Latest entry
- Pauline McLean
- 6 Jan 09, 17:30 GMT
Happy New Year! And the process of creating Creative Scotland continues to drag as slowly in 2009 as it did in 2008.
Now more than 400 artists, performers and writers want to see the scheme abandoned altogether.
According to crime writer Val McDermid, novelist Louise Welsh, actress Alison Peebles and more than 400 writers this new body shouldn't be born at all.
In a petition to MSPs, they're calling for the whole merger to be abandoned. They say the cost of the merger - which has still not been formally confirmed - could lead to cuts in any grants they receive.
"Whilst many of us have been critical of the existing institutions, Creative Scotland does not offer improvement on the current provision managed by the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen, and will impact negatively on Scotland's international reputation," says the petition.
Which comes as close to an endorsement of the Scottish Arts Council as you're likely to hear.
But despite rumblings behind the scenes - with staff in both Scottish Screen and the Scottish Arts Council's respective headquarters unsure of what will happen next - it seems the troubled merger will still go ahead.
Having been voted down by MSPs last June, it's due to be reintroduced as part of John Swinney's Public Services Reform Bill later this month. And according to the Scottish Government, they're not for turning.
"The Scottish Parliament voted unanimously in favour of the establishment of Creative Scotland as a statutory body," said a Scottish Government spokesman.
"And we will proceed with the democratic legislative route, not least to enshrine the important arms-length principle on arts funding."
"The culture minister has agreed to meet a number of representatives from across the sector to hear and address their concerns about the transition process and remit of Creative Scotland."
But she may not have heard the end of the debate. According to the organisers of the artists' campaign, they hope to gather further support and stage more events to highlight the issues.
Recent entries
- Pauline McLean
- 23 Dec 08, 16:14 GMT
It may be the season of goodwill - but not if you're a particularly small panto goer.
A colleague - who went on a family outing to the panto at the Kings Theatre in Glasgow - was surprised to hear the theatre intended to charge £11 for his eight-week-old baby.
In an explanation which echoed the one given by many temporary venues at the 2006 Fringe, the theatre box office claimed it needed to ensure everyone in the audience had both a seat and a ticket, no matter how small they were, "for health and safety reasons".
A few well aimed protests at that event resulted in a fairer policy where babes in arms were given tickets but not charged for them.
When I raised the matter with the Kings Theatre press office, I was assured it was a minor slip up and that our man would have his baby's ticket refunded.
"Good thing too," he says, "as neither I nor the baby spent much time in either of our seats.
"I spent most of the show, pacing up and down with the baby in my arms."
Several weeks later and our man has heard nothing.
Squealing bundles
We've also heard of several more families who've been charged even more for their infants.
Could this be another downside of the new box office system which means callers are now referred to a London call centre which deals with booking of all theatres in the Ambassador group?
Or are they trying to ensure parents leave the noisiest members of the family at home? Surely not.
It's panto, for heaven's sake, and before long these small squealing bundles will be the audiences for eyewateringly priced stage shows like CBeebies and The Tiger Who Came to Tea and then they can sell them a seat.
As my colleague points out, his party spent the best part of £170 on panto tickets, and that was before the interval sweets and drinks.
It's surely not too much to ask for a free ticket for the tinies, particularly if they don't take up a seat in the first place.
Anyway, goodwill to all panto going babies, and indeed all readers of this blog.
Have a fabulously festive season - and see you all in 2009.
- Pauline McLean
- 5 Dec 08, 17:49 GMT
In space, they say, no-one can hear you scream.
The same is probably true of the labyrinth of basements beneath the Arches below Glasgow's Central Station.
It's there the team behind Alien War have set up their new show.
Inspired by the Alien films, the show is returning to Glasgow this week for a four-month run.
"It's definitely a creepy space," says Gary Gillies, who created the show in 1992 along with John Gorman.
"There's supposed to be a ghost of a little girl. No-one has seen her but there are some spots where you feel slightly strange."
And if that doesn't scare you off, the new show will.
Famously braved by Sigourney Weaver ( who screamed and giggled her way through the London spin off), shunned by Sylvester Stallone (whose restaurant was next door) and by Michael Jackson (who sent his bodyguards and they apparently warned him off), it's now back at the Arches for the first time since 1992.
The premise is that while refurbishing the venue, workmen uncovered a strange alien spacecraft.
Two burly marines are escorting us through the dimly lit corridors when it all goes horribly wrong.
The initial show was famous for ejecting screaming customers onto Argyle Street and for its fear factor.
"We've had people fainting - men and women - people trying to leave before it's even started and people who leave their children behind in their rush to escape," says Keith Gainham who played a marine in the first production and jumped at the chance to return this time.
"It's a very scary show but I think people like the adrenalin rush of it all."
Despite having Ripley's endorsement, the show's creators decided to cut ties with 20th Century Fox, who had endorsed the original show.
"We just felt it was like being handcuffed," says Gary Gillies.
"They didn't want us to include anything too scary in case someone had a heart attack and we really wanted to give audiences a more terrifying show.
"So we decided this time to do it ourselves."
And don't they worry about that possibility themselves?
"It's like a roller coaster,"says John Gorman.
"People love the adrenalin rush but they know they're strapped in, they can't get hurt.
"This is the same. And any publicity is good. Think of the ambulances parked outside the cinemas when they showed the Exorcist in 1973. people love all that sort of thing."
The team are expecting record interest - with tours of 12 taken through the set potentially every 10 minutes.
They'll also adjust the show for the audience.
"Late night audiences tend to be a little more raucous, a bit more lively. So we'll up the ante a bit," says Gary.
"We can spot the ones who are truly terrified and let them out as the tour progresses."
One major change since 1992 is that the Arches has been transformed into a proper venue, which means audiences are no longer thrown onto the street at the end of the tour.
Instead they'll end up in the bar, which should do a roaring trade in stiff drinks between now and the end of March.
- Pauline McLean
- 26 Nov 08, 10:11 GMT
There are some theatrical experiences you find yourself rooting for, because they're all too rare.
And last night at Tramway in the southside of Glasgow, was one of them.
Heer and Ranjha are the Punjabi version of Romeo and Juliet and every bit as prevalent in South Asian culture as their Shakespearean cousins are in western culture.
This version merges the two, setting Heer and Ranjha in contemporary Glasgow, from two rival Sikh and Muslim families.
Heer is a spoiled society girl, whose father owns a chain of restaurants while Ranjha is struggling to deal with the problems which beset his traditionalist brothers in liberal Scotland.
The sharply written script is by Shan Khan; the production by Glasgow based Ankur Productions.
The River Clyde dominates the staging - sparkling beneath a despondent Ranjha as he plans to jump from George IV Bridge, glittering alongside Heer's father's yacht as she prepares to take a different leap and marry someone else.
It's also a huge leap for Ankur onto Tramway's stage - although their numbers are swelled by students from local colleges who give the big Bollywood numbers an extra oomph.
And the community - while not exactly out in force - is definitely spreading the word.
At just over two hours, the show is slightly long and loses some of its pace in the second half.
But it's refreshingly lively, and entertaining, offering fresh words and voices for a whole new range of actors - Nalini Chetty and Taqui Nazeer in particular stand out as the star crossed lovers.
With a cast of 27 - including 18 dancers and impressive choreography and original music - it's one of the most original productions you'll see at the moment.
It runs till Saturday at Tramway. It deserves a wider audience too, and hopefully will get the chance to tour at a later date.
- Pauline McLean
- 18 Nov 08, 13:36 GMT
Their bear-skin hats are soaked through - "nothing that a spell under a hair-drier won't sort" - but the band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards play on for the photographers in the pouring rain.
It's in marked contrast to the weather in which they recorded the album they're launching - Spirit of the Glen: Journey.
They were half way through the recording of the album in Edinburgh earlier in the year when they were called on a six-month tour of duty in Iraq.
As soldiers first and musicians second, they had no option but to abandon recording.
But they didn't bank on record producers Tom Lewis and Jon Cohen following them to Basra.
When the producers first approached record company Universal, they were refused permission. Insurance, they were told, would be impossible to arrange.
But the duo were persistent and in August this year, persuaded all involved to allow them to set up a mobile recording studio in the camp at Basra.
The biggest problem once there was the heat - for both equipment and personnel, particularly the pipers.
Then there was the constant threat of rocket attack - "It's the only time I've gone into a recording studio wearing a flak jacket" says Tom Lewis.
But they found solutions in unlikely places. Flowers of the Forest - a lone piper's lament with a poetry recital - was impossible to record amidst the hum of the camp's generators.
Eventually, they found the quiet they needed at the end of the runway.
The CD is out in December in time for Christmas. The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards hope to be back from Iraq by then too, having set a new record as well as made one.
It's believed to be the first album recorded in a war zone.
BTW - I am told actress Ashley Jensen isn't applying for American citizenship as reported in an earlier blog but a green Card to continue working in the USA.
It was that application which prevented her from returning to Scotland for the Bafta Scotland awards last week.
She was however able to make her own transatlantic contribution to Children in Need's celebrity rendition of "I Have A Dream".
- Pauline McLean
- 11 Nov 08, 10:12 GMT
The red carpet was soggy to say the least, but not even a hail storm could keep hardy Scottish celebrity types away from the Bafta Scotland awards.
The event - at Glasgow's City Hall - has certainly grown in stature over the past few years with 800 guests on Sunday night, including Robbie Coltrane, Robert Carlyle, Michelle Gomez, Kate Dickie, James Cosmo and David Hayman.
But the old suspicion remains, is the industry big enough to justify an awards ceremony of its own?
Many of the categories tell their own stories - with only a handful of nominations.
Last year, the Best Actress category had just one lonely nominee - Sophia Myles - no tension when that award was announced.
So this year, to save their blushes Bafta have abandoned Best Actress and Best Actor for a free for all Best Performance award - one for TV and one for film.
They've also expanded the criteria to take in actors working in any part of the globe - hence the inclusion of Ashley Jensen for the American comedy Ugly Betty.
She wasn't there - she's apparently applying for American citizenship and can't leave America until it's done - which was just as well because she didn't win.
Instead the TV award went to Ken Stott, who was less than glowing about the state of the homegrown industry.
Like Robert Carlyle - whose film Summer won two awards - he feels many people are too blasé about the state of the industry.
He's particularly angry about the failure of UK broadcasters to meet their drama quota (as revealed in evidence to the recent Broadcast Commission).
Brian Cox, meanwhile, was on his own soap box, this time about the importance of distribution.
The Escapist - which won him Best Film Performance - may have Hollywood backing but it struggled to get much of a showing.
He says Scotland has to fight back, perhaps even developing its own quota system in line with French cinema.
It was a low key Bafta ceremony for the Still Game team this time, their Christmas special losing out to Gary's War.
Tension too on the red carpet for Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill, on their first public appearance since their apparent fallout over their production company Effingee.
Asked to pose together on the red carpet, Greg Hemphill's response was a curt "nah, no way".
Asked later about the split, Ford Kiernan said "I'm just Eff now. It's just Effing me now."
One man for whom the whole event went swimmingly was Mikey Hughes, ex Big Brother star, now back in his day job at Insight Radio.
Mikey has an admirable way of nabbing his interviewees - which predates his TV fame.
Particularly impressive was the way he pounced on Robert Carlyle in the backstage bar and demanded an interview before the normally reticent actor had a chance to say no.
Mikey also has a celebrity occasion of his own to look forward to.
After leaving the Big Brother house, he was apparently inundated with requests to switch on various Christmas lights around the country.
In the end, he narrowed it down to one - his local event in Kilwinning which will take place on 27 November.
- Pauline McLean
- 7 Nov 08, 08:48 GMT
First Minister Alex Samond has invited Barack Obama to come to Scotland during the Year of Homecoming.
Admittedly, it was on Tuesday before the result and he hedged his bets and invited both presidential hopefuls on the grounds that they both have Scottish ancestry.
But how much Scottish ancestry does the new American president have?
Bruce Blacklaw at the National Library of Scotland was keen to find out and asked the organisation's genealogy unit to run a few checks.
Early research suggests Barack Obama has 3.1% Scottish ancestry - the detail relating to a relation on his mother's side of the family.
They also said there was substantially more English ancestry in his background than Scots, but I'm guessing the Year of Homecoming organisers don't want to hear that particular detail.
The first event of Homecoming 2009 officially gets under way at the national library this week with a new exhibition which draws together artefacts from the National Burns Collection.
The exhibition called Zig Zag, examines some of the myths surrounding Robert Burns, many of them perpetuated by the poet himself.
It's the first major collaboration between the museums and institutions which keep the various parts of the collection - they'll be officially recognised for their efforts next week - and the exhibition will stay intact for a few more months as it tours onto Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dumfries.
It's also a good chance to see material from the Burns Museum Collection, whose state-of-the-art £21m museum is pending - but unfortunately not due to open for another two years.
- Pauline McLean
- 5 Nov 08, 08:47 GMT
Speculation was rife at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh over the identity of the anonymous donor of a new £3m arts grant.
The one-off grant is available to any project based in Edinburgh which impresses both culturally and architecturally.
Plenty of organisations were around to stake their claim - from the Edinburgh International Film Festival, who have long harboured dreams of a suitable new festival venue, to the Scottish Photography Museum, who still have their sights set on Calton Hill.
But who is the mystery donor? JK Rowling and Sir Sean Connery have apparently been ruled out but other names were circulating the room.
Some conspiracy theorists also questioned the timing with a review of Edinburgh's arts venues due to be published soon.
Do Edinburgh City Council already have a project in mind?
Council leader Jenny Dawe was quick to dismiss the suggestion.
"It really is wide open to projects and ideas, that's what makes it exciting. It's also really important in this kind of economic climate that culture doesn't fall off the agenda," she says.
And Giles Ruck, chief executive of The Scottish Community Foundation says they're well used to protecting the anonymity of their donors.
"We deal with a lot of anonymous donations. The only difference with this one is the scale of the award."
Interested organisations have until April next year to submit their ideas. The winning project will be chosen in 2010 and must be finished by 2013.
Mystery Owner
One lucky art lover got more than he bargained for at auction last week.
The anonymous fan snapped up a much admired Joan Eardley charcoal drawing - one of the many she made of the Sampson children who lived near her studio in Glasgow in the 1950s.
It cost the buyer £22,000 but he realised he'd got a real bargain when he sent it to be checked over and discovered there was a second work underneath.
The oil painting of the same boy - Andrew Sampson - is signed, leading to speculation that it wasn't being discarded by the artist, but hidden away for future discovery.
The owner, whose Eardley collection has doubled overnight, is keen to find out.
- Pauline McLean
- 31 Oct 08, 15:58 GMT
To Glasgow's Cineworld, spruced up for the Scottish premiere of Quantum of Solace.
The event was for charity - raising £12,000 for Maggie's Centres - and there was no shortage of well-dressed people happy to sip a Martini, pose with an Aston Martin and do their bit for a good cause.
Shame the film was a bit of a disappointment - the credits rolled to a deadly silence followed by the shuffle of shoes as everyone filed out of the auditorium.
What went wrong? It had all the ingredients that made Casino Royale such a breath of fresh air: big set piece car chases, rooftop running, nerve jangling fight scenes, but none of it really made a lot of sense.
The baddies are disappointing - particularly the mundanely named Dominic Greene (Mathieu Almaric) whose act of evil is to force South American dictators to buy their utilities from him at vastly inflated prices.
What next? A row over supermarket developments? Whatever happened to the good old days of baddies who wanted nothing less than world domination?
Daniel Craig's grim-faced Bond is wearing a bit thin now. His first funny line - delivered in Spanish almost an hour in - wins a huge laugh from the audience who're just desperate for anything to lighten the atmosphere.
There are some truly impressive scenes - the opera scene in Austria in which Bond addresses the undercover baddies from the top of the stage, then sets about them offstage to the sound and visuals of the onstage Tosca.
Judi Dench is wonderful as M, gliding in and out of the film, never truly able to cut off her rebellious agent. And the MI5 software, virtual information which appears at the tap of a finger is both fascinating and unbelievable - much more likely that Bond would be put on hold while someone looked up the baddie's credentials on Wikipedia.
The Bond girls drag it down too. Jolly hockey sticks Gemma Arterton bounces around like a sugar-fuelled schoolgirl. Olga Kurylenko is beautiful but wooden, with a back story which neither convinces nor moves the audiences.
Still, it's a not unpleasant hour and three quarters - the shortest Bond film to date. And the Maggie's team have more Martinis to lift the spirits and an auction to boost their coffers.
One of the most popular lots is a last minute addition by Maggie's Media Manager, Anna Marriott. For weeks she's been trying to convince Daniel Craig to come to Glasgow to support the event.
Unfortunately he's out of the country but he sends her a lovely handwritten note explaining why he can't come and offering his best wishes for the Scottish premiere. She's had the note and the envelope framed, along with two tickets for the event and it soon sparks a bidding war in the Cineworld Bar.
"It's on his own personal notepaper," says the auctioneer. "A very personal gift."
One of Anna's colleagues points out that the envelope can also claim to have been licked by Daniel Craig which pushes the price even higher. It eventually sells for £470.
There's one final item to be auctioned. Scots artist Douglas Gordon has donated one of his Portrait of Me and You series - a picture of Morrissey - to the cause.
He's a regular in a pub where one of Maggie's fundraising assistants met him. She decided to chance her arm and ask if he had anything he could give to the charity auction and couldn't believe her luck when she landed a painting valued at £44,000.
Maggie's are now in touch with the major auction houses to arrange to sell it - and hope it will provide a massive boost to their Bond night funds.
- Pauline McLean
- 23 Oct 08, 18:36 GMT
The dispute over drama funding moves from the west to the east with an open letter signed by directors of Scotland's leading theatre companies.
Vicky Featherstone, director of the National Theatre of Scotland, James Brining, of Dundee Rep, Dominic Hill, of the Traverse, and Mary McCluskey, of the Scottish Youth Theatre, are among those calling on the government and the Scottish Funding Council to intervene in the crisis which has closed one of Scotland's two conservatoire-level acting courses.
The funding anomaly which means drama students in England and Wales are worth more than their counterparts in Scotland is once again at the root of the problem.
The National Council for Drama Training - which accredits such courses - has already withdrawn QMU's official status.
That means only one such course remains in Scotland - at the RSAMD in Glasgow.
To the various directors and the actors' union Equity, that's unacceptable.
In England, there's a conservatoire-level course for every three million people, leaving Scotland extremely under-resourced at a time when its profile in terms of Scottish contribution to the world of acting has never been higher.
Actor Brian Cox has already spoken out about his concern - tipped off in an e-mail by fellow actor James McAvoy, who of course lobbied the government on the RSAMD's problems.
Could this salvo begin a new war of words between Scottish actors and Alex Salmond?
Open letter
Dear Sir
We, the undersigned, write with deep concern following recent negative developments affecting the training of actors and stage managers in Scotland.
Queen Margaret University, one of the country's leaders in performance and production training, will no longer receive accreditation from industry regulator the National Council for Drama Training.
NCDT accreditation ensures that chosen courses and "conservatoires" meet the relevant professional needs and standards required by the theatre industry. Until recently QMU and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama were the only institutions in Scotland to hold this 'gold standard' accreditation.
Now provision for professional and vocational drama training has effectively been halved - threatening the long-term future of Scottish theatre, film and television production and performance.
Compared to England and Wales, where there is one NDCT-accredited conservatoire for every 3 million of the population, Scotland will suffer a substantial disparity in professional training provision. This is not only culturally damaging - it is a lost opportunity to the Scottish students who will now be forced to seek training south of the border.
This loss cannot be made up simply by doubling the intake to RSAMD, even if such an alternative were feasible. In a country of our size, the diversity of training represented by two leading drama institutions, each with its own strengths and priorities, is critically important.
In 1971 the Government chose to retain two drama conservatoires in Scotland when it saved the financially troubled Edinburgh School of Speech and Drama by merging it with QMU. The case for retaining a second accredited institution is even stronger today - not least due to the internationally recognised development of the dramatic arts in Scotland over the past few years.
We therefore ask that the Scottish Government and the Scottish Funding Council provide adequate funding to maintain two Scottish conservatoires. This is the only way to ensure that the future of drama training in Scotland is maintained on an equitable international basis.
Yours faithfully,
Signed by the following:
Lorne Boswell- Scottish Secretary, Equity
James Brining- Artistic Director and Chief Executive, Dundee Rep
Ian Brown- Chair, Highlands and Islands Theatre Network
Eric Coulter- Head of Drama, STV Productions
John Durnin- Chief Executive and Artistic Director, Pitlochry Festival Theatre
Vicky Featherstone- Artistic Director and Chief Executive, National Theatre of Scotland
Alison Forsyth- Administrative Producer, Visible Fictions
Sarah Gray- Producer, Wee Stories
Ian Grieve- Creative Director, Perth Theatre
Mike Griffiths- Administrative Director, Traverse Theatre
Dominic Hill- Artistic Director, Traverse Theatre
Douglas Irvine- Artistic Producer, Visible Fictions
Charlotte Jones- Chief Executive, Independent Theatre Council
Mary McCluskey- Artistic Director, Scottish Youth Theatre
Colin McCredie- Actor
John McVay- Chief Executive, Producers' Alliance
Richard Pulford- Chief Executive, Theatrical Management Association
Gill Robertson- Artistic Director, Catherine Wheels
Donald Smith- Director, Scottish Storytelling Centre
John Stalker- Chair, Creative & Cultural Skills Scotland
Gerda Stevenson- Actor and Associate Director, Communicado
Jeremy Raison- Artistic Director, The Citizens Theatre
Mark Thomson- Artistic Director and Chief Executive, The Royal Lyceum Theatre
- Pauline McLean
- 4 Oct 08, 10:20 GMT
Peter Howson has many fans.
Madonna, David Bowie and Bob Geldof are among those who own his work.
But it's a fan closer to home who has brought him his latest commission - Glasgow's Roman Catholic Archbishop Mario Conti.
"I came to judge a children's art competition at the cathedral two years ago," Howson says.
"I got talking to the archbishop and he started talking about John Ogilvy with me and that meant something to me at that time in my life."
John Ogilvy is Scotland's only post reformation saint.
Born in 1579 into a respected Calvinist family in Keith, Banffshire, he went abroad to become a Jesuit priest, returning to Scotland to conduct clandestine services for the handful of remaining Catholics in the early 17th century.
He was arrested, tortured and then hanged, just a stone's throw from St Andrew's C
Cathedral at Glasgow Cross.
It's that scene of his martyrdom that Howson intends to paint.
And it won't be a small scene.
The finished work, which will adorn the newly renovated cathedral when it reopens in 2010 will feature no less than 600 people, his biggest crowd scene to date.
"The idea of the 600 was my idea - that's typical of me to be so stupid as to decide on 600 people.
"The archbiship said he loves my work because it has so many people in it, he particularly liked the St Andrew paintings I did a few years ago which had so many people in them, so that was part of the reasoning.
"Obviously it was a true event in history but in some ways it's timeless. So I'll probably set it today.
"People haven't changed that much so it should be fun. Half the time I'm scared out of my wits about it, and half the time I'm very excited. It's a big job, it really is."
There is a slightly brighter closure to John Ogilvie's tortured end.
In 1976, he was made a saint - the first since the reformation - after a Glasgow man, John Fagan prayed to him and found his advanced cancer had vanished.
The commission is the latest by the Catholic Church in Glasgow - an attempt says its spokesperson to revive its role as a patron of the arts.
Earlier this year, they launched a small arts festival called Lentfest.
This, they claim rather grandly, is the most important commission for a Scottish Catholic Cathedral since the 16th Century Reformation.
The costs are being met by a group of private benefactors.
And it could be the start of a fruitful relationship between Peter Howson and the Catholic Church.
He's already working on a series of works based on the Irish disapora who arrived in the West of Scotland in the 19th and 20th centuries.
It's hoped he'll stage a major exhibition of the work in Glasgow next year.
Meantime, an exhibition of his current work will open at his London gallery Flowers East on 23 October.
- Pauline McLean
- 24 Sep 08, 09:42 GMT
To the Glasgow Film Theatre for a special preview of the feature film of Brideshead Revisited.
The cinema may be packed but producer Douglas Rae is under no illusions.
Introducing the film, he asks how many people in the audience saw the ITV series in 1981.
Almost everyone in the audience puts their hands up.
"And how many of you loved the series?"
He shakes his head in mock despondency as almost every hand in the place goes back up.
Making a film of such an iconic TV series was always going to be a challenge but actually even for those of us who remember the original with a warm wash of nostalgia, it's a pretty good adaptation.
The young actors who play Charles, Sebastian and Julia - Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw and Hayley Atwell - are so young they hadn't seen the original series and Whishaw in particular gives a more subtle, poignant performance as poor, pampered Sebastian.
The older actors of course are overshadowed by the weighty cast who appeared last time around.
But Michael Gambon follows gamely in Laurence Olivier's footsteps as the exiled family patriarch Lord Marchmain and Patrick Malahide gives a hilariously acerbic performance as Charles Ryder's father, which more than matches that of the mighty John Gielgud.
Douglas Rae admits Emma Thompson wasn't his first choice as Lady Marchmain - "I think she plays it a bit like Helen Mirren in the Queen, it's a very regal performance" - but instead wanted the famous froideur of Kristin Scott Thomas.
But the studio Miramax would only agree to three newcomers in the central roles, if they had at least one bankable name on the cast, and Emma Thompson's name is one of the most bankable in Hollywood terms.
For the record, I thought she was fantastic.
A brilliant mixture of pious and poison, with just the tiniest glimpses of humanity beneath her icy facade.
The story is nicely potted into two hours without missing any of the plot, and particularly not the crux of the religious argument which is still the central point of the story.
There are some beautiful symbolic moments which capture some of the more minute details of the novel and it looks lavish and sumptuous.
But it's not just audiences who have to be won over.
The film-makers agreed they wouldn't make any radical changes to the novel or its characters, and any minor changes had to be approved by the Waugh Family.
A neat little turning of tables which would have amused Evelyn Waugh, who famously worked with Graham Greene on a screenplay in the 50s which was rejected by the studios of the time for being far too risque.
But this time round, the film has made it to the big screen - and the family gave it their approval just weeks ago.
"It was the longest silence after a film I've ever endured," recalls Douglas Rae, "really unsettling, and then they decided they like it."
Of course the one constant in both film and TV series is the setting - Castle Howard in Yorkshire.
Like Emma Thompson, not the immediate choice of the producer.
"We looked at about 25 different houses across England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland," says Rae.
"Being a Scot, I'd have loved to have used Hopetoun House but the Forth Bridge was in too many of the views.
"I was also keen on Chatsworth and got as far as having tea with the Duchess of Devonshire who announced it would be £25,000 per day."
"But your grace, we'll be on location for three months, I said.
And she replied, "I know. It's £25,000 per day."
"But the great thing was that word got back pretty quickly to Simon Howard who immediately dropped his price, which is how we ended up back at Castle Howard.
"But it had everything we needed, the space for all the equipment, the long driveway, the views and of course the house itself."
Brideshead Revisited (12A) opens in cinemas on 3 October.
- Pauline McLean
- 19 Sep 08, 17:18 GMT
Oh dear Grimble, thanks for your comments but it is only a title.
View from the South Bank is a way of finding my humble blog in the midst of thousands of other chattering pages.
It is not any grand comparison with London or anywhere else. So let's talk about something more interesting.
Like the fact that another box office has gone belly up.
No, not the Fringe but those of Glasgow's Kings Theatre and Theatre Royal. And not because of any complicated computer system but to cut costs.
The Ambassador Theatre Group have given all 27 staff at both box offices redundancy notices.
Callers will instead be put through to a centralised box office in London which already deals with their 21 other theatres across the UK. They'll also charge you a booking fee for the pleasure.
On top of that, they've just received £7.2m to refurbish the 104-year-old Kings.
Am I alone in thinking that the council - who gave them the grant and own both buildings - might want to consider whether this is a good move?
I'm as adept as the next person at booking tickets online but in quirky old-fashioned theatres like the Kings, I like to make sure I'm not sitting behind a pillar or getting a nosebleed in the gods.
The best way to avoid that it to speak to someone with local knowledge, not someone 500 miles away who's on the clock and on commission.
The Ambassador Theatre Group say the cuts are necessary and in response to "customer demand" but the staff are now urging customers to make clear their demands to the theatre.
Meanwhile, it's all gone quiet at the Fringe where a friendly face in the box office wasn't enough to prevent the system going bust.
I understand a number of staff have already quit in the wake of Jon Morgan's resignation, with more set to follow.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~59~RS~)