BBC Four Timewatch

[froobyone]

This might be interesting.

 

6th June 2011 8PM BBC Four

 

Novelist Andrew Martin presents a documentary examining how the train and the railways came to shape the work of writers and film-makers.

 

Lovers parting at the station, runaway carriages and secret assignations in confined compartments - railways have long been a staple of romance, mystery and period drama. But at the beginning of the railway age, locomotives were seen as frightening and unnatural. Wordsworth decried the destruction of the countryside, while Dickens wrote about locomotives as murderous brutes, bent on the destruction of mere humans. Hardly surprising, as he had been involved in a horrific railway accident himself.

 

Martin traces how trains gradually began to be accepted - Holmes and Watson were frequent passengers - until by the time of The Railway Children they were something to be loved, a symbol of innocence and Englishness. He shows how trains made for unforgettable cinema in The 39 Steps and Brief Encounter, and how when the railways fell out of favour after the 1950s, their plight was highlighted in the films of John Betjeman.

 

Finally, Martin asks whether, in the 21st century, Britain's railways can still stir and inspire artists.

 

Froobyone

[John M Upton]

Just watched it, very enjoyable and well put together. The only blemish was the inclusion of the BBC's standard go to 'railway expert' Christian Wolmar...

[The Stationmaster]

Yes - good stuff albeit with some wonderfully mixed (but still highly enjoyable footage) - thanks for the tip-off (although it was also helped to be noticeable by a column head pic in the 'Radio Times'. The only let down was, not unexpectedly, Wolmar - who carefully explained to us how railway preservation began in this country with John Betjeman's campaign to save St Pancras; quite why anybody employs the bloke as an adjunct to a programme about railways is way beyond my understanding.

[Ressaldar]

I also enjoyed it. But having slated Hitchcock for 'changing trains' from LNER to GWR in the piece about The 39 Steps, did he not fall into the same trap with the scrap lines at Carnforth - were we not looking at some of the lines at Barry?

 

regards

 

Mike

[John M Upton]

I also enjoyed it. But having slated Hitchcock for 'changing trains' from LNER to GWR in the piece about The 39 Steps, did he not fall into the same trap with the scrap lines at Carnforth - were we not looking at some of the lines at Barry?

 

I would not be suprised if that was a deliberate error by the presenter/writer fellow to see if anyone spotted it!! I chuckled heartedly when he remarked how a rivet counter once devoted an entire review of one of his books to the outrageous subject that he had appeared to have invented an entirely new class of tank locomotive that had not existed!!!

[Southernboy]

I watched it and enjoyed most of it, but thought it petered out into a disappointing sentimentality about the end of steam rather than being a champion of later films/books which also featured trains. At the end it lost track of film and literature and focused more on train graveyards. For a viewer interested in the 'film and literature' aspect this would be a disappointment.

 

Just as a 'for instance' the opening sequence to Get cater (1971) is an interesting example of how a train 'post-steam' was used in film to set a mood of urbane modernism. I'm sure there are other examples which could have been used.

 

In view of how the programme was advertised, cutting off the programme at 'the end of steam' was a less than academic exercise in my mind. It probably reinforced the stereotype that people who who like trains are only interested in 'The Golden Age of Steam', which is incorrect on any level.

[Ressaldar]

I would not be suprised if that was a deliberate error by the presenter/writer fellow to see if anyone spotted it!!

 

look out for the comments in Radio Times or on Points of View next week!

 

regards

 

Mike