Academy of Armitage Studies: The Research Continues

[asmallbunchofflowers]

Welcome to the new campus of the Academy for Advanced Armitage Studies, part of the University of Milton-Northern.

We offer courses at all levels from introductory to advanced and opportunities for independent research. Come and share your learning with us.

No, never seen N&S! Father Christmas is bringing it, if he knows what's good for his fat, red arse.

Dammit, TwitterLucas turns up just as I have RL to do...

Have been off comms for a while, preparing a seminar for (perhaps) later this evening.

Brian Protheroe was also Mr Bell in North and South, so a triple connection, or is that what you meant?

Was The Four Alice Bakers the play in which Sophia Myles told a TV interview that she had Mr Armitage had worked together and he had appeared as a tap-dancing banana? I imagine not!

Not a triple connection, sorry to confuse - Brian Protheroe was Mr Bell in North and South, and also he was an American, Walker (I think) in a few episodes of Spooks 8.

Yes that was the play SM referred to - there are some pictures of them around in rehearsal and on stage - And this is the same play , (I believe) where he had to also play a dancing banana...

Sadly, the photos I have seen do not capture the banana moment.

Guardian review of it though no mention of the talent

Goodness, such excellence in media studes, I am overawed! I don't tend to notice who's in what, I never felt the need. Until now of course.

I expect you've mentioned Lark Rise that had Brenden Coyle and Dawn French in it.

I always think of Lark Rise when Higgins says he may go south to look for work - The Poet and I shout "you could be a stonemason in Lark Rise". Arf arf.

What a missed opportunity that Mr Armitage wasn't in it. It might have saved it from tweeness (Victoria Wood's Lark Rise to Cranchesterford was dangerously close to the mark, I think).

Who would he have been though? I don't remember a part for an attractive male in his prime. but then I only saw the first series.

I do wish I'd seen that parody, it sounds hilarious.

Theresa - To be honest, what I mostly notice is the good-looking men. Brendan Coyle is, ahem, not displeasing to the eye. Especially at the end of North and South, when Higgins breaks the news to Mr Thornton that Margaret has a brother. Being very astute, Higgins grins as he sees the look of relief cross Mr Thornton's face as he realises he does not have A Rival.

They would have needed to create a character for him, I suppose. Or could he (at a pinch) have been the lord of the manor type for whom Dorcas had a tendresse?

The horse-drawn omnibus bus to is leaving now.

Yes, I would have been quite taken myself with Higgins, had the situation not been Otherwise. Does BC always play working men with Bolshie tendencies but a heart of gold?

How would he have looked with greying hair, I wonder, or would they have made the man at the Big House a little younger?

Speaking of North and South, have you read this conversation between Mr D'Arcy and Mr Thornton yet - a classic, methinks...

Boden - don't read that Darcy/Thornton conversation above yet as it does have some spoilers...

D'Arcy? Bloody iPhone..

I don't think I've seen any of Mr Coyle's work other than Lark Rise and North and South. I find Higgins very likeable (although hard to read in the book, where Mrs Gaskell's version of a Mancunian accent is almost incomprehensible to me). The relationship between him and Mr Thornton is fascinating and probably very radical, for the era.

Have you seen this set text, taken from the colloquy on ?

Oyster - Yes, somebody provided a link before. I love it.

Theresa - Tea? Must be time to break out the Polish cordial and Chateau Gisborne, surely?

Isn't he in that ITV thing, Flowers, Downton Abbey? Or do you only watch the BBC at Flowers Towers?

Tea has its good points, being marginally less painful when snorted down one's nose being one of them. Though I will take a glass of something stronger now, as I peruse your latest set text.

I loved that Darcy/Thornton conversation, Oyster, very clever people, your friends over there

Well, I was thinking earlier that I have hardly heard any of Mr Armitage's voiceovers because we so seldom watch commercial telly. I have never seen Downton Abbey. Am I allowed to mention Sunday again? Dan Stevens from Downton Abbey was in the Richard Curtis play and referred to himself as Dan Will Never Work Again After Downton Abbey Stevens. Oddest thing was that I kept thinking that he sounded exactly like Hugh Grant and then the penny dropped that in nearly every Hugh Grant film that I've seen (admittedly not many) he's been speaking Richard Curtis' words.

Didn't you catch BC as the surprise breakout sex symbol of Downton Abbey Mr Bates!!

Flowers Flowers, I hereby grant you unlimited licence to mention Sunday.

You know you want to.

You know we want you to.

I was fascinated by the idea of the dialogue being so much a part of a character that it creates resonances when divorced from its original partner. If you see what I mean.

Highly unlikely, actually, that last. But I haven't had that Polish Cordial yet to lubricate the brain cells.

Speaking of Lark Rise, I love the books, works of real social history, I feel, but I've not seen much of the adaptation, a little too twee as someone else mentioned. Same with Cranford really.