Rumpole of the Village

Is Rumpole of the Bailey a sequel series to The Prisoner?

We never find out much about Number 6 in The Prisoner, but we never really find out much about any of the Number 2's either, not even the one who was in the most episodes, played by Leo McKern. What we do know is that [WARNING: spoilers for Fall Out follow] in the end he sides with Number 6, escapes the Village with him, and is last seen entering the Houses of Parliament in London.

Horace Rumpole was in the RAF Ground Staff during WW2, before returning to his work as a barrister after the war and made his name by winning the "Penge Bungalow Murders" case - alone and without a leader - in either the late '40s or* early '50s. He married Hilda Wystan around the same time and they had one child, Nick Rumpole.

After that we know next to nothing about Rumpole's life until the late 1960s, when the first episode of the series is set. This gap of almost 20 years matches with the setting of The Prisoner and therefore we can suppose it matches the time that McKern's Number 2 was involved in working in the espionage trade, eventually coming to his position in the Village and his fateful encounter with Number 6.

If we consider Rumpole's philosophy, expressed throughout the series, we can see signs of Number 6 having rubbed off on the former Number 2. His creed of "never plead guilty" matches the way Number 6 never gave up in the face of the seemingly unstoppable might of the Village's methods of oppression. And his knowledge of the Village's methods also explains why he would so often say "there is no piece of evidence more unreliable than a confession!"

I suppose we must also conclude that Guthrie Featherstone QC MP, or "A" as he was known in the Village, was also in the espionage business. As was Ken Aspen MP, who required Rumpole's services as a barrister to defend him. But then again, that former Number 2 would know as well as any that doppelgangers exist.

* A biography of Rumpole is on Wikipedia here but it is the first to admit that his age and important dates in his life were often retconned by the author to keep Rumpole at approximately 70 years old in the "present."

Eurovision 2016

The Eurovision Singing Competiton is the one night of the year when mannys try to be as fabulous as cats and to sing as well as cats do, but silly manny politics always gets in the way. Here are some thoughts on this year's contest...

Azerbaijan want to do the next James Bond film's theme song. Bulgaria want to be in the next Tron film.

France was more concerned with persuading British mannys to stay in the European Broadcasting Union, by singing their song partly in English, than in winning Eurovision.

Poland wanted to attract the USA to Eurovision by spelling "color" the American way.

I think the Australian entry's costume was borrowed from Servalan. Austria (not the same country; that's very confusing for a cat you know) sang the closing theme song to a Miyazaki film.

The UK's own entry was not nearly as good as last year's. Here it is for you to watch:

In fact none of the songs in the contest were really great when compared with previous years. We cynical old cats have a theory that these days the best songs get voted out during the semi-finals, such as a rude manny performing in the nude with cuddly doggys - that sounds like the best Eurovision entry evar!

In the final analysis the best song of the show by miles was done by Sweden but was not their entry into the Competition.



Love Love Peace Peace was a sketch and song from the interval, and is one of the best things Eurovision has ever done (something a cat does not say lightly). I never thought anyone would out-meta Lithuania's We Are The Winners song from 2006!

The voting was even more obviously political than usual - for starters someone in Blackpool who spoke French hacked the satellite to give France's votes (explaining why the UK got such few votes from France).

But most of the politics was around Russia and Ukraine. Russia are perennial Eurovision baddys, but this year they sent a good song - my favourite (proper) song this year - and a nice manny to sing it, not a baddy at all.

But Ukraine sent a manny to sing about how much of a baddy Stalin was, and I think if there is one thing that everyone in Eurovision can agree on then it is that Stalin was bad, so they won.

"I want my great-grandmother back you son of a bitch!"

That Talbot is but shadow of himself

The new series of The Hollow Crown has begun to be shown on BBC TV, starting with Henry VI Part 1.

That's the play that has Talbot "the terror of the French" in it, a manny so scary that when the Frenchmannys captured him:

"In iron walls they deem'd me not secure;
So great fear of my name 'mongst them was spread,
That they supposed I could rend bars of steel,
And spurn in pieces posts of adamant:
Wherefore a guard of chosen shot I had,
That walked about me every minute-while;
And if I did but stir out of my bed,
Ready they were to shoot me to the heart."

Even Scary Cat is impressed by that.

Sadly this was a very abridged* version of Henry VI Part 1, and of its 111 minute duration, less than an hour was spent on Henry VI Part 1, the rest was doing most of Henry VI Part 2 up to when York declares his intention to be king in Act 5 Scene 1.

This meant that there was very little of Talbot, even though they got in Philip Glenister to play him - not my first choice but easily in the top 3 - and so he only had a couple of scenes before going

All of the other casting was excellent as well, from Hugh Bonneville as Gloucester to Samuel West as Winchester, to Laura Frances-Morgan as Joan, to Anton Lesser as Exeter.

A lot was cut out of the plays to make this be more of a Shakespeare film, and some thing were changed around to make Somerset (Ben Miles) into more of a proper film baddy - not that he needed much help.

The next Hollow Crown is going to be even more confusing for us cats, as it will be called Henry VI Part 2 but it will really be mostly Henry VI Part 3. It may make for a better film since there are lots of battles that I expect mannys who like cinematic action will like.

* Considering the last time the BBC adapted Henry VI (in 1983), parts 1 and 2 ran to six-and-a-half hours between them. That should tell you how massively abridged this new one is, mew.

The Man in the Elegant Room

Terry Nation isn't just the creator of Blakes 7 and the Daleks, he is also a great writer of telefantasy detective episodes such as The Avengers, The Persuaders! and, in this case, Department S.

The Manny in the Elegant Room sees Jason King (the real one this time), Stewart Sullivan and Annabelle Hurst investigating a mysterious, fourth wall-breaking room. Of course we all know how good Terry Nation is at writing mysteries, and this one doesn't even have the same solution as Mission to Destiny does!

The main guest star of the week is Stratford Johns, who was in an episode of I Claudius. Unusually for Department S he doesn't turn out to be the main baddy, but his character does die in a manner remarkably similar to that of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso - killed by his wife.

As though being written by Terry Nation and having Peter Wyngarde and Stratford Johns and Joel Fabiani (purr) weren't reason enough to give this 5 out of 5, the final scene where the set is disassembled around the three main cast members is outstanding and warrants it all by itself.

Voice, Images, Memories, A Million Fragmented Facts

Rest in peace Gareth Thomas, the manny who played Blake.

... unless this is Terminal, in which case it is just part of Servalan's trap for Avon, and he is still alive on Gauda Prime...

Detectives on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown

The Comic Strip Presents is a TV series that has been running, irregularly, since 1982. Arguably its finest episode to date is Detectives on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown from 1993 (with close competition from 1990's GLC).

SPOILER warning

The plot sees several TV detectives from the 1970s brought back out of retirement to solve a case in the 1990s - somebody has been killing off the '90s TV detectives, but in a '70s style.

The main characters are all (affectionate) parodies of real '70s TV detectives, plus one (not so affectionate) '90s detective:

• Jason Bentley, played by Peter Richardson, a take on Jason King
• Shouting George, played by Jim Broadbent, a parody of Jack Regan from The Sweeney
• The Bullshitters Bonehead and Foyle (Keith Allen and Peter Richardson (again)) are versions of The Professionals Bodie and Doyle returning from an earlier Comic Strip story, The Bullshitters
• Dave Spanker, played by Phil Cornwell, is a send-up of Jimmy Nail's Spender

Unwillingly forced to work together to prevent the demise of TV detectives as a genre, since all the actors are too scared to play them any more for fear of the killer, they each have a go at solving the murder in their different idioms before the killer is finally unmasked and the Bullshitters finally get to have the car chase they were so desperate for.

A lot of the comedy comes from the blurring between the actors and their characters, as TV detectives hunt the killer of actors who play TV detectives. It gets pretty meta and the fourth wall takes a beating, even before we get to the song-and-dance numbers.

There's also plenty of laughs from the wordplay, and the interactions of the different detectives and their clashing styles: Spanker doesn't like George's shouting or the Bullshitters' obsession with guns; the Bullshitters think Jason's approach of going around country houses looking for a mad old colonel to arrest is "f'ing mad"; and nobody likes Spanker's '90s-style methods of detecting.

If there is one major criticism to be levelled at Detectives on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown, it is that it isn't long enough. This causes structural problems with the plotting, namely that Spanker is revealed to be the killer with time to neither properly foreshadow this twist nor establish any alternative suspects. With five main characters, this could have easily supported a longer run time.

Also, the jokes about the central locking of cars (still a novelty in the early '90s) have dated badly.

But these don't really detract from a very funny half-hour, made by a team on the top of their game.

Gamma Longcat rates this TV programme at 5 out of 5.

What have I just watched?

The Project Strigas Affair is supposed to be an episode from the first season of The Man From UNCLE TV series from 1964. But in it Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin do a Mission: Impossible plot and the guest stars they meet are played by Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner! So I can't tell what programme I have just been watching and am a confused cat.

Throughout the whole story THE SHAT seems determined to steal the entire episode. At the end, just before the credits roll, he even manages to out-sleaze Napoleon Solo - a seemingly impossible task even for Captain Kirk considering that Napoleon Solo is a sleazier manny than James Bond - and a star is born!