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ATARASHII GAKKO! - HANAKO (Official Music Video)
'Hanako of the Toilet' is a famous Japanese urban myth of a girl ghost that haunts... well, you can work it out for yourself. (I th...
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Some good news - Helen Grant's story 'The Sea Change' from ST11 has been nominated for a Bram Stoker Award. This follows an inqu...
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Go here to purchase this disturbing image of Santa plus some fiction as well. New stories by: Helen Grant Christopher Harman Michael Chis...
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Thanks to Helen for taking the time to reply to my questions about her life as a writer and her new novel, which sounds fascinating! Lots...
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This is a very interesting take on Monty. I have an audiotape of The Lodestone dramatised for South African radio at around the same time as the BBC version. The SA treatment follows the British version virtually word-for-word, although the actors' delivery is considerably slower, allowing in particular MR James (played by Hugh Rouse, who pretty much cornered the buffers' acting market in English-speaking South Africa) very much more statesmanship than Mr March's take. Unfortunately both pieces suffer from the same woefully 'oo arr oo arr' interpretations of the Cornish dialect; this may be understandable in the SA version, but absolutely unforgivable by the BBC.
If I've a main gripe it's with both characterisations of MR James. Monty was born in 1862, making him 30 during the events of The Lodestone. Yet both Rouse and March, no doubt upon direction, play him as a very much older man (even factoring in the natural premature ageing of an individual who led such a cloistered life). I see the dilemma: 1892 is necessary for the drama, while Monty needs to be an academic of some weight and hinterland. A small point, though, since Monty's true year of birth bears no relationship to this narrative. Artistic licence duly allowed, The Lodestone is terrific. Did Ms Hodgson only write it as a play, or was it ever a short story?
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