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I think my heart had drowned
Just about eight weeks ago, Martin Jarvis crashed through the windshield of my interest with a beautiful guest turn on Mr. Palfrey of Westminster (1984–85), after which in the finest traditions of character actors everywhere he turned out to have been in view all along; with his wife Rosalind Ayres, he is one of the mainstays of L.A. Theatre Works whose radio plays my father has been pressing on me for more than a decade and finally this weekend just digitally threw in my direction in the form of a drive with an assorted ton of productions on it. One of them was a live recording from 2012 of Terence Rattigan's The Browning Version starring Martin Jarvis as Andrew Crocker-Harris. This afternoon while trapped under a cat on the couch, I obviously listened to it.
Allowing for the normal emendations for radio, the text is the original one-act play from 1948 rather than its expansion into the 1951 film which was my introduction to the story and until now my only point of comparison beyond the page as well as one of my favorite movies which I have never managed to write more about, meaning it's been in my head so lastingly and so long that the greater or lesser differences in interpretation kept flicking out at me as I listened to LATW, which was delightful. It might have been useful to annotate more of them, but there was one that caught me so effectively that it could stand for an entire compare-and-contrast. It's one of the script's most piercing moments, Andrew's bitter denial of the value of the gift from one of his pupils at end of term which had reduced him to scalding, hopeless tears only a few moments and a crucial interruption before:
"Exactly. It will mean a perpetual reminder to myself of the story with which Taplow is at this very moment regaling his friends in the House. 'I gave the Crock a book to buy him off, and he blubbed. The Crock blubbed. I tell you I was there. I saw it. The Crock blubbed.' My mimicry is not as good as his, I fear. Forgive me."
Redgrave delivers his version of this passage—the film uses the more closely alliterative "cried" instead of the more demeaning, schoolboyish "blubbed"—with a kind of deliberate, ironic amazement, as if burlesquing his own shock at his emotional response through the fantasy of an even more nonplussed Taplow. Especially in his high-wire reed of a voice, it sounds almost successfully dismissive, but the precision with which he enunciates the words gives their pain away: he is reasserting the mask of his own caricature into which he let himself fossilize over the eighteen years of his failure as a schoolmaster, emphasizing himself as the dead man whom nothing can hurt, to talk so blandly of his own humiliation; it convinces neither the audience, his interlocutor, nor himself, but it's a valiant try.
As rendered by Jarvis, this flight of ruined fancy is remarkable for its venom—a nasty, sneering, jeering little impersonation, far more contemptuous of himself than Taplow ever sounded in the moment of fatal levity when his imitation of the desiccated classics master whom he had actually admitted to liking offered a suburban Clytaemnestra the weapon with which to stab her Agamemnon to the soul. His voice in its accustomed cadences is so dry and resigned, the animation as much as the malice sticks out like a snapped bone, a kind of scrawled rage of mimicry that isn't even close to an impression of his pupil, but then it really isn't meant to be; it's Andrew's own self-lashing shame, his anger at himself for falling for the cheap trick of being vulnerable and human and still capable of crediting that one boy at the school might not regard him with fear and derision as "the Himmler of the Lower Fifth." It's almost as unguarded as his tears, though he catches himself faster this time. There's even something juvenile about it, as if he were a cruelly pranked new boy instead of a master on the verge of retirement who claims to have accepted his inadequacies long ago, but then he was young when he came to his post, straight off his three prizes at Oxford and the joy of composing his own translation in verse of the Agamemnon, and perhaps it's that sensitive, academically passionate, socially gauche Andrew Crocker-Harris who has uttered such an audacious speech, not so far beneath the calcified appearance as would make the total mess of his life easier to bear. Whoever's acting it, the entire play is about peeling back the husks of accumulated time to uncover a living tragedy, but I love how differently it can be done.
Curiously, it never occurred with Redgrave's, but when Jarvis' Andrew cold-shouldered a colleague's sincere effort at reassurance with a clipped, almost interjected "I am not particularly concerned about Taplow's views of my character: or about yours either, if it comes to that," I thought suddenly of Harry Fordyce in Cash on Demand (1961), perpetually not in the least interested in other people's opinions, especially of himself, especially when he's acutely afraid they might be right, and then I couldn't believe I hadn't made the connection before. Peter Cushing even played Andrew Crocker-Harris for the BBC in 1955 and all I got was this rehearsal photo.
If this article is correct that Joanne Whalley was originally penciled in for this production, then I assume she would have reprised her part from this broadcast the previous year, directed by Jarvis for BBC Radio 4; Ian Ogilvy seems to have. Anyone who's heard that version, please give me an opinion of Michael York and/or a line on a recording. The reason I have never really written about The Browning Version, of course, is that it's important to me.
Allowing for the normal emendations for radio, the text is the original one-act play from 1948 rather than its expansion into the 1951 film which was my introduction to the story and until now my only point of comparison beyond the page as well as one of my favorite movies which I have never managed to write more about, meaning it's been in my head so lastingly and so long that the greater or lesser differences in interpretation kept flicking out at me as I listened to LATW, which was delightful. It might have been useful to annotate more of them, but there was one that caught me so effectively that it could stand for an entire compare-and-contrast. It's one of the script's most piercing moments, Andrew's bitter denial of the value of the gift from one of his pupils at end of term which had reduced him to scalding, hopeless tears only a few moments and a crucial interruption before:
"Exactly. It will mean a perpetual reminder to myself of the story with which Taplow is at this very moment regaling his friends in the House. 'I gave the Crock a book to buy him off, and he blubbed. The Crock blubbed. I tell you I was there. I saw it. The Crock blubbed.' My mimicry is not as good as his, I fear. Forgive me."
Redgrave delivers his version of this passage—the film uses the more closely alliterative "cried" instead of the more demeaning, schoolboyish "blubbed"—with a kind of deliberate, ironic amazement, as if burlesquing his own shock at his emotional response through the fantasy of an even more nonplussed Taplow. Especially in his high-wire reed of a voice, it sounds almost successfully dismissive, but the precision with which he enunciates the words gives their pain away: he is reasserting the mask of his own caricature into which he let himself fossilize over the eighteen years of his failure as a schoolmaster, emphasizing himself as the dead man whom nothing can hurt, to talk so blandly of his own humiliation; it convinces neither the audience, his interlocutor, nor himself, but it's a valiant try.
As rendered by Jarvis, this flight of ruined fancy is remarkable for its venom—a nasty, sneering, jeering little impersonation, far more contemptuous of himself than Taplow ever sounded in the moment of fatal levity when his imitation of the desiccated classics master whom he had actually admitted to liking offered a suburban Clytaemnestra the weapon with which to stab her Agamemnon to the soul. His voice in its accustomed cadences is so dry and resigned, the animation as much as the malice sticks out like a snapped bone, a kind of scrawled rage of mimicry that isn't even close to an impression of his pupil, but then it really isn't meant to be; it's Andrew's own self-lashing shame, his anger at himself for falling for the cheap trick of being vulnerable and human and still capable of crediting that one boy at the school might not regard him with fear and derision as "the Himmler of the Lower Fifth." It's almost as unguarded as his tears, though he catches himself faster this time. There's even something juvenile about it, as if he were a cruelly pranked new boy instead of a master on the verge of retirement who claims to have accepted his inadequacies long ago, but then he was young when he came to his post, straight off his three prizes at Oxford and the joy of composing his own translation in verse of the Agamemnon, and perhaps it's that sensitive, academically passionate, socially gauche Andrew Crocker-Harris who has uttered such an audacious speech, not so far beneath the calcified appearance as would make the total mess of his life easier to bear. Whoever's acting it, the entire play is about peeling back the husks of accumulated time to uncover a living tragedy, but I love how differently it can be done.
Curiously, it never occurred with Redgrave's, but when Jarvis' Andrew cold-shouldered a colleague's sincere effort at reassurance with a clipped, almost interjected "I am not particularly concerned about Taplow's views of my character: or about yours either, if it comes to that," I thought suddenly of Harry Fordyce in Cash on Demand (1961), perpetually not in the least interested in other people's opinions, especially of himself, especially when he's acutely afraid they might be right, and then I couldn't believe I hadn't made the connection before. Peter Cushing even played Andrew Crocker-Harris for the BBC in 1955 and all I got was this rehearsal photo.
If this article is correct that Joanne Whalley was originally penciled in for this production, then I assume she would have reprised her part from this broadcast the previous year, directed by Jarvis for BBC Radio 4; Ian Ogilvy seems to have. Anyone who's heard that version, please give me an opinion of Michael York and/or a line on a recording. The reason I have never really written about The Browning Version, of course, is that it's important to me.
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You're welcome! The entire thing looks like a republication of a fanzine from 1996 which I'm just really charmed by, especially since the 'zine is still publishing and their website barely appears to have been redesigned since then.
And Martin Jarvis, despite having only been in it less still knew what it was about more than the others seemed to, rather like David Collings with RoD. (He can be allowed to be a fave, that's twice now.
It's a good trait!
(If you have a link to David Collings talking about Robots of Death, I will cheerfully follow it. I don't think I actually have read his opinions on the subject.)
and even a little bit with Ralph Bates they fished out from somewhere else, and, lol, they said to him his performance overshadowed Lee's and he was: "Nonsense! ... He's much taller than I am."
My selection of pages on Google Books did not include that exchange! That's delightful. (I could see the bits where more than one person said nice things about Peter Sallis and Martin Jarvis did his James Mason impression.)
Mariocki and I think he probably did, because it was in the shoulder and people were still looking after him when the Saint callously dashed off without looking back, but the finished product doesn't care. Ironically, given that the Saint has been trying to stop him from accidentally convicting himself all episode.
Oh, no. It just takes one line, people! Just establish he survived not to have accidentally sent himself to jail!
And even David Collings got left with Silver's fate unknown, thanks to Mr McCallum's last minute script changing.
What was originally supposed to be clearer about Silver?
I like that we can choose, depending on mood.
Agreed. Someone will even write a version that isn't totally a downer and it will be fun, too.
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LOL, that website really hasn't been updated since the late 90s! XD
(If you have a link to David Collings talking about Robots of Death, I will cheerfully follow it. I don't think I actually have read his opinions on the subject.)
I think you have seen it? It's this one, which was originally from a DWM that I own: https://www.kaldorcity.com/people/dcinterview.html (In context, one of the other DWM numbers from around the same time had an interview with Russell Hunter who didn't have a clue what the costumes were in aid of. Not that that stopped him being awesome, but I do enjoy an actor who also Gets It, when it comes to the story as well.)
My selection of pages on Google Books did not include that exchange! That's delightful.
Oh, I didn't think of us having separate preview pages!
It just takes one line, people! Just establish he survived not to have accidentally sent himself to jail!
I know! *sighs over it* It's one of those episodes where clearly all TPTB were worrying about was plot, to the point that characterisation had become ridiculously incomprehensible in JM's case. (JM is a retired cop, now head of security at a top gov't secret weapons research centre in Scotland. He is very sensitive, doesn't go hunting, and a pacifist opposed to weapons research, and also so clueless at his job that he not only immediately accidentally incriminates himself on discovering a murder, it takes Simon pointing that fact out to him hours later before he even notices. He can't get the fact that he's a suspect through his head, but he is very obliging about helping Simon, even after Simon thwacks him unconscious one time because he's being too conscientious about his job to let Simon investigate further in the cause of clearing his name. Also he's called Jock, so he was clearly meant to be Scottish, (he's not Scottish) and he's so nervy, he's essentially this week's damsel in distress. Solve the mystery, Simon, or JM will have himself done up for murder through sheer well-meaning incompetence! Anyway, the result of watching an extremely intelligent actor do his best with that collection of character traits while collapsing twice in the attempt is 100% delightful as far as I'm concerned. But I would like to know that he survived. XD)
What was originally supposed to be clearer about Silver?
They were all three trapped in the cafe together! But then when it became clear it was being cancelled, David McCallum pushed for excluding Silver from that final scene, which PJ Hammond was opposed to, although he said on the commentary that he now thinks David M was probably right. Which is fair, but I still wish Hammond had won that fight!
Someone will even write a version that isn't totally a downer and it will be fun, too.
They could! XD
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Yes! Sorry; for some reason I assumed you were talking about an interview with David Collings specifically about Robots of Death in the same way that Martin Jarvis had been interviewed specifically about Taste the Blood of Dracula. That's the one I read directly after seeing Robots of Death for the first time and thereby discovered that Kaldor City was produced by
(In context, one of the other DWM numbers from around the same time had an interview with Russell Hunter who didn't have a clue what the costumes were in aid of. Not that that stopped him being awesome, but I do enjoy an actor who also Gets It, when it comes to the story as well.)
Check. I can see why the contrast stood out. (And David Collings claims that he didn't understand a word of the script for Assignment 3 of Sapphire & Steel, which doesn't seem to have stopped him from knowing exactly what Silver was supposed to be like.)
Oh, I didn't think of us having separate preview pages!
I find the interior workings of Google Books to be mysterious and annoying. I can usually get the page I link to to show up for other people—or vice versa—and then after that it seems to be a crapshoot. If I look at the same book on a different computer, I get different pages in the preview. I have no idea why.
He is very sensitive, doesn't go hunting, and a pacifist opposed to weapons research, and also so clueless at his job that he not only immediately accidentally incriminates himself on discovering a murder, it takes Simon pointing that fact out to him hours later before he even notices.
. . . I assume he retired from being a cop because he was also an absolute sweetheart disaster at it?
and he's so nervy, he's essentially this week's damsel in distress.
I have seen almost no James Maxwell and yet from all accounts this sounds right on brand.
Anyway, the result of watching an extremely intelligent actor do his best with that collection of character traits while collapsing twice in the attempt is 100% delightful as far as I'm concerned. But I would like to know that he survived.
Understood on both fronts.
They were all three trapped in the cafe together! But then when it became clear it was being cancelled, David McCallum pushed for excluding Silver from that final scene, which PJ Hammond was opposed to, although he said on the commentary that he now thinks David M was probably right. Which is fair, but I still wish Hammond had won that fight!
That's really interesting! That would have changed the tone of the final scene. Even though I feel there's a better chance of Sapphire and Steel getting out with Silver on the outside.
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He seems, or so he has said on several occasions, to have made the character pretty much himself, adding in and working out a lot of the little tricks with shiny objects as well as the flirting. (I mean, I believe him; there is or there was a clip of him rehearsing for Cymbeline out there somewhere and he does flirt like Silver for real.)
. . . I assume he retired from being a cop because he was also an absolute sweetheart disaster at it?
Which would make sense if he hadn't immediately gone and got a job at a top secret government research station in the wilds of Scotland in order to disapprove of everything the scientists there are doing. XD
Even though I feel there's a better chance of Sapphire and Steel getting out with Silver on the outside.
According to PJ Hammond, it was about the reverse - Silver would have provided them with a means of escape from the inside, leading into Assignment 7. When it was cancelled, Hammond seems to have wanted to have kept that, maybe hoping for a reprieve (it had already happened at least once), but David McCallum (who seems to have been getting understandably tired of commuting from New York for it) wanted it changed, leaving out Silver and therefore drawing a final line under it.
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Wow.
Silver would have provided them with a means of escape from the inside, leading into Assignment 7.
We discussed this years ago—I am clearly not firing on all cylinders right now. As soon as you said this, I remembered my father reaching this point in the commentary he was watching and immediately calling me to complain that we didn't get this ending. (With apologies to Word of God, I think I still felt the odds were better with Silver not himself part of the trap.)
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It's one of the things that makes me feel that other people must barely tolerate my existence, so that's good to hear.
[edit] I realize this was probably an extremely rude response to you; I'm sorry. My ability to assume that I do not merely wear other people out unsurprisingly worsens when my physical health does and I am fed up with myself. I shouldn't have spilled it over onto you.
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My ability to assume that I do not merely wear other people out unsurprisingly worsens when my physical health does and I am fed up with myself.
And much the same thing happens to me. It's very hard to believe anyone else wants to put up with me when I can barely do it myself! I live in almost pernament frustration some times. <3<3<3
I hope things let up a little soon!
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Thank you.
*hugs*