself but mention this... Googie Withers - that sounds like some kind of terrible man affliction! Gentlemen out there in the ether, mind you don't be getting that! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
And on that note, see you all next time then! XD
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