Friday, 9 May 2014

SMALL SCREEN THEME TIME (Part 5 of 12)


Welcome back to this mini-series of episodes in my continuing weekly blog that mines the scenes of the musical world. This series - Small Screen Theme Time - looks at the wide range of television signature tunes that have been used across the past 60 years. It's a huge topic with the potential to expand beyond the bounds of the known universe, but as time and resources are limited, you'll be pleased to known that I'm concentrating on three key types of TV programming: Drama, Comedy and Sport.  

This fifth episode takes us past the half-way point in our look at drama show theme tunes: we've covered police and detective shows, westerns and we're now entering the closing straights of historical drama. With Science Fiction and Fantasy, Spy and ITC - plus contemporary drama - still to come, there's plenty more fine reading and listening to come.

You might wish to avail your selves of the episodes thus far:

So, with the aid of You Tube clips and an array of pictures, let's dive straight in to the latest episode: Historical Drama - the 1990s and beyond.

DRAMA: HISTORICAL - The 1990s 


The Darling Buds Of May
Yorkshire Television (1991-1993)
ITV were first out of the blocks in 1991 with an adaptation of the five H E Bates novels that featured the Larkin family and their adventures out in the Kent countryside. First published between the late 50s and 1970, by the 1990s, they had *qualified* as historical drama and the Yorkshire TV production also underlined the thick vein of humour that ran through the books. The show - taking the title of the first book, The Darling Buds Of May, was well received. David Jason starred as the familial patriarch Pop Larkin and was supported by a young Catherine Zeta Jones as his eldest daughter and Pam Ferris as his wife. The theme music - composed by Barrie Guard - was suitably uplifting and evocative of its 1950s era. The show only ran to 11 episodes across three series, but it was popular and is no doubt fondly remembered today. For Catherine Zeta Jones, of course, this was her big break and Hollywood was to beckon.


The Camomile Lawn
Channel 4 (1992)
Channel 4 - now into its second decade as the UK's fourth terrestrial TV channel - made a bold move with a superb adaptation of The Camomile Lawn. The book - written by Mary Wesley in 1984 - was set in a Cornwall coastal village in the last summer before World War II broke out. Its framing device is a 1990s funeral of a much-missed family member - and the remaining family then recall those earlier days and begin to understand how everything changed for them as a result of the war. The TV version ran to five episode in 1992 and was well presented with some excellent scripts, fine photography and sterling performances from actors such as Felicity Kendal, Paul Eddington, Jennifer Ehle, Tara Fitzgerald, Claire Bloom, Toby Stephens and Virginia McKenna.  The theme music was based on Ravel's String Quartet in F Major.






Middlemarch - BBC (1994)

Over at the BBC, it was clear that costume drama and classic novels was going to be the order of the day - and during the mid-1990s, they certainly regained their skill at producing high quality - but popular - drama. It was the dramatisation of George Eiliot's Middlemarch in 1994 which set the standard: sumptuous sets, location filming in authentic settings and first class scripts and acting. Andrew Davis handled the script-writing and he was to be a lynch-pin figure for the BBC during that decade - as we shall see. Middlemarch starred Rufus Sewell, Patrick Malahide and Juliet Aubrey amongst its cast and it proved to be a huge hit here in the UK and, critically, in the States with the New York Times saying that it "mesmerised millions" and "set off a craze for Victorian fiction".   

House Of Eliott
BBC (1994-1996) 
1994 also saw the BBC's next foray into original historical drama, The House Of Eliott. It revolved around two sisters in 1920s London who set-up a dress-making business which, over time, became the haute-couture fashion house of the series title. Stella Gonet and Louise Lombard starred as the sisters and the show was created by Jean Marsh and Eileen Atkins who - as we may know - had *form* in this location and era with Upstairs Downstairs. The drama was also notable for a very early performance from Minnie Driver. It ran for three years across 34 episodes and its soundtrack was one of the first to be recorded and broadcast in stereo.

Cadfael - starring Derek Jacobi as Brother Cadfael
Central Television (1994-1998)

Not to be outdone, ITV - in the guise of Central Television - opted for an adaptation of The Cadfael Chronicles, a series of novels written in the 1970s and 1980s by Ellis Peters. Set back in the twelfth century and retitled Cadfael for TV, the series starred Derek Jacobi as the titular hero, a monk who was also adept at solving mysteries and is a kind of  early proto-detective. Each show was feature-length and although it was well received, only thirteen episodes were made during its four series run through to 1998.

The following year - 1995 - the BBC produced two very different historical dramas. One was a further Andrew-Davis adaptation of a classical novel - the other based on Neil Munro's Para Handy books set in Glasgow and the Western Isles of Scotland back in the 1930s. 
Pride & Prejudice
Mr Darcy (with suitably dry shirt) and Elizabeth Bennett
BBC (1995)
The classic novel was none other than Pride & Prejudice, the Jane Austen work that had seen many TV and movie versions before. But Andrew Davis turned up the *smoldering love* quotient quite considerably and his screenplays were the talk of the UK when first broadcast. Colin Firth was cast as Mr Darcy with Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennett, a very different role from the one she played in Channel 4's The Camomile Lawn in 1992. Whilst viewers no doubt recall the site of Mr Darcy emerging from a lake in a wet shirt, it was the scriptwriting and production that was so memorable. 



The Tales Of Para Handy
"The Vital Spark" on the River Clyde
BBC (1995-1996)

The Scottish-set series was The Tales Of Para Handy, a second TV outing (the first was back in the mid-1960s) for the gentle humour of the everyday workings of a River Clyde steamer, The Vital Spark. The humour was "very Scottish" as one critic said at the time, but there was something endearing about the series, almost a bit like an early Ealing Studios film: the show starred actor and comic Gregor Fisher in the lead role and it ran for just a couple of years and only nine episodes. The theme music was an odd mix of a traditional Scots tune with some added synthesiser: it shouldn't have worked, but somehow, it just did.


Young Indiana Jones
Paramount/Amblin (1992-1996)
A rare incursion from the USA took place in the mid-1990s. With the Western now a lost cause - and the era of multi-channel TV and streaming still a few years away - there were few historical dramas that traveled well across the Atlantic. One such was The Young Indian Jones Chronicles, screened in the USA between 1992 and 1996 and arriving on our shores in 1995. It was a prequel to the blockbuster films and was initially intended as an *educational* series for younger folks. The set-up was that in the present day, a 93-year old Indiana Jones related a hair-raising tale of his youth each week, the chosen periods ranging from 1905 through to the 1930s.

 The series was co-produced by Paramount TV with Amblin Entertainment and was executive produced by George Lucas who had directed the films.

  It ran to four seasons and some specials making 28 episodes in total.





Our Friends In The North
BBC (1996)

 Possibly the most influential - if not long-running - historical dramas was broadcast by the BBC in 1996. This was Our Friends In The North, a sweeping story that explored the lives of four 1960s friends through to (the then) present day. Written by Peter Flannery and set In Newcastle-upon-Tyne, it starred a number of highly promising actors, each of whom has since gone on to become very successful indeed: Christopher Ecclestone, Gina McKee, Daniel Craig and Mark Strong. Although fictional, it did involve real historical events and real people along the way and this provided a grounded authenticity to the production. It also featured a soundtrack with carefully chosen contemporary pop songs which served to underscore the relevant era.   

The Grand - Granada (1997)
In some ways, an ITV drama from 1997 was also a little bit of a land-breaking production: this was The Grand, a drama concerning the lives and times of the family who ran a 1920s hotel in Manchester. It was interesting because it was created  - and all 18 episodes written - by Russel T Davies who would later go on in 2005 to bring back Doctor Who. The series featured Susan Hampshire, Tim Healey, Mark McGann and Julia St John.  

There were two seasons - one in 1997, one in 1998 - and the stories were later novelised by Catrin Collier.

 Theme Tune: Not currently available



  



Our Mutual Friend  - BBC (1998)
As the 1990s raced towards the new millennium, there are two more historical dramas that we need to look at - and both were typical in many ways of the tried and trusted shows that TV networks fall back on because they know they'll be "bankers". In 1998, the BBC re-made Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend, a three-part epic which won all manner of awards for its cast and creators. Each part ran to two hours and amongst the actors involved were Paul McGann, Keeley Hawes, Timothy Spall, Anna Friel, Pam Ferris, David Morrissey and Margaret Tyzack. The Historic Dockyards in Chatham served admirably for the nineteenth century setting and helped the show to win one of four BAFTAs the following year.


The Aristocrats - BBC/RTE (1999)


The final series was a BBC affair with co-production finance from RTE in Ireland. This was The Aristocrats, a six-part drama based on the biography of the five Lennox Sisters by Stella Tilyard. Set in the second half of 18th century, it was a lavish costume affair - but it didn't shy away from the grim reality of every day life for the "ordinary people". Anne Marie-Duff, Alun Armstrong, Ben Daniels, Julian Fellowes ( who would later go on to create Downton Abbey as we shall see next time), Clive Swift and Sian Philips were amongst the star cast. The theme music in the first episode - complete with voice-over - was oddly reminiscent of Gone With The Wind.

And so, that takes us to the end of the decade, and indeed the end of a century and millennium.

Next time, I look at the new century and take the story through to the present day: there is a veritable explosion of historical dramas to consider, so time for some final research and I'll see you next week.

Alan Dorey
12th May 2014  

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