Inspector Nardone

Staying up late one evening I came across yet another Italian cops and robbers series Inspector Nardone, six stories and 12 episodes over all became must see viewing. The story is set in Milan just after the end of the second World War and features the Inspector Nardone who has moved to the north from the South with a very traditional southern approach to policing, to woman and life generally, but he also is prepared to adapt to the demands placed by the development of a ruthless criminal gang and to undertake the job in hand regardless of the status, wealth and power of those involved. In this respect he can be described as a forerunner of Inspector Montalbano and the Inspector in Romanzo Criminate. He brings together the best talented young men and operates in a creative but also professional way.

Early on like the two other Inspectors he forms a relationship with an influential woman who provides sexual favours to those who can afford her “High Maintenance” lifestyle although in this stance his relationship remains professional and it is another member of the team he assembled who becomes infatuated and then obsessed, despite the fact that she marries a wealthy older man who gives her a night club to manage.

Nardone quickly establishes a relationship with the manger of a firm and finds her wish for individualism difficult to cope with but they marry and have a child together with the next hurdle when as the child grows up his wife takes a job in a car selling firm. As with the other two series mentioned this programme combines the tacking of individual crimes with the development of relationships within the team and their relationships with others.

One of the relationships is between Nardone and a journalist photographer with both continuing to assist each other of the subsequent decade. The relationship is not corrupt but there are breaches of ethical standards which should not be tolerated in this post Leveson era.

As with Romanzo Criminale the youngish Inspector has an elder assistant whose experiences becomes pivotal when he is gunned down into a coma by the young villain whose capture becomes the focus of the series. Because of the success in bringing down a leading citizen friend of the local police Chief, Nardone successful team is broken up through promotions to other parts of Italy. Each has a significant story to tell. One is obsessed with studying to become a lawyer and also the search for a Fascist who betrayed his family and the love for daughter of landlady.

The individual eventually tracks down the mother of the fascist who has left the country and when later the man returns the police officer relies that killing him makes him no different and resorts to using the law. The girl becomes pregnant by a boyfriend and the police officer decides to accept the young woman and child and hen is further disappointment when child’s father returns and girl goes off again. However she returns and they marry and he passes the exams to become a magistrate

Another a former fascist has become an excellent driver a is provided with vehicles which can out chase those acquired by the criminals. I am not sure if it he or the other young member of the team ( one of whom becomes the forensic specialist and is engaged to be married) who also becomes obsessed by the former prostitute. He does not go ahead with the marriage despite beginning to sleep with the young woman and I think it is he who eventually married the other woman and who abandons her high maintenance lifestyle for a meaningful relationship.

All three now established officers in their thirties return to Milan and reform as a group after their elder colleague appears at deaths door. The man is single having decided not to marry a young woman because of the demands of his work when younger. It emerges that although the woman married and had a child the girl is his and the woman, never stopped her original love something which the man she married understood and accepted. The woman has now died but the girl reappears and having found her true father is horrified when he decides that he must return to duty as part of the original successful team. She cannot cope with this and goes off and when he goes in search of her she cannot be found. It is then revealed that she has gone off to train as a police woman. Another story line which I believe was later taken up in the Swedish series of Wallander in relation to his daughter in TV version..

There are many twists and turns including a real; threat to the ife of Nardone before the team are able to capture the villain who has caused so much harm to the city. The series ends on this high note and I presume was not resurrected and as a consequence I for one felt satisfied with a sense of completeness and good feeling rounded off but which had otherwise been what I felt a very realistic portrayal of the times and what policing would have been like.

　

　

Our Girl (2013)

There has been so much great television over past months that I have struggled where to begin but the best single programme has been Our Girl first broadcast a month ago 24 March 2013 with an outstanding performance by Lacey Turner as the young Eastender good time loser, the eldest of a struggling large family with an out of work family in a estate flat who finds in the army a surrogate family. Contrary to some critics I thought depiction of training realistic and unlikely to lead to a increase in recruitment for the film proved that determination and grit is not sufficient to make a career in the modern army. True it offers an opportunity to those who have failed at school or find getting a job which satisfies difficult to impossible but without having qualities which need to brought out the majority of young people will not make the combination of quick thinking, common sense, courage, and physical ability required.

Our girl trains as a medical assistant and after qualifying goes out to Afghanistan. Her father rejects her after she turns down the offer of marriage from someone who an provide him with fresh start employment after the accident which led to his unemployment and general hostility to the

world. Her former female friends also reject when she is not prepared to slip back into her former ways of heavy drinking and casual sex. She overcomes the disappointment when her parents fail to attend the passing out parade after basic training although her mother finds a way of having a brief meeting before the girl goes overseas. The film ends with the return of a coffin with military honours and flowers made out into Our Girl. It is not our girl in question where both parents are relieved and proud when she returns home.

The critic who reported this as a recruiting film for the army must have been watching a different edition. A memorable acting performance and a memorable film.

 

Endeavour- the young Morse

The best of recent TV has been Endeavour a prequel to Morse and Lewis featuring the young Morse as a Detective police constable moving from the Met to Oxford following his good work in the pilot which was shown two years or more ago and before the most recent series of Lewis which has come to an end.

I had planned to do a piece of the last series of Lewis but other events overtook me There is just opportunity to record again that after a hesitant start and uncertainty on my part I thought Kevin Whalley did an excellent and credible as the Detective Inspector together with his university educated priest in the making sergeant. The series ends with Kevin retiring from the force and his sergeant decides against putting in for the post and leaving he force as well.

I thought the first of a four two hours programmes in this first series of Endeavour was good but the second shown last Sunday 21^st April was a brilliant portrayal of a young man in the process of becoming Morse senior. He possessed the creative intellect to see what others cannot and the drive and ambition of youth to go it alone, question authority and follow up his intuition. He is yet to acquire the experience and skills usually honed from having undertaken slow methodical policing as well as acquiring a detailed knowledge of the law,

Shaun Evans plays the Young Morse, the young man who failed to complete his Oxford degree but who maintains links singing in a University Choral group. His champion is Detective Inspector Fred Thursday played by Roger Allam who sees the potential in Morse and in the first episode uses him as a drive assistant much to the anger of the Sergeant usually allocated the task and who understandably is resentful and a thorn in his side. Some one else who is not a fan of young Morse is Chief Super Reginald Bright with another excellent characterization by Anton Lesser. The daughter of John Abigail Thaw plays the editor of the Oxford Mail Dorothea Frazil.

In both the openers the 2013 series two deaths which appear unconnected form the basis of the detective mysteries. A secretarial student dies and a doctor is shot while in an area where his presence is unexplained. The initial trail leads to a family where its head is a scientist who assisted in the creation of the Atom bomb in the USA and is now an Oxford Don with echoes of Strangers and Brothers and a recent Foyle episode. He receives threatening letters and there is anti nuclear protests with the credits both of which are red herrings in relation to solving the deaths.

His daughter is married to the GP who is killed and she cares for the child of her younger sister, portrayed as an unstable young women who has been placed by the family in an expensive care institution before being allowed to leave and move to London. Later it is revealed that the doctor befriended the sister and is the father of the child which he has financially supported giving the mother a 10 shilling postal order each week which she cashes at a local post office paying in half a crown to a saving’s account for the son.

Morse is attracted to the girl who offers herself as a means of gaining his attention and company but he behaves in a professional way but their bonding as friends means that he forgets to undertake a record check which shows that she has committed a crime of violence when in the care unit. Morse is put back on general duties by the Chief Superintendent and the girl charged and kept in custody despite Morse protesting her innocence. This is confirmed while in custody as a Vicar whose bicycle was discovered at the scene of the Doctor’s murder is also murdered. The vicar like Morse is an expert on crosswords and it is only late on that Morse works out the clue left in the form of the numbers of form hymns left on display for the next service.

I can no longer remember the details the full details of the plot but the guilty man is the father who runs the post office, protecting his son who frustrated and bored with his expected life assistant is father after the death of his mother has been earning an income selling drugs obtained from the GP. The young man has supplied the secretarial student not knowing that she had a medical condition where the combination led to her premature death. The vicar is killed because he comes in on the scene where the post master is killing the GP

Morse also discovers that the scientist has accepted a post in the USA taking his widowed daughter and the grandson with them. Morse uses his newly acquired knowledge of the law to prevent the child being taken out of the country and in the final scene he sees off the girl reunited with her child on a coach to London thus commencing his career tendency to fight for the underdog and take an unconventional approach. The episode is called Girl

The first two deaths in the second episodes Fugue only appear connected because of references to the last words of different operas which Morse discovers. However early on I worked out who the villain was because of the similarity to another a story vaguely remembered. In that story a patient assumes the identity of a psychiatrist who he has killed. In this programme a psychiatrist comes forward to offer his assistance and who suggests someone else, someone who does not exist, a former patient who he suggests could be the killer.

It is however the editor of the local newspaper who remembers the case of a 15 year old boy who murdered his mother in a horrific way because of a phrase used at the time and then repeated in the present cycle of crimes which includes four of five planned murders and where the killer kidnaps a child to keep the authorities occupied while he carries out her fourth. The memory of the editor is a name and a residential location which unmasks the killer and his adopted identity,

he then kidnaps the sister of a talented but emotionally unstable concert pianists as another diversion so he can trap the intended victim - Inspector Thursday as a stand in for the Detective Inspector responsible for his previous capture and imprisonment. because of the opera connections. The others killed were witnesses and the judge.

Morse is brought back from general duties to assist and during the episode he receives a surface tummy flesh wound and prevents the killing of Thursday although in fairness it is Thursday whose fearless action prevents his own death.

Young Morse is given the opportunity of meeting Thursday wife, young adult son and daughter when he collapses from exhaustion. The episode is full of glorious music from grand opera and Morse is shown to have vinyl copies of the music plus the libretto’s from boxed editions. Albeit a single man in a well paid job I am nevertheless surprise that he was able to afford what would have been expensive items, The photography of Oxford at sun rise and sun set was also gorgeous. Despite his heroics and cleverness he is returned once more to general policing duties.

Mr Selfridge season 1 ends

The series on the creation of the Selfridge Store in Oxford Street is more rooted in fact although it also follows in the tradition of Upstairs and Downstairs and Downton Abbey. I previously introduced this ten week series recounting my own experience of the store and of departmental stores in Croydon where I was born and spent my childhood close by.

 

According to Wikipedia the creator of the enterprise started work at 14 he made his way to become a partner in the department store of Marshal Field in Chicago where he is said to have originated the Christmas Sale and x shopping days left to Christmas as well as the customer is always right. He married well and indeed it is argued that his wife was his backbone with his life rapidly deteriorated after her death. He grew up without a father which is an important factor and his mother lived with him for the greater part of his life until her death.

 

Coming to London on holiday with his wife he realised there was a great opportunity for an American style store. He purchased the buildings in Oxford Street before demolition and having the store purpose built to meet his purpose. His reported to have spent £400000 of his money. However in the TV series he is dependent on a financial backer who pulls out and on another backer introduced to him by an aristocratic married women socialite with a young lover and lots of good connections.

 

In the BBC production his wife was first portrayed as the responsible mother of his four children rather than a force behind the business. She is concerned at the business risks he takes and appears to accept that he takes up with young women but discretely and always returns to her and the family. In this instance he becomes infatuated with an actress who he employs to give publicity to the store and sets up with a property in St John’s Wood. She sees herself as the second Mrs Selfridge and when he decides to drop her she confronts his wife at the family home and attempts to commit suicide. She sets on a new course to become a serious actress with the help of Frank, the former editor of a newspaper drinking and gambling companion of Selfridge who when he loses his job turns to Selfridge for help unfortunately on a bad day and is turned away. Frank who always fancied the actress provides help in the rewriting of the play.

 

However Mrs Selfridge is also not the selfless woman initially presented when she meets an artist painter on a visit to a gallery and agrees to sit for him to create a portrait for her husband.  He is unaware who she is and becomes infatuated with her. She is attracted and considers responding to his advances but her upbringing makes her hold back. He retaliates by becoming acquainted with their eighteen year old daughter who with the help of Lady May comes out to London Society.  Selfridges realises that his wife and developed strong feelings and remains attracted and tempted. She considers taking her family including the eldest daughter back to America and Chicago.

 

Through the help of Lady May, King George decides to make his first visit to a store and comes for an evening shop complete with cash. He meets Mrs Selfridge and invites the couple to spend a weekend with him at Sandringham and we have seen what this could mean in the interpretation of the King by Poliakoff. Lady May then passes on the request of the King that that the Selfridges, his mother and eldest daughter should attend the opening of the new play, a satire, in which Selfridge’s mistress is the star. The play is a great attack on Selfridge his way of life and that of Lady, whose husband lives in the country while she lives in town. It is a great humiliation which result in their daughter realising what had been going on. It is he last straw for Mrs Selfridge who takes the children back to America shortly afterwards leaving Selfridge alone in London with his mother. In real life Mrs Selfridge died prematurely and Selfridge went on to become a man about town with several mistresses although he never remarried.

 

Playing Don Juan is not the only flaw in the man. He has dismissed one of the 1300 staff who stole medicines for her sick mother who dies. She is met by one of the other staff, a gentle hearted young woman while taking tea in a cafe adjacent to the store. She appeals to the head of staff to give the woman a reference but when approaches Selfridges he is refused and the woman then throws herself in front of a tube train leaving a letter to Selfridge not blaming him and saying that she is going to join her mother. The suicide which led to a number of store staff arriving late took place on the day Shackleton gives a talk at the store. His theme was about team work and he importance of acting and not putting the lives of others before ambition and this appears to have a positive affect on Selfridge, a man who intends well but lacks self control and relies on others. 

 

One of these is the stuffy disciplinarian head of staff but who also leads a double life. His wife has been an invalid for a number of years and at least once a week he stayed over with one of the departmental heads at the store and who he has been with for many years before this. When his wife dies she has the expectation they will marry but his first reaction is to insist on a temporary break. He then is taken with the young woman who appealed to him to give the sacked woman a reference. He asks her to marry keeping the engagement secret until he has opportunity to tell his former mistress. When she learns she is devastated and is even more shocked when he suggests that they should continue their previously illicit relationship. She has already agreed to attend a meeting of the suffragettes and consoles herself with this new involvement.

 

She has been invited to join the suffragettes by another head of department who shares the front of store one with perfume and cosmetics, a feature with Selfridge introduced from Paris and is now a common feature of all stores along with accessories. This brings me a senior assistant working for accessories. I previously reported that Selfridge on visiting another store in London had noted that the goods were not on display but kept in cupboards and drawers to prevent theft. He had persuaded a young assistant to show him all the gloves which led her to be sacked and following the announcement of staffing for his new store she had successfully approached him for a job, visiting his home.

 

She lives with her brother a rather weak young man who allows himself to be bullied by their father who becomes violent when drunk. They have moved away in secret to get away from him and she gets him a job in the store and packaging department. When the father returns and persuades her left him stay and then returns to his old ways, gets drunk and visits the store it is Selfridge who intervenes and buys him off to stay away.

 

She is courted by a waiter with ambition to own his own restaurant. He is sidetracked by being required to provide personal services for Lady May and who offers to fund his restaurant if he continues to meet her needs. She is a woman partial to young men but has grown tired of her previous attachment and his gambling debts.

 

Meanwhile the senior assistant has also developed her own love interest. She has caught the eye professionally of the window designer and close friend of Selfridge, a Frenchman who in turn has failed to capture the attention of a close friend and another creative designer who moves to New York. It was inevitable that the senior assistant and window designer should have an affair which continues until the head of the Perfume department finds out about the relationship and warns the senior assistant that they cannot afford to have relationships and remain employed as the store had a policy of not hiring married women, a custom which most enterprises also followed.

 

When the French woman returns and persuades him to go to New York the assistant and the waiter get back together as he has broken off with Lady May when he finds out she has no intention of financing the restaurant. It is the waiter who also prevents her brother being arrested and sack as eh unwittingly has become part of scam where goods ordered for the firm and resold elsewhere by staff, he takes a shine to a female assistant who eventually agrees to go out with him to the pictures. The series ends at Selfridge now alone finds the young man still working late at night and encourages him by saying that he started out in the same way. The young man comments that Selfridge has everything including his fine family laving Selfridge to rue his fate.

 

The last word is not for Selfridge but for the great Lady May. A suffrage sponsor, a collector of adorable young men, she has advanced the cause of Selfridge, his wife and his daughter. She is also the butt of the new satirical play but we suspect she will survive better then Selfridge. No doubt we shall find out more when the series returns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dancing on the Edge

The interesting and intriguing series Dancing on the Edge came to an end a week ago with the promise of an epilogue interview the purpose of which was not clear and which was shown on Sunday evening. When the series commenced I was not sure where it was going in terms of an encounter with one of central London Masonic lodges for the aristocracy, the rich and the politically powerful based in a hotel, or why the series included a son of King George as well as appearances from himself. King George who also appears in the last episode of ten in the Series on the opening of Selfridges   store in London which also ended on Sunday,

 

Dancing on the Edge is written by Stephen Poliakoff whose work is always interesting and some times controversial and this is his first TV production for over five years. I was attracted by the advance publicity that at its core was to be a Jazz band but this proved to be a sideshow for his exploration of the role of the Masons in British Society before the Second World War and the extent of racism against Jews and non white people. Although historical for the generation of today the work is a contemporary one for me and is likely to prove a commentary on “Society” today in much the same way Selfridges also had several stings, especially in the last trio of episodes and where the involvement of Royalty was have a bearing on the outcome.

 

Stanley Mitchell  Matthew Goode) is a creative journalist editor (with a  typing assistant who he beds called Rosie) for the Musical Express where he appears to live most of the time although he has a home with his working class single parent  mother. I used to buy the New Musical Express in the late 1950’s along with Melody Maker, two weekly papers which published information on Jazz. The NME was created only in 1952. I am sure the NME will have enjoyed the publicity whereas Royalty and the Masons will not and it is interesting the limited extent to which there is mention in Wikipedia article which in several respect and unusually, is a travesty of this richly textured work

 

The young editor catches only the end of the set of a black jazz swing band and suggests that with his help he can get them into the big time especially if they employ a singer. They get two, friends, one pretty Billy Holiday looking, the other not unattractive but with a bulkier red hot mama frame. This has significance!

 

Stanley gets them a job with a posh London hotel which tends to attract elderly conventional customers who have no experience or interest in jazz or contact with black men before. The deal is that the band will bring a new generation much like the position of the Tory Party today, where at Eastleigh the Party has only a hundred elderly members or the Catholic Church which elected a South American Argentinean of Italian parents as Pope.

 

When the band performs one evening they please a table of aristocrats. The most influential appears to be Arthur Donaldson a wealthy man played by Anthony Head who develops into a treacherous and dangerous man who has two young children with him who he claims are a nephew and niece but the implication is that he is a paedophile and they are orphans. One of his friends is a son of King George.

 

Also at the table are a brother and sister whose parents are anti Jewish and racists. The young man played by Julian Luscombe (Tom Hughes) appears a weak, emotionally disturbed and dependent on his sister Pamela (Joanna Vanderham) who appears to take an interest in Stanley. Sarah is the English born daughter of a Russian immigrant who is an amateur artistic photographer and takes an interest in the piano playing band leader Louis Lester (Chiswetel Ejiofor) English born but assumed to be American whose mother worked for a succession of rich families and became devout Christian. He obtained work on ocean liners which in additional episode provided him the opportunity to listen to the lives of the worldly that carried on as if he was not here. The band is managed by another English born man who lived in the USA for many years and where there is an arrest warrant. Julian is a kind of assistant to an American tycoon who uses the hotel as his UK base Walter Masterson (John Goodman), one of the richest men in the world.

 

The band is only given a short term contract at the hotel until asked to play at a Garden Party at the home of Walter although the guests although the small number of guests view the band at a distance in the house but where they emerge one of the party is a son of the King who plays with the band and takes an interest in the lead singer lead singer Jesse. When the Prince visits the band at the hotel they are made, helped by the publicity given to the band in the Music Paper.

 

The band are given a long term contract and allowed to use musician’s quarters at the hotel and with the increasing attention the singers are allowed to use the hotel main entrance. Louis helps out John Goodman when a young aristocratic woman is found battered in his suite. Goodman takes up the leading members of the band and invites them on a picnic which takes place using a private train which appears to have the freedom of the railway and which takes them to the country home of Lady Lavinia Cremone played by Jacqueline Bisset, (who also has a suite at the Imperial), and is also a fan of the Musical Express which she has in bound copies because of her love of Jazz but is now a recluse following the death of her two sons in the Great War. She thinks the band and singer great when they play for her and is it she who arranges for a BBC big wig to listen to the band in the original Jazz cellar which he attends reluctantly until finding a Prince present.

 

The band then becomes internationally famous and makes records after the BBC do a live broadcast from the hotel in the presence of Royalty. The band is asked to play at a service dinner at a regimental headquarters in the presence of the King. The King dances with the wife of the commanding officer who realises she will be expected to sleep with the King for the night. Meanwhile the world of Louis is about to fall apart.

 

After performing the service for Goodman Louis and Stanley had been shown a peep hole at the hotel by Julian enabled them to see members of one of the London Masonic Lodges for the powerful and rich in the basement of the hotel. Goodman and Walter are also members.  It was not immediately clear the significance which this reference to the Masons was going to have in the series. The development of a sexual relationship between Louis and Sarah and between Matthew and Pamela is also unclear in its significance and I remain unsure how Sarah became part of this circle of the aristocracy and the super rich.

 

Stanley also develops a positive friendship with Lady Cremone who he interviews and places on the front cover. Matthew and Goodman also develop a friendship.

 

Julian coverts Jesse and persuades her to pretend she is unwell and not to attend the dinner at which the King will be present because he has arranged for her to meet a Hollywood film producer. Louis is concerned about the situation and returns early from the dinner at which the second singer comes to the fore and impresses.

Jesse joins Julian, Pamela and Sarah at the hotel, seemingly quickly recovered and Julian and she go upstairs. Louis then finds Jesse battered and close to death and is sure as we the audience that Julian is at the end of the corridor. Julian departs taking leave of his sister late to join Goodman in Paris. The nation is shocked by what happens and one possible avenue being followed by the police is a fan some of whom had commenced to follow her and they now vigil outside the hospital.

 

Louis is interviewed by the police and is not regarded as a suspect. He tells them of his concerns about Julian however when the police check and report back that there are two witnesses who saw Julian on the scheduled boat train and  he has his passport appropriately stamped.

 

The band plays at the hotel at Christmas before a party   from the German Embassy who walks out on seeing that the band is Black. Julian and Stanley arrange for the band to play at German Embassy which causes another walk out. The band is invited to play for the Mason’s at the Imperial Hotel. Louis discovers that the two witness who said they had seen Julian on the train ferry are members of the Lodge. It later emerges that Goodman had arranged for his private plane to get Julian to Paris and that officials are assisting in the cover up. Why Goodman went to Paris by the boat train is therefore a mystery or perhaps my memory of this aspect is faulty.

 

The performance before the Masons ends quickly with the news of the attempt on the life of the USA president. Goodman takes the party to premises which he has acquired for the expansion of the Musical Express to listen to a long wave radio. He has suddenly shown great interest in the magazine offering Matthew the Editorship at a fantastic salary, with Sarah the professional photographer which he sees as the way forward. He also persuades Lady Cremone to become his agent in charge. The current owner had brought in a co editor to develop the paper to cover radio and other technological developments. He is also to feature in the new enterprise as a kind of Chief Executive. Everyone is being well paid to work for Goodman except Pamela, something which she comments on.

 

New Year is spent back at the estate of Lady Cremone and in the village which is on the estate. Julian reappears explaining that he has been in France developing the idea to create a business selling British made Cheeses. Louis tells Sarah of his concerns about Julian which she disregards.  Goodman who refers to Julian as the son he never had  and is moving back full time to the USA and wants Julian to be with him.  Julian’s fascist mother thinks this is a great idea but Julian is concerned about losing the influence of sister. She spent Christmas day with Stanley at the home of is mother.

 

When Jesse who seemed to be recovering and regaining consciousness has a relapse and dies, Louis is wanted by the Police for her murder, goes on the run and finds that everyone turns against him.  Not only does he band lose it contract at the hotel but the American owners visit but want to sell the property for the site to be converted into apartments. The Masons also look for another hotel.  Louis goes to see Arthur who promises help through his solicitor. However Arthur emerges in his true colours as he has contacted the police. Arthur had previously offered to help the band’s manager establish his British status thus avoiding extradition to the USA but fails suggesting he wanted the manager out of the way to be able to exercise greater influence over the band, Louis and the female singers

 

Louis gets away and comes to Stanley for help who hides him with suburban relatives where he is joined by Sarah about whom he is suspicious. Goodman has posted a large reward for the capture of Louis and used the press to ensure that everyone is on the lookout for him. Lady Cremone who with everyone else turns her back on Louis begins to query why Goodman has adopted such an aggressive position. Stanley and Sarah also begin to realise that something more sinister is to hand but all appear to accept that Julian with his alibi had nothing to do with the assault and death of Jesse.

 

Louis is still wearing his DJ and therefore conspicuous and leaving Stanley’s relatives because neighbours have called him police they use the premises of a bowling club to change into clothes brought by Sarah and Stanley then takes Louis to hide at the Jazz club where the band originally played above which there is a dance studio. The owner manager is reluctant to provide sanctuary especially as she has a function.

 

An elaborate plan is devised for the band including its singer to take boat train to France with the help of money from Pamela and Sarah. One problem is that the second singer does not have a passport. Louis nevertheless makes his escape to France and we later learn that he has made his way to Marseilles where is able to earn living from his music. Lady Cremone saves the hotel and has the rest of the band on contract to play a set in which the music of Jesse is kept alive. The Musical Express returns to its original premises with Stanley in charge once again.

 

Julian fails to make his Rendezvous with Goodman to go to America and takes a hand gin from his parent’s home and goes to the home of Arthur where it appears he is going to kill the man although why is not clear. Arthur takes him to meet Goodman at a train station where again it looks as if Julian intends to kill both of them. Instead he gives a confession to waitress and commits suicide. Arthur and Goodman quickly leave.  Sarah was force to reveal the location of Louis blackmailed by the British Secret Service who threatens to revoke her father’s permission to reside in the UK. She now says she will find Louis.

 

The postscript episode comprises the incomplete interview between Stanley and Louis and which suggests a follow up series. Louis has told Stanley to interview Jesse before her death) and she talks of fan mail she has been getting and that some of it is quite weird although the significance of this is unclear.

 

Louis then tells   the story that he was telephoned by the wife of a friend of Pamela who needed to tell him something, although why she needed to tell him is not clear. Her husband is one of those belonging to the Masonic Lodge he had spied on with Louis. She tells of another lodge at another hotel much grander, where there was one member who foretold of the great crash and advised members on how to survive the happening but they had largely ignored him. He had then warned of the Second World War. Louis had told Stanley about this before his flight to France making him promise not print anything because his informant appeared frightened of her husband. It was not clear to me if she was the same young woman who Louis had rescued from Goodman’s apartment or someone different. Stanley says he intends to follow this up.

 

Poliakoff has written the series full of implied conspiracies with the ability of the rich and powerful to operate outside the law and with the assistance of the law and the state to then cover up and if necessary frame others. He ahs also set the series in such a way as to imply real life events. I once heard a conversation on a flight to Gibraltar in which two worldly and educated men stated that forces within the USA had been responsible for 9/11. This series had a similar feel and a host of inanswered questions and issues.

Mr Selfridge

There has been much TV watching with many films and almost no writing and contemporary art project work. Mr Selfridge is a new BBC fictional series on Harry Gordon Selfridge from his arrival in London and creation of the famous store in Oxford Street. I have always been fascinated with this store since taken there on one of my first visits to central London as a boy after the end of World War II. The interest of the “aunties”  was because the store imported olives and Italian salami. In general  our circumstances  prevented other purchases and visits were only made once or twice a year,  I continues to visit on trips to London because of the childhood experience  although not to purchase as salami and olives can be bought far cheaper in supermarkets and local delicatessens. On my last visited I noted that Champagne, oysters and caviar bar  where one will part with £100 plus.

I commenced to write a piece about this and other TV programmes several hours ago but I then sidetracked myself into a different  kind of piece about my attraction to the department of old and trying to find out when Kennards of Croydon was developed although I suspect after Selfridge had introduced the concept into the UK of A Store to Entertain. Whereas Selfridges always aimed at the better class of client Kennards of Croydon was a store for the people with a zoo in the basement and Donkey rides outside in the road leaving to Surrey Street and  an orchestra for dancing to in the restaurant. There was also an announcer advertising bargains and events.

This contrasted with Grants of Croydon which was created before Selfridges  in 1894 and remained  traditional akin to the kind of store which he disliked and was regarded as the Harrods of the day.  There was added significance because of the proximity to London’s main airport of the era, Croydon and the store provided uniforms for the RAF  when the airport became a key location with Biggin Hill for the Battle of Britain. There are two videos around 3.35 of Croydon airport in the thirties and in 1938 on You Tube.

Grants closed in 1985 but in 2000 the Facade was retained and returned to its original condition while behind a multiplex, Gym, restaurants and night club were created. While there is a new Debenhams on part of the Kennards site, the other  Croydon store Alders continued as part of a large indoor shopping centre behind the pedestrian High Street. Alders was the oldest of stores created in 1862 and was the third across the road from Kennards and  less than 100 metres from Grants. Although the store was damaged  during World War II along with most of the properties in Croydon, it never closed. However its fortunes have varied since, becoming the flagship for a major group, going into administration, a management buy out saw fortunes change again and a growing company which purchased a number of other stores and then disaster struck last year, went into administration and I understand is now closed.

My search for information about Kennards led me to Internet site of Francis Frith, the photographer, some of whose photos of Old Wallington and Beddington I have purchased. I discovered 56 pages of memories about Croydon Times past and seven pages of photos. This led to a site which contained photos and  performance bills` The Grand Theatre, Davis Cinema and Theatre, Theatre Royal, Empire Theatre of Varieties, Hippodrome/Odeon and to  the Frith site and photos of the areas Wallington, Beddington, Sutton, Purley and  Croydon and then the two 3 minute plus videos of the Airport.

So it is back to Selfridges which had 100 departments when it was created nine public lifts and six staircase including a grand one at the entrance. The store aimed to attract more and a wider range of customers through displaying goods and providing a range of other services, including a library and a reading room and reception areas for French, German, American and Colonial customers, There were several restaurants including the Palm Court which was used by the rich and the famous. The was  cafe and garden on the roof terraces and an all female gun club. The store employed 1400 people  when it opened.  It was badly damaged in the second World War where its lower basement was used by the US army with a  rumour that a tunnel was built connecting to the US Embassy.

According to Wikipedia the creator of the enterprise  started work at 14 he made his way to become a partner in the department store of Marshal Field in Chicago where he is said to have originated the Christmas Sale and x shopping days left to Christmas as well as the customer is always right.  He married well and indeed it is argued that his wife was his backbone with his life  rapidly deteriorated after her death. He grew up without a father which is an important factor and his mother lived with him for the greater part of his life until her death.

Coming to London on holiday with his wife he realised there was a great opportunity for  an American style store. He purchased the buildings in Oxford Street  before demolition and  having the store purpose built to meet his purpose. His reported to have spent £400000 of his money. However in the TV series  he is dependent on  a financial backer who pulls out  and  on another backer introduced to him by an aristocratic married women socialite with a young lover and lots of good connections/

In the BBC production his wife  has been portrayed so far as the mother of his four children rather than a force behind the business. He is portrayed as an extravagant spendthrift, as well as creative and daring. It is accurate that he arranged to show the aeroplane  flown by Bleriot after crossing the channel for the first time. He is also known as a womanizer, with in the TV show  his first interest is a theatre show girl singer who he sets up in a  house in St John’s Wood.  According to one source he is alleged to have  affairs throughout his married life. I   know a number of episodes are planned.

He  rented Highcliffe Castle in Dorset and had planned to build his own Castle on a mile long promontory Hengisbury Head as well his London home in Berkeley Square. It is here he entertained lavishly which continued after the deaths of his wife in 1918 and his mother in 1824. His association with Selfridges ended in 1941, and he was forced to leave his home. He died in 1947 ages 93 a poor man. He is buried with his wife and mother at Highcliffe.

The series also looks at the lives of some of staff in particular a young sales assistant. Selfridge visits a London store and is surprised to find the goods are not on display and therefore you have to know what you want and trust the assistant to show you what is in stock. He persuades the young woman to show him all the gloves available. She  is sacked as a consequence and has a hard time with a drunk for a father and a brother unable to stand up to the man, In desperation when the store  recruits staff she approaches Selfridge at his home he arranges for her to become a senior assistant which causes resentment with junior staff and finds herself at loggerheads with the section head until she discovers the woman is having an adulterous affairs with  another senior member of the staff. She is pursued by a waiter in the posh restaurant who in turn is pursued by lonely females who asks for personal services which he is encouraged to provide by  the restaurant manager.

The young assistant also allows her father to return home with the  anticipated consequence that he returns to drinking and violent behaviour. She blackmails the recruiting manager to employ her brother in the goods reception and despatch department where there is evidence of  a fiddle. The two episodes to date suggest can be described as an Upstairs Downstairs or Downton Abbey of the Departmental store world.

For the record Selfridges, still one the great stores in Europe and third largest is about to have  a new lease of life with a significant expansion after adjacent property worth £140 million has been acquired by the present owning company. It in its present size it is half that of Harrods the largest store of its kind in Europe and which employs 5000 with 300 departments and one million square feet of selling space. Harrods was owned by Al Fayed until his retirement in 2010 when the store was acquired by the sovereign wealth fund of the state of Qatar with its Prime Minister attending the formal purchase for 1.5 billion half of which is reported to have been used to clear its bank debts. I have only been to Harrods a couple of times and both within the last 20 years. Another store  which I visited in childhood was Gamages because  of  large toy department including its model railway. It did not survive.

I will do the rest of the TV  the next film review and then it  be back to the contemporary artwork.

Hunted, Secret State Claridges Royal Variety Show

The series Hunted has come to an end with Melissa George in the lead role. It was originally to be start of a longer term series but the BBC decided against further support quite rightly in view of complicated story line which lacked credibility although the programme makers hope to find a new channel for a reconstituted series.

I had expected much from the same creative team that  has Spooks to its credit along with having worked on the X Files and other class productions. As with similar series where the arching story is not resolved until the final; year series Hunted posed such a longer term story, but instead of having episodes with a beginning and end in terms of a separate stories with resolutions, had a single series story that was complex with too many tentacles which lacked credibility. 

First the several years story concerned Sam Hunter who has witness the torture and killing of her mother as child and who understandably had blacked out event details. Year later as an adult she is working for a criminal security firm  as a field operative, prepared to kill, use physical violence and break laws such as breaking entering, stealing, bugging and all forms of illegal surveillance on behalf of those with the money regardless of their motives or country allegiance. What we learn is that the head of this organisation wants Sam dead, as appears a second mysterious character, although paradoxically he wants to keep her alive, we presume until she is able to remember what her organizational boss has been ordered to kill her for. The organization, Byzantium,  boss moreover is part of an international conspiracy to rule the World (another form of Spectre no less). One of the leading members of M16 possibility its head is killed because he has been investigating this international conspiracy called Hourglass for sometime

 The series commenced with Sam sent to Algiers to rescue someone kidnapped only to hand him over for someone else to kill, although she does not know this and where she was  supposed to have been killed after completing the mission. She goes into  hiding for a year to recover from her wounds and to have a child by one of her colleagues in the organisation, She is then nearly killed by being drugged and drowned and during this time she remembers what happened in childhood although we are not disclosed what she remembers. She is then set up to be taken and killed but has a fake death instead organised by her fieldwork boss and carried out by the unit leader. We see her with her secret child at the home of her mother or at least brought to her by her mother in the wilds of Scotland where she had disappeared for the year after the first attempt on her life. This was meant to herald  the next phase of the story until the BBC pulled the plug so we were and may be are, left in mid air. Do we care? If we did should we? 

Sam tells the father of her baby that she lost the child and has him top the list of suspects behind the attempt on her life with all her other colleagues also listed.  He was supposed to have been her back up in Tangier. In fact he is either a Member of British intelligence or the link person with British intelligence who understandably what to keep tabs on such a criminal organisation.The main issue of the first series is enabling the customer ( the Chinese?) to win a multi million contract and preventing this being  won by a former small crime boss turned big time  international investor, Hedge fund controller and business man called Turner. He has built his success by rigging the market for his product by causing a  series of disasters which do not  normally cause  a loss of life, although  in the latest which  raises £30 million to win the tender, a passer by does. 

However Turner uses a local crime boss who runs a  snooker hall and who in turn employs a psychopathic younger man to carry out the work, who in fact is the illegitimate son of Turner  and who is responsible for several killings in the process. A member of the organisation  is sent to become a friend and work for the local crime boss to try and retrieve a case which seems to be important and this man is subsequently set up to take the fall for an assassination related to the tendering process. This leads to the killing of the local crime boss by the illegitimate son of Turner and who in turn is killed after he has also killed a police  detective in the pay of Turner. 

Sam  participates in a  fake kidnap attempt on the grand son of Turner in order to get the job as nanny/companion to the boy whose mother is suppose to have committed suicide while balance of mind was disturbed but in fact had been slowly drugged and then drowned by Turner and his henchman because she was threatening to leave the home with her husband and son. Turner’s son  is a pathetic individual who does not stand up to his murdering father and with whom she has sex after gaining he confidence of the  boy who begins to look upon her as a substitute mother. She walks away without regard to the impact of her involvement ion their lives

 Turner has contempt for his son  and tolerates him as long as he has overall control of the grandson. When they find they are being  kept under surveillance by a member of the organisation  they kidnap and torture the man in a secret lower basement to the family property and Sam is instructed to kill her colleague before he gives her up and her purpose

 The Unit leader begins to have misgivings about his work and consults the local priest but still is involved in the killing of two innocent people in order to also protect the position of Sam, He is eventually offered to take over from  the Fieldwork head who is dying of cancer and uses a high class whore from time to time and who appears to have no other function than to add some sex to the series, the whore that is although the same can be said for the fieldwork boss. Is everything clear

 The Minister in charge of the British Secret service is hinted at being part of  the International conspiracy or in the pay of  the organisation

 I mention this aspect because by comparison an excellent short series on Channel Four called The Secret State  also involved secret relationships between government and International Corporations and Banks and which has the excellent Gina Mckee as an investigative Journalist

 The British Prime Minister visits the Head of an American Company where an explosion at a factory based in a Northern Town has killed people and devastated several streets. The British want appropriate compensation. The company plane on which the Prime Minister flies home blows up killing everyone on board and the Black Box is not immediately found. In fact the explosion on the plane was caused by the same rocket fuel being developed at the factory which caused the explosion. However a  conspiracy between the firm, a bank and several leading politicians at Cabinet level aided by a fascist General at the  heart of Government make it look as if the Prime Minister was killed by someone on behalf of the Iranians as  means of getting the government egged on by the media and populous to attack Iran.

Against the odds but with the apparent support of the Chief Whip played by Charles Dance, the existing deputy Prime Minister (and who is offered the same position or another of his choosing by the two leading candidates to replace the Prime Minister) is elected by his colleagues and soon after taking up the position is faced with demands to take out a terrorist with a smart rocket, fuelled by the international company, as he man attempts to reach the Iran border and safety. The new Prime Minister hangs fire but eventually gives the order only to find that the death occurs on or at the border with Iran understandably calling the event an act of war

  He then finds himself under pressure from the media  egged on by those in the Cabinet who want to replace him for a strike on Iran, supported the majority of his backbenchers and the official opposition. In an heroic stand at the Despatch Box in the last episode he stands up to elements in the secret services engaged in killing opponents to their view of things, including the illegal holding of  McKee, and arrest of an Government employee anxious to spill the beans to the Prime Minister

 The head of the International company is also ousted by the board as the public sacrifice and replaced by the plotting government Minister supported by a  bank under fire from the Prime Minister in order to force the company to pay appropriate compensation. Under fire the Bank gets behind strikes and the Company announced a move to Poland. However armed with some information provided by the former head of the company who has gone to McKee the Prime denounces his own in the confrontation in the House of Commons as well as attacking the war mongering opposition. It is all splendid stuff inspired by the Chris Mullin’s A Very British Coup

 There is just time to emntion the excellent 100th Royal Variety Performance opened with Girls Aloud looking amazingly  slim as well as gorgeous followed by the Comedian Bill Bailey who was amusing rather than funny. The excellent Kylie Monogue also looked gorgeous and whose standing in my eyes went in leaps and bounds after her amazing show at the O2 arena which I saw in 3D and which still is used by the channel from time to time. Bruce Forsythe had his moment with a sitting step dance before performing with the host David Wallians.  One Direction the latest Boy Band creation via the X Factor were pleasant enough. Amanda Holden introduced Britain’s Got Talent  latest winners and star performers who included Diversity. Then someone called Rod Gilbert who I have not heard but whom provides the wittiest sketch of the evening on why he could not by a single jacket potato. Ata   supermarket, Ronnie Corbet was less successful with David Wallians and some word plays before Katherine Jenkins performed with Placido Domingo in a light and boring duet. I just do not appreciate her voice

 Robbie Williams achieved the loudest applause of the night to that point and sung This Time I will be different I promise you followed by the boring Mr Bojangles, an odd selection. After this three 9 to 11 year olds are interviewed called Matilda in the RSC show of the same name and which has no appeal apart from enabling children to perform. Just as lacking in entertainment value Alan  Carr pretended to be  Ashleigh and Wallians the winning Britain’s Got Talent Dog singing the Flintstones number before the real Duo were excellent performing against a background of James Bond Music theme music

 The  singer Heather Headley performed the famous song, I will Always Love you  from the film the Bodyguard which is now  a stage show in London, She is OK but no Witney Houston. Andrea Botchelli sand La Dona  e mobile. Jimmy Tarbuck looked back at great comedy performers . Alicia keys played piano while singing

 Rod Stewart sang when you wish upon a star and has a Christmas Album out. Wallians appears as a aerial star after he has finished his number A new dancing group Ballet revolution performed and then the Violinist Nicola Bedetti reminded of previous stars at the show now departed  with Peter Sellers The Gibb brothers, Norman Wisdom, Frank , Dusty Springfield’s, Arthur Askey Harry Secombe, Gracie Fields, Danny la Rue, Leslie Crowther, Marti Caine,  Roy Castle, Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore, Tony Hancock, Ronnie Barker  John Inman Bob Monkhouse, Eric Sykes, Max Bygraves and Larry Hagman were photos I spotted

 Neil Diamond closed the show after Placido Domingo returns  to introduce  the Three Tenors, from China, quirky but good

 The best top ten tunes voted buy the British public were played on ITV again on Sunday with Bohemian Rhapsody and Queen heading t he list. I was not surprised  but disappointed that Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean was  two  but  pleased that Adele’s Someone Like you was 3 Hey Jude 5 Imagine, Abba’s Dancing Queen and Houston’s I  Will always love you. Kylie, Spears and Oasis were also there.

Last word must go to the couple now in the Eighties where he made a pile selling out his software company and she bought into Google early on, have spend each Christmas at Claridges in a  suite costing over £5000 a  night for at least thee past four decades, Sadly the wife passed away after the film was made. The couple only left the hotel twice in their two week stay

A party of a Royal princess/wife from the middle east and an entourage of 25 booked  a whole floor where the doorways had to be sealed so that men could not look in and the staff all had to be female. Three suites were cleared for shopping bags. Amazing stuff for the few.