Podcasts about Portmeirion

acast village wales prisoners columbo peter falk free for all patrick mcgoohan mark dawidziak portmeirion mcgoohan

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 19, 2023 90:05

In this special episode of Free For All, Cai Ross and Chris Bainbridge discuss Patrick McGoohan's work on the classic detective show, Columbo. The pair look at McGoohan's contribution to the show as director, writer and actor, which earned him a special place in Peter Falk's circle of trust. Joining Cai and Chris is Columbo expert Mark Dawidziak, author of The Columbo Phile. As ever, minutiae will be scrutinised and tangents will be explored with discussion, interpretation, trivia and humour. The only Prisoner podcast produced in north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 51 "2022 You're Wondering Now" with Buddy Ascott

Retrosonic Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 8, 2023 89:35

Welcome to Episode 51 of Retrosonic Podcast where we welcome former drummer with The Chords Buddy Ascott into the 'studio' on New Year's Eve to look back on 2022. Buddy, now playing with The Fallen Leaves, is currently writing his memoirs and he treats us to a reading from a chapter about an unfortunate incident in Guildford Civic Hall in 1979 involving The Undertones, Jimmy Pursey and some ex-Sex Pistols. He also talks about more recent gig experiences which include drumming with The 79ers as special guests at The Vapors' weekend event at the iconic Portmeirion village, location of the cult TV show The Prisoner. Then we cover The Fallen Leaves shows at the Dublin Castle and their appearance at the Don Craine tribute at the Half Moon Putney, plus we get a sneak preview of a song from the Leaves' next album. We also take a look at some of Retro Man Blog's favourite LPs, Singles, Compilations and Gigs of the year and play a selection of great tracks from The Clash with Ranking Roger, Rhoda Dakar, The Limiñanas, The Prisoners and Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band. We also announce our Band of The Year - The Undertones - for some superb gigs, their compilation "Dig What You Need", Damian O'Neill and Billy Doherty joining Baby Shakes on stage for "Teenage Kicks" and related releases such as That Petrol Emotion's stunning box-set compilation and Damian's solo album "An Crann". Then there's a more sombre look at just some of the influential musicians who sadly passed away in 2022 including Chris Bailey, Wilko Johnson, Jet Black and Terry Hall but we celebrate their legacy with music from The Saints, Dr. Feelgood, The Specials and The Stranglers. Happy New Year to you and here's looking forward to more great music in 2023, we hope you enjoy the show! Please check the link below to Retro Man Blog for full tracklisting and links to all the featured Bands and Artists and how to buy their music. Retrosonic Podcast has a valid PRS Licence. https://retroman65.blogspot.com/2023/01/retrosonic-podcast-epiosde-51-2022.html

The Christmas Special (Number 25)

christmas acast village christmas special wales prisoners sanity number two alex cox free for all portmeirion

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 19, 2022 72:56

In this special festive episode of Free For All, Cai Ross and Chris Bainbridge discuss the absence of religion in The Prisoner. Questions pondered include 'What if there was a Prisoner Christmas special?' and 'What would Number Two's Christmas party look like?' Sanity is restored as legendary movie director and Prisoner fan, Alex Cox joins the duo to discuss his love of the show and his book 'I Am Not a Number: Decoding the Prisoner'. As ever, minutiae will be scrutinised and tangents will be explored with discussion, interpretation, trivia and humour. The only Prisoner podcast produced in north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 106: Royal Protocol; Portmeirion; Family Album

Two Big Egos in a Small Car

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 23, 2022 35:14

As the mourning begins, Charles and Graham discuss who was allowed to do what and when as the Queen's death was announced. Graham gives an insight into what it is like to visit Sir Clough Williams-Ellis's eccentric and beautiful village of Portmeirion. The duo reflect on the rise of having gigs signed for the deaf ad hard of hearing and Charles enthuses about Sir Alan Ayckbourn's latest play, Family Album, as it is premiered in Scarborough.

protocol scarborough family album portmeirion sir alan ayckbourn

Designing Dystopia, The Prisoner 2

Feature Creep: Built-in Microwave

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 5, 2022 73:01

Ned and Meg continue their discussion of design elements from The Prisoner television show. Why is Number Six in black? Why does everyone in town have a cape and an umbrella? Who pairs pea green walls with camel brown textiles? We compare the Disney-like appearance of the village to Portmeirion and rattle off some other works we feel are derivations of the show. Number two in an ongoing, indefinite installment of conversations about this show in specific, and the umpteenth conversation about dystopias. Thanks for listening, wash your hands, watch The Prisoner, don't infect anyone with coronavirus.

disney designing prisoners ned dystopia number six portmeirion

Episode 37 • This Is the Day of the XPanding Man

I Dream of Cameras

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 29, 2022 57:49

A VERY SPECIAL EPISODE recapping Jeff's absurd acquisition of a Hasselblad XPan, and more importantly, his trip to England and Wales to meet all four hosts of the Sunny 16 Podcast!In our last episode, Chris Chu talked Jeff out of getting a Hasselblad XPan, so how did he end up impulsively buying one on his first day in London?A magical trip to Camera City, the very same place where Jeff found his sacred Alpa 11si ten years ago... and what should be on the shelf but an XPan?And now, the circuit of the Sunnies…Drinks with Ade at the Camera Museum in LondonA side trip to the Photographer's Gallery and their incredible film wallDarkroom work with Rachel at her studio at Northern Lights in LiverpoolTouring Anglesey and Portmeirion, Wales with ClareBrowsing vintage cameras with Graeme at the Cameras London stall at Portobello RoadAn underdiscussed aspect of the XPan: the standard 45mm f/4 lens is incredible!In other news… where's all the film? And why's the film we have so expensive?Gabe has set up an on-deck circle of underused cameras……and has been snapping up photography booksThought experiment: if the boys had to cut their collections down to only ten cameras, which would they choose?Next episode, we tackle the prodigious mailbag!

england wales photographers gallery graeme northern lights ade alpa londona portmeirion xpan

I Dream of Cameras #37 This Is the Day of the XPanding Man

Sunny 16 Presents

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 28, 2022 57:49

VERY SPECIAL EPISODE recapping Jeff's absurd acquisition of a Hasselblad XPan, and more importantly, his trip to England and Wales to meet all four hosts of the Sunny 16 Podcast! In our last episode, Chris Chu talked Jeff out of getting a Hasselblad XPan, so how did he end up impulsively buying one on his first day in London? A magical trip to Camera City, the very same place where Jeff found his sacred Alpa 11si ten years ago.. and what should be on the shelf but an XPan? And now, the circuit of the Sunnies…Drinks with Ade at the Camera Museum in London A side trip to the Photographer's Gallery and their incredible film wall Darkroom work with Rachel at her studio at Northern Lights in Liverpool Touring Anglesey and Portmeirion, Wales with Clare Browsing vintage cameras with Graeme at the Cameras London stall at Portobello Road An underdiscussed aspect of the XPan: the standard 45mm f/4 lens is incredible! In other news… where's all the film? And why's the film we have so expensive? Gabe has set up an on-deck circle of underused cameras… …and has been snapping up photography books Thought experiment: if the boys had to cut their collections down to only ten cameras, which would they choose? Next episode, we tackle the prodigious mailbag!

england wales photographers gallery cameras graeme northern lights ade alpa portmeirion xpan

Conclusion and Conclusions (Number 24)

A History Of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 3, 2022 108:08

In the final episode of season/series two, Screenwriter Cai Ross and lecturer Chris Bainbridge draw to a close their discussion on the seventeen episodes of the prescient 1967 TV show, The Prisoner. From Campbell's Monomyth to the Beatles' mono mixes, this feature length episode goes off on several pop culture tangents because why the hell not? It's the last episode so why not go out with some fun? Cai and Chris discuss their episode running orders with episodic and narrative justification and generally wrap up the conversation. As ever, minutiae will be scrutinised and tangents will be explored with dash of light humour, with discussion on interpretation, trivia, humour and an exploration of the production process. The only Prisoner podcast produced in north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

tv beatles acast village wales prisoners conclusions cai monomyth portmeirion

Episode 150: “All You Need is Love” by the Beatles

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 26, 2022

This week's episode looks at “All You Need is Love”, the Our World TV special, and the career of the Beatles from April 1966 through August 1967. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a thirteen-minute bonus episode available, on "Rain" by the Beatles. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ NB for the first few hours this was up, there was a slight editing glitch. If you downloaded the old version and don't want to redownload the whole thing, just look in the transcript for "Other than fixing John's two flubbed" for the text of the two missing paragraphs. Errata I say "Come Together" was a B-side, but the single was actually a double A-side. Also, I say the Lennon interview by Maureen Cleave appeared in Detroit magazine. That's what my source (Steve Turner's book) says, but someone on Twitter says that rather than Detroit magazine it was the Detroit Free Press. Also at one point I say "the videos for 'Paperback Writer' and 'Penny Lane'". I meant to say "Rain" rather than "Penny Lane" there. Resources No Mixcloud this week due to the number of songs by the Beatles. I have read literally dozens of books on the Beatles, and used bits of information from many of them. All my Beatles episodes refer to: The Complete Beatles Chronicle by Mark Lewisohn, All The Songs: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Release by Jean-Michel Guesdon, And The Band Begins To Play: The Definitive Guide To The Songs of The Beatles by Steve Lambley, The Beatles By Ear by Kevin Moore, Revolution in the Head by Ian MacDonald, and The Beatles Anthology. For this episode, I also referred to Last Interview by David Sheff, a longform interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono from shortly before Lennon's death; Many Years From Now by Barry Miles, an authorised biography of Paul McCartney; and Here, There, and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles by Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey. Particularly useful this time was Steve Turner's book Beatles '66. I also used Turner's The Beatles: The Stories Behind the Songs 1967-1970. Johnny Rogan's Starmakers and Svengalis had some information on Epstein I hadn't seen anywhere else. Some information about the "Bigger than Jesus" scandal comes from Ward, B. (2012). “The ‘C' is for Christ”: Arthur Unger, Datebook Magazine and the Beatles. Popular Music and Society, 35(4), 541-560. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2011.608978 Information on Robert Stigwood comes from Mr Showbiz by Stephen Dando-Collins. And the quote at the end from Simon Napier-Bell is from You Don't Have to Say You Love Me, which is more entertaining than it is accurate, but is very entertaining. Sadly the only way to get the single mix of "All You Need is Love" is on this ludicrously-expensive out-of-print box set, but the stereo mix is easily available on Magical Mystery Tour. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript A quick note before I start the episode -- this episode deals, in part, with the deaths of three gay men -- one by murder, one by suicide, and one by an accidental overdose, all linked at least in part to societal homophobia. I will try to deal with this as tactfully as I can, but anyone who's upset by those things might want to read the transcript instead of listening to the episode. This is also a very, very, *very* long episode -- this is likely to be the longest episode I *ever* do of this podcast, so settle in. We're going to be here a while. I obviously don't know how long it's going to be while I'm still recording, but based on the word count of my script, probably in the region of three hours. You have been warned. In 1967 the actor Patrick McGoohan was tired. He had been working on the hit series Danger Man for many years -- Danger Man had originally run from 1960 through 1962, then had taken a break, and had come back, retooled, with longer episodes in 1964. That longer series was a big hit, both in the UK and in the US, where it was retitled Secret Agent and had a new theme tune written by PF Sloan and Steve Barri and recorded by Johnny Rivers: [Excerpt: Johnny Rivers, "Secret Agent Man"] But McGoohan was tired of playing John Drake, the agent, and announced he was going to quit the series. Instead, with the help of George Markstein, Danger Man's script editor, he created a totally new series, in which McGoohan would star, and which McGoohan would also write and direct key episodes of. This new series, The Prisoner, featured a spy who is only ever given the name Number Six, and who many fans -- though not McGoohan himself -- took to be the same character as John Drake. Number Six resigns from his job as a secret agent, and is kidnapped and taken to a place known only as The Village -- the series was filmed in Portmeirion, an unusual-looking town in Gwynnedd, in North Wales -- which is full of other ex-agents. There he is interrogated to try to find out why he has quit his job. It's never made clear whether the interrogators are his old employers or their enemies, and there's a certain suggestion that maybe there is no real distinction between the two sides, that they're both running the Village together. He spends the entire series trying to escape, but refuses to explain himself -- and there's some debate among viewers as to whether it's implied or not that part of the reason he doesn't explain himself is that he knows his interrogators wouldn't understand why he quit: [Excerpt: The Prisoner intro, from episode Once Upon a Time, ] Certainly that explanation would fit in with McGoohan's own personality. According to McGoohan, the final episode of The Prisoner was, at the time, the most watched TV show ever broadcast in the UK, as people tuned in to find out the identity of Number One, the person behind the Village, and to see if Number Six would break free. I don't think that's actually the case, but it's what McGoohan always claimed, and it was certainly a very popular series. I won't spoil the ending for those of you who haven't watched it -- it's a remarkable series -- but ultimately the series seems to decide that such questions don't matter and that even asking them is missing the point. It's a work that's open to multiple interpretations, and is left deliberately ambiguous, but one of the messages many people have taken away from it is that not only are we trapped by a society that oppresses us, we're also trapped by our own identities. You can run from the trap that society has placed you in, from other people's interpretations of your life, your work, and your motives, but you ultimately can't run from yourself, and any time you try to break out of a prison, you'll find yourself trapped in another prison of your own making. The most horrifying implication of the episode is that possibly even death itself won't be a release, and you will spend all eternity trying to escape from an identity you're trapped in. Viewers became so outraged, according to McGoohan, that he had to go into hiding for an extended period, and while his later claims that he never worked in Britain again are an exaggeration, it is true that for the remainder of his life he concentrated on doing work in the US instead, where he hadn't created such anger. That final episode of The Prisoner was also the only one to use a piece of contemporary pop music, in two crucial scenes: [Excerpt: The Prisoner, "Fall Out", "All You Need is Love"] Back in October 2020, we started what I thought would be a year-long look at the period from late 1962 through early 1967, but which has turned out for reasons beyond my control to take more like twenty months, with a song which was one of the last of the big pre-Beatles pop hits, though we looked at it after their first single, "Telstar" by the Tornadoes: [Excerpt: The Tornadoes, "Telstar"] There were many reasons for choosing that as one of the bookends for this fifty-episode chunk of the podcast -- you'll see many connections between that episode and this one if you listen to them back-to-back -- but among them was that it's a song inspired by the launch of the first ever communications satellite, and a sign of how the world was going to become smaller as the sixties went on. Of course, to start with communications satellites didn't do much in that regard -- they were expensive to use, and had limited bandwidth, and were only available during limited time windows, but symbolically they meant that for the first time ever, people could see and hear events thousands of miles away as they were happening. It's not a coincidence that Britain and France signed the agreement to develop Concorde, the first supersonic airliner, a month after the first Beatles single and four months after the Telstar satellite was launched. The world was becoming ever more interconnected -- people were travelling faster and further, getting news from other countries quicker, and there was more cultural conversation – and misunderstanding – between countries thousands of miles apart. The Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan, the man who also coined the phrase “the medium is the message”, thought that this ever-faster connection would fundamentally change basic modes of thought in the Western world. McLuhan thought that technology made possible whole new modes of thought, and that just as the printing press had, in his view, caused Western liberalism and individualism, so these new electronic media would cause the rise of a new collective mode of thought. In 1962, the year of Concorde, Telstar, and “Love Me Do”, McLuhan wrote a book called The Gutenberg Galaxy, in which he said: “Instead of tending towards a vast Alexandrian library the world has become a computer, an electronic brain, exactly as an infantile piece of science fiction. And as our senses have gone outside us, Big Brother goes inside. So, unless aware of this dynamic, we shall at once move into a phase of panic terrors, exactly befitting a small world of tribal drums, total interdependence, and superimposed co-existence.… Terror is the normal state of any oral society, for in it everything affects everything all the time.…” He coined the term “the Global Village” to describe this new collectivism. The story we've seen over the last fifty episodes is one of a sort of cultural ping-pong between the USA and the UK, with innovations in American music inspiring British musicians, who in turn inspired American ones, whether that being the Beatles covering the Isley Brothers or the Rolling Stones doing a Bobby Womack song, or Paul Simon and Bob Dylan coming over to the UK and learning folk songs and guitar techniques from Martin Carthy. And increasingly we're going to see those influences spread to other countries, and influences coming *from* other countries. We've already seen one Jamaican artist, and the influence of Indian music has become very apparent. While the focus of this series is going to remain principally in the British Isles and North America, rock music was and is a worldwide phenomenon, and that's going to become increasingly a part of the story. And so in this episode we're going to look at a live performance -- well, mostly live -- that was seen by hundreds of millions of people all over the world as it happened, thanks to the magic of satellites: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "All You Need is Love"] When we left the Beatles, they had just finished recording "Tomorrow Never Knows", the most experimental track they had recorded up to that date, and if not the most experimental thing they *ever* recorded certainly in the top handful. But "Tomorrow Never Knows" was only the first track they recorded in the sessions for what would become arguably their greatest album, and certainly the one that currently has the most respect from critics. It's interesting to note that that album could have been very, very, different. When we think of Revolver now, we think of the innovative production of George Martin, and of Geoff Emerick and Ken Townshend's inventive ideas for pushing the sound of the equipment in Abbey Road studios, but until very late in the day the album was going to be recorded in the Stax studios in Memphis, with Steve Cropper producing -- whether George Martin would have been involved or not is something we don't even know. In 1965, the Rolling Stones had, as we've seen, started making records in the US, recording in LA and at the Chess studios in Chicago, and the Yardbirds had also been doing the same thing. Mick Jagger had become a convert to the idea of using American studios and working with American musicians, and he had constantly been telling Paul McCartney that the Beatles should do the same. Indeed, they'd put some feelers out in 1965 about the possibility of the group making an album with Holland, Dozier, and Holland in Detroit. Quite how this would have worked is hard to figure out -- Holland, Dozier, and Holland's skills were as songwriters, and in their work with a particular set of musicians -- so it's unsurprising that came to nothing. But recording at Stax was a different matter. While Steve Cropper was a great songwriter in his own right, he was also adept at getting great sounds on covers of other people's material -- like on Otis Blue, the album he produced for Otis Redding in late 1965, which doesn't include a single Cropper original: [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "Satisfaction"] And the Beatles were very influenced by the records Stax were putting out, often namechecking Wilson Pickett in particular, and during the Rubber Soul sessions they had recorded a "Green Onions" soundalike track, imaginatively titled "12-Bar Original": [Excerpt: The Beatles, "12-Bar Original"] The idea of the group recording at Stax got far enough that they were actually booked in for two weeks starting the ninth of April, and there was even an offer from Elvis to let them stay at Graceland while they recorded, but then a couple of weeks earlier, the news leaked to the press, and Brian Epstein cancelled the booking. According to Cropper, Epstein talked about recording at the Atlantic studios in New York with him instead, but nothing went any further. It's hard to imagine what a Stax-based Beatles album would have been like, but even though it might have been a great album, it certainly wouldn't have been the Revolver we've come to know. Revolver is an unusual album in many ways, and one of the ways it's most distinct from the earlier Beatles albums is the dominance of keyboards. Both Lennon and McCartney had often written at the piano as well as the guitar -- McCartney more so than Lennon, but both had done so regularly -- but up to this point it had been normal for them to arrange the songs for guitars rather than keyboards, no matter how they'd started out. There had been the odd track where one of them, usually Lennon, would play a simple keyboard part, songs like "I'm Down" or "We Can Work it Out", but even those had been guitar records first and foremost. But on Revolver, that changed dramatically. There seems to have been a complex web of cause and effect here. Paul was becoming increasingly interested in moving his basslines away from simple walking basslines and root notes and the other staples of rock and roll basslines up to this point. As the sixties progressed, rock basslines were becoming ever more complex, and Tyler Mahan Coe has made a good case that this is largely down to innovations in production pioneered by Owen Bradley, and McCartney was certainly aware of Bradley's work -- he was a fan of Brenda Lee, who Bradley produced, for example. But the two influences that McCartney has mentioned most often in this regard are the busy, jazz-influenced, basslines that James Jamerson was playing at Motown: [Excerpt: The Four Tops, "It's the Same Old Song"] And the basslines that Brian Wilson was writing for various Wrecking Crew bassists to play for the Beach Boys: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)"] Just to be clear, McCartney didn't hear that particular track until partway through the recording of Revolver, when Bruce Johnston visited the UK and brought with him an advance copy of Pet Sounds, but Pet Sounds influenced the later part of Revolver's recording, and Wilson had already started his experiments in that direction with the group's 1965 work. It's much easier to write a song with this kind of bassline, one that's integral to the composition, on the piano than it is to write it on a guitar, as you can work out the bassline with your left hand while working out the chords and melody with your right, so the habit that McCartney had already developed of writing on the piano made this easier. But also, starting with the recording of "Paperback Writer", McCartney switched his style of working in the studio. Where up to this point it had been normal for him to play bass as part of the recording of the basic track, playing with the other Beatles, he now started to take advantage of multitracking to overdub his bass later, so he could spend extra time getting the bassline exactly right. McCartney lived closer to Abbey Road than the other three Beatles, and so could more easily get there early or stay late and tweak his parts. But if McCartney wasn't playing bass while the guitars and drums were being recorded, that meant he could play something else, and so increasingly he would play piano during the recording of the basic track. And that in turn would mean that there wouldn't always *be* a need for guitars on the track, because the harmonic support they would provide would be provided by the piano instead. This, as much as anything else, is the reason that Revolver sounds so radically different to any other Beatles album. Up to this point, with *very* rare exceptions like "Yesterday", every Beatles record, more or less, featured all four of the Beatles playing instruments. Now John and George weren't playing on "Good Day Sunshine" or "For No One", John wasn't playing on "Here, There, and Everywhere", "Eleanor Rigby" features no guitars or drums at all, and George's "Love You To" only features himself, plus a little tambourine from Ringo (Paul recorded a part for that one, but it doesn't seem to appear on the finished track). Of the three songwriting Beatles, the only one who at this point was consistently requiring the instrumental contributions of all the other band members was John, and even he did without Paul on "She Said, She Said", which by all accounts features either John or George on bass, after Paul had a rare bout of unprofessionalism and left the studio. Revolver is still an album made by a group -- and most of those tracks that don't feature John or George instrumentally still feature them vocally -- it's still a collaborative work in all the best ways. But it's no longer an album made by four people playing together in the same room at the same time. After starting work on "Tomorrow Never Knows", the next track they started work on was Paul's "Got to Get You Into My Life", but as it would turn out they would work on that song throughout most of the sessions for the album -- in a sign of how the group would increasingly work from this point on, Paul's song was subject to multiple re-recordings and tweakings in the studio, as he tinkered to try to make it perfect. The first recording to be completed for the album, though, was almost as much of a departure in its own way as "Tomorrow Never Knows" had been. George's song "Love You To" shows just how inspired he was by the music of Ravi Shankar, and how devoted he was to Indian music. While a few months earlier he had just about managed to pick out a simple melody on the sitar for "Norwegian Wood", by this point he was comfortable enough with Indian classical music that I've seen many, many sources claim that an outside session player is playing sitar on the track, though Anil Bhagwat, the tabla player on the track, always insisted that it was entirely Harrison's playing: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Love You To"] There is a *lot* of debate as to whether it's George playing on the track, and I feel a little uncomfortable making a definitive statement in either direction. On the one hand I find it hard to believe that Harrison got that good that quickly on an unfamiliar instrument, when we know he wasn't a naturally facile musician. All the stories we have about his work in the studio suggest that he had to work very hard on his guitar solos, and that he would frequently fluff them. As a technical guitarist, Harrison was only mediocre -- his value lay in his inventiveness, not in technical ability -- and he had been playing guitar for over a decade, but sitar only a few months. There's also some session documentation suggesting that an unknown sitar player was hired. On the other hand there's the testimony of Anil Bhagwat that Harrison played the part himself, and he has been very firm on the subject, saying "If you go on the Internet there are a lot of questions asked about "Love You To". They say 'It's not George playing the sitar'. I can tell you here and now -- 100 percent it was George on sitar throughout. There were no other musicians involved. It was just me and him." And several people who are more knowledgeable than myself about the instrument have suggested that the sitar part on the track is played the way that a rock guitarist would play rather than the way someone with more knowledge of Indian classical music would play -- there's a blues feeling to some of the bends that apparently no genuine Indian classical musician would naturally do. I would suggest that the best explanation is that there's a professional sitar player trying to replicate a part that Harrison had previously demonstrated, while Harrison was in turn trying his best to replicate the sound of Ravi Shankar's work. Certainly the instrumental section sounds far more fluent, and far more stylistically correct, than one would expect: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Love You To"] Where previous attempts at what got called "raga-rock" had taken a couple of surface features of Indian music -- some form of a drone, perhaps a modal scale -- and had generally used a guitar made to sound a little bit like a sitar, or had a sitar playing normal rock riffs, Harrison's song seems to be a genuine attempt to hybridise Indian ragas and rock music, combining the instrumentation, modes, and rhythmic complexity of someone like Ravi Shankar with lyrics that are seemingly inspired by Bob Dylan and a fairly conventional pop song structure (and a tiny bit of fuzz guitar). It's a record that could only be made by someone who properly understood both the Indian music he's emulating and the conventions of the Western pop song, and understood how those conventions could work together. Indeed, one thing I've rarely seen pointed out is how cleverly the album is sequenced, so that "Love You To" is followed by possibly the most conventional song on Revolver, "Here, There, and Everywhere", which was recorded towards the end of the sessions. Both songs share a distinctive feature not shared by the rest of the album, so the two songs can sound more of a pair than they otherwise would, retrospectively making "Love You To" seem more conventional than it is and "Here, There, and Everywhere" more unconventional -- both have as an introduction a separate piece of music that states some of the melodic themes of the rest of the song but isn't repeated later. In the case of "Love You To" it's the free-tempo bit at the beginning, characteristic of a lot of Indian music: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Love You To"] While in the case of "Here, There, and Everywhere" it's the part that mimics an older style of songwriting, a separate intro of the type that would have been called a verse when written by the Gershwins or Cole Porter, but of course in the intervening decades "verse" had come to mean something else, so we now no longer have a specific term for this kind of intro -- but as you can hear, it's doing very much the same thing as that "Love You To" intro: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Here, There, and Everywhere"] In the same day as the group completed "Love You To", overdubbing George's vocal and Ringo's tambourine, they also started work on a song that would show off a lot of the new techniques they had been working on in very different ways. Paul's "Paperback Writer" could indeed be seen as part of a loose trilogy with "Love You To" and "Tomorrow Never Knows", one song by each of the group's three songwriters exploring the idea of a song that's almost all on one chord. Both "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Love You To" are based on a drone with occasional hints towards moving to one other chord. In the case of "Paperback Writer", the entire song stays on a single chord until the title -- it's on a G7 throughout until the first use of the word "writer", when it quickly goes to a C for two bars. I'm afraid I'm going to have to sing to show you how little the chords actually change, because the riff disguises this lack of movement somewhat, but the melody is also far more horizontal than most of McCartney's, so this shouldn't sound too painful, I hope: [demonstrates] This is essentially the exact same thing that both "Love You To" and "Tomorrow Never Knows" do, and all three have very similarly structured rising and falling modal melodies. There's also a bit of "Paperback Writer" that seems to tie directly into "Love You To", but also points to a possible very non-Indian inspiration for part of "Love You To". The Beach Boys' single "Sloop John B" was released in the UK a couple of days after the sessions for "Paperback Writer" and "Love You To", but it had been released in the US a month before, and the Beatles all got copies of every record in the American top thirty shipped to them. McCartney and Harrison have specifically pointed to it as an influence on "Paperback Writer". "Sloop John B" has a section where all the instruments drop out and we're left with just the group's vocal harmonies: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "Sloop John B"] And that seems to have been the inspiration behind the similar moment at a similar point in "Paperback Writer", which is used in place of a middle eight and also used for the song's intro: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Paperback Writer"] Which is very close to what Harrison does at the end of each verse of "Love You To", where the instruments drop out for him to sing a long melismatic syllable before coming back in: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Love You To"] Essentially, other than "Got to Get You Into My Life", which is an outlier and should not be counted, the first three songs attempted during the Revolver sessions are variations on a common theme, and it's a sign that no matter how different the results might sound, the Beatles really were very much a group at this point, and were sharing ideas among themselves and developing those ideas in similar ways. "Paperback Writer" disguises what it's doing somewhat by having such a strong riff. Lennon referred to "Paperback Writer" as "son of 'Day Tripper'", and in terms of the Beatles' singles it's actually their third iteration of this riff idea, which they originally got from Bobby Parker's "Watch Your Step": [Excerpt: Bobby Parker, "Watch Your Step"] Which became the inspiration for "I Feel Fine": [Excerpt: The Beatles, "I Feel Fine"] Which they varied for "Day Tripper": [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Day Tripper"] And which then in turn got varied for "Paperback Writer": [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Paperback Writer"] As well as compositional ideas, there are sonic ideas shared between "Paperback Writer", "Tomorrow Never Knows", and "Love You To", and which would be shared by the rest of the tracks the Beatles recorded in the first half of 1966. Since Geoff Emerick had become the group's principal engineer, they'd started paying more attention to how to get a fuller sound, and so Emerick had miced the tabla on "Love You To" much more closely than anyone would normally mic an instrument from classical music, creating a deep, thudding sound, and similarly he had changed the way they recorded the drums on "Tomorrow Never Knows", again giving a much fuller sound. But the group also wanted the kind of big bass sounds they'd loved on records coming out of America -- sounds that no British studio was getting, largely because it was believed that if you cut too loud a bass sound into a record it would make the needle jump out of the groove. The new engineering team of Geoff Emerick and Ken Scott, though, thought that it was likely you could keep the needle in the groove if you had a smoother frequency response. You could do that if you used a microphone with a larger diaphragm to record the bass, but how could you do that? Inspiration finally struck -- loudspeakers are actually the same thing as microphones wired the other way round, so if you wired up a loudspeaker as if it were a microphone you could get a *really big* speaker, place it in front of the bass amp, and get a much stronger bass sound. The experiment wasn't a total success -- the sound they got had to be processed quite extensively to get rid of room noise, and then compressed in order to further prevent the needle-jumping issue, and so it's a muddier, less defined, tone than they would have liked, but one thing that can't be denied is that "Paperback Writer"'s bass sound is much, much, louder than on any previous Beatles record: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Paperback Writer"] Almost every track the group recorded during the Revolver sessions involved all sorts of studio innovations, though rarely anything as truly revolutionary as the artificial double-tracking they'd used on "Tomorrow Never Knows", and which also appeared on "Paperback Writer" -- indeed, as "Paperback Writer" was released several months before Revolver, it became the first record released to use the technique. I could easily devote a good ten minutes to every track on Revolver, and to "Paperback Writer"s B-side, "Rain", but this is already shaping up to be an extraordinarily long episode and there's a lot of material to get through, so I'll break my usual pattern of devoting a Patreon bonus episode to something relatively obscure, and this week's bonus will be on "Rain" itself. "Paperback Writer", though, deserved the attention here even though it was not one of the group's more successful singles -- it did go to number one, but it didn't hit number one in the UK charts straight away, being kept off the top by "Strangers in the Night" by Frank Sinatra for the first week: [Excerpt: Frank Sinatra, "Strangers in the Night"] Coincidentally, "Strangers in the Night" was co-written by Bert Kaempfert, the German musician who had produced the group's very first recording sessions with Tony Sheridan back in 1961. On the group's German tour in 1966 they met up with Kaempfert again, and John greeted him by singing the first couple of lines of the Sinatra record. The single was the lowest-selling Beatles single in the UK since "Love Me Do". In the US it only made number one for two non-consecutive weeks, with "Strangers in the Night" knocking it off for a week in between. Now, by literally any other band's standards, that's still a massive hit, and it was the Beatles' tenth UK number one in a row (or ninth, depending on which chart you use for "Please Please Me"), but it's a sign that the group were moving out of the first phase of total unequivocal dominance of the charts. It was a turning point in a lot of other ways as well. Up to this point, while the group had been experimenting with different lyrical subjects on album tracks, every single had lyrics about romantic relationships -- with the possible exception of "Help!", which was about Lennon's emotional state but written in such a way that it could be heard as a plea to a lover. But in the case of "Paperback Writer", McCartney was inspired by his Aunt Mill asking him "Why do you write songs about love all the time? Can you ever write about a horse or the summit conference or something interesting?" His response was to think "All right, Aunt Mill, I'll show you", and to come up with a lyric that was very much in the style of the social satires that bands like the Kinks were releasing at the time. People often miss the humour in the lyric for "Paperback Writer", but there's a huge amount of comedy in lyrics about someone writing to a publisher saying they'd written a book based on someone else's book, and one can only imagine the feeling of weary recognition in slush-pile readers throughout the world as they heard the enthusiastic "It's a thousand pages, give or take a few, I'll be writing more in a week or two. I can make it longer..." From this point on, the group wouldn't release a single that was unambiguously about a romantic relationship until "The Ballad of John and Yoko", the last single released while the band were still together. "Paperback Writer" also saw the Beatles for the first time making a promotional film -- what we would now call a rock video -- rather than make personal appearances on TV shows. The film was directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who the group would work with again in 1969, and shows Paul with a chipped front tooth -- he'd been in an accident while riding mopeds with his friend Tara Browne a few months earlier, and hadn't yet got round to having the tooth capped. When he did, the change in his teeth was one of the many bits of evidence used by conspiracy theorists to prove that the real Paul McCartney was dead and replaced by a lookalike. It also marks a change in who the most prominent Beatle on the group's A-sides was. Up to this point, Paul had had one solo lead on an A-side -- "Can't Buy Me Love" -- and everything else had been either a song with multiple vocalists like "Day Tripper" or "Love Me Do", or a song with a clear John lead like "Ticket to Ride" or "I Feel Fine". In the rest of their career, counting "Paperback Writer", the group would release nine new singles that hadn't already been included on an album. Of those nine singles, one was a double A-side with one John song and one Paul song, two had John songs on the A-side, and the other six were Paul. Where up to this point John had been "lead Beatle", for the rest of the sixties, Paul would be the group's driving force. Oddly, Paul got rather defensive about the record when asked about it in interviews after it failed to go straight to the top, saying "It's not our best single by any means, but we're very satisfied with it". But especially in its original mono mix it actually packs a powerful punch: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Paperback Writer"] When the "Paperback Writer" single was released, an unusual image was used in the advertising -- a photo of the Beatles dressed in butchers' smocks, covered in blood, with chunks of meat and the dismembered body parts of baby dolls lying around on them. The image was meant as part of a triptych parodying religious art -- the photo on the left was to be an image showing the four Beatles connected to a woman by an umbilical cord made of sausages, the middle panel was meant to be this image, but with halos added over the Beatles' heads, and the panel on the right was George hammering a nail into John's head, symbolising both crucifixion and that the group were real, physical, people, not just images to be worshipped -- these weren't imaginary nails, and they weren't imaginary people. The photographer Robert Whittaker later said: “I did a photograph of the Beatles covered in raw meat, dolls and false teeth. Putting meat, dolls and false teeth with The Beatles is essentially part of the same thing, the breakdown of what is regarded as normal. The actual conception for what I still call “Somnambulant Adventure” was Moses coming down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments. He comes across people worshipping a golden calf. All over the world I'd watched people worshiping like idols, like gods, four Beatles. To me they were just stock standard normal people. But this emotion that fans poured on them made me wonder where Christianity was heading.” The image wasn't that controversial in the UK, when it was used to advertise "Paperback Writer", but in the US it was initially used for the cover of an album, Yesterday... And Today, which was made up of a few tracks that had been left off the US versions of the Rubber Soul and Help! albums, plus both sides of the "We Can Work It Out"/"Day Tripper" single, and three rough mixes of songs that had been recorded for Revolver -- "Doctor Robert", "And Your Bird Can Sing", and "I'm Only Sleeping", which was the song that sounded most different from the mixes that were finally released: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "I'm Only Sleeping (Yesterday... and Today mix)"] Those three songs were all Lennon songs, which had the unfortunate effect that when the US version of Revolver was brought out later in the year, only two of the songs on the album were by Lennon, with six by McCartney and three by Harrison. Some have suggested that this was the motivation for the use of the butcher image on the cover of Yesterday... And Today -- saying it was the Beatles' protest against Capitol "butchering" their albums -- but in truth it was just that Capitol's art director chose the cover because he liked the image. Alan Livingston, the president of Capitol was not so sure, and called Brian Epstein to ask if the group would be OK with them using a different image. Epstein checked with John Lennon, but Lennon liked the image and so Epstein told Livingston the group insisted on them using that cover. Even though for the album cover the bloodstains on the butchers' smocks were airbrushed out, after Capitol had pressed up a million copies of the mono version of the album and two hundred thousand copies of the stereo version, and they'd sent out sixty thousand promo copies, they discovered that no record shops would stock the album with that cover. It cost Capitol more than two hundred thousand dollars to recall the album and replace the cover with a new one -- though while many of the covers were destroyed, others had the new cover, with a more acceptable photo of the group, pasted over them, and people have later carefully steamed off the sticker to reveal the original. This would not be the last time in 1966 that something that was intended as a statement on religion and the way people viewed the Beatles would cause the group trouble in America. In the middle of the recording sessions for Revolver, the group also made what turned out to be their last ever UK live performance in front of a paying audience. The group had played the NME Poll-Winners' Party every year since 1963, and they were always shows that featured all the biggest acts in the country at the time -- the 1966 show featured, as well as the Beatles and a bunch of smaller acts, the Rolling Stones, the Who, the Yardbirds, Roy Orbison, Cliff Richard and the Shadows, the Seekers, the Small Faces, the Walker Brothers, and Dusty Springfield. Unfortunately, while these events were always filmed for TV broadcast, the Beatles' performance on the first of May wasn't filmed. There are various stories about what happened, but the crux appears to be a disagreement between Andrew Oldham and Brian Epstein, sparked by John Lennon. When the Beatles got to the show, they were upset to discover that they had to wait around before going on stage -- normally, the awards would all be presented at the end, after all the performances, but the Rolling Stones had asked that the Beatles not follow them directly, so after the Stones finished their set, there would be a break for the awards to be given out, and then the Beatles would play their set, in front of an audience that had been bored by twenty-five minutes of awards ceremony, rather than one that had been excited by all the bands that came before them. John Lennon was annoyed, and insisted that the Beatles were going to go on straight after the Rolling Stones -- he seems to have taken this as some sort of power play by the Stones and to have got his hackles up about it. He told Epstein to deal with the people from the NME. But the NME people said that they had a contract with Andrew Oldham, and they weren't going to break it. Oldham refused to change the terms of the contract. Lennon said that he wasn't going to go on stage if they didn't directly follow the Stones. Maurice Kinn, the publisher of the NME, told Epstein that he wasn't going to break the contract with Oldham, and that if the Beatles didn't appear on stage, he would get Jimmy Savile, who was compering the show, to go out on stage and tell the ten thousand fans in the audience that the Beatles were backstage refusing to appear. He would then sue NEMS for breach of contract *and* NEMS would be liable for any damage caused by the rioting that was sure to happen. Lennon screamed a lot of abuse at Kinn, and told him the group would never play one of their events again, but the group did go on stage -- but because they hadn't yet signed the agreement to allow their performance to be filmed, they refused to allow it to be recorded. Apparently Andrew Oldham took all this as a sign that Epstein was starting to lose control of the group. Also during May 1966 there were visits from musicians from other countries, continuing the cultural exchange that was increasingly influencing the Beatles' art. Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys came over to promote the group's new LP, Pet Sounds, which had been largely the work of Brian Wilson, who had retired from touring to concentrate on working in the studio. Johnston played the record for John and Paul, who listened to it twice, all the way through, in silence, in Johnston's hotel room: [Excerpt: The Beach Boys, "God Only Knows"] According to Johnston, after they'd listened through the album twice, they went over to a piano and started whispering to each other, picking out chords. Certainly the influence of Pet Sounds is very noticeable on songs like "Here, There, and Everywhere", written and recorded a few weeks after this meeting: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "Here, There, and Everywhere"] That track, and the last track recorded for the album, "She Said She Said" were unusual in one very important respect -- they were recorded while the Beatles were no longer under contract to EMI Records. Their contract expired on the fifth of June, 1966, and they finished Revolver without it having been renewed -- it would be several months before their new contract was signed, and it's rather lucky for music lovers that Brian Epstein was the kind of manager who considered personal relationships and basic honour and decency more important than the legal niceties, unlike any other managers of the era, otherwise we would not have Revolver in the form we know it today. After the meeting with Johnston, but before the recording of those last couple of Revolver tracks, the Beatles also met up again with Bob Dylan, who was on a UK tour with a new, loud, band he was working with called The Hawks. While the Beatles and Dylan all admired each other, there was by this point a lot of wariness on both sides, especially between Lennon and Dylan, both of them very similar personality types and neither wanting to let their guard down around the other or appear unhip. There's a famous half-hour-long film sequence of Lennon and Dylan sharing a taxi, which is a fascinating, excruciating, example of two insecure but arrogant men both trying desperately to impress the other but also equally desperate not to let the other know that they want to impress them: [Excerpt: Dylan and Lennon taxi ride] The day that was filmed, Lennon and Harrison also went to see Dylan play at the Royal Albert Hall. This tour had been controversial, because Dylan's band were loud and raucous, and Dylan's fans in the UK still thought of him as a folk musician. At one gig, earlier on the tour, an audience member had famously yelled out "Judas!" -- (just on the tiny chance that any of my listeners don't know that, Judas was the disciple who betrayed Jesus to the authorities, leading to his crucifixion) -- and that show was for many years bootlegged as the "Royal Albert Hall" show, though in fact it was recorded at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester. One of the *actual* Royal Albert Hall shows was released a few years ago -- the one the night before Lennon and Harrison saw Dylan: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Like a Rolling Stone", Royal Albert Hall 1966] The show Lennon and Harrison saw would be Dylan's last for many years. Shortly after returning to the US, Dylan was in a motorbike accident, the details of which are still mysterious, and which some fans claim was faked altogether. The accident caused him to cancel all the concert dates he had booked, and devote himself to working in the studio for several years just like Brian Wilson. And from even further afield than America, Ravi Shankar came over to Britain, to work with his friend the violinist Yehudi Menuhin, on a duet album, West Meets East, that was an example in the classical world of the same kind of international cross-fertilisation that was happening in the pop world: [Excerpt: Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar, "Prabhati (based on Raga Gunkali)"] While he was in the UK, Shankar also performed at the Royal Festival Hall, and George Harrison went to the show. He'd seen Shankar live the year before, but this time he met up with him afterwards, and later said "He was the first person that impressed me in a way that was beyond just being a famous celebrity. Ravi was my link to the Vedic world. Ravi plugged me into the whole of reality. Elvis impressed me when I was a kid, and impressed me when I met him, but you couldn't later on go round to him and say 'Elvis, what's happening with the universe?'" After completing recording and mixing the as-yet-unnamed album, which had been by far the longest recording process of their career, and which still nearly sixty years later regularly tops polls of the best album of all time, the Beatles took a well-earned break. For a whole two days, at which point they flew off to Germany to do a three-day tour, on their way to Japan, where they were booked to play five shows at the Budokan. Unfortunately for the group, while they had no idea of this when they were booked to do the shows, many in Japan saw the Budokan as sacred ground, and they were the first ever Western group to play there. This led to numerous death threats and loud protests from far-right activists offended at the Beatles defiling their religious and nationalistic sensibilities. As a result, the police were on high alert -- so high that there were three thousand police in the audience for the shows, in a venue which only held ten thousand audience members. That's according to Mark Lewisohn's Complete Beatles Chronicle, though I have to say that the rather blurry footage of the audience in the video of those shows doesn't seem to show anything like those numbers. But frankly I'll take Lewisohn's word over that footage, as he's not someone to put out incorrect information. The threats to the group also meant that they had to be kept in their hotel rooms at all times except when actually performing, though they did make attempts to get out. At the press conference for the Tokyo shows, the group were also asked publicly for the first time their views on the war in Vietnam, and John replied "Well, we think about it every day, and we don't agree with it and we think that it's wrong. That's how much interest we take. That's all we can do about it... and say that we don't like it". I say they were asked publicly for the first time, because George had been asked about it for a series of interviews Maureen Cleave had done with the group a couple of months earlier, as we'll see in a bit, but nobody was paying attention to those interviews. Brian Epstein was upset that the question had gone to John. He had hoped that the inevitable Vietnam question would go to Paul, who he thought might be a bit more tactful. The last thing he needed was John Lennon saying something that would upset the Americans before their tour there a few weeks later. Luckily, people in America seemed to have better things to do than pay attention to John Lennon's opinions. The support acts for the Japanese shows included several of the biggest names in Japanese rock music -- or "group sounds" as the genre was called there, Japanese people having realised that trying to say the phrase "rock and roll" would open them up to ridicule given that it had both "r" and "l" sounds in the phrase. The man who had coined the term "group sounds", Jackey Yoshikawa, was there with his group the Blue Comets, as was Isao Bito, who did a rather good cover version of Cliff Richard's "Dynamite": [Excerpt: Isao Bito, "Dynamite"] Bito, the Blue Comets, and the other two support acts, Yuya Uchida and the Blue Jeans, all got together to perform a specially written song, "Welcome Beatles": [Excerpt: "Welcome Beatles" ] But while the Japanese audience were enthusiastic, they were much less vocal about their enthusiasm than the audiences the Beatles were used to playing for. The group were used, of course, to playing in front of hordes of screaming teenagers who could not hear a single note, but because of the fear that a far-right terrorist would assassinate one of the group members, the police had imposed very, very, strict rules on the audience. Nobody in the audience was allowed to get out of their seat for any reason, and the police would clamp down very firmly on anyone who was too demonstrative. Because of that, the group could actually hear themselves, and they sounded sloppy as hell, especially on the newer material. Not that there was much of that. The only song they did from the Revolver sessions was "Paperback Writer", the new single, and while they did do a couple of tracks from Rubber Soul, those were under-rehearsed. As John said at the start of this tour, "I can't play any of Rubber Soul, it's so unrehearsed. The only time I played any of the numbers on it was when I recorded it. I forget about songs. They're only valid for a certain time." That's certainly borne out by the sound of their performances of Rubber Soul material at the Budokan: [Excerpt: The Beatles, "If I Needed Someone (live at the Budokan)"] It was while they were in Japan as well that they finally came up with the title for their new album. They'd been thinking of all sorts of ideas, like Abracadabra and Magic Circle, and tossing names around with increasing desperation for several days -- at one point they seem to have just started riffing on other groups' albums, and seem to have apparently seriously thought about naming the record in parodic tribute to their favourite artists -- suggestions included The Beatles On Safari, after the Beach Boys' Surfin' Safari (and possibly with a nod to their recent Pet Sounds album cover with animals, too), The Freewheelin' Beatles, after Dylan's second album, and my favourite, Ringo's suggestion After Geography, for the Rolling Stones' Aftermath. But eventually Paul came up with Revolver -- like Rubber Soul, a pun, in this case because the record itself revolves when on a turntable. Then it was off to the Philippines, and if the group thought Japan had been stressful, they had no idea what was coming. The trouble started in the Philippines from the moment they stepped off the plane, when they were bundled into a car without Neil Aspinall or Brian Epstein, and without their luggage, which was sent to customs. This was a problem in itself -- the group had got used to essentially being treated like diplomats, and to having their baggage let through customs without being searched, and so they'd started freely carrying various illicit substances with them. This would obviously be a problem -- but as it turned out, this was just to get a "customs charge" paid by Brian Epstein. But during their initial press conference the group were worried, given the hostility they'd faced from officialdom, that they were going to be arrested during the conference itself. They were asked what they would tell the Rolling Stones, who were going to be visiting the Philippines shortly after, and Lennon just said "We'll warn them". They also asked "is there a war on in the Philippines? Why is everybody armed?" At this time, the Philippines had a new leader, Ferdinand Marcos -- who is not to be confused with his son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, also known as Bongbong Marcos, who just became President-Elect there last month. Marcos Sr was a dictatorial kleptocrat, one of the worst leaders of the latter half of the twentieth century, but that wasn't evident yet. He'd been elected only a few months earlier, and had presented himself as a Kennedy-like figure -- a young man who was also a war hero. He'd recently switched parties from the Liberal party to the right-wing Nacionalista Party, but wasn't yet being thought of as the monstrous dictator he later became. The person organising the Philippines shows had been ordered to get the Beatles to visit Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos at 11AM on the day of the show, but for some reason had instead put on their itinerary just the *suggestion* that the group should meet the Marcoses, and had put the time down as 3PM, and the Beatles chose to ignore that suggestion -- they'd refused to do that kind of government-official meet-and-greet ever since an incident in 1964 at the British Embassy in Washington where someone had cut off a bit of Ringo's hair. A military escort turned up at the group's hotel in the morning, to take them for their meeting. The group were all still in their rooms, and Brian Epstein was still eating breakfast and refused to disturb them, saying "Go back and tell the generals we're not coming." The group gave their performances as scheduled, but meanwhile there was outrage at the way the Beatles had refused to meet the Marcos family, who had brought hundreds of children -- friends of their own children, and relatives of top officials -- to a party to meet the group. Brian Epstein went on TV and tried to smooth things over, but the broadcast was interrupted by static and his message didn't get through to anyone. The next day, the group's security was taken away, as were the cars to take them to the airport. When they got to the airport, the escalators were turned off and the group were beaten up at the arrangement of the airport manager, who said in 1984 "I beat up the Beatles. I really thumped them. First I socked Epstein and he went down... then I socked Lennon and Ringo in the face. I was kicking them. They were pleading like frightened chickens. That's what happens when you insult the First Lady." Even on the plane there were further problems -- Brian Epstein and the group's road manager Mal Evans were both made to get off the plane to sort out supposed financial discrepancies, which led to them worrying that they were going to be arrested or worse -- Evans told the group to tell his wife he loved her as he left the plane. But eventually, they were able to leave, and after a brief layover in India -- which Ringo later said was the first time he felt he'd been somewhere truly foreign, as opposed to places like Germany or the USA which felt basically like home -- they got back to England: [Excerpt: "Ordinary passenger!"] When asked what they were going to do next, George replied “We're going to have a couple of weeks to recuperate before we go and get beaten up by the Americans,” The story of the "we're bigger than Jesus" controversy is one of the most widely misreported events in the lives of the Beatles, which is saying a great deal. One book that I've encountered, and one book only, Steve Turner's Beatles '66, tells the story of what actually happened, and even that book seems to miss some emphases. I've pieced what follows together from Turner's book and from an academic journal article I found which has some more detail. As far as I can tell, every single other book on the Beatles released up to this point bases their account of the story on an inaccurate press statement put out by Brian Epstein, not on the truth. Here's the story as it's generally told. John Lennon gave an interview to his friend, Maureen Cleave of the Evening Standard, during which he made some comments about how it was depressing that Christianity was losing relevance in the eyes of the public, and that the Beatles are more popular than Jesus, speaking casually because he was talking to a friend. That story was run in the Evening Standard more-or-less unnoticed, but then an American teen magazine picked up on the line about the Beatles being bigger than Jesus, reprinted chunks of the interview out of context and without the Beatles' knowledge or permission, as a way to stir up controversy, and there was an outcry, with people burning Beatles records and death threats from the Ku Klux Klan. That's... not exactly what happened. The first thing that you need to understand to know what happened is that Datebook wasn't a typical teen magazine. It *looked* just like a typical teen magazine, certainly, and much of its content was the kind of thing that you would get in Tiger Beat or any of the other magazines aimed at teenage girls -- the September 1966 issue was full of articles like "Life with the Walker Brothers... by their Road Manager", and interviews with the Dave Clark Five -- but it also had a long history of publishing material that was intended to make its readers think about social issues of the time, particularly Civil Rights. Arthur Unger, the magazine's editor and publisher, was a gay man in an interracial relationship, and while the subject of homosexuality was too taboo in the late fifties and sixties for him to have his magazine cover that, he did regularly include articles decrying segregation and calling for the girls reading the magazine to do their part on a personal level to stamp out racism. Datebook had regularly contained articles like one from 1963 talking about how segregation wasn't just a problem in the South, saying "If we are so ‘integrated' why must men in my own city of Philadelphia, the city of Brotherly Love, picket city hall because they are discriminated against when it comes to getting a job? And how come I am still unable to take my dark- complexioned friends to the same roller skating rink or swimming pool that I attend?” One of the writers for the magazine later said “We were much more than an entertainment magazine . . . . We tried to get kids involved in social issues . . . . It was a well-received magazine, recommended by libraries and schools, but during the Civil Rights period we did get pulled off a lot of stands in the South because of our views on integration” Art Unger, the editor and publisher, wasn't the only one pushing this liberal, integrationist, agenda. The managing editor at the time, Danny Fields, was another gay man who wanted to push the magazine even further than Unger, and who would later go on to manage the Stooges and the Ramones, being credited by some as being the single most important figure in punk rock's development, and being immortalised by the Ramones in their song "Danny Says": [Excerpt: The Ramones, "Danny Says"] So this was not a normal teen magazine, and that's certainly shown by the cover of the September 1966 issue, which as well as talking about the interviews with John Lennon and Paul McCartney inside, also advertised articles on Timothy Leary advising people to turn on, tune in, and drop out; an editorial about how interracial dating must be the next step after desegregation of schools, and a piece on "the ten adults you dig/hate the most" -- apparently the adult most teens dug in 1966 was Jackie Kennedy, the most hated was Barry Goldwater, and President Johnson, Billy Graham, and Martin Luther King appeared in the top ten on both lists. Now, in the early part of the year Maureen Cleave had done a whole series of articles on the Beatles -- double-page spreads on each band member, plus Brian Epstein, visiting them in their own homes (apart from Paul, who she met at a restaurant) and discussing their daily lives, their thoughts, and portraying them as rounded individuals. These articles are actually fascinating, because of something that everyone who met the Beatles in this period pointed out. When interviewed separately, all of them came across as thoughtful individuals, with their own opinions about all sorts of subjects, and their own tastes and senses of humour. But when two or more of them were together -- especially when John and Paul were interviewed together, but even in social situations, they would immediately revert to flip in-jokes and riffing on each other's statements, never revealing anything about themselves as individuals, but just going into Beatle mode -- simultaneously preserving the band's image, closing off outsiders, *and* making sure they didn't do or say anything that would get them mocked by the others. Cleave, as someone who actually took them all seriously, managed to get some very revealing information about all of them. In the article on Ringo, which is the most superficial -- one gets the impression that Cleave found him rather difficult to talk to when compared to the other, more verbally facile, band members -- she talked about how he had a lot of Wild West and military memorabilia, how he was a devoted family man and also devoted to his friends -- he had moved to the suburbs to be close to John and George, who already lived there. The most revealing quote about Ringo's personality was him saying "Of course that's the great thing about being married -- you have a house to sit in and company all the time. And you can still go to clubs, a bonus for being married. I love being a family man." While she looked at the other Beatles' tastes in literature in detail, she'd noted that the only books Ringo owned that weren't just for show were a few science fiction paperbacks, but that as he said "I'm not thick, it's just that I'm not educated. People can use words and I won't know what they mean. I say 'me' instead of 'my'." Ringo also didn't have a drum kit at home, saying he only played when he was on stage or in the studio, and that you couldn't practice on your own, you needed to play with other people. In the article on George, she talked about how he was learning the sitar, and how he was thinking that it might be a good idea to go to India to study the sitar with Ravi Shankar for six months. She also talks about how during the interview, he played the guitar pretty much constantly, playing everything from songs from "Hello Dolly" to pieces by Bach to "the Trumpet Voluntary", by which she presumably means Clarke's "Prince of Denmark's March": [Excerpt: Jeremiah Clarke, "Prince of Denmark's March"] George was also the most outspoken on the subjects of politics, religion, and society, linking the ongoing war in Vietnam with the UK's reverence for the Second World War, saying "I think about it every day and it's wrong. Anything to do with war is wrong. They're all wrapped up in their Nelsons and their Churchills and their Montys -- always talking about war heroes. Look at All Our Yesterdays [a show on ITV that showed twenty-five-year-old newsreels] -- how we killed a few more Huns here and there. Makes me sick. They're the sort who are leaning on their walking sticks and telling us a few years in the army would do us good." He also had very strong words to say about religion, saying "I think religion falls flat on its face. All this 'love thy neighbour' but none of them are doing it. How can anybody get into the position of being Pope and accept all the glory and the money and the Mercedes-Benz and that? I could never be Pope until I'd sold my rich gates and my posh hat. I couldn't sit there with all that money on me and believe I was religious. Why can't we bring all this out in the open? Why is there all this stuff about blasphemy? If Christianity's as good as they say it is, it should stand up to a bit of discussion." Harrison also comes across as a very private person, saying "People keep saying, ‘We made you what you are,' well, I made Mr. Hovis what he is and I don't go round crawling over his gates and smashing up the wall round his house." (Hovis is a British company that makes bread and wholegrain flour). But more than anything else he comes across as an instinctive anti-authoritarian, being angry at bullying teachers, Popes, and Prime Ministers. McCartney's profile has him as the most self-consciously arty -- he talks about the plays of Alfred Jarry and the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen and Luciano Berio: [Excerpt: Luciano Berio, "Momenti (for magnetic tape)"] Though he was very worried that he might be sounding a little too pretentious, saying “I don't want to sound like Jonathan Miller going on" --

christmas united states america tv love jesus christ music american new york time head canada black world chicago australia english europe babies uk bible internet washington france england japan olympic games mexico british americans french germany san francisco new york times canadian war society africa dj european masters christianity italy australian philadelphia inspiration german japanese ireland loving western putting spain public north america alabama south night detroit songs wife trip north greek bbc indian turkey world war ii talent horses fish tokyo jews vietnam union ride sweden rain idea britain terror animals atlantic muslims melbourne mothers production beatles old testament martin luther king jr fallout dutch places bills invitation manchester philippines cook shadows rolling stones liverpool recording personality village elvis birmingham benefit judas aftermath denmark capitol pope austria rock and roll holland destruction tasks ticket hammer ward prisoners churches ferrari strangers evans mood stones depending prime minister newcastle bob dylan parliament sorrow ten commandments big brother khan liberal djs buddha pepper compare civil rights thirty cage henderson musicians lp hawks epstein turkish clarke john lennon invention frank sinatra bach satisfaction paul mccartney lsd shades high priests cream number one look up ballad chess carnival newsweek crawford pink floyd jamaican orchestras readers hindu communists richards hoops johnston meek steady wild west elect gallery monitor first lady safari rider makes good morning yogi sgt g7 chester jimi hendrix motown fringe west end digest beach boys leases autobiographies itv lester blu ray mercedes benz rich man norwich kinks alice in wonderland mick jagger anthology umbrella hinduism eric clapton viewers mount sinai bad boy tunisia salvation army come together bumblebee rolls royce ravi brotherly love blur george harrison ramones livingston billy graham bee gees tilt eighth paul simon pale indica seekers browne mccartney ferdinand ringo starr nb neanderthals kite ringo yoko ono vedic emi dunbar chuck berry japanese americans ku klux klan graceland beatle monkees rupert murdoch keith richards revolver turing rsa docker reservation abbey road british isles john coltrane barrow brian wilson popes god save bohemian alan turing leonard bernstein merseyside stooges concorde smokey robinson open air royal albert hall hard days sunnyside otis redding prime ministers toe secret agents orton roy orbison musically good vibrations southerners oldham byrds bangor abracadabra unger john cage isley brothers west germany north wales bible belt she said shankar roll up detroit free press evening standard ono nme arimathea ian mckellen pacemakers stax peter sellers beautiful people timothy leary leaving home george martin cole porter damon albarn all you need blue jeans moody blues peter brown wrecking crew americanism popular music rochdale edwardian yellow submarine cliff richard yardbirds lonely hearts club band dusty springfield leander dozier surfin cleave hello dolly marshall mcluhan robert whittaker pet sounds glenn miller jackie kennedy sgt pepper escorts keith moon manchester university penny lane brenda lee graham nash huns rachmaninoff magical mystery tour bobby womack ravi shankar wilson pickett shea stadium sixty four priory manfred mann jimmy savile ken kesey paramahansa yogananda buy me love momenti southern states marianne faithfull from me magic circle sunday telegraph holding company dudley moore jimi hendrix experience maharishi mahesh yogi psychedelic experiences swami vivekananda all together now barry goldwater cogan maharishi rso richard jones eleanor rigby jonathan miller rubber soul procol harum brian epstein alexandrian eric burdon ebu scaffold small faces leyton kinn global village linda mccartney strawberry fields mcluhan in la kevin moore raja yoga cilla black budokan larry williams alan bennett monster magnet richard lester ferdinand marcos all you need is love telstar peter cook steve cropper royal festival hall british embassy biblical hebrew michael nesmith michael crawford melody maker greensleeves cropper strawberry fields forever john sebastian norwegian wood imelda marcos la marseillaise hayley mills in my life tiger beat united press international ivor novello number six clang emerick patrick mcgoohan steve turner tommy dorsey nems karlheinz stockhausen allen klein beloved disciple nelsons entertainments london evening standard green onions yehudi menuhin edenic david mason roger mcguinn candlestick park mellotron delia derbyshire tomorrow never knows us west coast derek taylor freewheelin medicine show swinging london whiter shade ferdinand marcos jr love me do dave clark five merry pranksters three blind mice ken scott sky with diamonds newfield peter asher carl wilson walker brothers emi records spicks release me hovis country joe she loves you mellow yellow joe meek jane asher road manager georgie fame biggles danger man say you love me ian macdonald churchills paperback writer long tall sally geoff emerick i feel fine humperdinck david sheff merseybeat james jamerson mark lewisohn bruce johnston michael lindsay hogg european broadcasting union august bank holiday sergeant pepper john drake martin carthy brechtian edwardian england alfred jarry it be nice all our yesterdays billy j kramer hogshead northern songs good day sunshine bongbong marcos zeffirelli john betjeman alternate titles sloop john b portmeirion gershwins baby you simon scott tony sheridan leo mckern you know my name robert stigwood richard condon joe orton cynthia lennon tony palmer bert kaempfert mount snowdon mcgoohan exciters owen bradley from head west meets east bert berns she said she said tyler mahan coe david tudor hide your love away montys brandenburg concerto only sleeping john dunbar danny fields andrew oldham barry miles marcoses nik cohn michael hordern your mother should know brian hodgson alma cogan how i won invention no mike vickers mike hennessey we can work tara browne lewisohn love you to stephen dando collins steve barri get you into my life alistair taylor up against it christopher strachey gordon waller kaempfert tilt araiza

Fact and Fiction: The Prisoner in Literature (Number 23)

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 26, 2022 63:03

Screenwriter Cai Ross and lecturer Chris Bainbridge discus the books inspired by the prescient 1967 TV show, The Prisoner. In this episode Cai and Chris look at the plethora of literature that has been created over the past 50 years that has kept interest in the show alive. As ever, minutiae will be scrutinised and tangents will be explored with dash of light humour, your hosts will cast their critical eyes over the Prisoner literature, with discussion on interpretation, trivia and humour. The only Prisoner podcast produced in north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

tv fiction acast village wales literature prisoners cai portmeirion

Fall Out: Part 3 (Number 22)

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 19, 2022 86:24

The Fall Out Tripartite: Part ThreeScreenwriter Cai Ross and lecturer Chris Bainbridge continue discussing the seventeen episodes of the prescient 1967 TV show, The Prisoner. The final fifteen minutes of episode seventeen, Fall Out are deconstructed and explored. Chris and Cai leave the cave via the A20 and head back to normality ably abetted by their special guests: Six of One Founder Dave Barrie, Prisoner expert and curator of TheUnmutual.co.uk Rick Davy, and Six of One's PortMeiricon Organiser Anthony Brierley. As ever, minutiae will be scrutinised and tangents will be explored with dash of light humour, your hosts will cast their critical eyes over the episode, with discussion on interpretation, trivia, humour and an exploration of the production process. The only Prisoner podcast produced in north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

tv fallout acast village wales prisoners cai a20 portmeirion

Fall Out: Part 2 (Number 21)

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 12, 2022 82:28

The Fall Out Tripartite: Part TwoScreenwriter Cai Ross and lecturer Chris Bainbridge continue discussing the seventeen episodes of the prescient 1967 TV show, The Prisoner. The next twenty minutes of episode seventeen, Fall Out are deconstructed and explored. Chris and Cai are joined by author Robert Fairclough (The Prisoner: The Official Companion) who talks about working with Kenneth Griffiths and provides some interesting trivia from the production. As ever, minutiae will be scrutinised and tangents will be explored with dash of light humour, your hosts will cast their critical eyes over the episode, with discussion on interpretation, trivia, humour and an exploration of the production process. The only Prisoner podcast produced in north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

tv fallout acast village wales prisoners cai portmeirion

Fall Out: Part 1 (Number 20)

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 5, 2022 88:14

The Fall Out Tripartite: Part One. In this episode, screenwriter Cai Ross and lecturer Chris Bainbridge continue discussing the seventeen episodes of the prescient 1967 TV show, The Prisoner. The first fifteen minutes of episode seventeen, Fall Out are deconstructed and explored. Chris and Cai descend into the subterranean world of Plato's Cave to the strains of the Beatles, armed with etymological dictionaries and the York Notes guide to Freud. As ever, minutiae will be scrutinised and tangents will be explored with dash of light humour, your hosts will cast their critical eyes over the episode, with discussion on interpretation, trivia, humour and an exploration of the production process. The only Prisoner podcast produced in north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

tv beatles fallout acast village caves wales prisoners plato freud cai portmeirion

Once upon a Time (Number 19)

tv time acast village wales prisoners patrick mcgoohan portmeirion

Play Episode Listen Later May 29, 2022 60:33

In this episode, screenwriter Cai Ross and lecturer Chris Bainbridge continue discussing the seventeen episodes of the prescient 1967 TV show, The Prisoner. Was Once upon a Time, a very personal piece of work for Patrick McGoohan? What are the numerous connections to professional theatre? As ever, minutiae will be scrutinised and tangents will be explored with dash of light humour, your hosts will cast their critical eyes over the episode, with discussion on interpretation, trivia, humour and an exploration of the production process. The only Prisoner podcast produced in north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Special - Discovering The Prisoner (Number 18)

Play Episode Listen Later May 22, 2022 65:16

In this special episode, screenwriter Cai Ross and lecturer Chris Bainbridge looks at the broadcast and home media history of The Prisoner. This week, a multitude of special guests including Dave Barrie, Rick Davy, Robert Fairclough and Anthony Brierley discuss their first 'Arrival' at The Village. The only Prisoner podcast produced in north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion.3rd party audio clips copyright belonging to Channel 4, ITC, ITV, Precision Video, Channel 5 video, ATV and Polygram. Copyrighted material as 'fair usage' for limited and “transformative” purposes, such as to comment upon, criticise, or parody a copyrighted work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

discovering acast village wales prisoners arrival itv atv itc polygram portmeirion

The Girl Who Was Death (Number 17)

Play Episode Listen Later May 15, 2022 54:25

In this episode, screenwriter Cai Ross and lecturer Chris Bainbridge continue discussing the seventeen episodes of the prescient 1967 TV show, The Prisoner. This week, special guest Rick Davy (writer, researcher, and curator of TheUnmutual.co.uk) weighs in on The Drake Debate, following our Twitter poll - Was Number 6 actually John Drake? Minutiae will be scrutinised and tangents will be explored with dash of light humour. Regular feature Who's The Two looks at the career of Welsh actor Kenneth Griffith, with input from writer Robert Fairclough (author of The Official Prisoner Companion). As ever, your hosts will cast their critical eyes over the episode, with discussion on interpretation, trivia, humour and an exploration of the production process. The only Prisoner podcast produced in north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

tv death girl acast village wales regular prisoners welsh minutiae john drake portmeirion

Living in Harmony (Number 16)

Play Episode Listen Later May 9, 2022 58:06

In this week's episode, screenwriter Cai Ross and lecturer Chris Bainbridge continue discussing the seventeen episodes of the prescient 1967 TV show, The Prisoner. This week, special guest Dave Barrie (writer, and founding member of Six of One: The Prisoner Appreciation Society) discusses Living in Harmony and how his friendship with episode writer Ian Rakoff helped produce the book Inside The Prisoner: Radical Television and Film in the 1960s. Minutiae will be scrutinised and tangents will be explored with dash of light humour. Regular feature Who's The Two looks at the career of American actor David Bauer. As ever, your hosts will cast their critical eyes over the episode, with discussion on interpretation, trivia, humour and an exploration of the production process. The only Prisoner podcast produced in north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

tv american film living acast village wales regular prisoners minutiae portmeirion

Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling (Number 15)

Play Episode Listen Later May 1, 2022 50:51

In this episode, screenwriter Cai Ross and lecturer Chris Bainbridge continue discussing the seventeen episodes of the prescient 1967 TV show, The Prisoner. This week, special guest Rick Davy (writer, researcher, and curator of TheUnmutual.co.uk) defends Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling and why he feels this episode deserves much more appreciation. Minutiae will be scrutinised and tangents will be explored with dash of light humour. Regular feature Who's The Two looks at the career of Welsh actor Clifford Evans. As ever, your hosts will cast their critical eyes over the episode, with discussion on interpretation, trivia, humour and an exploration of the production process. The only Prisoner podcast produced in north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

tv acast village wales regular prisoners welsh forsake minutiae oh my darling portmeirion do not forsake me oh my darling

A Change of Mind (Number 14)

tv change mind acast village wales regular prisoners change of mind minutiae john sharp portmeirion

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 24, 2022 57:14

In this second episode of series/season 2, screenwriter Cai Ross and lecturer Chris Bainbridge discuss the seventeen episodes of the prescient 1967 TV show, The Prisoner. This week, Number 6 is deemed 'unmutual' and undergoes a staged lobotomy in A Change of Mind. Minutiae will be scrutinised and tangents will be explored with dash of light humour. Regular feature Who's The Two looks at the career of actor John Sharp. As ever, your hosts will cast their critical eyes over the episode, with discussion on interpretation, trivia, humour and an exploration of the production process. The only Prisoner podcast produced in north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's Your Funeral (Number 13)

acast village wales funeral prisoners cai your funeral portmeirion

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 17, 2022 55:54

In the first episode of series two, Chris and Cai discuss episode 11, It's Your Funeral. Who's The Two looks at the career of actor Derren Nesbitt with the added pleasure of interviewing him first hand (the full length 30 minute version of the interview is also available). As ever, your hosts will cast their critical eyes over the episode, with discussion on interpretation, trivia, humour and an exploration of the production process. The only Prisoner podcast produced in north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hammer Into Anvil (Number 12)

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 20, 2022 55:36

In this final episode of series/season 1, screenwriter Cai Ross and lecturer Chris Bainbridge discuss the seventeen episodes of the prescient 1967 TV show, The Prisoner. This week, Number 6 goes up against a sadistic Number 2 in Hammer Into Anvil. Minutiae will be scrutinised, tangents will be explored and some new elements added to the show for comic effect. Regular feature Who's The Two looks at the career of the inimitable Patrick Cargill. As ever, your hosts will cast their critical eyes over the episode, with discussion on interpretation, trivia, humour and an exploration of the production process. The only Prisoner podcast produced in north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

tv acast village wales regular hammer prisoners anvil minutiae portmeirion

Checkmate (Number 11)

New Books in Popular Culture

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 13, 2022 53:09

Happy Valentine's Day! Love is in certainly the air for Number 8 as she fawns over our hero in Checkmate. It's the penultimate episode of season/series 1, screenwriter Cai Ross and lecturer Chris Bainbridge are still trapped in the studio discussing the seventeen episodes of the prescient 1967 TV show, The Prisoner. The board is set, the pieces assembled and 'Chess for Beginners' has been consulted, the game begins! One of the most iconic and enduring episodes of The Prisoner is deconstructed, square by square, piece by piece. Regular feature Who's The Two looks at the career and influence of the legendary Peter Wyngarde; the man whose myths forged his own unique legend. As ever, your hosts will cast their critical eyes over the episode, with discussion on interpretation, trivia, humour and an exploration of the production process. The only Prisoner podcast produced in north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

tv love valentines day beginners acast village wales regular prisoners checkmate portmeirion peter wyngarde

Abby S. Waysdorf, "Fan Sites: Film Tourism and Contemporary Fandom" (U Iowa Press, 2021)

New Books in Geography

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 9, 2022 60:04

In her new book, Fan Sites: Film Tourism and Contemporary Fandom (U Iowa Press, 2021)(University of Iowa Press, 2021), Abby Waysdorf explores why and how we experience film and television-related places, and what the growth of this practice means for contemporary fandom. Through four case studies—Game of Thrones tourism in Dubrovnik, Croatia and Northern Ireland, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme parks in Orlando, Florida, fandom of The Prisoner in Portmeirion, Wales, and Friends events in the United Kingdom and United States—this book presents a multifaceted look at the ways place and fandom interact today. Fan Sites explores the different relationships that fans build with these places of fandom, from the exploratory knowledge-building of Game of Thrones fans on vacation, the appreciative evaluations of Harry Potter fans at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, to the frequent “homecoming” visits of Prisoner fans, who see Portmeirion as a “safe vault” and the home of their fandom. Including engaging accounts of real fans at each location, Fan Sites addresses what the rise of fan tourism and places of fandom might mean for the future of fandom and its relationship with the media industry. Rebekah Buchanan is an Associate Professor of English and Director of English Education at Western Illinois University. Her research focuses on feminism, activism, and literacy practices in youth culture, specifically through zines and music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/geography

Abby S. Waysdorf, "Fan Sites: Film Tourism and Contemporary Fandom" (U Iowa Press, 2021)

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 9, 2022 60:04

In her new book, Fan Sites: Film Tourism and Contemporary Fandom (U Iowa Press, 2021)(University of Iowa Press, 2021), Abby Waysdorf explores why and how we experience film and television-related places, and what the growth of this practice means for contemporary fandom. Through four case studies—Game of Thrones tourism in Dubrovnik, Croatia and Northern Ireland, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme parks in Orlando, Florida, fandom of The Prisoner in Portmeirion, Wales, and Friends events in the United Kingdom and United States—this book presents a multifaceted look at the ways place and fandom interact today. Fan Sites explores the different relationships that fans build with these places of fandom, from the exploratory knowledge-building of Game of Thrones fans on vacation, the appreciative evaluations of Harry Potter fans at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, to the frequent “homecoming” visits of Prisoner fans, who see Portmeirion as a “safe vault” and the home of their fandom. Including engaging accounts of real fans at each location, Fan Sites addresses what the rise of fan tourism and places of fandom might mean for the future of fandom and its relationship with the media industry. Rebekah Buchanan is an Associate Professor of English and Director of English Education at Western Illinois University. Her research focuses on feminism, activism, and literacy practices in youth culture, specifically through zines and music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Abby S. Waysdorf, "Fan Sites: Film Tourism and Contemporary Fandom" (U Iowa Press, 2021)

New Books in Dance

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 9, 2022 60:04

In her new book, Fan Sites: Film Tourism and Contemporary Fandom (U Iowa Press, 2021)(University of Iowa Press, 2021), Abby Waysdorf explores why and how we experience film and television-related places, and what the growth of this practice means for contemporary fandom. Through four case studies—Game of Thrones tourism in Dubrovnik, Croatia and Northern Ireland, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme parks in Orlando, Florida, fandom of The Prisoner in Portmeirion, Wales, and Friends events in the United Kingdom and United States—this book presents a multifaceted look at the ways place and fandom interact today. Fan Sites explores the different relationships that fans build with these places of fandom, from the exploratory knowledge-building of Game of Thrones fans on vacation, the appreciative evaluations of Harry Potter fans at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, to the frequent “homecoming” visits of Prisoner fans, who see Portmeirion as a “safe vault” and the home of their fandom. Including engaging accounts of real fans at each location, Fan Sites addresses what the rise of fan tourism and places of fandom might mean for the future of fandom and its relationship with the media industry. Rebekah Buchanan is an Associate Professor of English and Director of English Education at Western Illinois University. Her research focuses on feminism, activism, and literacy practices in youth culture, specifically through zines and music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/performing-arts

Abby S. Waysdorf, "Fan Sites: Film Tourism and Contemporary Fandom" (U Iowa Press, 2021)

New Books Network

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 9, 2022 60:04

In her new book, Fan Sites: Film Tourism and Contemporary Fandom (U Iowa Press, 2021)(University of Iowa Press, 2021), Abby Waysdorf explores why and how we experience film and television-related places, and what the growth of this practice means for contemporary fandom. Through four case studies—Game of Thrones tourism in Dubrovnik, Croatia and Northern Ireland, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme parks in Orlando, Florida, fandom of The Prisoner in Portmeirion, Wales, and Friends events in the United Kingdom and United States—this book presents a multifaceted look at the ways place and fandom interact today. Fan Sites explores the different relationships that fans build with these places of fandom, from the exploratory knowledge-building of Game of Thrones fans on vacation, the appreciative evaluations of Harry Potter fans at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, to the frequent “homecoming” visits of Prisoner fans, who see Portmeirion as a “safe vault” and the home of their fandom. Including engaging accounts of real fans at each location, Fan Sites addresses what the rise of fan tourism and places of fandom might mean for the future of fandom and its relationship with the media industry. Rebekah Buchanan is an Associate Professor of English and Director of English Education at Western Illinois University. Her research focuses on feminism, activism, and literacy practices in youth culture, specifically through zines and music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Abby S. Waysdorf, "Fan Sites: Film Tourism and Contemporary Fandom" (U Iowa Press, 2021)

New Books in Film

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 9, 2022 60:04

In her new book, Fan Sites: Film Tourism and Contemporary Fandom (U Iowa Press, 2021)(University of Iowa Press, 2021), Abby Waysdorf explores why and how we experience film and television-related places, and what the growth of this practice means for contemporary fandom. Through four case studies—Game of Thrones tourism in Dubrovnik, Croatia and Northern Ireland, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme parks in Orlando, Florida, fandom of The Prisoner in Portmeirion, Wales, and Friends events in the United Kingdom and United States—this book presents a multifaceted look at the ways place and fandom interact today. Fan Sites explores the different relationships that fans build with these places of fandom, from the exploratory knowledge-building of Game of Thrones fans on vacation, the appreciative evaluations of Harry Potter fans at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, to the frequent “homecoming” visits of Prisoner fans, who see Portmeirion as a “safe vault” and the home of their fandom. Including engaging accounts of real fans at each location, Fan Sites addresses what the rise of fan tourism and places of fandom might mean for the future of fandom and its relationship with the media industry. Rebekah Buchanan is an Associate Professor of English and Director of English Education at Western Illinois University. Her research focuses on feminism, activism, and literacy practices in youth culture, specifically through zines and music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/film

Abby S. Waysdorf, "Fan Sites: Film Tourism and Contemporary Fandom" (U Iowa Press, 2021)

New Books in Anthropology

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 9, 2022 60:04

In her new book, Fan Sites: Film Tourism and Contemporary Fandom (U Iowa Press, 2021)(University of Iowa Press, 2021), Abby Waysdorf explores why and how we experience film and television-related places, and what the growth of this practice means for contemporary fandom. Through four case studies—Game of Thrones tourism in Dubrovnik, Croatia and Northern Ireland, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme parks in Orlando, Florida, fandom of The Prisoner in Portmeirion, Wales, and Friends events in the United Kingdom and United States—this book presents a multifaceted look at the ways place and fandom interact today. Fan Sites explores the different relationships that fans build with these places of fandom, from the exploratory knowledge-building of Game of Thrones fans on vacation, the appreciative evaluations of Harry Potter fans at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, to the frequent “homecoming” visits of Prisoner fans, who see Portmeirion as a “safe vault” and the home of their fandom. Including engaging accounts of real fans at each location, Fan Sites addresses what the rise of fan tourism and places of fandom might mean for the future of fandom and its relationship with the media industry. Rebekah Buchanan is an Associate Professor of English and Director of English Education at Western Illinois University. Her research focuses on feminism, activism, and literacy practices in youth culture, specifically through zines and music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

Abby S. Waysdorf, "Fan Sites: Film Tourism and Contemporary Fandom" (U Iowa Press, 2021)

New Books in Sociology

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 9, 2022 60:04

In her new book, Fan Sites: Film Tourism and Contemporary Fandom (U Iowa Press, 2021)(University of Iowa Press, 2021), Abby Waysdorf explores why and how we experience film and television-related places, and what the growth of this practice means for contemporary fandom. Through four case studies—Game of Thrones tourism in Dubrovnik, Croatia and Northern Ireland, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme parks in Orlando, Florida, fandom of The Prisoner in Portmeirion, Wales, and Friends events in the United Kingdom and United States—this book presents a multifaceted look at the ways place and fandom interact today. Fan Sites explores the different relationships that fans build with these places of fandom, from the exploratory knowledge-building of Game of Thrones fans on vacation, the appreciative evaluations of Harry Potter fans at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, to the frequent “homecoming” visits of Prisoner fans, who see Portmeirion as a “safe vault” and the home of their fandom. Including engaging accounts of real fans at each location, Fan Sites addresses what the rise of fan tourism and places of fandom might mean for the future of fandom and its relationship with the media industry. Rebekah Buchanan is an Associate Professor of English and Director of English Education at Western Illinois University. Her research focuses on feminism, activism, and literacy practices in youth culture, specifically through zines and music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Dance of the Dead (Number 10)

tv acast village wales prisoners sleeves cai hoyle dance of the dead portmeirion

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 6, 2022 59:05

Screenwriter Cai Ross and Lecturer Chris Bainbridge continue to discuss the seventeen episodes of the prescient 1967 TV show, The Prisoner. This proves to be a polarising episode for Chris and Cai, with different opinions over meaning and quality. Sleeves will be rolled up, Hoyle's rule book observed, but hopefully they can find some common ground! As ever, your hosts will cast their critical eyes over the episode, with discussion on interpretation, trivia, humour and an exploration of the production process. The only Prisoner podcast produced in north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Many Happy Returns (Number 9)

tv acast village wales prisoners cai number9 many happy returns portmeirion

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 31, 2022 68:31

Screenwriter Cai Ross and Lecturer Chris Bainbridge continue to discuss the seventeen episodes of the prescient 1967 TV show, The Prisoner. In episode nine, Cai celebrates his birthday by watching and discussing Many Happy Returns featuring the best fruitcake he has ever tasted! As ever, your hosts will cast their critical eyes over the episode, with discussion on interpretation, trivia, humour and an exploration of the production process. The only Prisoner podcast produced in north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The General (Number 8)

tv acast village wales prisoners portmeirion

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 24, 2022 53:50

Screenwriter Cai Ross and Lecturer Chris Bainbridge continue to discuss the seventeen episodes of the prescient 1967 TV show, The Prisoner. In episode eight, Chris gets on his educational soapbox to discuss the elements of The General that have come to pass in the 21st Century. As ever, your hosts will cast their critical eyes over the episode, with discussion on interpretation, trivia, humour and an exploration of the production process. The only Prisoner podcast produced in north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Schizoid Man (Number 7)

vision sound prisoners itc patrick mcgoohan portmeirion

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 17, 2022 65:24

Screenwriter Cai Ross and Lecturer Chris Bainbridge continue to discuss the seventeen episodes of the prescient 1967 TV show, The Prisoner. In this seventh episode, Chris and Cai take on The Schizoid Man with special guest Jane Merrow, who shares her experiences working on the episode. Who's the Two looks at Anton Rodgers' wonderful portrayal of the village administrator and as ever, your hosts will cast their critical eyes over the episode, with discussion on interpretation, trivia, humour and an exploration of the production process. The only Prisoner podcast produced in north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

tv acast village wales prisoners cai schizoid portmeirion

VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 67 - TX JANUARY 16 2022 - THE PRISONER

VISION ON SOUND

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 16, 2022 59:49

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on January 16th 2022 This week, SANDY McGREGOR returns to VISION ON SOUND and introduces his very good friend TIM BOURNE who is a huge fan of the 1967 ITC classic adventure series THE PRISONER starring PATRICK McGOOHAN in perhaps his most iconic role as Number ("I am NOT a number") Six in this complex tale of espionage, imprisonment, multiple escape attempts, and a long, dark look inside the human condition, a series that has cast an enormously long shadow from its seventeen-episode run. So for a jolly hour, the three of us discuss the series, and we also get to hear all about what it's like to be exactly the sort of fan who enjoys attending fan events over in PORTMEIRION in an episode that I hope you'll enjoy as much as we enjoyed recording it. PLEASE NOTE - For Copyright reasons, musical content sometimes has to be removed for the podcast edition. All the spoken word content remains (mostly) as it was in the broadcast version. Hopefully this won't spoil your enjoyment of the show.

Free For All (Part 2 of 2 - Number 6)

tv acast village wales prisoners free for all portmeirion

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 10, 2022 44:47

Screenwriter Cai Ross and Lecturer Chris Bainbridge continue to discuss the seventeen episodes of the prescient 1967 TV show, The Prisoner. In this sixth episode, your hosts conclude their look at Free For All, its satirical take on politics as well as its predictions for automated processes. Who's the Two looks at the inimitable Eric Portman and new feature Supporting Artist of the Week pays tribute to the non credited background artistes. As ever, your hosts will cast their critical eyes over the episode, with discussion on interpretation, trivia, humour and an exploration of the production process. The only Prisoner podcast produced in north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Free For All (Part 1 of 2 - Number 5)

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 3, 2022 47:11

In this episode, hosts Cai Ross and Chris Bainbridge continue discussing the seventeen episodes of the prescient 1967 TV show, The Prisoner. Chris and Cai discuss the episode Free For All and its satirical take on politics as well as its predictions for instant and fake news. As ever, your hosts will cast their critical eyes over the episode, with discussion on interpretation, trivia, humour and an exploration of the production process. The only Prisoner podcast produced in north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

tv acast village wales prisoners cai free for all portmeirion

A. B. & C. (Number 4)

tv acast village wales regular prisoners cai free for all portmeirion colin gordon

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 27, 2021 59:48

In this fourth instalment of Free For All, hosts Cai Ross and Chris Bainbridge continue discussing the seventeen episodes of the prescient 1967 TV show, The Prisoner. Chris and Cai discuss the dreamy episode A. B and C, looking at interpretations, influences, guest stars and the production process. Regular feature Who's the Two? looks at Colin Gordon's initial but arguably second portrayal as the village administrator, shedding light on his work and career. As ever, your hosts will cast their critical eyes over the episode, with discussion on interpretation, trivia, humour and an exploration of the production process. The only Prisoner podcast produced in north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chimes of Big Ben (Number 3)

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 20, 2021 52:27

In this third episode, hosts Cai Ross and Chris Bainbridge continue discussing the seventeen episodes of the prescient 1967 TV show, The Prisoner. Chris and Cai discuss the strange scheduling of The Chimes of Big Ben, beard issues, show bibles, plot holes, themes and production. Regular feature Who's the Two? looks at Leo McKern's portrayal as the village administrator, shedding light on his work and career. As ever, your hosts will cast their critical eyes over the episode, with discussion on interpretation, trivia, humour and an exploration of the production process. The only Prisoner podcast produced in north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

tv acast village wales regular prisoners big ben chimes cai portmeirion leo mckern

Arrival and a Rival (Number 2)

acast village wales regular prisoners arrival cai george baker portmeirion mcgoohan

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 12, 2021 60:40

In this second episode, hosts Cai Ross and Chris Bainbridge continue discussing the first episode of The Prisoner, Arrival. Chris and Cai discuss the prescience of McGoohan's masterpiece as Arrival sets out to create the world of The Prisoner and set out its own unique set of rules. Regular feature Who's the Two? looks at Guy Doleman and George Baker's portrayals as the village administrator, shedding light on their work and careers. As ever, your hosts will cast their critical eyes over the episode, with discussion on interpretation, trivia, humour and an exploration of the production process. The only Prisoner podcast produced in north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wales

Where to Go

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 9, 2021 43:24

In this episode of Where to Go, James and Lucy are hopping over to Wales, where they are joined by Ben Holbrook who is a travel writer, photographer, and filmmaker based in the Gower Peninsula. Ben guides James and Lucy through this beautiful country which is famed for its spectacular coastline and countryside. Listen out for a slice of the Amalfi coast reconstructed in Portmeirion and a trip to Dyan Thomas' old house. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

wales amalfi portmeirion gower peninsula

Preamble to Arrival (Number 1)

acast village wales prisoners arrival number 1 cai preamble portmeirion

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 6, 2021 56:54

In this inaugural episode, hosts Cai Ross and Chris Bainbridge introduce and discuss the first episode of The Prisoner. The hosts cast a critical eye over the episode Arrival, with discussion, interpretation, trivia, humour and an exploration of the production process, giving kudos to those behind the camera as well as in front. This week, Cai and Chris cast their minds back to 1990, as they remember their own introduction to the show. Along they way they look at The Prisoner's title sequence and the opening scenes of Arrival whilst regularly going off on tangents. The only Prisoner podcast produced in beautiful north Wales, home of the Village itself, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

125: Kazuyo Matsuda

Nostalgia Interviews with Chris Deacy

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 19, 2021 56:11

My guest this week is Kazuyo Matsuda, who is an architect, working in the UK for the last 20 years and practices the Japanese martial art of Kendo which she has been teaching for over two decades. Kazuyo talks about how Kendo, which originated in Japan in the 13th Century, was first seen in the UK at the Japanese Village in Knightsbridge built in 1885. Kazuyo has been in the UK since 1993 and before that lived in Japan. She came to the UK initially to study Fine Art and we learn how she switched to Architecture. She has three sisters, her father was a solicitor and her mother still lives in Japan. We learn about her memories of growing up, playing touchball and going on adventures in the days before computer games. She went to kendo twice a week with her sister and ended up sticking with it. Kazuyo talks about how lockdown impacted her – and how the experience taught her how important exercise was. We learn that Kendo is a safe sport, relatively speaking, and how she managed to teach it online during lockdown, finding some funny ways to be inventive. She discusses MTV and seeing Michael Jackson and Cyndi Lauper in concert, and also practising the piano and her love of Italian culture, as well as being a fan of The Karate Kid. We then turn to Kazuyo's architecture work which involves designing buildings. She is interested in the challenge in seeing what lies behind buildings and Kazuyo talks about Portmeirion where people's memories were distorted via space. She also discusses the idea of knowing people as a building. Kazuyo talks about how architecture has changed since it became possible to build 3D models using a computer and she speaks about how she thinks theory and practice need to merge. We learn about her earliest memories and how memories play an important role in architecture and dreams, and we talk about negative experiences, e.g. relating to sad childhood experiences and the need for longing, including connecting with people with whom we are no longer in the same physical space. Then, at the end of the interview Kazuyo talks about learning to make the future better via revisiting the past. Please note: Opinions expressed are solely those of Chris Deacy and Kazuyo Matsuda and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of Kent.

university uk japan japanese italian 3d michael jackson mtv kent architecture fine arts karate kid cyndi lauper kendo knightsbridge matsuda portmeirion chris deacy

Free For All - The Prisoner Podcast

acast village wales prisoners portmeirion

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 9, 2021 1:09

New podcast arriving on 6th December 2021 dedicated to the classic 1967 tv show The Prisoner. Join your hosts, screenwriter and film journalist Cai Ross (HeyUGuys, CinemaRetro) and Chris Bainbridge, lecturer in creative and broadcast media. Recorded in beautiful north Wales, home of the real life Village, Portmeirion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

CYMERIADAU CYMRU: MEURIG REES JONES

CYMERIADAU CYMRU

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 5, 2021 36:50

Rheolwr lleoliad pentref Portmeirion. Dyna i chi job! Ac felly Meurig Rees Jones yw fy ngŵr gwadd ar Cymeriadau Cymru wythnos hon, sy'n sôn am ei swydd ddelfrydol, hanes y pentref, The Prisoner, Gŵyl rhif 6 a'r enwogion sy 'di bod yn ymweld â llawer, llawer mwy. Sgwrs ddiddorol gan ŵr sy'n mwynhau ei fywyd a'i gynefin, ac yn ei eiriau ei hun, ''I am Not a Number.. I'm a music fan!''

prisoners ac cymru portmeirion rees jones sgwrs

Portmeirion... with a Port

Tipsy Tourism

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 3, 2021 58:02

Chelsea and James are off to the Italian village of... No hang on, forget what it looks like, Portmeirion is definitely in North Wales! With a bottle of port tucked into their backpack, it's the perfect day to explore one of Lonely Planet's top 10 UK destinations in 2021.Follow @tipsytourism on Instagram and Twitter for all the photos of videos of their day out, and for more info visit tipsytourism.com Get early access, ad free episodes and behind the scenes content See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

uk italian lonely planet north wales portmeirion

Inside the Gray Area: "West with the Light"

The Gray Area

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 22, 2021 26:56

n the middle of a snowstorm, our showrunner Edward Champion discusses making "West with the Light" (a sequel to Season 1's "Waiting Room"). Topics include why Chris Smith is the cat's pajamas, how Octavia Butler and Champion's grandmother served as the inspiration for Virginia Gaskell, the overarcing storytelling strategy, why you can't put characters in limbo too long, keeping your actors interested in roles, breaking the show's monologue rule, honoring the smarts and the dignity of older characters, stylizing audio callbacks and scene motifs, the influence of The Prisoner, visiting Portmeirion, animals and morality, planting storytelling clues and Easter Eggs, how Zack Glassman modulated his performance for each iteration of the Receptionist, Champion's love of birds, how people travel through the dimensions, having actors recite poetry, the importance of World War I, Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory, Small Wonder, attempts to find music rights, plausible character behavior in relation to spectacular occurrences, why muttering is essential, Dickens and self-education, explaining the electromatter scanner, Milton, fajitas, why people who work in bars and restaurants are smart, pushing back against stereotypes, cheesy puns, high school English teachers, "demon" as a term of art, Target's use of "guest" instead of "shopper," the commonalities among extreme political ideologies, Beryl Markham and aviators, West with the Night, Hemingway, Clarence in It's a Wonderful Life, and why you often find the best dramatic moments in comedic actors. (Running time: 26 minutes, 55 seconds.)

North West Wales

Adventures in North Wales

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 11, 2020 35:29

Megan Llyn Parri begins her exploration of North West Wales' finest attractions at the iconic village of Portmeirion. Along the way she uncovers the history of the area at one of the last surviving working slate mines, takes a trip on a heritage railway and discovers an environmentally friendly family attraction.

history language wales prisoners environmental northwest slate greenwood railways snowdon cymru west wales caernarfon portmeirion ffestiniog

WW 681: Orbital Drop Shock Troopers - Apple Silicon vs Wintel, PC Sales Boost

Windows Weekly (Video HD)

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 15, 2020 122:00

Microsoft releases a CU for Windows 10 version 20H2. Right. It's "done."Meanwhile, let's check in on 2004. New and fixed bug list updatedNew Dev Channel (Fast Ring) build has fixes, sound setting tweaksThe Passing of Wintel? Jean-Louis Gassée makes one big mistake in his push for ARM on the desktop.Related: ARM pricing is going upIt turns out most Surface PCs are still blocked from getting Windows 10 version 2004Semi-related: Thanks to COVID stay-at-home orders, PC sales grew 7.1 percent in Q2Microsoft announces 3 million features for four different versions of OutlookMicrosoft is retiring OneDrive FetchMicrosoft and Citrix expand their partnership. But what's really new here?Here comes Microsoft Consulting (and some layoffs)Microsoft spins off creepy chatbotMicrosoft talks up Xbox Series X storage tech Tip of the week: A workaround for OneDrive Fetch. A lot of people are outraged by Microsoft killing OneDrive Fetch. But it's not that big a deal if you know about another OneDrive feature.App pick of the week: Stardock Curtains. It's like Windowblinds on steroids, for Windows 10. Plus: Don't forget, Halo 3 is out on PC! And: Microsoft Launcher v6 is a big upgradeEnterprise pick of the week: Microsoft Inspire is next week. Microsoft's annual partner show is next week. There's usually some decent tech news unveiled at Inspire, along with strategy updates. It starts Tuesday with partner program announcements. Nadella, Smith, Julia White, Jared Spataro, and other product folks are speaking Wed. The keynotes seem to be open to anyone to stream: https://partner.microsoft.com/en-US/inspire/Codename pick of the week: Portmeirion. Project Portmeirion aims to explore hardware-software co-design for security in the Azure general-purpose compute stack. (thanks, Walking Cat). It's part of Microsoft's confidential computing push. And Portmeirion is a village in Wales, for those wondering.Beer pick of the week: The Bruery The Brite: Hibiscus Lime. A fun pink sour that's only 75 cals. It's a sour blonde ale that almost doesn't taste like a beer at all. It's from the excellent folks at The Bruery Terreux in Anaheim: https://www.thebruery.com/beer/brite-hibiscus-lime Hosts: Leo Laporte, Mary Jo Foley, and Paul Thurrott Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com Check out Mary Jo's blog at AllAboutMicrosoft.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Sponsors: LastPass.com/twit GetRoman.com/WINDOWS

covid-19 apple microsoft drop beer pc app boost wales windows inspire halo tip arm anaheim xbox series x azure silicon orbital windows 10 citrix mary jo twit onedrive codename leo laporte nadella carl franklin microsoft inspire mary jo foley paul thurrott portmeirion upit windows weekly wintel pc sales shock troopers bruery terreux paul thurrott download walking cat allaboutmicrosoft windows 10 20h2 windowblinds

WW 681: Orbital Drop Shock Troopers - Apple Silicon vs Wintel, PC Sales Boost

Windows Weekly (MP3)

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 15, 2020 122:00

Microsoft releases a CU for Windows 10 version 20H2. Right. It's "done."Meanwhile, let's check in on 2004. New and fixed bug list updatedNew Dev Channel (Fast Ring) build has fixes, sound setting tweaksThe Passing of Wintel? Jean-Louis Gassée makes one big mistake in his push for ARM on the desktop.Related: ARM pricing is going upIt turns out most Surface PCs are still blocked from getting Windows 10 version 2004Semi-related: Thanks to COVID stay-at-home orders, PC sales grew 7.1 percent in Q2Microsoft announces 3 million features for four different versions of OutlookMicrosoft is retiring OneDrive FetchMicrosoft and Citrix expand their partnership. But what's really new here?Here comes Microsoft Consulting (and some layoffs)Microsoft spins off creepy chatbotMicrosoft talks up Xbox Series X storage tech Tip of the week: A workaround for OneDrive Fetch. A lot of people are outraged by Microsoft killing OneDrive Fetch. But it's not that big a deal if you know about another OneDrive feature.App pick of the week: Stardock Curtains. It's like Windowblinds on steroids, for Windows 10. Plus: Don't forget, Halo 3 is out on PC! And: Microsoft Launcher v6 is a big upgradeEnterprise pick of the week: Microsoft Inspire is next week. Microsoft's annual partner show is next week. There's usually some decent tech news unveiled at Inspire, along with strategy updates. It starts Tuesday with partner program announcements. Nadella, Smith, Julia White, Jared Spataro, and other product folks are speaking Wed. The keynotes seem to be open to anyone to stream: https://partner.microsoft.com/en-US/inspire/Codename pick of the week: Portmeirion. Project Portmeirion aims to explore hardware-software co-design for security in the Azure general-purpose compute stack. (thanks, Walking Cat). It's part of Microsoft's confidential computing push. And Portmeirion is a village in Wales, for those wondering.Beer pick of the week: The Bruery The Brite: Hibiscus Lime. A fun pink sour that's only 75 cals. It's a sour blonde ale that almost doesn't taste like a beer at all. It's from the excellent folks at The Bruery Terreux in Anaheim: https://www.thebruery.com/beer/brite-hibiscus-lime Hosts: Leo Laporte, Mary Jo Foley, and Paul Thurrott Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com Check out Mary Jo's blog at AllAboutMicrosoft.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Sponsors: LastPass.com/twit GetRoman.com/WINDOWS

covid-19 apple microsoft drop beer pc app boost wales windows inspire halo tip arm anaheim xbox series x azure silicon orbital windows 10 citrix mary jo twit onedrive codename leo laporte nadella carl franklin microsoft inspire mary jo foley paul thurrott portmeirion upit windows weekly wintel pc sales shock troopers bruery terreux paul thurrott download walking cat allaboutmicrosoft windows 10 20h2 windowblinds

WW 681: Orbital Drop Shock Troopers - Apple Silicon vs Wintel, PC Sales Boost

Windows Weekly (Video HI)

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 15, 2020 122:00

Microsoft releases a CU for Windows 10 version 20H2. Right. It's "done."Meanwhile, let's check in on 2004. New and fixed bug list updatedNew Dev Channel (Fast Ring) build has fixes, sound setting tweaksThe Passing of Wintel? Jean-Louis Gassée makes one big mistake in his push for ARM on the desktop.Related: ARM pricing is going upIt turns out most Surface PCs are still blocked from getting Windows 10 version 2004Semi-related: Thanks to COVID stay-at-home orders, PC sales grew 7.1 percent in Q2Microsoft announces 3 million features for four different versions of OutlookMicrosoft is retiring OneDrive FetchMicrosoft and Citrix expand their partnership. But what's really new here?Here comes Microsoft Consulting (and some layoffs)Microsoft spins off creepy chatbotMicrosoft talks up Xbox Series X storage tech Tip of the week: A workaround for OneDrive Fetch. A lot of people are outraged by Microsoft killing OneDrive Fetch. But it's not that big a deal if you know about another OneDrive feature.App pick of the week: Stardock Curtains. It's like Windowblinds on steroids, for Windows 10. Plus: Don't forget, Halo 3 is out on PC! And: Microsoft Launcher v6 is a big upgradeEnterprise pick of the week: Microsoft Inspire is next week. Microsoft's annual partner show is next week. There's usually some decent tech news unveiled at Inspire, along with strategy updates. It starts Tuesday with partner program announcements. Nadella, Smith, Julia White, Jared Spataro, and other product folks are speaking Wed. The keynotes seem to be open to anyone to stream: https://partner.microsoft.com/en-US/inspire/Codename pick of the week: Portmeirion. Project Portmeirion aims to explore hardware-software co-design for security in the Azure general-purpose compute stack. (thanks, Walking Cat). It's part of Microsoft's confidential computing push. And Portmeirion is a village in Wales, for those wondering.Beer pick of the week: The Bruery The Brite: Hibiscus Lime. A fun pink sour that's only 75 cals. It's a sour blonde ale that almost doesn't taste like a beer at all. It's from the excellent folks at The Bruery Terreux in Anaheim: https://www.thebruery.com/beer/brite-hibiscus-lime Hosts: Leo Laporte, Mary Jo Foley, and Paul Thurrott Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com Check out Mary Jo's blog at AllAboutMicrosoft.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Sponsors: LastPass.com/twit GetRoman.com/WINDOWS

covid-19 apple microsoft drop beer pc app boost wales windows inspire halo tip arm anaheim xbox series x azure silicon orbital windows 10 citrix mary jo twit onedrive codename leo laporte nadella carl franklin microsoft inspire mary jo foley paul thurrott portmeirion upit windows weekly wintel pc sales shock troopers bruery terreux paul thurrott download walking cat allaboutmicrosoft windows 10 20h2 windowblinds

WW 681: Orbital Drop Shock Troopers - Apple Silicon vs Wintel, PC Sales Boost

Windows Weekly (Video LO)

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 15, 2020 122:00

Microsoft releases a CU for Windows 10 version 20H2. Right. It's "done."Meanwhile, let's check in on 2004. New and fixed bug list updatedNew Dev Channel (Fast Ring) build has fixes, sound setting tweaksThe Passing of Wintel? Jean-Louis Gassée makes one big mistake in his push for ARM on the desktop.Related: ARM pricing is going upIt turns out most Surface PCs are still blocked from getting Windows 10 version 2004Semi-related: Thanks to COVID stay-at-home orders, PC sales grew 7.1 percent in Q2Microsoft announces 3 million features for four different versions of OutlookMicrosoft is retiring OneDrive FetchMicrosoft and Citrix expand their partnership. But what's really new here?Here comes Microsoft Consulting (and some layoffs)Microsoft spins off creepy chatbotMicrosoft talks up Xbox Series X storage tech Tip of the week: A workaround for OneDrive Fetch. A lot of people are outraged by Microsoft killing OneDrive Fetch. But it's not that big a deal if you know about another OneDrive feature.App pick of the week: Stardock Curtains. It's like Windowblinds on steroids, for Windows 10. Plus: Don't forget, Halo 3 is out on PC! And: Microsoft Launcher v6 is a big upgradeEnterprise pick of the week: Microsoft Inspire is next week. Microsoft's annual partner show is next week. There's usually some decent tech news unveiled at Inspire, along with strategy updates. It starts Tuesday with partner program announcements. Nadella, Smith, Julia White, Jared Spataro, and other product folks are speaking Wed. The keynotes seem to be open to anyone to stream: https://partner.microsoft.com/en-US/inspire/Codename pick of the week: Portmeirion. Project Portmeirion aims to explore hardware-software co-design for security in the Azure general-purpose compute stack. (thanks, Walking Cat). It's part of Microsoft's confidential computing push. And Portmeirion is a village in Wales, for those wondering.Beer pick of the week: The Bruery The Brite: Hibiscus Lime. A fun pink sour that's only 75 cals. It's a sour blonde ale that almost doesn't taste like a beer at all. It's from the excellent folks at The Bruery Terreux in Anaheim: https://www.thebruery.com/beer/brite-hibiscus-lime Hosts: Leo Laporte, Mary Jo Foley, and Paul Thurrott Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/windows-weekly Check out Paul's blog at thurrott.com Check out Mary Jo's blog at AllAboutMicrosoft.com The Windows Weekly theme music is courtesy of Carl Franklin. Sponsors: LastPass.com/twit GetRoman.com/WINDOWS

covid-19 apple microsoft drop beer pc app boost wales windows inspire halo tip arm anaheim xbox series x azure silicon orbital windows 10 citrix mary jo twit onedrive codename leo laporte nadella carl franklin microsoft inspire mary jo foley paul thurrott portmeirion upit windows weekly wintel pc sales shock troopers bruery terreux paul thurrott download walking cat allaboutmicrosoft windows 10 20h2 windowblinds

28th May, 2020 – East Coker

Marc’s Almanac

Play Episode Listen Later May 28, 2020 4:58

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by TS Eliot, and extract from East Coker. "I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope For hope would be hope for the wrong thing..." From the show: Silas Marner by George Eliot On this day: 28th May, 1883 – the architect of Portmeirion, Bertram Clough Williams-Ellis is born in Gayton, Northamptonshire On this day: 28th May, 1936 – Alan Turing submits his groundbreaking paper On Computable Numbers, aged just 24 Music to wake you up – Hand in my Pocket by Alanis Morissette Sign up to receive email alerts and show notes with links when a new episode goes live at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com Please share this with anyone who might need a touch of calm, and please keep sending in your messages and requests. You can leave a voice message at https://anchor.fm/marc-sidwell/message. If you like Marc's Almanac please do leave a review on Apple podcasts. It really helps new listeners to find me. Have a lovely day. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/marc-sidwell/message

english apple east pocket almanac alan turing coker ts eliot portmeirion silas marner marc's almanac

Ep 107: We Are Gook Bitches!

The Ajumma Show

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 19, 2019 62:58

We stan slurpin' soup! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! In this ep hosts @peterkz and @thebesteunji discuss LA living, Jay Leno's hack career, #Portmeirion vs #Corelle dishes and shout out this week's #kickasskoreans @hanloveyoon @choitotheworld Please visit Patreon.com/ajummashow for #BTS material and HOT SHADE and TEA. #KoreanAmerican #QueerAsians #ajumma

merry christmas happy holidays tea bts bitches jay leno gook portmeirion

56 — The Reactionaries — 1/2 — Interwar Anxieties

About Buildings + Cities

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 17, 2019 87:25

Come and see us record a live episode at Dulwich Picture Gallery on the 26th June! We'd love to meet you!Modernist Architecture has always had more than its fair share of critics. In this episode, the first of a two parter, we discuss the reactionary, counter-revolutionary opposition to modernism in Britain during the interwar period. First, comes an examination of the stodgy, flag-waving, imperialist Classicism of the Edwardian era, which Luke thinks includes some of the worst architecture in Britain. One of the perpetrators of that style, Reginald Blomfield, wrote a patriotic screed against the continental, ‘cosmopolitan’ Modern architecture, which he subtly titled ‘Modernismus.’ We also examine Lutyens’ review of ‘Towards a New Architecture,’ a critique of Corbusier’s theory, but also a refutation of modernism as an appropriate style for living in. Lastly we consider the slightly outlandish ‘England and the Octopus’ by the eccentric architect Clough William Ellis, famous for designing the town sized folly of Portmeirion in North Wales. Fruity characters, problematic tropes and anxiety about a declining Empire abound.In the bonus episode we will discuss the Evelyn Waugh's 'Decline and Fall.'This episode is sponsored by The Article Trade Program.Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts. Support the show on Patreon to receive bonus content for every show. Please rate and review the show on your podcast store to help other people find us! Follow us on twitter // instagram // facebookWe’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.orgThis podcast is powered by Pinecast.

The Prisoner

Supercontext: an autopsy of media

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 22, 2019 117:36

This 1967 British TV show is revered as a cult classic that was radical and countercultural, while symbolizing philosophical arguments about individualism vs. collectivism. We take a deeper look at star Patrick McGoohan and the commercial interests behind the show to ask if it's ultimately more conservative than pop culture likes to remember. Interested in the media we discussed this episode? Please support the show by purchasing it through our affiliate store: The Prisoner Additional Resources: A Spy Trapped in a Nightmare of Psychedelia GEORGE MARKSTEIN interviewed by Chris Rodley Number Six At 50: The 50th Anniversary Of 'The Prisoner' How did The Prisoner ever get made? Patrick McGoohan Explains The Meaning Of The Prisoner, A TV Cult Classic Alan Moore Remembers Patrick McGoohan’s “The Prisoner”: Part 1 What on earth was The Prisoner all about? McGuire, J. T. (2014). A Mentor-Protégé Relationship?: Orson Welles, Patrick McGoohan, and The Prisoner Television Series. Quarterly Review of Film & Video, 31(7), 647. Hanna, E. (2014). Be Selling You: The Prisoner As Cult and Commodity. Television & New Media, 15(5), 433. Woodman BJ. Escaping Genre’s Village: Fluidity and Genre Mixing in Television’s The Prisoner. Journal of Popular Culture. 2005;38(5):939

Britain Reason 10 - Snowdonia

50 Reasons Travel Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 30, 2018 33:53

This is 50 Reasons to Visit Britain, on today’s show we discuss how Buzzfeed wows us again with its spot-on quiz results, we do our best to not offend any Welsh people with our pronunciations, we’re slightly less tactful with our bashing of power kiters, we have a chat with Welsh gem Tom Jones, and much more! Here is some more information on the things we discussed: Caitlin talks with Meurig Jones about the wonderful village of Portmeirion! Tour for the reason: 4 Day North Wales Experience Self-Drive tour Caitlin CARES (Cute Animal Reaction Excitement Segment)

tour britain buzzfeed welsh tom jones snowdonia portmeirion

Episode 150: So Low

The Download's tracks

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 26, 2018 55:43

First, Keith reports on his recent trip to the UK, including stories about Portmeirion, the Sir John Soanes Museum, UK Games Expo, and a boardgames meetup group called London On Board. Meanwhile, Andy's just been working and watching TV. Moving on to media, they touch on Fahrenheit 451, The Americans, Legion, The Crossing, Into the Badlands, Dirk Gently, and Westworld, and then spend a lot of time discussing Solo.SPOILER WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS

tv uk moving americans solo crossing legion westworld fahrenheit badlands dirk gently uk games expo portmeirion

My Big Finish Life Part 2

prisoners big finish sylvester mccoy sophie aldred bonnie langford nicholas briggs portmeirion nick briggs

Play Episode Listen Later May 10, 2018 31:37

The second and final part of this 'warts and all' documentary, following Big Finish executive producer Nick Briggs through a week-and-a-bit of his work. He escapes from Portmeirion only to end up in studio with Sylvester McCoy and his gang.

2018-01-31 My Big Finish Life Part 1

prisoners sherlock holmes big finish sylvester mccoy sophie aldred bonnie langford nicholas briggs portmeirion

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 31, 2018 97:25

Big Finish Executive Producer Nick Briggs commits a nine-day slice of his 2017 Big Finish life to podcast posterity. Doctor Who, Sherlock Holmes, star guests, Portmeirion, phone calls, trains, taxis and a minibus... And this is only Part 1 of 2.

S. 3, Ep. 15: A Chat with Mystery Author Curtis Bausse

The Crime Cafe

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 21, 2018 23:04

Debbi Mack interviews mystery author Curtis Bausse. The transcript is below, if you'd like to read it. Or download the PDF copy and read it later. Debbi: Hi everyone. This is the Crime Cafe, your podcasting source of great crime, suspense and thriller writing. I'm your host, Debbi Mack. Before I bring on my guest, I'd like to remind you that the Crime Cafe Nine Book Set and Crime Cafe Short Story Anthology, are available for sale on my website, debbimack.com and just click on “Crime Café”, and you'll get to the buy links as well as the podcast subscribe buttons and the merchandise store. Now, having said that, I'm very pleased to have today with me mystery author Curtis Bausse [Pron: Bowse]. Did I say that correctly? Curtis: Well, it should be Bausse [Pron: Bose] normally, the French pronunciation. Debbi: Curtis Bausse. Curtis: I accept anything these days, you know. Debbi: But you go by Curtis, I assume. Curtis: Yeah, yeah sure. Debbi: Okay, Curtis, who comes to us from Provence. Am I saying that right? Curtis: That's perfect, yeah. Debbi: Oh, fantastic! Well, it's great to have you on and you are originally from Wales though. Curtis: Indeed, yes. Debbi: That's awesome. Curtis: I grew up in Wales, educated in England and then I moved to France like ages ago. Shall we just say ages ago. Debbi: Ages ago. So you lived in Wales for a while. Curtis: I lived in Wales all my childhood and then went to school in England. I was actually, I'm pretty much Welsh. I'm 75%, but we lived very close to the border with England and I never learned to speak Welsh for example. I couldn't understand Welsh, so my education is more English. Debbi: [agrees] Curtis: And then I moved to France. So, I'm a bit of a mix, yeah. Debbi: Okay, well I just have to ask, have you ever been to Portmeirion? Curtis: In Wales? Debbi: In Wales. Curtis: Uh, yes, a long, long time ago. Why do you have to ask that? Have you been? Debbi: I have to ask that because I'm a big huge fan of the TV show that was set there, The Prisoner. Curtis: The Prisoner. Yeah. Debbi: Whenever I see that place, I always think creepy, small town [laughs]. Curtis: You're right, yeah. No, I went when I was a kid and that series was amazing. And I think afterwards it actually burnt down. Did you read about that? Debbi: I didn't read about that, no. Curtis: There was a fire there in Portmeirion and I think that whole kind of set that they used burnt down. Whether they rebuilt it, I don't know, but yeah. There was a fire there. Debbi: Wow! Because I know that there was quite an uproar after they aired the ending of the series. Curtis: Yeah. Debbi: To the point where Patrick McGoohan actually fled the country as I understand it. Curtis: Yeah, I didn't know that. Debbi: Oh! I love that show though. So, what inspired you to move to France? Curtis: What inspired me? Well, my parents were always Francophiles. We came to France when I was a kid for holidays from the age of like eight or 10 onwards; you know we would come to France every year. I studied French at uni and I had what we call a sandwich year abroad when you study languages. So, I came to France during that year at the university and more or less fell in love with the country. Well, I was already pretty much, you know, and met my wife at that time. Debbi: [agrees] Curtis: And so settled there as soon as I left, as soon as I left uni in fact. Britain at that time (the UK) was not in a very great state. This is kind of the mid 70's. More or less bankrupt and there wasn't much that would, you know, want you to stay in Britain, and France was a very attractive proposition at that time. So, I came and settled and stayed ever since. Debbi: Huh. And where did you get the idea to write about Magali in your mysteries? Curtis: You mean where did I… Debbi: Why Curtis: …find her as a particular…

tv english uk france england french mystery britain wales prisoners welsh provence magali patrick mcgoohan francophiles portmeirion

Be Seeing You: Portmeirion Minicast

Be Seeing You: Watching The Prisoner

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 18, 2017 25:21

The exterior filming of The Prisoner takes place in an unlikely location: the picturesque Welsh village of Portmeirion. This brief minicast explores the history and cultural significance of the unique Mediterranean resort on the Welsh coast.

prisoners mediterranean welsh minicast portmeirion

Jackie Tyler, Prisoner and Time War

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 30, 2017 59:59

Nick is in Portmeirion, celebrating 50 years of The Prisoner. He incorrectly identifies the Podcast launch date as 10th October, rather than 2nd October, but we'll put that down to the influence of 'Number 2'. Benji provides edited entertainment. Guest star: Camille Coduri . Drama tease: The Time War.

drama prisoners benji time war portmeirion nick briggs jackie tyler camille coduri benji clifford

Big Finish Podcast - The Prisoner of Portmeirion (2017-04-03)

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 1, 2017 74:40

Nick Briggs and Benji Clifford present all the latest news and emails from the audio drama world of Big Finish. Then Nick and his family are off to Portmeirion, the location for the 1967 cult TV classic The Prisoner. It's PortmeiriCon!

tv prisoners big finish patrick mcgoohan nicholas briggs portmeirion nick briggs benji clifford

The Big Finish Podcast (April #5) - Dark Shadows Interview, Portmeirion Tour and more!

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 10, 2016 63:41

The Big Finish podcast is live on location in 'The Village' for a special tour of the iconic setting for the original TV series. Plus, an interview with Dark Shadows Producers Joseph Lidster and David Darlington...

tv tour finish prisoners dark shadows big finish torchwood nicholas briggs portmeirion joseph lidster

The Prisoner - SFBulletin interview with Nick Briggs

prisoners audiobooks rover audio drama big finish patrick mcgoohan nicholas briggs portmeirion nick briggs

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 10, 2016 46:48

In this podcast, Nick Briggs is poised at his microphone, ready to be give an in-depth interview about Big Finish's re-imagining of The Prisoner.

April 2015: Lessons from Silicon Valley

lessons silicon valley economic wales gwynedd portmeirion lee waters

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 15, 2015 4:22

IWA Director, Lee Waters, asks Berkeley Prof AnnaLee Saxenian what Wales can learn from Silicon Valley at the The Learned Society of Wales / Bangor University International Symposium on Economic policies for peripheral countries at Portmeirion in Gwynedd

April 2015: Can devolution help the Welsh economy grow?

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 14, 2015 3:38

IWA Director, Lee Waters, asks Cambridge Professor Ron Martin at The Learned Society of Wales / Bangor University International Symposium on Economic policies for peripheral countries at Portmeirion in Gwynedd

economic devolution gwynedd portmeirion lee waters welsh economy

April 2015: Should Wales prioritise developing our Cities?

developing economic wales cities prioritise gwynedd portmeirion lee waters

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 14, 2015 2:54

IWA Director, Lee Waters, asks LSE Professor Steve Gibbons at The Learned Society of Wales / Bangor University International Symposium on Economic policies for peripheral countries at Portmeirion in Gwynedd

April 2015: Should Wales reinvent the WDA?

economic wales reinvent gwynedd portmeirion lee waters

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 14, 2015 3:56

IWA Director, Lee Waters, asks Harvard Professor Ricardo Hausman at The Learned Society of Wales / Bangor University International Symposium on Economic policies for peripheral countries at Portmeirion in Gwynedd

Episode 31 - Elis' Emotional Triggers, Fancy Dress Advice & A Welsh Male Voice Choir

Elis James and John Robins on Radio X Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 12, 2014 38:53

Inspired by a trip to Portmeirion, this week Elis and John wanted to hear about your visits to landmarks from albums, films or TV shows. Plus there's exciting news of Elis' invite to a film premiere, and John's new teetotal lifestyle. Of course there's the usual Sacred Cow, Textual Healing, Winner Plays On and a reading from Tony Blackburn's Poptastic. Tune in next Saturday to catch the boys from 10am til 1pm, and get in touch on Saturday@xfm.co.uk

tv voice advice male welsh choir elis sacred cows emotional triggers fancy dress portmeirion textual healing

15.09.13 Tim Burgess @ festival number 6

love live festival wales tim burgess portmeirion

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 15, 2013 40:26

Live broadcast captured from the Tim Peaks Cafe @ festival number 6 at Portmeirion, Wales… Tim Burgess unplugged, enjoy this golden nugget from the weekends proceedings x more performances to follow over the next few weeks… peace & Love x www.timpeaks.com

15.09.13 Twisted Wheel @ festival number 6

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 15, 2013

Live broadcast captured from the Tim Peaks Cafe @ festival number 6 at Portmeirion, Wales… Twisted Wheel unplugged with their first ever acoustic set, enjoy this golden nugget from the weekends proceedings x more performances to follow over the next few weeks… peace & Love x www.timpeaks.com

love live festival wales wheel twisted slow burn slow motion mashed potatoes music room portmeirion 120 minutes black wax jazzcast electronic mass post roast session

15.09.13 Tim Burgess @ festival number 6

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 15, 2013

Live broadcast captured from the Tim Peaks Cafe @ festival number 6 at Portmeirion, Wales… Tim Burgess unplugged, enjoy this golden nugget from the weekends proceedings x more performances to follow over the next few weeks… peace & Love x www.timpeaks.com

love live festival wales slow burn slow motion mashed potatoes music room tim burgess portmeirion 120 minutes black wax jazzcast electronic mass post roast session

15.09.13 Twisted Wheel @ festival number 6

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 15, 2013 44:02

Live broadcast captured from the Tim Peaks Cafe @ festival number 6 at Portmeirion, Wales… Twisted Wheel unplugged with their first ever acoustic set, enjoy this golden nugget from the weekends proceedings x more performances to follow over the next few weeks… peace & Love x www.timpeaks.com

love live festival wales wheel twisted portmeirion

14.09.13 Gulp @ festival number 6

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 14, 2013 17:15

Live broadcast captured from the Tim Peaks Cafe @ festival number 6 at Portmeirion, Wales… An edit of this great session by the amazing Gulp despite some technical difficulties on stage… check them out here, Peace & Love x

love live peace festival gulp portmeirion

14.09.13 Black Cat DJs @ festival number 6

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 14, 2013 157:22

Live broadcast captured from the Tim Peaks Cafe @ festival number 6 at Portmeirion, Wales… the Black Cat DJs in full effect rocking the place down on Saturday night with Dean Chalkley, Si Cheeba & Sonny Scully Evans… check this killa session, enjoy x Peace & Love x Black Cat Club

love live peace festival wales black cat portmeirion dean chalkley

14.09.13 Gulp @ festival number 6

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 14, 2013

Live broadcast captured from the Tim Peaks Cafe @ festival number 6 at Portmeirion, Wales… An edit of this great session by the amazing Gulp despite some technical difficulties on stage… check them out here, Peace & Love x

love live peace festival slow burn slow motion mashed potatoes gulp music room portmeirion 120 minutes black wax jazzcast electronic mass post roast session

14.09.13 Black Cat DJs @ festival number 6