:00:19. > :00:23.Tonight on Review, a box of Christmas treats. Peter Jackson
:00:23. > :00:33.kicks off a new toll kin franchise, with Martin Freeman as the The
:00:33. > :00:34.
:00:34. > :00:44.Hobbit. Matthew Bourne's long awaited return to Tchaikovsky, with
:00:44. > :00:54.a Gothic interpretation of Sleeping Beauty. Raymond Briggs's beloved
:00:54. > :00:56.
:00:56. > :01:01.The Snowman returns to our screens with a canine side kick. The Spice
:01:01. > :01:11.Box of Earth back catalogue gets the West End treatment. And the
:01:11. > :01:13.
:01:13. > :01:17.dark side of Hitchcock. I'm joined by Mark Thomas and David
:01:17. > :01:21.Schneider. It has been nine years since Peter Jackson released the
:01:21. > :01:27.last of his trilogy based on Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Now
:01:27. > :01:34.he's back to the binning, for not one but three prequels.
:01:34. > :01:39.He has returned to Middle-Earth for the first return of the The Hobbit,
:01:39. > :01:43.starring Martin Freeman and the cream of English ago theing title.
:01:44. > :01:49.The Lord of the Rings was an unbridled triumph commercially and
:01:49. > :01:53.critically. It remains one of the biggest-grossing films of all time.
:01:53. > :01:59.It was almost inevitable that Hollywood's attention would turn to
:01:59. > :02:03.Tolkien's shorter and earlier book. Grace Kelly and Cate Blanchett
:02:03. > :02:13.reprise their roles joined by others. But the most welcome return
:02:13. > :02:13.
:02:14. > :02:17.comes in the form of Andy Serkis as Gollum.
:02:17. > :02:22.Safe paths in the dark. Shut up. didn't say anything. I wasn't
:02:22. > :02:25.talking to you. Jackson has opted for 3D and a higher frame rate to
:02:25. > :02:35.bring the world to the big screen. Much of the weight of expectation
:02:35. > :02:37.
:02:37. > :02:42.rests on the shoulders of Freeman, as the reluctant adventurer Nobody
:02:42. > :02:52.home, go away and bother someone else, there is far too many dwarves
:02:52. > :02:56.in my dining room. If this is a joke, it is in very poor taste.
:02:56. > :03:01.Jackson's latest epic is at the cutting edge of movie technology,
:03:02. > :03:07.is there enough plot and character as well as action to satisfy the h
:03:07. > :03:12.hordes of the ring. The hordes of the ring will
:03:12. > :03:20.probably lap it up, it is a slight children's book, it is three films.
:03:20. > :03:24.This was over two-and-a-half hours long. Is it simply just a big
:03:24. > :03:33.money-making exercise? I'm a complete Tolkien geek. The sort of
:03:33. > :03:36.geek who will say that should be high, elvish there not middle. A
:03:36. > :03:39.lot of Tolkien fans dismiss The Hobbit, it is a very slight book,
:03:39. > :03:44.the stakes are totally different. In the Lord of the Rings, there is
:03:44. > :03:49.the whole of the world is at stake, where as in The Hobbit there is,
:03:49. > :03:53.let's go and get gold. They beef it up a bit with the homeland thing.
:03:53. > :03:57.But it is about going and getting gold, do you fancy an adventure.
:03:57. > :04:02.Does it lend itself to three installments? They have tried to
:04:02. > :04:08.beef it up. Let me first say that by the end I did want more. Which
:04:08. > :04:13.is good. But by the beginning, the first hour, I wanted less. I mean
:04:13. > :04:19.the first hour is really turgid. It breaks all the rules of screen
:04:19. > :04:24.writing, where there is scene, every scene has to move you gone,
:04:24. > :04:29.join the scene as late as possible. The first 40 minutes we hadn't left
:04:30. > :04:33.Bilbo Baggins's house? It went on, and on, and on. An elf came in and
:04:33. > :04:36.a dwarf? In the book it is an action adventure story, let's have
:04:36. > :04:40.the action and adventure. By the time you get to the bits where it
:04:40. > :04:45.all kicks off, which are great. The bits with the goblin king, Gollum,
:04:45. > :04:49.by the time you get to that big, I was in half a mind to think, go on
:04:49. > :04:53.Gollum, just eat him. Just do him and get this thing done with. Those
:04:53. > :05:00.bits are great. I believe that actually, when you look at a film
:05:00. > :05:04.like that, they could have really done with brushing up on their
:05:04. > :05:09.martial arts and movies like that, and go someone like John Wu, who
:05:09. > :05:16.knows how to move an action movie forward. A lot of the action is
:05:16. > :05:23.about the dwarves, they do come in one-by-one, it is a retinue? Trying
:05:23. > :05:29.to recognise them, one of the things about the film is it is shot
:05:29. > :05:36.in a high frame rate. It is the make-up. It is being released in
:05:36. > :05:41.various versions, you can see it in 2-D or 3-D and I saw it high frame-
:05:41. > :05:45.rate, don't, you can see the make- up and applied wart. It is like
:05:45. > :05:49.children's television. It looks like video, it is the most
:05:49. > :05:56.sophisticated film ever, and it looks like individual yo. With the
:05:56. > :06:01.dwarves, all I saw was the noses. That is right, if you film on high-
:06:01. > :06:04.definition, 48-frames per second and you are filming on set, on that
:06:04. > :06:11.high-definition you will get a really well defined set. That is
:06:11. > :06:15.what they get. A big problem for me, the stakes, were they high enough.
:06:15. > :06:18.Nobody died. Spoiler alert. In the Lord of the rings, people get
:06:18. > :06:23.killed off, there is a sense of grief and loss. It is big emotions.
:06:23. > :06:27.Here they talk on thousands of goblins. It is only the first
:06:27. > :06:31.installment. Let's lock at dwarves here. This is where there is --
:06:31. > :06:36.let's look at dwarves here, this is where there is actually a chase
:06:36. > :06:46.sequence. Was that a wolf? Are there wolves out there? Wolves, no
:06:46. > :07:00.
:07:01. > :07:08.It means the pack isn't far behind. Ork pack? Who did you tell about
:07:08. > :07:18.your quest beyond kin. Who did you tell? No-one, I swear. What is
:07:18. > :07:23.going on? You are being hunted. There is Richard Armitage, and Ken
:07:23. > :07:28.Stott, all there as dwarves? One of the problems for me, I'm not a
:07:28. > :07:38.Tolkien fan, I'm not into the genre. What carried me through the Lord of
:07:38. > :07:38.
:07:38. > :07:45.the Rings is Vigo Mortenson, Richard Armitage, he's a dwarf.
:07:45. > :07:49.Martin Freeman is too. He has a nice hesitancy to him. A kind of
:07:49. > :07:54.incredibly comedy. He has this amazing sense of bewildered be
:07:55. > :07:58.fuddlement. You know, he does that wonderful little double take and a
:07:58. > :08:03.sigh, you automatically fall for his vulnerability. He's very human
:08:03. > :08:07.for a Hobbit, he brings humanity to it. But as you say, nobody dies, it
:08:07. > :08:12.is a more comedic performance? of the comedy had my shuddering,
:08:12. > :08:18.especially in the first, endless hour, where he's going "don't take
:08:18. > :08:21.any more food". And the doilies? was surely, a bit of editing would
:08:21. > :08:25.have helped. Let's talk about the way they created the world. Peter
:08:25. > :08:29.Jackson has all the sets. You think they look just like a video game
:08:29. > :08:34.almost? They don't have the subtlty of what video actually looks like
:08:34. > :08:38.when it is rendered like film? seemed to me extraordinary, it
:08:38. > :08:42.looks like a cartoon or video game. It has to be said, its target
:08:42. > :08:50.market presumably is teenage boys. I took three teenage boys, and they
:08:50. > :08:54.loved it. They loved Gollum? They were hooked from the beginning,
:08:54. > :08:59.they were perfectly happy to go along with the build up to the
:08:59. > :09:02.world. Half way through I was gripped, once you get into the
:09:02. > :09:06.goblin kingdom and you have the falls and it is exciting. From that
:09:06. > :09:12.point on wards I kept the contrast between Freeman's goodness and
:09:12. > :09:16.niceness, and the dark world threatening him. The necromancers
:09:16. > :09:20.coming on and that. There were wonderful moments with the affects
:09:20. > :09:24.of the eagles picking up the dwarves, which I thought looked
:09:24. > :09:30.beautiful. It harked back to the Lord of the Rings. There were bits
:09:30. > :09:36.that looked amazing. Especially the goblin kingdom, the character of
:09:36. > :09:39.the gob Britain king of the great. It comes -- goblin king was great.
:09:39. > :09:43.It comes back to using up the suspense time from the beginning,
:09:43. > :09:45.you can't take your time and build up suspense and make it really
:09:46. > :09:49.scary, they have lost that element. It should be scary, I remember
:09:49. > :09:53.reading it to my daughter and she was scared. The problem with the
:09:53. > :09:58.scaryness is the thing about nobody dying, and they take on so many, in
:09:58. > :10:02.the goblin kingdom they take on so many goblins, it is not believable.
:10:03. > :10:06.I want to believe Middle Earth is real. When they were swinging
:10:06. > :10:11.across that bridge that they could kill that many? There is a scene
:10:11. > :10:15.with the trolls, it is problematic, you don't know if you were meant to
:10:15. > :10:19.laugh at emthis, they were like West Ham fans viewed through the
:10:19. > :10:23.70s the way they speak. But then they could kill the dwarves, the
:10:23. > :10:30.stakes isn't high, we have been laughing at them. We know you will
:10:30. > :10:34.go for episode two and three? even on a long haul flight. I might
:10:34. > :10:37.be dragged along by teenagers who liked it. Gregory Bourillon is
:10:37. > :10:42.arguably Britain's best known choreography, creating hits and
:10:42. > :10:49.headlines with his fabulous flamboyant take on classical and
:10:49. > :10:52.contemporary dance. Now he has completed his hat trick of
:10:52. > :10:58.Tchaikovsky's ballet, with the story of Sleeping Beauty. The story
:10:58. > :11:03.was first published in 1697, it is a timeless classic.
:11:03. > :11:10.The 1890 ballet to music by Tchaikovsky, stuck firmly to the
:11:10. > :11:13.story of a wicked fairy, a Princess woken from a 100-year curse by the
:11:13. > :11:23.kiss of a Prince. This being Matthew Bourne, however, things
:11:23. > :11:24.
:11:24. > :11:28.were never going to be so straight forward.
:11:28. > :11:37.Bourne made waves in the ballet world, with striking
:11:37. > :11:42.reinterpretations of classics, including a spectacular Nutcracker.
:11:42. > :11:47.It was his all-male Swan Lake that catapulted him to fame and changed
:11:47. > :11:52.the face of ballet. The history of dance has become a very important
:11:52. > :11:57.element in what I do. As a choreographer, I love to dippinging
:11:57. > :12:02.into different eras of dance, different styles of dance. But the
:12:02. > :12:07.classical ballets that I have reinterm preted, I'm very con--
:12:07. > :12:12.interm preted, I'm very conscious of them. It has taken seven years
:12:12. > :12:16.to return to Sleeping Beauty, working with long time collaborator,
:12:16. > :12:21.set and costume designer, Lez Brotherston. In this version,
:12:21. > :12:31.Princess Aurora is born in 1890, like the original ballet. After her
:12:31. > :12:33.
:12:33. > :12:36.big sleep, resurfaces in 2011. The show is selling fast, but does this
:12:36. > :12:46.radical reimagining, complete with vampires, deliver something for the
:12:46. > :12:47.
:12:47. > :12:51.audience to sink their teeth into? I can't imagine how many Sleeping
:12:51. > :12:54.Beauty you have seen, does he do something original with a straight
:12:54. > :12:58.forward plot? The thing about Sleeping Beauty, in the normal
:12:58. > :13:03.ballet format, there is not a lot of plot. Second half I remember
:13:03. > :13:07.reading about it in a ballet annual, now everyone dances a lot. Gregory
:13:07. > :13:16.Bourillon loves that version and the music very much. I think --
:13:16. > :13:21.Gregory Bourillon loves that very much, the -- Matthew Bourne loves
:13:21. > :13:25.that very much, he starts tell ago really good story, he brings in the
:13:25. > :13:29.baby Aurora, the character is usually a dead body at the back of
:13:29. > :13:34.the stage. She's a naughty babey and puppet and crawls up walls and
:13:34. > :13:39.is funny. When she's 21, in his version, she's a tomorrow boy and
:13:39. > :13:43.in love with the gardener. Studly you have a Tory, really before you
:13:43. > :13:47.haven't had a story -- suddenly you have a story, really you haven't
:13:47. > :13:52.had a story before. He pays tribute to the ballet while he's doing it.
:13:52. > :13:56.As you say, there is a lovely charming start with the Princess
:13:56. > :14:00.Aurora as a puppet. He manages to bring in the darkness, with the
:14:00. > :14:04.dream sequence is the faceless children, which I thought was
:14:04. > :14:09.terrific. I love the idea, it was a very subtle way of being quite
:14:09. > :14:13.dark? For me it was, I have to say, I felt quite mixed about the whole
:14:13. > :14:18.thing. For me, one of the fundamental problems with it, was
:14:18. > :14:21.that actually it didn't have an orchestra there. It just, because
:14:21. > :14:27.ballet has to be a spectacle, you have to be engulfed by it, if you
:14:27. > :14:30.haven't got it, if you are doing Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty, and
:14:30. > :14:33.you forget the orchestra, that is fundamental. Did it matter to you?
:14:33. > :14:36.It does matter, it is entirely about money, it is a small
:14:36. > :14:39.production that will tour. So they have done the next best thing, they
:14:39. > :14:44.have specially recorded a score, and it's very heavily cut. Sleeping
:14:44. > :14:51.Beauty can run to four hours, and this runs to about two and a bit.
:14:51. > :14:55.Lucky Peter Jackson wasn't directing. You miss the orchestra
:14:55. > :14:59.agree, I felt a moment where I went, shame, it is not a live orchestra.
:14:59. > :15:03.There was so much on offer. I'm not a particular ballet fan, it didn't
:15:03. > :15:07.matter, it's theatre, it is theatrical, it is all about the
:15:07. > :15:15.story and the characters. My prejudice about ballet is it is
:15:15. > :15:19.very neutral. Here you had a Aurora was a clear character, like you say,
:15:19. > :15:23.a tomboy, there was a wonderful dance where she took off her shoes
:15:23. > :15:29.and went barefoot. Visually it was extraordinary. The define was great.
:15:29. > :15:35.Having the idea of bringing in a figure of Carbosa's son and making
:15:35. > :15:41.him dark but handsome? It is inspirational to set up a love
:15:41. > :15:45.triangle, and Cardok, the son of the imagined fairy comes back to
:15:46. > :15:50.seek her revenge. That does set up drama where there is none. Bourne
:15:50. > :15:53.is incredibly good at telling each thing. You probably found, you can
:15:53. > :15:56.understand every single thing that goes on. He is the great
:15:56. > :16:01.communicator of dance. Though I agree with you about the music, I
:16:01. > :16:07.also, seeing the ballet over and over, you think here is the Rose
:16:07. > :16:10.and the bit where they Waltz round. For me he made me their afresh. I
:16:10. > :16:13.felt excited about hearing it differently. This is the first time
:16:14. > :16:17.I have seen a Matthew Bourne production, I was really excited
:16:17. > :16:21.and looked forward to it, it came highly recommended, it would be
:16:21. > :16:24.ingenious and inventive, actually I felt vaguely disappointed by it.
:16:24. > :16:28.What I thought was really interesting, for me, when they
:16:29. > :16:32.moved the different styles of dance through the era, the bit that
:16:32. > :16:37.always stood out was the classical ballet, that was the most thrilling
:16:37. > :16:40.bit. Interesting you were talking about paying homeage to other, the
:16:40. > :16:44.Fred Astaire, the moving walkway, that was terrific, again, you are
:16:44. > :16:49.right, when it came really alive was that wonderful duet when she's
:16:50. > :16:55.asleep with Karadok, that was incredibly moving? And incredibly
:16:55. > :17:00.imagined. There is quite a lot of paying specific tribute, he makes
:17:00. > :17:05.it into his own contemporary take on it. He is brilliant at making
:17:05. > :17:09.movement tell stories. That is what he does so superbly. It didn't jar?
:17:09. > :17:12.No it seemed to always come from the character. That is what I liked.
:17:12. > :17:16.There wasn't this sort of bowing down either to the score or to
:17:16. > :17:21.tradition, it was like what is happening in my story, that is what
:17:21. > :17:30.I loved. Do you think that Matthew feels pressure, when this was
:17:30. > :17:35.Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty, Assad letter's wells, because, --
:17:35. > :17:39.Sadler's Wells, do you think we expect extraordinary from him?
:17:39. > :17:44.is the most relaxed of choreographers, he does, he always
:17:44. > :17:47.makes money, he prides himself on making money. He does these
:17:47. > :17:51.Christmas shows that people adore. He has things he would like to
:17:51. > :17:54.explore. The passage where the fairies come in, which is spooky
:17:55. > :17:58.and frighten, and detailed in terms of movement -- frightening, and
:17:58. > :18:02.detailed in terms of movement, he has all these ideas in his head
:18:02. > :18:06.that he is moving towards. I didn't like that because it wasn't part of
:18:06. > :18:11.the story. You took your daughter there, what did she think of it?
:18:11. > :18:15.She was 12 and loved it, adored it. There was an interesting thing
:18:15. > :18:20.where you say every year he does this and people come along. You did
:18:20. > :18:24.felt this is a slightly posh panto, something that happens on a regular
:18:24. > :18:34.basis. As a first-timer, I feel a little bit what is going on what
:18:34. > :18:43.
:18:43. > :18:48.are the rules here? For me it felt a little sack cin. I thought the
:18:48. > :18:50.vampires Sachs cin. Did you think the vampires were like that? I was
:18:51. > :18:57.rooting for them. If you want to find out more about
:18:57. > :19:01.the production you can in next week's Imagine, it is on Tuesday at
:19:01. > :19:05.10.35 on BBC One. The show is touring until the end of May.
:19:05. > :19:08.Following link on the website. Slumping in front of the television
:19:08. > :19:12.after an overindulgent festive dinner, you can be reasonably
:19:12. > :19:15.certain a number of TV institutions will pack up, something tragic in
:19:15. > :19:24.EastEnders, an old Morecambe and Wise, perhaps the sound of music.
:19:25. > :19:28.This year a much-loved story has a new character.
:19:28. > :19:32.The Oscar-nominated animation, The Snowman, has appeared on Channel 4
:19:32. > :19:37.at Christmas for the last 30 years. Even if you don't have a TV, you
:19:37. > :19:44.won't have escaped its hit single. # We're walking in the air
:19:44. > :19:49.# We're floating in the moonlit sky It was based on a book by Raymond
:19:49. > :19:51.Briggs, who gave his blessing to the same team to produce a sequel,
:19:51. > :19:55.The Snowman and the Snowdog. # I can see the ground
:19:55. > :20:00.# I can't see you # See our home town
:20:00. > :20:04.# I can't see you Carefully crafted from 17,000 hand-
:20:04. > :20:08.drawn frames, it tells the story of a boy who moves into a new house
:20:08. > :20:11.and discovers a box hidden under the floor boards. It contains a
:20:11. > :20:16.mysterious selection of objects, and an old photo, which inspires
:20:16. > :20:24.him to set to work in the back garden. But this time there's a
:20:24. > :20:34.little snow to spare. The soundtrack includes the song Light
:20:34. > :20:35.
:20:35. > :20:40.The Night, written by Andy Burrows and Elan Escari. It includes a new
:20:40. > :20:44.flying sequence. # Like a shooting star
:20:44. > :20:50.Diving through the dark # See how we light the night
:20:50. > :20:53.# How we light the night Will the arrival of the sock-eared
:20:53. > :20:59.snowdog melt the hearts of hundreds and thousands of children and
:20:59. > :21:03.grown-up kids. Are you a purist Mark, or were you
:21:03. > :21:08.happy to see a redraw? I really liked it. I feel like I have made
:21:08. > :21:11.an admission, I have come out and been a fan here. I adored it. I
:21:11. > :21:14.adored this kind of stuff. I think one of the interesting things about
:21:14. > :21:17.it as well, is this is a Christmas event, it is one of those events
:21:17. > :21:21.where you sit round with the family and you can watch this thing
:21:21. > :21:28.together. That is a nice thing. Christmas is about rituals. This
:21:28. > :21:32.brings in a TV ritual. I really liked the fun they had with it,
:21:32. > :21:36.backreferencing the old snowman, and playing around with some of it.
:21:36. > :21:41.A lot of it is very similar to the original. The flying sequences,
:21:41. > :21:44.meeting Santa, out on the Pole, all that kind of stuff. But there was
:21:44. > :21:47.enough there to tweak a tear. Basically it is the same story, you
:21:47. > :21:52.have the little boy and so forth, this time with his mother in the
:21:52. > :21:56.house in the country. But there is this great simplicity, it seemed to
:21:56. > :22:01.me after watching The Hobbit, it was like, thank God it is something
:22:01. > :22:05.simply rendered and how lovely? thought how hard it is to do magic.
:22:05. > :22:09.It seems to have all the same ingredients, yet to me it didn't
:22:09. > :22:12.have the magic. I thought if I were a child and I watched that one
:22:12. > :22:18.first, I would be so disappointed. Almost everything about it is a bit
:22:18. > :22:23.more crude. And a bit more brash, and a bit more brightly coloured,
:22:23. > :22:27.where The Snowman had this wonderful melancholy undertow to it.
:22:27. > :22:31.This is trying to entertain and charm us. I just felt it didn't at
:22:31. > :22:35.all. Because actually there is a melancholy in this country, and
:22:35. > :22:41.Raymond Briggs wanted the whole thing about The Snowman to be about
:22:41. > :22:44.death? What do you want, the boy's dog dies, you want melancholy! (in
:22:44. > :22:48.an American accent) it is interesting, I loved the original
:22:48. > :22:52.snowman, it has a lot of emotional connection, my daughters grew up
:22:52. > :22:57.with it. I got a bad back carrying my daughter through the flying
:22:57. > :23:02.sequence over and over again. drank a lot of Irn Bru with it!
:23:02. > :23:06.think if you hadn't seen that one, this would still be just as magical.
:23:06. > :23:09.I don't think it would. It was full of yearning, actually, it is full
:23:09. > :23:13.of loss. Is it nostalgic for you because you know the original and
:23:14. > :23:17.it goes back 30 years? There is an element of nostalgia, when they
:23:17. > :23:21.lift the floor board and find the box with the original snowman bits
:23:21. > :23:25.in it, you know and recognise them immediately. There is one thing
:23:25. > :23:30.certainly not the same, that is the music? Yes, the music is a sign of
:23:30. > :23:35.what's wrong with it. It is just crude and effort-ful, I feel that
:23:35. > :23:41.all the time it is incredibly insistent, it is trying to generate
:23:41. > :23:47.an emotion. Don't you think that is to us, we're Aled Jones-ing about
:23:47. > :23:52.the new version. Aled Jones wasn't the main man. But the whole idea
:23:52. > :23:55.this is a childhood innocence before the fall and the world
:23:55. > :23:58.changes? The music for me didn't work, if you hadn't seen The
:23:58. > :24:03.Snowman. There were two jarring moments where I thought the music
:24:03. > :24:08.crashed, one is that bit where they are doing the flying sequence, and
:24:08. > :24:14.you think, a power ballad, and your heart sinks a little about with
:24:14. > :24:19.that. And then they have the bit where they have the Tim Burton,
:24:19. > :24:24.Edward Scissorhand music with the sparkly bits and coral voices, you
:24:24. > :24:32.think they could do better than that. There are some modern
:24:32. > :24:36.references, when they are flying they are going across The Eye and
:24:36. > :24:42.The Shard? The home life though, no iPad, and a child playing with a
:24:42. > :24:46.plane, that doesn't happen any more. What we like about it, after The
:24:46. > :24:56.Hobbit, it is the simplicity about the animation, the classical score,
:24:56. > :24:57.
:24:57. > :25:00.and of the story, it offers us nostalgia, I suppose. I liked the
:25:00. > :25:03.dog. I would rather it was more about the dog and less the
:25:03. > :25:08.repcation of what you already had. I didn't like things -- repcation
:25:08. > :25:13.of what you already had, I didn't like the grumpy penguin, that is
:25:13. > :25:18.against the spirit of the magical world, and introducing an adult
:25:18. > :25:28.sensibility into it. You were saying about the Internet, come on,
:25:28. > :25:28.
:25:28. > :25:32.we are talking about flying snowman. Everything is a trilogy, we will
:25:32. > :25:39.have to have a third now. Then the prequel, with the snowflakes and
:25:39. > :25:44.everything. It does beg the question, why
:25:44. > :25:48.remake it, The Snowman reboot, like Batman Begins, it is not a whole
:25:48. > :25:52.new story, it hasn't changed, why redo it? I would have liked them to
:25:52. > :25:59.re-think it more if they were going to remake it. We will have a
:25:59. > :26:06.prequel of It's A Wonderful Life. But The Snowman snow premier on
:26:06. > :26:12.Channel 4 on Christmas Eve at 8.00, the original on the night before.
:26:12. > :26:17.Scary, Ginger, Sporty and Posh, burst own to the scene in 1996
:26:17. > :26:25.screaming The Girl. The Spice Box of Earth went on to sell 120
:26:25. > :26:31.million records, before their hits were given the Mamma Mia! And We
:26:31. > :26:41.Will Rock You. Jennifer Saunders and others have knitted it into a
:26:41. > :26:44.
:26:44. > :26:49.West End catalogue, Viva Forever!. The story is around wannabe
:26:49. > :26:53.popstars, entering a talent competition by bears more than a
:26:53. > :26:58.passing resemblance to the X Factor. Only one of the group, Viva, played
:26:58. > :27:02.by Hannah John Kayman, makes it through the opening rounds, who has
:27:02. > :27:12.to choose between her friends and the chance of stardom. The lure of
:27:12. > :27:20.
:27:20. > :27:26.fame wins out. Another plot strand concerns Viva's
:27:26. > :27:33.relationship with her adoptive mother Lauren, played by Sally-Anne
:27:33. > :27:43.Triplet. Viva is concerned she might want to track down her mother.
:27:43. > :27:43.
:27:43. > :27:47.# Mamma I love you # Mamma I care
:27:47. > :27:53.So are The Spice Girls songs strong enough to sustain a full length
:27:53. > :27:58.show, and can Viva Forever! Give Mamma Mia! A run for its money.
:27:58. > :28:03.David, did it spice up your life? It most definitely did. There were
:28:03. > :28:09.two big problems with it, the first is that the back catalogue is not
:28:09. > :28:14.big. They have three or four great songs. The rest is padding. Mamma
:28:14. > :28:19.Mia! Had 30-odd songs to choose from. The other problem is I felt
:28:19. > :28:21.the show didn't release its chimp enough. It was like almost as if
:28:21. > :28:25.the choreography was a bit apologetic for some of the songs.
:28:25. > :28:30.And it was only once you got into the second half of the second half
:28:30. > :28:37.that it really took off. But, I would say, that the script is
:28:37. > :28:42.brilliant, it is a very interesting, very funny script. I laughed and it
:28:42. > :28:46.was interesting to see that special relationship that you get in a
:28:46. > :28:50.jukebox show, between an audience that joins in, and performance,
:28:50. > :28:54.that is what you don't get. I really enjoyed it. Sarah, did you
:28:54. > :28:58.feel like joining in? I thought that the audience wanted to join in,
:28:58. > :29:03.and they were disappointed. I think somewhere in the show there is
:29:03. > :29:06.quite a good idea struggling to get out. The real problem is The Spice
:29:06. > :29:11.Girls songs are fun. You feel this energy, it is bubble gum pop, what
:29:11. > :29:16.they are not is power ballads that can carry the plot of a musical. In
:29:16. > :29:21.trying to make them into that, of this come up with the most conkol
:29:21. > :29:30.luted plot that never really -- convoluted plot that never goes
:29:31. > :29:33.anywhere, it is first about reality show, then a look at fame and then
:29:33. > :29:38.adoption story. Did you think that Jennifer Saunders had to look at
:29:38. > :29:43.the stories and the plots and try to get less well known songs?
:29:43. > :29:48.are two things wrong with it, the concept and the script. If you have
:29:48. > :29:52.a jukebox musical, you have to go through the back catalogue and you
:29:52. > :29:56.have to find a story and set of characters that have a reason to
:29:56. > :30:05.sing these words. It is a job of cutting and pasting. What you end
:30:05. > :30:09.up with is this weird story that doesn't resolve itself, satirising
:30:10. > :30:16.the X Factor is ten years too late, and how anyone can do it after
:30:16. > :30:19.Peter Kay is madness. The characters are so weak I can't
:30:19. > :30:25.attack them because they can't defend themselves. What there is
:30:25. > :30:29.here in spades are fun characters for older women, the younger group,
:30:29. > :30:33.did they pale in comparison? thing that really excited me,
:30:33. > :30:43.disagree about the script, I thought it was funny, I thought it
:30:43. > :30:46.
:30:46. > :30:50.tackled some very interesting ars areas. Be a fab moments? -- Ab Fab
:30:50. > :30:55.moments? But it looked at things like celebrity, motherhood, to be
:30:55. > :30:59.ageing as a woman. It looked at eating issues. There was a
:30:59. > :31:04.choreographer who called this girl who clearly wasn't fat, fatty. That
:31:04. > :31:08.created a ripple in the audience, which was interesting. I thoutd the
:31:08. > :31:11.script was interesting and funny. - I thought the script of
:31:12. > :31:16.interesting and funny. That character was so dimensional, a
:31:16. > :31:22.screaming gay man a fashion designer. All the characters are
:31:22. > :31:26.syphers, even the mother who might be interesting, is a sypher, she
:31:26. > :31:33.never gets a chance to go anywhere. There are wonderful character
:31:33. > :31:38.actresses in it, the girl who plays Minty, she's a tremendous character.
:31:38. > :31:43.She's wonderful, I felt sorry for Sally Dexter, a wonderful singer
:31:43. > :31:46.and actress, she becomes out of it so quickly. She has nothing to do
:31:46. > :31:50.except go mad. One of the interesting things about it, I was
:31:50. > :31:55.going in there thinking, there should be proper theatre show, here
:31:55. > :32:00.you had a show that, and obviously The Girl was a ridiculous power,
:32:00. > :32:05.and marketed and -- Girl Power was ridiculous and marketed and
:32:05. > :32:08.manufactured, but there were ten female leads in the West End.
:32:08. > :32:11.had been through so many transformation, they liked ABBA
:32:11. > :32:17.ironically, then it was a joke and they were reborn. You had had a
:32:17. > :32:20.span of 30-odd years where people knew ABBA songs, you don't have it
:32:20. > :32:27.with The Spice Girls. It is a narrower audience. It is the same
:32:27. > :32:33.with We Will Rock You, a whole load of back catalogue songs, whether
:32:33. > :32:38.you like them or not, you know the songs. This show wasn't aimed at me,
:32:38. > :32:41.I'm a middle-aged bloke, it is aimed at 30-something women, who
:32:41. > :32:46.remember The Spice Girls, it was interesting to note the tone of the
:32:47. > :32:50.laughter and heckles, it was very much a woman's audience. What it
:32:50. > :32:55.did at times was take good songs of the Spice Girls and change them
:32:55. > :33:00.into ballads and torch songs? think it betrays the songs. Didn't
:33:01. > :33:05.you think that Viva Forever! Was good? At some level it has to. If
:33:05. > :33:11.you have The Spice Girls, bubble gum pop, lively and dance along,
:33:11. > :33:15.you have to create a format to sing those songs straight. Only in the
:33:15. > :33:20.encore, when everybody has a good time does that happen. All the rest
:33:20. > :33:26.of the time they are being twisted. Spice Up Your Life? It is straight
:33:26. > :33:32.but odd. It is the only one done straight. We were sitting next to
:33:32. > :33:35.spice Girl fans, and they didn't recognise them. I felt Spice Up
:33:35. > :33:39.Your Life was great, and Viva Forever!, done very simply as a
:33:39. > :33:43.ballad was beautifully sung. I thought it was a great moment.
:33:43. > :33:47.Mamma Mia!, playing all over the world, on Broadway, will this
:33:47. > :33:52.travel? The Americans are looking at it, I don't know. I think there
:33:52. > :33:57.is a great fun musical in there, trying to fight its way out. But at
:33:57. > :34:02.the moment it's completely lost. I think it will surprise people. I
:34:02. > :34:05.think it is rubbish, but I think it will go on for quite a while.
:34:05. > :34:08.Forever! Is running at the Picadilly theatre in London. It is
:34:09. > :34:15.safe to say that lepblgtddree film director, Alfred Hitchcock, had a
:34:16. > :34:25.weakness for blondes. Toing the success of film, Grace Kelly in
:34:26. > :34:27.
:34:27. > :34:31.Rear Window, and others, he signed up an unknown inge new for his film.
:34:31. > :34:36.In -- there was a dangerous and destructive relationship between
:34:36. > :34:42.artist and muse, set up in The Girl. The year is 1962, and Hitchcock at
:34:42. > :34:47.the height of his fame, chooses the inexperienced actress/model, Tippi
:34:47. > :34:53.Hedren, played by Sienna Miller, to play lead in his most ambitious
:34:53. > :35:00.film, The Birds. They came down the chimney in fury, as if they wanted
:35:00. > :35:09.everyone in the house dead. Jones plays the director who coaches his
:35:09. > :35:14.mu muse, while his wife Alma, played by Imelda Staunton looks on.
:35:14. > :35:19.Hitchcock's infatuation with his new star intensifies, but when she
:35:19. > :35:29.rebuffs his advances, the director puts the actress in increasingly
:35:29. > :35:37.
:35:37. > :35:42.terrifying situations on set. Writer grin net Hughes based her
:35:42. > :35:45.drama on extensive conversations of surviving cast and crew of
:35:45. > :35:49.Hitchcock's film, including Tippi Hedren herself. Who recently
:35:49. > :35:54.described the director as evil and deviant. There is so much I can
:35:54. > :36:03.teach you through kindness. Is this an apology? For doing whatever it
:36:03. > :36:07.took to turn you into a movie star? Thank you.
:36:07. > :36:11.Ultimately it is the story of a director's obsession with his
:36:11. > :36:15.leading lady. An obsession which threatens to destroy both their
:36:15. > :36:23.careers. But is the film as gripping as one of the master's own
:36:23. > :36:28.productions. We're faced here with, as is so
:36:28. > :36:33.often is the case, two films coming out now, Hitchcock, which tells the
:36:33. > :36:38.story of Hitchcock around the time of Psycho, and the contention that
:36:38. > :36:43.his wife Alma got him through Psycho, and this story which tells
:36:43. > :36:48.a different story of Hitchcock as an evil seducer. Did you get that,
:36:48. > :36:52.in a sense, do you buy that story? I'm not sure I do, actually. I
:36:52. > :36:56.think the interesting thing is that they start with, this is based upon
:36:56. > :37:01.interviews and all that. You see it in films like Argo, this is based
:37:01. > :37:05.on true incidents, then it goes off and becomes slightly fantastical,
:37:05. > :37:13.there is a which have of rumour about it rather than factually
:37:13. > :37:17.accuracy. What was interesting is the performances the best bit about
:37:17. > :37:22.the film were the performances, especially Imelda Staunton. She was
:37:22. > :37:26.great, and easily the most interesting character. Playing the
:37:26. > :37:32.hard-pressed wife. You essentially go go that Hitchcock was an abuser
:37:32. > :37:36.and bully, and Tippy of the victim/heroine. When you cast
:37:36. > :37:39.people in those places there is nowhere to go. But Hitchcock's wife,
:37:39. > :37:43.Imelda Staunton is the on looker, she allows this and knows what is
:37:43. > :37:48.happening, in effect, she becomes the audience. You could say that
:37:48. > :37:52.directors are cruel to get the best out of their actors, the scene
:37:52. > :37:56.where we see Tippi Hedren is in the phone box imagining the birds, she
:37:56. > :38:00.doesn't know he's letting loose the bird, you can accept that. But the
:38:00. > :38:04.story that he spent five days with her in the at particular with the
:38:04. > :38:10.birds flying at her, live birds, it was pretty horrific? I don't
:38:10. > :38:15.entirely buy this view of Hitchcock. The thing misses out that he was
:38:15. > :38:19.really a brilliant film maker. That sort of gets lost in this. I think
:38:19. > :38:23.it is very clear. I didn't feel that. But, obviously that story
:38:23. > :38:26.about the birds in the at particular is reasonably well
:38:26. > :38:30.documented. Certainly people were shocked. But what I found
:38:30. > :38:34.disappointing about this is that if you accept that at this point he
:38:34. > :38:41.had this strange obsession with her. Then you want to know a bit more
:38:41. > :38:44.about it than the film actually tells you. You don't really
:38:44. > :38:48.understand him I don't think. You don't terribly understand Tippi
:38:48. > :38:53.Hedren, who was the blonde that got to him, and who did rebuff him and
:38:53. > :38:57.was very strong at a time when it would have been very easy not to
:38:57. > :38:59.rebuff him and go along with it for the sake of her career. The
:38:59. > :39:04.fascination of the relationship, which they have decided to make a
:39:04. > :39:07.film about, they don't really explore. And Alma, who is, equally,
:39:07. > :39:10.the most interesting character, I thought you could go through the
:39:11. > :39:13.film and not realise she had ever written any scripts with him, or
:39:13. > :39:18.realise she was involved in the films at all. It gives you the set
:39:19. > :39:21.up, and it is very beautiful and very arty, but actually, the real
:39:21. > :39:26.exploration of the psychology of the work, I didn't feel it did.
:39:26. > :39:29.think that is a good point. I think it grew into itself. Initially it
:39:29. > :39:32.was very much saying this happened and then this happened and this
:39:32. > :39:35.happened, and you were going, what's going on for the characters
:39:35. > :39:40.and psychological motivation. It did address it in the second half
:39:40. > :39:44.of the movie. There is a wonderful image that Tippi Hedren says,
:39:44. > :39:49.Sienna Miller, who I thought was brilliant, says about how she feels
:39:49. > :39:53.he's trying to get inside of her, and squeeze every bit of her out so
:39:53. > :39:56.he can look out through her eyes. At that point I thought now we will
:39:56. > :40:00.get a bit of psychological interest. They did deliver a bit on that.
:40:00. > :40:04.There are lots of issues that were broached, such as the abusive power
:40:04. > :40:10.of the director. Whether we should forgive that. Whether we, like
:40:10. > :40:13.everyone else is complicit in that. Those relationships exist all the
:40:13. > :40:18.time, and in Hollywood, she put up with much more because she wanted
:40:18. > :40:23.to get that break. That was quite believable. I don't think that
:40:23. > :40:33.Tippi Hedren was ever demured from that point. What is interesting,
:40:33. > :40:37.
:40:37. > :40:45.the clip you just showed of him in the car. The fact that the director
:40:45. > :40:49.pushed her, that does happen. casted them as bully and abuser and
:40:49. > :40:52.victim and heroine. It said that Hitchcock's private life was his
:40:53. > :40:57.filmic life, that he scares and terrorises people, and this is what
:40:57. > :41:03.he does in the film. They reinforce this by adding in all the homeage
:41:03. > :41:10.shots, when she appears in the shower, you know, or the shots from
:41:10. > :41:16.Vertigo. They use the same kind of light defusers. What about the idea
:41:16. > :41:19.people lieblg to see films like A Week ska with Marylin, and the film
:41:19. > :41:24.about Kenneth Williams, because it is too late to know that. It is
:41:24. > :41:29.like if they had been on Twitter, we want to peak behind the curtain
:41:29. > :41:32.and see what is going on. It is not that much of a shock, if you have
:41:32. > :41:35.watched Vertigo, Hitchcock puts in a film that there is a certain
:41:35. > :41:44.issue there. There is an obsession with making
:41:44. > :41:50.and destroying people, it is in his film. It feeling a partial view of
:41:50. > :41:52.him to me. They fundamentally failed in the fact that it wasn't
:41:52. > :41:59.Spence enough, there wasn't enough Spence at all, you cast these two
:41:59. > :42:03.people in the roles and -- suspence at all, you cast these two people
:42:03. > :42:09.in roles, and they make the homeage shot and they are not Alfred
:42:09. > :42:12.Hitchcock. I didn't know if she would succumb, that was suss
:42:12. > :42:15.senseful? What a fascinating character, single mother bringing
:42:15. > :42:19.up her child. This strong figure decides to go along with it because
:42:19. > :42:24.she wants her career. That is not explored either. Tippi Hedren
:42:25. > :42:30.herself talking about Hitchcock is more interesting than this film.
:42:30. > :42:33.The Girl is on BBC Two own Boxing Day. Thank you to my guests. That's
:42:33. > :42:37.all from us tonight, and for this year. We will be back with a
:42:37. > :42:40.special programme on the 4th of January, when I will be talking to
:42:40. > :42:48.Billy Connelly about his life on stage and screen, and his starring
:42:48. > :42:53.role in the new film Quartet. Did Pamela Stevenson save your life?
:42:53. > :42:57.yeah, no question. That was when it came to alcohol. Yes, but when you
:42:57. > :43:07.met her and fell in love with her, you were still drinking for
:43:07. > :43:07.
:43:07. > :43:11.Scotland? Ha ha. I'm ever so sorry I came here. It is like confession!