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I have noticed something almost cultural: Scandinavia (particularly Norway and Denmark) seems to especially enjoy family dramas: two of their most successful native productions were Matador (mid 70s) and House at Christenshavn (around the same time), both produced by Danish National Radio. The first centered on rival mercantile families in department stores, the second on a diverse set of middle-class characters in an apartment building. Denmark has a remarkably rich history of great drama, as witnessed also by its cinema and theatre. I recall that the original Forsyte Saga was immensely popular in Scandinavia—another family drama. Apparently The Onedin Line made quite the splash (sorry!), yet another family drama.<div><br></div><div>The same dynamic doesn’t quite ring true for other countries. Other cultures like conflict, action, resolution, STORY STORY STORY, and a happy ending. This is what America demands endlessly and narcotically.</div><div><br></div><div>I’ve noticed that Jane Austen, Dickens, and Trollope do well in the UK: family to an extent, but refracted through Byzantine plotting (newspaper serialization) and usually happy endings. OK, Little Nell dies, but otherwise....</div><div><br></div><div>The great virtue of AFAW and Sam was their downbeat (if ultimately optimistic) tone—you know, reality screws you over. David Ashton buys a house because, well, he wants to, even before he’s spent much time in his job that his “bloody spiff” of an employer created for him, hoping for sex with Sheila. The sex doesn’t happen, and the job gets yanked away from the desperate young man. This is classic Kitchen Sink material—so recently visible in British cinema at the time.</div><div><br></div><div>Is anybody reading Zola or Beckett? This is great art, but it sure is depressing. These are all old show business saws: Great Art is what dies Saturday night.</div><div><br></div><div>Both John Finch and Cyril Abraham (and that other Brit...Shaksper or however he spelled his name) left school early, had very sad childhoods and difficult roads to travel, and had an innate talent to write: AFAW (without citing all the others) and The Onedin Line both reflect with frightening close detail particular ways of life in industrial England. It’s no accident that Karl Marx wrote about England in Das Kapital.</div><div><br></div><div>Picasso’s Demoiselles d’Avignon is always fun to look at. But you know what REALLY hurts? Guernica. That’s what AFAW is.... Beethoven’s Fifth is super; Mahler’s Ninth will kill you.<br><br><br><br><p class="yahoo-quoted-begin" style="font-size: 15px; color: #715FFA; padding-top: 15px; margin-top: 0">On Tuesday, June 5, 2018, 9:14 AM, John Finch via Afamilyatwar-list <afamilyatwar-list@baylor.edu> wrote:</p><blockquote class="iosymail"><div dir="ltr">On 05.06.2018 00:49, Tim Douglas via Afamilyatwar-list wrote:<br></div><div dir="ltr">> Scott wrote "This series was such a treasure chest of acting, writing,<br></div><div dir="ltr">> and directing talent. Good to see that DVDs and broadcasts of the show<br></div><div dir="ltr">> are widely available."<br></div><div dir="ltr">> Yes Scott but you may not know this fom the vantage point of the USA,<br></div><div dir="ltr">> as far as I know it was only repeated once after it's initial<br></div><div dir="ltr">> transmission , the showing here in the UK on Talking Pictures TV is<br></div><div dir="ltr">> the first time it has been screened on British TV for thirty years at<br></div><div dir="ltr">> least .whereas When the Boat Comes In, All Creatures, BergeracDadf's<br></div><div dir="ltr">> Army Etc have been consistently shown over the years since they were<br></div><div dir="ltr">> made . FAW was also left out of many reference books and TV docs about<br></div><div dir="ltr">> TV drama ,for some unknown reason I think the recent screening is<br></div><div dir="ltr">> helping to restore it to it's rightful position (well I hope so anyway<br></div><div dir="ltr">> !)<br></div><div dir="ltr">> <br></div><div dir="ltr">> -----Original Message-----<br></div><div dir="ltr">> From: Scott Filderman via Afamilyatwar-list<br></div><div dir="ltr">> <<a ymailto="mailto:afamilyatwar-list@baylor.edu" href="mailto:afamilyatwar-list@baylor.edu">afamilyatwar-list@baylor.edu</a>><br></div><div dir="ltr">> To: afamilyatwar-list <<a ymailto="mailto:afamilyatwar-list@baylor.edu" href="mailto:afamilyatwar-list@baylor.edu">afamilyatwar-list@baylor.edu</a>>; Robert Ardis<br></div><div dir="ltr">> <<a ymailto="mailto:lesleyardis@me.com" href="mailto:lesleyardis@me.com">lesleyardis@me.com</a>><br></div><div dir="ltr">> Sent: Mon, 4 Jun 2018 18:23<br></div><div dir="ltr">> Subject: Re: [Afamilyatwar-list] Mail<br></div><div dir="ltr">> <br></div><div dir="ltr">> The actors who seemed to have the biggest post-AFAW success were<br></div><div dir="ltr">> Barbara Flynn and John Nettles whereas Patrick Troughton, Margery<br></div><div dir="ltr">> Mason, John McKelvey, Colins Douglas and Campbell, and Leslie Nunnerly<br></div><div dir="ltr">> were already established. Always fun to see actors so shockingly early<br></div><div dir="ltr">> in their careers as to be almost unrecognizable, such as John Nettles<br></div><div dir="ltr">> and Lynda Bellingham (who became Mrs. Herriot on All Creatures).<br></div><div dir="ltr">> Donald Pickering (as Mr. Fraser who buys the works) was a surprise for<br></div><div dir="ltr">> me as I enjoyed him in the slightly later Palliser series as Adolphus<br></div><div dir="ltr">> “Dolly” Longstaffe (one of literature’s great appellations).<br></div><div dir="ltr">> <br></div><div dir="ltr">> This series was such a treasure chest of acting, writing, and<br></div><div dir="ltr">> directing talent. Good to see that DVDs and broadcasts of the show are<br></div><div dir="ltr">> widely available.<br></div><div dir="ltr">> <br></div><div dir="ltr">> See, Mr. Finch, sometimes “good guys do finish first”!<br></div><div dir="ltr">> <br></div><div dir="ltr">> On Monday, June 4, 2018, 12:55 PM, Robert Ardis via Afamilyatwar-list<br></div><div dir="ltr">> <<a ymailto="mailto:afamilyatwar-list@baylor.edu" href="mailto:afamilyatwar-list@baylor.edu">afamilyatwar-list@baylor.edu</a>> wrote:<br></div><div dir="ltr">> <br></div><div dir="ltr">>> Sent from my iPad. Thanks Scott these videos of the actors are great<br></div><div dir="ltr">>> after all this time<br></div><div dir="ltr">>> <br></div><div dir="ltr">>> Lesley.<br></div><div dir="ltr">>> <br></div><div dir="ltr">>> _______________________________________________<br></div><div dir="ltr">>> <br></div><div dir="ltr">>> Afamilyatwar-list mailing list<br></div><div dir="ltr">>> <br></div><div dir="ltr">>> <a ymailto="mailto:Afamilyatwar-list@baylor.edu" href="mailto:Afamilyatwar-list@baylor.edu">Afamilyatwar-list@baylor.edu</a><br></div><div dir="ltr">>> <br></div><div dir="ltr">>> <a href="https://mailman.baylor.edu/mailman/listinfo/afamilyatwar-list" target="_blank">https://mailman.baylor.edu/mailman/listinfo/afamilyatwar-list</a><br></div><div dir="ltr">>> <br></div><div dir="ltr">>>> <br></div><div dir="ltr">> _______________________________________________<br></div><div dir="ltr">> Afamilyatwar-list mailing list<br></div><div dir="ltr">> <a ymailto="mailto:Afamilyatwar-list@baylor.edu" href="mailto:Afamilyatwar-list@baylor.edu">Afamilyatwar-list@baylor.edu</a><br></div><div dir="ltr">> <a href="https://mailman.baylor.edu/mailman/listinfo/afamilyatwar-list" target="_blank">https://mailman.baylor.edu/mailman/listinfo/afamilyatwar-list</a><br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">Dear Tim and Scott, Your emails draw attention to something which has <br></div><div dir="ltr">perplexed and pained me over the last several years. It is almost as if <br></div><div dir="ltr">I had committed some unpardonable sin against Granada. If I have I am <br></div><div dir="ltr">certainly not aware of it. Their almost deliberate avoidance of paying <br></div><div dir="ltr">attention to AFAW is duplicated with SAM which had the same outstanding <br></div><div dir="ltr">quality of acting etc as AFAW and received audiences of a similar size, <br></div><div dir="ltr">though the overseas sales were not as good. It did get me the Writer's <br></div><div dir="ltr">Guild Award, however. After that Granada's whole attention seemed <br></div><div dir="ltr">devoted to Brideshead (which was probably paid for by the overseas <br></div><div dir="ltr">sales of AFAW). In recent years attention has been paid to this <br></div><div dir="ltr">situation by a number of media academics, but they have no more been <br></div><div dir="ltr">able to penetrate this silence than I have. Over the years I have <br></div><div dir="ltr">written at intervals to heads of drama and even managing directors, and <br></div><div dir="ltr">sometines not even had a reply. When I have received the odd reply it <br></div><div dir="ltr">has more or less skated round the subject. Sole exception was Charles <br></div><div dir="ltr">Allen at Granada who said my contribution to Granada was, I quote, <br></div><div dir="ltr">"phenominal". He left the company shortly after, but not before I had <br></div><div dir="ltr">been invited to the ITV 50th anniversary at the Guildhall. Needless to <br></div><div dir="ltr">say, I didn't go. My former agent of some forty years lost my original <br></div><div dir="ltr">contracts before he died which precluded any private action I might take <br></div><div dir="ltr">(I couldn't actually have afforded to get into some costly legal drivel) <br></div><div dir="ltr">.<br></div><div dir="ltr">I did eventually start getting royalties, though not at the intervals I <br></div><div dir="ltr">should have expected. Not having the contracts, whose loss was admitted <br></div><div dir="ltr">after some pressure, made it impossible for me to have an accurate <br></div><div dir="ltr">check, though I shall know in September if the terms are what we <br></div><div dir="ltr">agreed. The Guild seemed to be having some difficulties at the time <br></div><div dir="ltr">these problems were at their peak, and now seem to have had some form of <br></div><div dir="ltr">reorganisation. So Tim you are quite correct in what you say about the <br></div><div dir="ltr">neglect of aAFAW. The way this has happened over the years has been <br></div><div dir="ltr">very painful, and the brightest spark, forgetting the money, is the way <br></div><div dir="ltr">Richard has brought you all together to keep the interest alive. JOHN<br></div><div dir="ltr">_______________________________________________<br></div><div dir="ltr">Afamilyatwar-list mailing list<br></div><div dir="ltr"><a ymailto="mailto:Afamilyatwar-list@baylor.edu" href="mailto:Afamilyatwar-list@baylor.edu">Afamilyatwar-list@baylor.edu</a><br></div><div dir="ltr"><a href="https://mailman.baylor.edu/mailman/listinfo/afamilyatwar-list" target="_blank">https://mailman.baylor.edu/mailman/listinfo/afamilyatwar-list</a><br></div><blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></div>
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