HAPPY (FUNNY) AND GLORIOUS

As it cannot have escaped your notice we are in the year of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee: sixty (not-always entirely glorious) years of our second Elizabethan Age.

A novel twist on the current celebrations is to be found at The Cartoon Museum in London with an exhibition of mostly quite loving – but sometimes refreshingly critical and even, occasionally, caustic – cartoons focusing on the reign of HMQEII.


Entitled Her Maj, the exhibition is itself a sixty-year retrospective of the work of the British cartoonist from respectful (and whimsical) views of the young Elizabeth as Princess and bride by Ernest H (Winnie-the-Pooh) Shepard, via stalwarts of Fleet Street's comic draughtsmen such as Horner, Cummings, Mansbridge and Giles to those irreverently naughty boys at the drawing board, Rushton and Steadman (along with Spitting Images' Fluck and Law), and thence to their even more iconoclastic successors of the likes of Steve Bell and Martin Rowson.

The star of the exhibition is, without question, the great Trog (Wally Fawkes) who's superb mastery of black and white medium of the classic newspaper cartoon along with colour covers for Punch such as the Pearly Queen and Consort above and the royal landlady below, run through the length of the exhibition.


The subject matter ranges the gamut of six decades of news stories – trivial or momentous – that have grabbed the headlines and caught the cartoonist's eye: royal visits, pay-packets, yachts, dogs, bedroom-interlopers, children, marriages - and divorces.

As Kennth Baker pointed out in opening the exhibition, Her Majesty has fared a lot better at the hands of the cartoonists than some of her ancestors, but there are still those painful recollections of the 'annus horribilis' and its aftermath.

As always with the Cartoon Museum exhibitions, the selection of images is diverse and diverting, thought-provoking and smile-eliciting as the following sampler demonstrates...

Up the Mall. An everyday story of Royal folk.
Private Eye, 1968 © Ralph Steadman

Colin Whittock, Northern Echo, May 2011

Dave Brown, Independent, 18 May 2011
© Dave Brown/Independent

Honeysett, The Oldie, 2008 © Martin Honeysett

Her Maj: 60 Years of Unofficial Portraits of the Queen remains on show until 8 April at The Cartoon Museum, 35 Little Russell Street, London, WC1A 2HH.

Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 10:30-17:30 and Sunday 12:00-17:30); Closed: Mondays. Admission: £5.50 Adults, £4 Concessions, £3 Students with valid student ID
Free to Under-18s, Art Fund Members and Friends of the Cartoon Museum.

Special Her Maj Events:

15 March 18:30-19:30 Persistent Reign: The British Royal Family in Cartoons 1952-2012
Dr Nicholas Hiley, Director of the British Cartoon Archive. The changing image of the Royals (and in particular Her Maj) in the 20th Century.

29 March 18:30-19:30 Lèse majesté: An Unofficial History of the British Monarchy
Curator Anita O'Brien on how the cartoonists have viewed royalty from George III to Prince William.

Tickets: £4.50, £3.50, £3.00 Advance booking recommended: Telephone 0207 580 8155; email: info@cartoonmuseum.org

Steve Bell 'If…' The Guardian, 22 November 2010
© Steve Bell

LATE NIGHT SHOPPING

Further to those night-time shenanigans in a bookshop: here are some much earlier goings on, this time in Walt Disney's 1934 Silly Symphony, The China Shop...

AUSTIN REED, OUT-FITTERS

After that unintentionally ambiguous Damart advertisement, I was interesting to discover that an emporium once noted for its refined and conservative taste and (in the Gents Department) unquestioned machismo...


...was unwittingly pushing at the closet door back in the 1950s!

QUICK, QUICK, SNOW...

It is night, the snow is falling...


...but the public-spirited citizen never sleeps!

A CHIP OF THE OLD BLOCK

My recent mention of Eric Gill's statue of 'Prospero and Ariel' (inspired by the characters in Shakespeare's The Tempest) prompts me to tell anyone who doesn't know it, the following story...

While the sculpture was in progress, concerns were raised because it was thought that the dimensions of Ariel's penis intruded uncomfortably upon what were perceived as the boundaries of common decency. Such Rabelaisian candour could not permitted to embellish the facade of an organ of rectitude like the British Broadcasting Corporation!

Gill was requested (one can only imagine with what bureaucratic awkwardness!) to reduce the offending member. Rather surprisingly for someone who was a pretty rampant phallacist, Gill agreed, and duly cut the boy down to the size we now (just about) observe!


Click here to read Gill's biographer Fiona MacCarthy on the dilemma of whether the sculptor's sexual proclivities (some illegal, several immoral) should influence our appreciation of his sculptures.

BLOGGED & BELOVED

It's not often – in fact hardly ever – that one wins Two Awards in One Week, but I am someone who has!

Around the time I was getting that BBC Audio Drama Award, I received a comment on this blog from Wendy of Good Books for Young Souls telling me that she had honoured me with a LIEBSTER BLOG AWARD.


The word 'Liebster' is German for 'beloved' and this award is given by bloggers to bloggers of blogs with fewer than 200 followers in recognition of the fact that their blogs are enjoyed (even 'beloved') and in the hope that this added recognition will lead to their being read and followed by many more people.

The rules are simple: you don't have to accept the award, but if you do, you are asked to thank the blogger who nominated you and nominate five of your own favourite blogs.

Even though I have kept to blogs (as opposed to websites) this wasn't easy because (as you will see from the side-bar on the right) I follow a great many blogs... Anyway, here are five diverse blogs that are well worth a look...

1 Attempted Bloggery

2 Pencil Notes

3 Kevin Kidney

4 Gifts and Dreams

5 It's Always Something...

I hope you enjoy them even a little bit as much as I do...

AND THE WINNER IS...

I am thrilled that at last night's inaugural BBC Audio Drama Awards, I picked up the award for Best Adaptation for The History of Titus Groan, my serialisation of Mervyn Peake's 'Gormenghast' novels.

The awards were presented by David Tennant at a ceremony held in the Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House and here I am clutching it, shortly after the event...


Although Titus was unsuccessful the other two categories for which it was nominated (Best Use of Sound in a Audio Drama and Best Supporting Actor for Carl Prekopp who played Steerpike), the citation for the Adaptation Award praised all aspects of the production:

The judges described this as "a brilliant piece of radio drama. It was a hugely ambitious undertaking to adapt the darkly comic, surreal and visual world of Mervyn Peake's novels for sound and this adaptation is faithful to both the spirit and the landscape of the originals.

The almost Dickensian characters (wonderfully realised by an outstanding cast), the exquisite language and a rich and original soundscape works for both Peake aficionados and new listeners."

The award is engraved with a profile of Prospero taken from Eric Gill's famous statue, 'Prospero and Ariel' which has stood above the front doors to Broadcasting House for the past 80 years.


"The isle is full of noises..." and I've just won an award for adding to them!!


Post-Script on 2 February 2012:

It has been revealed that The History of Titus Groan was runner-up in the Best Use of Sound category in Sunday's Audio Drama Awards and the citation is a credit to the work of Peter Ringrose and his team of Studio Mangers: Anne Bunting, Martha Littlehailes, Jenni Burnett, Mike Etherden, and Alison Craig and the series' Composer Roger Goula:

A sumptuous listen in which the sound montage draws you into the location and psychological aspects of the drama, from the personal to the phantasmagorical, rendering each ambiance in almost forensic detail and beautifully capturing the spirit of the Gormenghast novels.

Images: BS by David Weeks; 'Prospero and Ariel' from R/DV/RS's Photostream

BIRTHDAY FANCIES

Today is the 180th anniversary of the birth of Lewis Carroll on 27 January 1832.

To mark the occasion, here is one of his less-well-known nonsense poems with another of those rediscovered drawings made by my much-younger self...

MY FANCY

I painted her a gushing thing,
With years about a score;
I little thought to find they were
A least a dozen more;
My fancy gave her eyes of blue,
A curly auburn head:
I came to find the blue a green,
The auburn turned to red.

She boxed my ears this morning,
They tingled very much;
I own that I could wish her
A somewhat lighter touch;
And if you ask me how
Her charms might be improved,
I would not have them added to,
But just a few removed!

She has the bear's ethereal grace,
The bland hyaena's laugh,
The footstep of the elephant,
The neck of a giraffe;
I love her still, believe me,
Though my heart its passion hides;
"She's all my fancy painted her,"

But oh! how much besides!

Like so many of Lewis Carroll's verses, this is a parody of a popular poem of its day, now pretty much forgotten. The parodied poem here was 'Alice Gray' by William Mee:

She's all my fancy painted her,
She's lovely, she's divine,
But her heart it is another's,
She never can be mine;
Yet lov'd I as man never lov'd,
A love without decay,
Oh! my heart, my heart is breaking
For the love of Alice Gray!

Her dark brown hair is braided
O'er a brow of spotless white;
Her soft blue eye now languishes,
Now flashes with delight;
Her hair is braided not for me,
The eye is turned away;
Yet my heart, my heart is breaking
For the love of Alice Gray.

I've sunk beneath the summer's sun,
And trembled in the blast;
But my pilgrimage is nearly done,
The weary conflict's past;
And when the green sod wraps my grave,
Oh, his heart, his heart is broken
For the love of Alice Gray.

FORGOTTEN HOBBITS (II)

Back to those lost Hobbits...

In 1967, the year after Gene Deitch's heavilly-condensed (and wildly re-envisioned) film version of Tolkien's tale of Mr Baggins and his journey 'there and back again', America's greatest contemporary illustrator, Maurice Sendak – the man who took us to Where the Wild Things Are – was invited by Tolkien's American publisher to produce new illustrations for the upcoming 30th anniversary edition of the book.

Maurice Sendak's self-portrait with one of his heroes who
would not have endeared him to Professor Tolkien!

Tolkien, who was 75, asked to see some sample illustrations from the 39-year-old Sendak, who grudgingly produced two pieces of art: one showing wood-elves dancing in the moonlight; the other depicting Bilbo sitting outside Bag End, smoking his pipe, as Gandalf arrives to disrupt his morning.


Writing of this latter (and only surviving Sendak Hobbit drawing) Tony DiTerlizzi wrote in the Los Angeles Times last year:

Here is a real passion and understanding of content and audience in these spec pieces. Sendak rendered these in a detailed pen-and-ink style similar to that of the illustrations for Higglety Pigglety Pop! and Little Bear. It hearkens back to epic pastoral imagery seen in etchings by the likes of Rembrandt and Samuel Palmer. If you look closely, you will discover a master at work in the art of subtlety: Notice the heavy crosshatching used to weigh down a world-weary Gandalf contrasted with the open, airy line work that renders the jovial Bilbo. These depictions speak in an artistic conversation that has been ongoing for centuries, yet they are immediate and approachable by the child of today.

Art samples were prepared for Tolkien’s consideration but, unfortunately, due to an error in labelling, the dancing wood-elves were erroneously identified as hobbits. Tolkien, apparently not best-pleased at what he supposed to be the artist's failure to pay adequate attention to the text, refused to approve the commission.

Desperately hoping to resolve the misunderstanding, the publisher arranged a meeting in Oxford between author and artist while Sendak was in the UK for the British publication of Where the Wild Things Are.

But, alas, it was not to be: on the day prior to the planned meeting, Sendak suffered a major heart attack and spent several weeks in a hospital in Birmingham. The meeting was never rescheduled and Sendak never illustrated The Hobbit.

One can only regret that this wonderful illustrator was denied the opportunity to depict the wild things of Middle-earth...


Images: © Maurice Sendak

FORGOTTEN HOBBITS (I)

Busily writing, as I am, about Peter Jackson's forthcoming film of The Hobbit, I was intrigued, recently, to read about two forgotten attempts to visualise – on film and in book form – J R R Tolkien's story about the mild-mannered, stay-at-home Mr Bilbo Baggins whom Gandalf the wizard inveigles into accepting the role of burglar in the employ of a company of dwarves who set out to recover their lost treasure-hoard from the clutches of the dragon Smaug...

Today, I am telling the adventures of one of those lost Hobbits...

In 1964, three years before the Sendak debacle, a Hollywood movie-chancer, William L ('Bill') Snyder snapped up the film rights to The Hobbit for peanuts and passed it to Oscar-winning Czech animator, Eugene Merril ('Gene') Deitch (right) who animated various animated series (including Popeye and Tom & Jerry) and who began work on a screenplay for an animated film with three-dimensional model backgrounds.

The script played fast and lose with the original text (the company of dwarves were dropped and a Princess was introduced!); however, had the project gone ahead it might have developed into something quite intriguing, since Deitch planned to collaborate with the legendary Czech illustrator and puppet film-maker, Jiří Trnka.

But that was not what happened: Snyder and Deitch pitched the film to 20th Century Fox, who turned it down partly because the asking price was too high and the craze for Tolkien (that might have justified Snyder's budget) was still in the future – though nearer than anyone imagined. A matter of months later, Snyder was demanding that Deitch produce a one-reel film of The Hobbit within thirty days. The original contract was for the production of “a full-color motion picture version” of Tolkien's book by June 30, 1966.

Since there was no stipulation that the film had to be animated or of any particular length, Snyder wanted a 12-minute, single reel of 35mm film so that it could be screened in New York before those rights, picked up for a song, ran out. Working with his close friend, the Czech illustrator, Adolf Born, Deitch created a storyboard and filmed the illustrations with a few very-limited animation effects. Herb Lass, an American broadcaster working for the English service on Czechoslovak Radio, narrated the film.

It was finished and shown in a private screening room in New York City with the audience (pulled in from passers-by on the street) who were given a dime a-piece with which to 'pay' for their seats! Snyder secured his hold on the rights which he then sold back for almost $100,000!

You can read the full, crazy story, on Deitch's blog, genedeitchcredits and, below, you can watch the 12-minute, whistle-stop version of The Hobbit – with its Groans and Gablins (instead of Trolls and Goblins), the subterranean owner of the Ring, Golloom, and a dragon named Slag the Terrible...

After watching this supremely succinct first-ever film of The Hobbit, it must, surely, raise questions about Peter Jackson's indulgent two-movie project!

My next post will feature the saga of another forgotten Hobbit...


My thanks to Jen Miller for telling me about this extraordinary cinematic curiosity.

Top image: 'Conversation with Smaug' by J R R Tolkien