The Owl Service

[00:00:02] This content contains podcasts This adult This adult contains podcasts Adult content Be advised, enjoy the episode They're all quite attractive Like I'm not trying to say anyone is an I'll go with this But Okay

[00:00:27] Thots TV, I'm Elsie I'm Meg I'm Laura Hello Hello It's been a while since we've recorded Because we went on holiday

[00:00:56] Holly bobs Yeah And the work starts again What was so great about our holiday Was that our flight back Landed at about half past three Four o'clock in the morning And we'd been awake for A while 24 hours Ages When I finally got into bed Pretty much I was fine on the flight home It was a uniquely uncomfortable flight I didn't manage to fall asleep very well Laura just powered through it She was like I will be comfortable And I will fall asleep

[00:01:26] In the cab back from Stan's dead You know when you're like on the last leg of your journey And you're not in like Full of consciousness We weren't on the train So there was like nothing to be aware for Like no one Everyone's guard dropped And we were all falling asleep But like trying to stay awake We were just like nodding off All at once At like slightly different times And waking up after a few seconds Yeah And um I was sat in the middle

[00:01:55] So there was nothing to rest my head on So I had to like Lean my head forward Or lean my head back And I woke myself up snoring And Meg doesn't snore Yeah Just because my head was like Yeah Straight back And as soon as she woke up From a snore She immediately burst out laughing And the three of us Sorry the four of us We had our friend Alicia with us We were so delirious And we were all dreaming Like half dreaming About having conversations with each other And then waking up

[00:02:25] And realising they didn't happen But all of us were doing that So none of us knew what was real It was a mystical car journey The veil was thin I was sat in the front And the driver laughed at us Several times He was up very early I'm glad we were entertaining Really from about Stansted To London The Tower of London I don't remember a single fucking thing And then I remember Apart from one thing I remember waking up Saying something to Alicia

[00:02:55] We were talking about Laura Falling asleep on the plane And I said I said something like She did it through Sheer force and determination And I did a gesture And it kind of caught Elsie's Half a sleep attention And she In her She said she thought She said Ripping it off with your teeth I woke up Which obviously meant nothing to me But what she actually said was Teeth Yeah

[00:03:23] Laura helped me Like We had these You know if you go to a resort Sometimes you get like bands Yes To register that you're at the resort And Laura got mine off with her teeth Right Yeah Because it was hard to get off Elsie thought I was like Gesturing to mine And saying that I hadn't let Laura Rip it off with her teeth So Meg I wasn't Nothing was going on Completely different And I woke up and went Teeth And Meg was like What are you talking about? Elsie was like

[00:03:51] I'm dreaming that I'm saying things out loud What did I say? I was like You said something about teeth And then you explained And then you went But this is real right? This is happening now Yeah the two of us both remember Having a conversation Where we said This is real isn't it? So we have to assume That that was real Because we both remember it Yeah It was Oh Hazy It was hazy Then when we were Unloading the back Of the Uber Like getting all the luggage out We said

[00:04:21] If you've ever seen BBC Ghosts Something we quote all the time In our flat is Teamwork makes the teamwork Teamwork makes the teamwork But you know It's supposed to be Teamwork makes the dream work Except Laura Did it really clocked That there was an outsider Helping us unload the luggage And she said to the Uber driver Teamwork makes the teamwork And she said He looked at her A little bit funny Like Like what is going on With this group of girls They're saying things They're not saying things They're snoring

[00:04:51] They're murmuring And they're asleep Laura said that At several points She was half asleep And she like reached out To grab things in her dream And realised that Nothing was there Because she woke up As she did it Yeah It was It was It was It was It was It was interesting And then And then when we got back I Honestly I don't even know How I made it up the stairs I don't remember Climbing the stairs No yeah I was just like I know we got upstairs But that bit's real foggy

[00:05:20] I do remember coming through The front door And the house Stunk of garlic Wild garlic And Laura was such a A meticulous freak About cleaning the fridge out Before we went away Because like We've never all been out the flat For that amount of time before Like All of us And She made us all clean our shit out The fridge In case anything went off And the The thing that went off Was something she left in the fridge Which was just like A pouch of wild garlic Which is you know

[00:05:49] It's been in there for two months It went off while we were away And stunk so much That you could smell it Outside of the fridge And I The whole house And I I said to Laura When she got upset As The wild garlic In the fridge Is off The house stinks And Laura said Laura said Why don't you put it outside And I was so tired That I said But then the outside Will smell bad Yeah I was like I'm not gonna further Have this discussion There's no point

[00:06:18] And I just did it myself Yeah Meg Before we started recording She She got up and she went I feel how you must feel Every time we record Tired I'm I'm I'm tired And then You know You saying that And I think I've created like A Pavlovian response In my brain To recording Because I am so Suddenly So fucking sleepy It's like me brushing my teeth If I didn't need a wee Before I push my teeth I'm gonna need a wee after Yeah During After Yeah

[00:06:49] We spend too much time Together I think The three of us Just three of us Talking of three of us You know who else There's three of Who Characters in the owl service Well that's Oh Excellent segue Meg Thank you Very good And I know that Laura Was about to undermine me there And go well there's more Than three characters Actually Meg Yeah You were right To stop yourself I'll come over there All one metre I will cross it Careful You'll do your knee in

[00:07:19] Which one So Yes We are doing the owl service It's an owl's head See I suppose it is If you want it to be Three leafy heads With this kind of Abstract flowery business In between It's not abstract flowery That's the body No that's quite good I like him Her You can tell Okay I like her Hello there

[00:07:49] Don't do that You won't Don't touch her Would you say It's one that I've Slightly pushed through Hmm Um The thing is We didn't know Enough about it When you suggested It to say To be so It Yeah To be so It's one of those I think that it's I don't know If we have actually Done another one This season Maybe the herbs Um If that was this season It was It was Um Where It's nice to do like A slightly rogue Older one Yeah There's often

[00:08:18] A lot to say About the rogue Older ones And I think that we have I mean maybe not in series one But we have Done at least one Rogue older one Per season I think And they're usually Brought to the table By myself Yes Because you Somehow grew up In the 70s You Um Did bring the magic Roundabout to us though Yes That's my dad Was super into that Made me watch that Yeah What do I bring? Have you brought An older one yet? You will bring the clangers? Did I bring bagpuss?

[00:08:48] I think bagpuss is always On the cards Yeah I did push it though But you will You will bring the clangers At some point Right? Yes I'm happy for you To bring the clangers Very happy You can choose I think maybe I brought Paddington You know Ah that's right Yes Yes you did So we call these I mean we've had Two of these The first one Was Children of the Stones Yeah And Loved Children of the Stones Actually loved that Yeah And the second Is this one I don't know if

[00:09:17] I've been trying to make this Into a thing It is in my head I don't know if you two Esoteric 70s Kids dramas No I'm I'm trying to bring the term Else indulgent episode Ah To To the Thoughts TV Lexicon Sure Yeah We can have that We can have that It doesn't Well this isn't Else indulgent How many How many of these Are there Two No no no Isn't the podcast Entirely Else indulgent Yeah

[00:09:46] Okay Subset of indulgences Within the indulgence Yeah I How many No I meant like How many more Of these types Are they all going to be Don't even ask that I I can I can reel off a couple More at least Okay This is like yeah How many esoteric 70s children's dramas Are you going to bring to us How many got made I I can I can keep going Okay Fair enough Fair enough I did mention At least four

[00:10:15] In the Children of the Stones episode That we touched on Very briefly And one of them Was the owl service I might put in a clip From Your reaction Our own Show Yes Being clipped Within our own show Exactly And it's About a woman That might be Possessed by owls Or an An owl All the fucking Things to be Possessed by

[00:10:45] You might be Possessed by a bird Love Alright What'd you get I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't I can't Watch that one As well Yeah we will Breaking the third wall Well it's not a visual medium Is it No no We got it We got it That's so good Thank you

[00:11:17] It's so good That this isn't A visual medium Isn't it I look like shit Right now I'm happy for it I don't think I've ever been Actually like Dressed Properly For a single recording Oh no I've never been Dressed properly I am like always In my pajamas You've never been Dressed properly I've never been I'm always nude Opposite of never nude Naturalists Which we covered Naturists Yeah we covered In a previous Episode Yes we did Naturalists Naturists I never remember Which one's which Yeah

[00:11:47] Maybe a naturist Is just Someone who likes nature Like nutritionist And dietician One of them's proper One of them's real Yeah one of them's You know Got qualifications The other one's got An internet certificate Yeah Yeah What is it Oh are they broken Nothing wrong with them We'll bring one down And we'll wash it So I guess Let's head straight Into this Because my My goodness

[00:12:16] Is a lot of Explaining to do My notes are extensive Yeah yeah yeah I gotta say But once Once I'm through them We can hit the Opinions And just do that Because This is literally Pure pure production And context Cool So the owl service It was a book But Thank you For the ambience It's like We're playing that It's like 21 Do you remember Playing 21 in drama

[00:12:46] Yes Yeah Yeah Should we do a bit now We'll We'll cut this out Yeah Unless it's great I don't know what it is Close your eyes And you have to Get up to 21 You can say up to Three numbers At once But no one can speak At the same time And if anyone speaks At the same time You have to start again And you play it in Like a group of Like 20 or 25 Yeah it's about Feeling as a group Feeling Joint action Yes basically

[00:13:16] Would you like to play now? Yeah Okay everyone close your eyes I'm very confused Okay you ready? Yeah Not really but sure Right so you I just say a number You just say a number But you've got to Kind of sense If you think anyone else Is going to say anything You've got to get to 21 And if anyone else Speaks at the same time As you We have to start again Okay Yep One Two Three Four Five Six Seven

[00:13:46] Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve Thirteen Okay Let me tell a story About this game I was in a cast Of maybe Like I don't know Eighteen or twenty people And throughout The Course of the production Like the weeks of rehearsal Like we We started playing it And it We couldn't do it And it wasn't just 21 We were just going As high as we could

[00:14:15] And we played it Every single morning By the End of the production We could have kept Going and going And going And going Like it is Genuinely impressive How How real it is Just like spending So Much time With each other And practicing Every day Like It became so easy No one was going to Speak at the same time It was really cool Actually It's It's a process Called joint action Where basically Your brain And it Would be very interesting To You couldn't do

[00:14:45] Simultaneous Scans of everyone At the same time Which sucks Because it would be Really interesting to see Is your I can't remember Which part of the brain Because I'm sleepy Basically just starts Representing the brains Of everyone doing it With you Yeah we My First year Drama One of my first year Drama modules We did A lot of This And similar Activities And I thought When I got there And I started it I thought it was Such

[00:15:14] Bullshit I was like When I started Going to these classes Like the first few weeks I can really believe You thinking that I was like Why am I going to this What the fuck is this Why are we doing this And by the end Of the course I was like I have And I don't Speak to anyone From that Drama group Anymore But I felt So in tune With every single Person in that class It was It was mental And our Because our Practitioner Practitioner Teacher Whatever He

[00:15:44] Definitely Thought Definitely knew I thought it was Bullshit And at no point Did he ever say to me Like No just try and get On side Like His method of Teaching was We'll do it Until you're on side No it was very Specific to each Person At no point Did he say No you're wrong You've got to do this This is like a Compulsory module Blah blah blah blah blah It was a Compulsory module And everyone had A different teacher Who did a different Practitioner Like they were all Different They were into Different things

[00:16:14] So everyone had A different Thing that they Were focusing on And this just Happened to be mine But like He had such a Interesting approach To teaching That I was like Oh Even though I Thought it was Bullshit He never once Was like Like told me off For it or Anything He just taught Me in a way That I Responded to Until I didn't Think it was Bullshit anymore I really rate The like Start of drama Exercises Like from a

[00:16:43] Social play Perspective Like I think They do such A good job I was Invited to Sort of Give opinions About a study That they're Trying to do With laughter And they were Like oh Like we're Trying to Set these Things up And I Went genuinely Do something Like zip Zaps Up Yeah And they Were like Oh Why Because it's A study About laughter And it's Like the Thing with Laughter That's really Important Is it's A play Signifier So what You need To do Is all Of these People Who've Never Met Each Other Before

[00:17:13] And are All here For Like therapy You need Them to Relax In order to Laugh Yeah From From a Outside Perspective Even from An inside Perspective It is Like very Sort of Cringe Drama Student Behaviour But there Is a Function To it And It works It does Work It's Yeah Very cool Because if Everyone's Doing the Same Thing You get To Like it's An icebreaker In a way That like Levels Everyone Out And Creates A sort Of

[00:17:43] Essentially A safe Space Of where It's Like okay We can Relax And have Fun And Like A lack Of judgment Because we're All doing Stuff that Could be Perceived As silly Do you know What I miss So much About drama I miss Doing like Freeze Frame Oh I hated That Did you Yeah I did Laura's Looking at me In confusion It's Another circle Game that You play And like Oh that Yeah That was Great Two people Go into The centre And improvise A scene And when

[00:18:12] Anyone at Any point From around The circle Can say Freeze And take Over the Position Of someone In that Scene And change What's Happening And it's Just a Yes And Yeah I've Seen Like Improv Stage People Me too I spent It was 10 or 12 weeks Learning Long form Improv Which Is Some Really Like Really Beautiful Stuff Can come Out of Long form Improv Like Where You've Got No Idea Where It's Going

[00:18:42] But When You know The Techniques I mean It feels Like Cheating But It's Not It's Like Techniques To make A story Go Somewhere It's So Fun Because I Really Enjoy Watching Long form Improv But It's Like I Just I Have Terrible Stage fright So It's Like If You Put me In That Situation Any Sort Of Comedy In My Brain Will Probably Just Leave Like We

[00:19:17] So So Funny Netflix Get On It Yeah Anyway Back To The Topic No Improv In Owl Service Not At All No It's It's Tight It's A Tight Text What is A stone Of Grunel Oh What's That When It's At Home Was A man Being Killed In That Place Was There Now Yes He Has Been Taking The Other Man's Wife Well That's A bit Off I Must Say So It

[00:19:48] Garner That Elsie Has Read Yes I Read That On Our Holiday And Another One Of His Books As Well So That Was Published In 1967 And The TV Series Came Out In 1969 So Quite A Tight Turn On Yeah That's Interesting Yeah Well It's A lot Of People Consider The Owl Service To

[00:20:20] So He Wrote Stories Just To Write Stories And It Found Audience Of Children And Adolescents For Some Of Them Some Are Sort Of More Grown Up Than Others And He Found This Because All Of His Correspondence With Fans He You Know Realised That They Were All Under 18 All Of His Fan Letters Were From Children But He Never Really Geared It Towards Children So Which I

[00:20:50] The For Adolescents Is That It's Just Like Don't Write With Them In Mind Or You Gonna Talk Down Yeah Yeah So The Owl Service Was His First Book That Got Real Acclaim And People Went Back And Looked At His Earlier Stuff It It It The Carnegie Medal And The Guardian's Children's Fiction Prize And Only As Of 2011 I Don't Know About Now But Only Six Books Have Had Both Of Those Things

[00:21:19] I'm Gonna Read A Quote From Philip Pullman Garner Is Indisputably The Great Originator The Most Important British Writer Of Fantasy Since Tolkien Any Country Except Britain Would Have Long Ago Recognized His Importance And Celebrated It With Postage Stamps And Statues And Street Names But That's The Way With Us Our Greatest Profits Go Unnoticed By The Politicians And The Owners Of Media Empires I Salute Him With The Most Heartfelt Respect And

[00:21:48] Admiration That Is So I Think Kind Of Overly Mean Like About Like Oh There'd Be Statues Of Like What There Yeah I mean We do Have Postage Stamps And Street Names And Statues Of Writers In This

[00:22:18] Paddington In Leicester Square Paddington I Mean There Was A Glut Of Paddington Statues In The Last Sort Of 10 Or 15 Years Did You Have All Those Elephant Statues Huh It's This Thing I Don't Know What It's Called It's Like Some Kind Of Project And It's In Singapore And I Thought It Was A Global Thing I'm Had Puffins But Before That

[00:22:48] It Had Toads Because Of The Philip Larkin Poem Toads Yeah It was Like Explore Singapore And Collect All The Elephants Kind Of Thing All Those Elephants That Live In Singapore Yeah There's Been A lot Of That All Over The Urban Elephant Population There's A Wallace And Gromit Thing Going On In Bristol So The TV Show Is Consider To Be A Landmark Of Children's Drama It Was Actually Made Eight

[00:23:18] Years Before Children Of The Stones Was Made And It Comes At A Time Where There Was A Real Movement Of Folk Horror Going On In Adult Media And Children's Media We Spoke About This In Children Of The Stones In The Late 60s You Had Things Like The Wicker Man And Blood On Satan's Claw Is Blood On Satan's Claw Folk Horror That Seems Fairly Christian Well Folk Horror Can Be Christian Okay Cool

[00:23:47] Wicker Man Also Has A Very Christian Character Is The Main Character Anyway Sorry It Is All Good Yeah Folk Horror If You Really Really Boil It Down To Its Simple Elements Takes Place Outside Takes Place In The Small Community That Takes Their History Very Very Seriously

[00:24:17] And Outsiders Tend To Be The Great Are Victims Yes That I Would Say Is Folk Horror I Would Say That Hot Fuzz Is Folk Horror This Was A While Ago I Can't Remember What The Context Of This Point Was Talking About The Differences Between European But Mainly British Horror Versus American Horror Which Is American Horror Tends To Happen In The Cities Whereas British Horror Tends To Happen In The Countryside Yeah And I Can't Remember The Reason Why It

[00:25:02] The Age Of The Countries Yeah That Makes Sense Yeah And Then It Becomes Terribly Complicated Or Magic But Um Granry Threw A Spear From A Hill When Claire Was Standing By A River And Killed Him But Claire Wasn't Really Dead He Turned Into An Eagle Fine If You

[00:25:38] The Owl Service Very Much Falls Into This Category Whether Alan Garner Was Doing That On Purpose Or Not I Mean Most Of His Work Does Take Heavy Inspiration From Folklore Um From Landscapes And History So He Lives In Cheshire He Grew Up In Cheshire And A Series Of His Books Which Starts With The Weird Zone Of Brison Garmin That Kind Of Uses The Landscape

[00:26:07] Of Cheshire And Old British Folklore And Moves The Characters To Do What They Do Like The Outside Force The Forces Of Horror Come From The History Of The Specific Place What Is The Landscape Of Cheshire It's Near Pennines It's Near Manchester Okay So The Peak District Yeah That sort Of Northwest It is Okay It is Northwest It is As I said

[00:26:37] The TV show Is a landmark In children's Drama It was the First Fully scripted Drama By Granada Studios To be Shot In Color Which is Really Cool Considering It was Aimed At Children It was Also The First One To be Filmed Almost Entirely On Location Usually Dramas Were Sets Yeah Did it Start the Trend of Filming In Wales Well it Wasn't Cardiff It was The

[00:27:15] Yes Oh okay Yeah Yeah I I was just Like oh yes This You said it Like I was Posted on And I Just for Once went Yes Sure The Simplified Synopsis Of The Out Service Good Luck I Mean I Actually Do Think It Is A Very You Can Say It Very Simply But A Lot Goes On But It Is Essentially About Mother And Daughter Father And Son They're A Blended Family

[00:27:47] That's A new Phrase For An Old Show True So Yeah To Be Clear Step Brother Step Dad That's The Yeah Yeah Exactly Not Half Yeah So Alison And Roger They're Step Siblings Their Parents Have Been Married For Five Weeks They Are Staying In For On Holiday They Are Staying In A Manor House In Wales They Are English That's Important That Alison Owns They You Know Have Had It

[00:28:25] N They They They They Bring Them Down And Alison Starts Tracing The Flower Design And She Works Out That If You Fold It In A Certain

[00:28:55] Way It Makes An Owl And Real Hootenani Alternative Name Every Time She Traces The Pattern Off One Of These Plates And Makes It Into An Owl The Pattern From The Plate Disappears Together With Clive's Own Son Roger They're Now For The First Time All On Holiday Together In A Remote Welsh Valley

[00:29:24] Keeping House For Them And Now This is Where It Starts To Get A Little Complicated I Had Just Quickly There Was If You Want To Watch It After The First Episode Every Succeeding Episode Has A Previously The I Read The Wikipedia And They Said They Had To Include It Because It

[00:29:59] Everyone Was Perfectly Understandable To Me Yeah Yeah But My Point Being Is Like It Is Quite Confusing And If You Want To Watch It These Previously On Our Service Come Really In Clutch Of Explaining Everything That's Happened Like They Do A Very Good Job Of Sucinctly Explaining What's Happened So Alison is Becoming A Little Possessed By These Plates She Feels Like She Has To Keep Tracing Them And Making Owls Out Of Them And Then The Three Children

[00:30:29] Learn Of A Real Welsh Folklore Folk Story About A Woman Named And I Apologize For My Welsh Pronunciation Bluderweth I Think She Was Created By Magicians Out Of Flowers A Woman Made Out Of Flowers Very Nymph Dryad He Coded Yeah To Be A Wife For Hlu Hlor Someone I'm Sorry Oh You Mean Yes

[00:30:59] And She's Married To Him And Then She Conspires With Gronu To Kill Him Because She Wants To Be With Gronu They Kill Him So These Three Characters Bluderweth Gronu Peber I'm Sorry I'm So So So Sorry And Hlu Hlor Gryff Or Gryff Gryff Oh You Mean Yes They All Have A Tragic Ending It's A Folk It's

[00:31:29] Tragic And It's A Real Quite Well Known Welsh Folk Tale As Welsh Folk Tales Go This Is

[00:32:16] making notes what the fuck the hours where everyone is at mass you've got to find a blacksmith who's not at mass yeah you need like a blacksmith of a different religion or a lot of money to pay them and be like look i know you want to work on this until it's done but what i need you to do is confine it to the hours on sunday morning like can you you gotta find a bath and a black goat

[00:32:40] and you need to make it for a year so no mass for a year no yeah you can't go to mass for a year also i need to lug a bath to a river what the fuck and i mean of all of these nets pretty easy yeah but you've also got to get him there exactly exactly so the the magicians who made bloda with for clue they bring clue back to life fucking hell all this effort yeah then he goes and kills

[00:33:10] gronu by throwing a spear through a stone and killing gronu and the stone is a a stone on the riverbank in the owl service and it's got a hole through it so that is there um that was actually made for the production and it is still there is it an actual start yeah okay it's yeah it's still

[00:33:34] there um but the stonemason that made it carved its initials into it so it wouldn't be mistaken for a real thing thing yeah you can go well you know in a few hundred years they're gonna be confused yeah they're gonna be like what's a stonemason which means we're right in the very place where all this

[00:33:57] flower power is supposed to happen as professor half bacon claim very interesting but quite ridiculous so basically they the children learn about this legend legend the groundskeeper hugh half bacon who's been at the site for a very long time he's a bit crazy and a lot of what he says doesn't make any

[00:34:25] sense but he is basically telling them forthright it's happening again yeah so in every generation this tragic myth plays itself out through the people living in the valley she wants to be flowers and you make her house why must we destroy ourselves listen you big oaf i've just seen alison so frightened she was as much an idiot as you pretend to be and you make her

[00:34:51] something about it and you're gonna tell me you must not complain then if she goes hunting talk sense man i've got to know the children believe this is happening to them and all three of them go backwards and forwards on this is rubbish and this is happening i don't know the force was in the plates

[00:35:14] it's a nose now it's nice you can't bear to think he's clever than you are that's your trouble you couldn't have worked it up like gwyn has you call that working it out that moonshine that claptrap oh he's smart too smart every time this happens she wants to return to being flowers fair at the end of the tragic tale as punishment she is turned

[00:35:42] into an owl because in folklore owls are hated by all the other birds and when she starts making the flowers from the plate into owls hugh is saying she it was supposed to be flowers it was supposed to be flower because that would break yeah the cycle the cycle yeah and in the book this doesn't

[00:36:09] happen in the tv series but in the book um the two boys go down to the local shop and two women are speaking in welsh so they can't understand what um what they're saying but they have a very short conversation they say it's happening again she's made it owls god bless them all but isn't it exciting that it's happening in our time so you you're never really worried that they're gonna die but like

[00:36:38] it's it's a sad thing that she's doing that because it means that they will all bring misery to each other i would say with these kind of usually there's like well i actually when folklore gets more esoteric sometimes the lesson aspect disappears and it's just fucking strange because it's like i agree what's the lesson here if any don't make women for men i i would say that because

[00:37:04] actually hugh does mention that that blood woman was pretty poor no she was made for a lord nobody asks her if she wants him i think she sometimes longs for the time when she was flowers on the mountain which is making her cruel hugh says she wants to be flowers but they are they are always making her owls he has some of the most iconic lines in the book and the series he says

[00:37:29] do not be surprised when she then goes hunting so allison is quite unlikable um what she's doing is kind of making her a little bit insane and she's lashing out and she's having funny spells and no one is blaming her for it because they all have a bit of an idea that something's happening and they are all a bit wary of what the place is doing to them so even gwyn the son of nancy he's never been to

[00:37:58] the valley but he knows everything about it because his mother grew up there and has told him in such detail everything about it that he really really belongs there you told me so much about the valley it was like coming home ma'am i even know who people are when i see them you describe them that good so why didn't i know about hill half bacon and the thing about gwyn is that he is welsh and he's from a

[00:38:24] very poor background and he's in love with allison and allison really likes him as well but there's a real class divide that's one of the big big themes is the divide between the welsh and the english and the rich and the poor his mother's threatening to make him leave school and work in a shop then he'll work in a shop well can't you realize he has to find everything for himself join the world of good i would

[00:38:49] say um the chemistry between the actors is not at all convincing oh i just mean i thought it was just like it i don't know maybe it's just a different style of acting because it's because it's from quite a while ago i just like didn't buy into most of the relationships happening i i disagree because from the start i had an idea oh i wanted them to kiss for episode one yeah i really really thought it

[00:39:16] was going to happen and it did and i thought that the the two there are two scenes where they get closer to each other and i think that they are spellbinding i think it's really convincing in a kind in a dated way it's not natural it's melodramatic but i think melodramatic yeah no i disagree i think it's very like growing up in a small town or being somewhere and like the play where you go with the person you

[00:39:45] fancy is for a walk yeah i just i don't know because i think he was just kind of like it felt like he was mostly just being quite aggressive towards her he kept calling her girl and i was just like i don't oh i liked that because that's part of the that's part of the accent now come on stop it don't play spooks with me it's hysterics man now come on back up the house and get some sleep no i did

[00:40:12] so i thought that was fine i didn't think he was aggressive i just thought he was more enthusiastic than her it just to me it read as frustrated like the whole time well he is frustrated fair it just it i just didn't feel like romantic tension i just felt like what from him like mild annoyance with her at all times yeah i don't know i i think that's a valid way to interpret it um because i would be

[00:40:40] like actively annoyed with her at most times but for me he's he's a very very passionate character and i find that there's a lot of generosity in gwyn he what he wants to do is join in with these kids and work out what's going on he starts off like really liking them both and he wants to help her and he wants to help her be better and as it goes on a dynamic i love is that roger is a very like

[00:41:06] he's a yobbo he's a yobbo a clever yobbo that's all there is to it he's poor he's welsh and he he just doesn't he doesn't like him and he doesn't like how close he's getting to allison that's where a lot of gwyn's frustration comes from and nancy is even more like that she despises the family yeah

[00:41:32] if there was justice in heaven i should be sitting at that table saying potatoes was cold not her not her boy and kind of fair play and also you don't see allison's mom at any point but allison is also being forbidden from seeing him yeah i i bet in like we were watching what episode one i was like we're never gonna see the mom at any point yeah and you don't in the book either and i still

[00:41:54] have not worked out what the purpose of that is i i actually don't know it is i think maybe it is she's a young girl alison she's a young girl completely surrounded by men and and cut off from like actual support like her mom could actually be support whereas like the folklore very much seems to be even though everything we hear about alison's mom is she's yes yeah yeah

[00:42:29] yeah no that's fair but it's like if you look at the folklore it's a a a woman has been created for men by men and surrounded by men all of her choices are taken away from her at every given moment and the only choice she does make is to kill the guy and then he's brought back to life anyway um it's like everything that alison's mom says is fed through um what's his name clive clive the dad yeah

[00:42:58] i love clive no i said i would so i'd better margaret thinks i ought she's a bit upset about the fuss how's nancy oh that was a real up and a down a while it lasted but a fiver cures most things i i mostly liked clive i love his posh northern accent the posh northern accent is that they're

[00:43:23] supposedly the whole family is supposedly from birmingham he's not he's not he's posh northern you hear none of that he's very he's northern posh i love it it's such a good accent yeah yeah what i love about clive i mean i don't like him as a character like i don't like him as a person but as a character he's fantastic because he's so weak your mother was very upset she says that you

[00:43:46] are oh but this is my house isn't it ah yeah well then he's so blithe he's so like weakly diplomatic he wants to keep everyone happy yeah and this affects the children because he's constantly wanting to keep his very difficult wife happy because his first wife ran off and they now call him that they now call her the birmingham bell and this is the one sympathetic thing that you can say for

[00:44:12] roger is that his mum left him and people tease him that his mum is the birmingham bell you know we really should tell roger he's all right really it's only his way and if he was dreadful about it afterwards whenever he's rude his mother walked out you know and mommy says it was in all the papers mommy calls her the birmingham bell but roger let's talk about roger in the teeniest tiniest of shorts right yes else he was like

[00:44:42] there's one point where he walks off down the riverbank and else he says look at him in his flip-flops and i was like wouldn't it look stupid if he was wearing shoes yeah roger is yeah he's a real interesting character and i think that francis wallace who plays him just did it note perfectly just just perfect i i wanted more of him that was that was my note because i found him

[00:45:03] fascinating and i wanted more of him hello i wondered where you were been shouting after you in a minute come on ali i said in a minute ali your mother's knocking about i gotta say there is no reason at all for him to be that naked in the series because it's not you know there's nothing in the book suggests you should be it was just a choice that was made to

[00:45:32] have him always in the smallest shorts the tiniest little shorts so bizarre i think it just makes him look more pathetic doesn't it it does and he is pathetic and he is pathetic i guess there's also an element there of like allison is also often wearing not a ton of clothes so well we'll get into the that actress's um wardrobe wardrobe well career actually yeah okay my point here being is that

[00:46:01] both of the english children are exposed a lot of the time yeah more so than any of the wealth characters are at any given moment maybe that's like a comment on like oh they know how to dress for the area and they don't know how to dress for the air or it's about just english and pathetic vulnerability whichever because i do think it's interesting that both of them often have their full legs out due to an engineer's strike when it was first broadcast it wasn't in color even

[00:46:29] though it was made in color and now every version's in color and that's a shame because the costumes of the three main characters represent the colors of the electrical wires in plugs back then this is really silly meg told me this earlier and i was like what no i know it's great i really like this because you watch a lot of tv made now and like obviously costume designers are very important i'm

[00:46:56] not going to say they're not but thing i like how the stuff in the show is symbolic like it would be in like a theater production or something i really liked that i i agree 100 there i just think that like using choosing to reflect plug is just just feels rogue is all well i'll explain where that comes

[00:47:16] from allison's red gwyn is black and roger is roger is green i think that it's gwyn in the book that makes the connection between the plates being the battery and the three of them being the lines through which the myth is playing itself out okay and when they're together it's there are sparks it's electric

[00:47:43] they make things happen when they're together so i do that it does come from something it comes from the book it's not mentioned in the tv series but i like that it's in the tv series anyway because i like stylization yeah me too i like that no i i love i really do like it when costume stuff has intention yeah yeah i really do i just that makes more sense it just felt like kind of rogue to choose a plug socket is all that's all yeah i can i can see that and it's not it's not the colors now

[00:48:13] but it was then so you know it really sets it in that time in a way i've got to get out of this place there's nothing here but sheep but i thought it meant a lot to you it does but you can't eat a feeling so the i'll explain a little bit more of the story now that we've gone over a little bit of the context of the characters and their relationships to each other allison has now traced all the plates

[00:48:41] she's on the last one and she is hiding in a little hut in the garden at night finishing them because no one knows where she's put them gwyn follows her and there is a scene that is i think so beautiful i know you disagree but i was so captivated by this when i first saw it um gwyn comes in allison's going crazy arms flailing and he holds her still and calms her down

[00:49:08] and some people um back then some people thought that this was a bit rapey and i think you said that as well um because i read out the wikipedia page i thought that felt like like i read that and we saw it and i went i did not make that connection myself we said laura said oh apparently there's a rape scene we saw it and we were like was that supposed to be the rape scene i don't think that that was rapey no i thought that that was like a massive overreach yeah i don't know if it's like

[00:49:35] that's what people thought happened every time a person was raped back then yeah it's like a weird rogue discussion to be happening yeah i didn't get that we we didn't get that at all because i read that and i was like waiting for tavern and we both went oh i guess that was it i didn't see that at all well yeah he doesn't rape her he doesn't rape her so there's there's there's it doesn't even feel

[00:49:59] like an insinuation of that no it's like yes she's freaking out and he is grabs it tries to calm her oh my mate's having a seizure yeah it's not what you should do no no no no and i had to stop you making these blasted owls it's the only thing that makes me feel better how many more are there to do a few please gwyn then i can sleep i'm deadbeat you look it

[00:50:27] okay but you promise hi my mom never told me about this place so then they talk for ages and they're there overnight they stay there overnight and it's a really long scene there's a few quite extended scenes where characters talk or just stay silent for a little bit and she explains i have to make these plates i'm nearly on the last one

[00:50:57] and you know she she finishes it they talk a bit and they leave in the morning and when they leave uh they part ways and gwyn runs into hugh halfbacon and hugh halfbacon knows exactly what's going on and he says they're in her now she's done it she's now bluederworth this is happening it's started and he warns him like you're making her owls um now i'll explain a bit what that means

[00:51:38] it's it's pretty simple it basically means that they're not doing what she wants they're letting hate overcome them they're they're letting the two boys are letting their own prejudice and hate turn the situation nasty and to break the cycle they need to not do that and be a thrapple no well only in five weeks sorry the phrase family honeymoon is horrific

[00:52:08] it is oh my god they're on a family honeymoon together in the welsh valleys no they're not they're on holiday they're on holiday while all this is going on um roger is kind of having his own photography plot yeah photography plot outside of what's happening he felt really unreal i was just like okay sure well he has kind of fallen in love with this stone and he wants to take pictures through it and frame the brin

[00:52:37] through the stone and he takes two pictures like seconds between each one and when he blows them up there is someone on the brin holding a spear and in the other one there is someone in that exact same place with a motorcycle i'd say that was someone waving a stick or something or is he throwing it like the man who's supposed to have killed someone from there oh steady well what's on his head spoilers ahead

[00:53:07] i mean they're you know there are going to be spoilers but basically it's a bit late but it's been a few decades yeah Hugh and Nancy who have been here a very long time but never own they own the land but they don't own the house Nancy would have owned the house but she in her time was blow to earth and Hugh was I actually I'm not entirely sure whether he was playing the part of Gronu or Clue Roger or Gwyn

[00:53:35] but he allowed Nancy to be made owls and now Nancy is angry all the time bitter and twisted has got I mean Roger uses this phrase towards Gwyn in a very classic way he says he's got a real chip on his shoulder and that is what Nancy Nancy could never move on Nancy should have married Bertram Bertram

[00:54:05] is the cousin of Alison's dad and now Alison owns the house so Bertram Hugh and Nancy were caught in this triangle Bertram was killed because Hugh took the brakes out of his motorcycle and then he had my Nancy and I thought I'd show him what it means to land in rhododendron so I took out his brakes I didn't know he was going up the path it was an accident

[00:54:34] he was playing a prank on him but it went wrong so bit of a when he's so jealous you kill a person yeah bit of an extreme prank let me just cut the brakes on this so when Roger takes these pictures and he sees those figures that is what it's capturing so it's a paranormal element yeah can I just say the woman who plays Nancy I think is absolutely phenomenal you don't know boy them plates was for my bottom drawer

[00:55:04] not that I needed no bottom drawer but he says you have them for your bottom drawer he says and let them think what they like she does such a good job she's so angry I really feel it through the screen she says one I think it's in episode 4 where there's like basically she has like a 5 minute monologue where that she addresses to the camera the whole time I think that is maybe my favourite part of the whole series I think it's so fantastic it's captivating it is

[00:55:34] I was like wow she's wow but there isn't the pound notes in London to pay me for losing my Mr. Bertram just when I had him landed high and dry yeah I don't know what you're saying but wow now I do know what you're saying the thing about the book and because Alan Garner wrote the screenplay the series is very faithful to the book it's really really tight every line

[00:56:03] has a place the book is short and it's 8 episodes of 25 minutes each and it is including credits and previously yeah it's laser sharp and every line that Nancy says I wish I could clip the whole thing but I can't but every line that Nancy says is a quotable line it's really really good she's so good I was like you would be given this as a monologue to perform at school like yeah it was so

[00:56:33] it was so good so while tell you what we've in a roundabout way found a way to structure this episode if we want to go a bit meta with it I will now talk about the cast and we can finish the end of the owl service story when we've done that sure yeah now Miss Alison what's this about plates plates Nancy you know what I mean Miss Alison if you please what plates they're plates in the loft what above them where are they

[00:57:02] thank you not to waste my time please give me that plate please give me that plate Miss Alison whose house is this anyway Alison is Gillian Hills so she is the biggest name in this cast yeah she's the only one with her own Wikipedia page I think not quite all three adults do as well oh yeah sorry yeah of the children sorry so yeah so Clive is Edwin Richfield Nancy is Dorothy Edwards and Hugh is Raymond Llewellyn all three of them have had some screen credits

[00:57:31] but they're very much theatre actors yeah they feel theatre yes yeah so that's them Alison sorry Gillian Hills she got her start in some notorious 1960s countercultural films both British and French French she looks like she'd be in some French stuff yes she lived in France for a while and she had a music career which was longer than her acting career

[00:58:01] and all of her songs are French so Sergei Gainsbourg is one of the people that actually wrote for her in fact her most famous song was covered in Mad Men no way yeah she was the originator of Zuby Zuby Zuby no fucking way I hate that song but can't you imagine her performing it yes so she was in Blow Up which was a Michelangelo Antonioni film

[00:58:30] it's about a photographer and it's set to jazz music by Herbie Hancock wow it's very raunchy it's very jazzy it's very too jazzy European yeah very European 60s yeah the other one that she's known for was like the two big ones the other one is Beat Girl which was 1960 she played a teenager in Soho and she got mixed up in prostitution and beatniks and poetry

[00:59:00] and murder and it's it's like poetry and murder poets and those murderers Soho it's kind of a little bit like the girls rebel without a cause and she actually said years later in an interview she watches it and she feels really sad she must have been really young she was like 21 22 when they were filming this she was 25 I might be thinking of the other two did you see the Sadiq Khan tweet about he was like this is getting a bit silly now

[00:59:29] if you're complaining about the noise and the nightlife in Soho that's like complaining about green spaces in Richmond or artists in Hackney yeah and people were replying to his tweet like okay but what about all the people who lived in Soho before the nightlife and people were like what who how how old are you 150 years ago he was I think he was it was either on the radio or on a podcast he was talking about it and he was like if you've moved

[00:59:58] to Soho you should like this is what expect it you can't be like you need to close the bars it's Soho that's what's there if you could afford to live there you can probably afford to live anywhere in London You made that choice So that is her background so she was basically a sex symbol Yeah Oh god still there like what nine years before she was 25 so she would have been 14 no yeah It's very French in the 60s what can I say yeah she's English but it

[01:00:28] looks like that's where she belongs she's kind of got that face and build yeah she stopped acting in 1972 and she became a book cover illustrator Whoa What a varied career You would recognise two of her covers because they're iconic Did she do Le Petit Prince? I don't believe she did Oh that was the only French iconic book I could think of Oh they're not French they're not French she

[01:01:02] Hills is an icon You've the club purple and she did Flowers in the Attic which is a very iconic book cover and that was her she's done she had a

[01:01:32] he had a couple of credits afterwards and then seemed to stop acting I'm not genuinely don't know where he is now This is yes Because we know about Gwyn Yes Michael Holden very tragically was killed when he was 31 it was a random attack in a pub and I think this is just so tragic he didn't I don't think he continued acting after the hour service I don't think he did he doesn't seem to have many credits but he you know it would have been some years yeah

[01:02:02] because he was the youngest in the cast he was like 21 he was 19 okay god I should just start with but I think that all three of them are utterly brilliant it's like they read the script and got it yeah you know and you'll

[01:02:32] one thing that I think is a little rude with regard to his death is they did a oh yeah anniversary broadcast they did yeah in the 70s yeah to honour the cameraman I forgot his name who died it was a good name but I can't remember it I'll find out hang on go on yeah and like months within the same year before they did this broadcast Michael Michael Michael Holden Michael Holden was killed and it's like

[01:03:02] you could have you had plenty of time to also put in a in remembrance of him as well but no we'll just do the cameraman yeah it's like something would David would yeah yeah I think that the way he plays Gwyn is like I said I adore Gwyn because he is he just wants better for himself I do think he was my favourite character he's so bright and clever and generous and he

[01:03:31] really knows where he's come from and he really knows where he's going and one of his biggest fear that his mother keeps threatening him with is going behind the counter at the co-op he wants to go to school he wants Alison to want more for herself yeah because they have

[01:04:01] conversations between the three of them where they're like oh what is your future going to be and they're like oh here's what my parents have set up for me and it's like yeah but what do you want to do and like I've had those conversations with people like oh my parents want me

[01:04:38] to know is like it's like a false character there's a lot of like he's not got an equity card approach to the three children's bodies that makes me really uncomfortable yeah I understand that and in a little

[01:05:09] but the thing I love about the conversation they have about what do you want to do is that Gwyn asks this of Alison and a few episodes later Alison is thinking about it and asks it of Roger and is disappointed with Roger's answer he says I'll probably just do what my father set up for me and she says but you love photography and he's like I don't know you're rich enough to do that

[01:05:40] yeah mummy says I'm not to talk to you it's quite in order miss and I lose the tradesman's entrance in future so let's return to the plot and I think I have got some things a little muddled to

[01:06:11] to go to to talk all about oh I can't see you oh but mum's saying that we're leaving like his mum cannot stand it anymore she's leaving and he's like you've got to come see me I'm only here for two more days you've got to. No, my mum has banned me and they have like two or three of those conversations. It's maybe slightly repetitive. It's not long enough to be truly repetitive. Yeah, it's tight. You'll come tomorrow?

[01:06:40] I can't. There's only tomorrow. I dance. I'm going back to Abba. Please. Can't you see? You must. Oh, stop it. Stop it. Stop tearing me between you. You and mummy, you go on to that. I don't know who I am. What am I doing? There's a lovely bit that really struck me the first time I watched it and again when I read it, where Alison says, and this really sums up Alison's character, when I'm with her, everything

[01:07:09] that she says is right and when I'm with you, everything you say is right. Stop tearing me in half. And he says, well, think about what you want and she just can't. I thought that was interesting. She is irritating in a way that I think as like a modern woman is grating because you're like, dear God, have some independence, have some independence of thought, act with age. I mean, she's the teenager. You've got to remember she's like 15 or 16. She's also never thought.

[01:07:39] Yeah, no, no, no. I should have thought. I should have thought about having an independent thought. You know what I mean? Like she's just been doing what she thinks is right this whole time. Along with all that, like that base is like, I I'm aware of that. She suffered so you could run. Yeah. So it's like I am aware of all that. And I give credence and like understanding towards that. But it's like it's still going to irritate me like her as a character because of these features, even though I can also at the same time be like,

[01:08:09] I understand why. Yeah. Like I understand entirely why. Like we, we are very different now because of people, people living like that and being like, no, this isn't actually good enough for me and changing society. Like I 100% get that. But it means that like when you go back and you watch it, you're a bit like, just, just do, please. Just stop being the whiny girl kind of thing. I think Hills is completely right for playing her a bit unlikable.

[01:08:36] I think that it's what she gives is a really brave performance. Like she's posh in a grating way. But I think that is correct. And we had most awful rar about the message you wrote saying you wanted to see me. I didn't know she could be like that. Like what? Oh, I can't tell you. Oh, thank you very much. Sorry I spoke. Oh, don't, Gwynn. So while this is happening, Roger is having his own

[01:09:06] internal struggles. Does he believe in this myth? That is, he's kind of like, no, it's all rubbish because the old crazy Welsh person is saying it's true. I mean, he wants to believe it because it would make sense of everything. He feels background for like four episodes. He feels like he's not really in it. That's why I wanted more of him because I enjoyed him immensely as a character. He comes back in like the last three, two and a half episodes and you're like, oh yeah, good, come back. Yeah, you've got some stuff to do here.

[01:09:35] He always enters as, he's just portrayed so heavily as a spare part. Like I felt so bad for him. But that's the point though, isn't it? I know, I know. That's why it was so good but he always enters a frame like Alison and Gwynn are talking and then he just steps into frame and watches them. It's so funny. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've decided it's all a load of rubbish. Oh really?

[01:10:04] What about your photos you've been showing everybody all week? I've, I've changed my mind. I tore them up. Can I just say as well, the casting of Roger and Clive is such good father-son casting. It really is. It's incredible, incredible casting. You want to feel bad for Roger because it's even said in the explanation at the beginning of the episode, Roger is being ostracized from the group.

[01:10:33] And that is, I don't even know if Roger knows this but that is what's causing him pain. He wants to be involved. But you can't feel too bad for him because he's genuinely really nasty to Gwynn. Like, yeah. Like horrible. Like something that breaks my heart is Gwynn has bought himself a set of records with money that, I don't know where he got the money but because he, he steals, like fair play.

[01:11:03] Yeah. And he buys these records and it's a class on elocution because he knows that with his accent it's going to be tough for him. And he, Alison says to Roger, He saved up and bought an elocution cross on gramophone records. We'd never guess to listen to him. He can't use them. He hasn't got a record player. That's what I mean. Doesn't it make you feel ashamed? Not really. And Roger does not feel ashamed. He doesn't give a fuck.

[01:11:33] And later on he, and this is Gwynn's downfall which I will explain. He teases Gwynn about this. And Gwynn thinks that Alison and Roger were laughing at him. Alison wasn't laughing at him. She was just defending him. She was explaining to Roger why Gwynn was crying on the stairs because Roger saw him crying and was like, that's disgusting. I would never do that in public. Yeah. Even though like 10 minutes earlier we saw,

[01:12:03] we saw Roger having his own breakdown. Yes. It was a private breakdown to be fair but he's like, I've not cried in ages. Shut up, Roger. You cried two minutes ago. It's not healthy to not cry. Cry. This is lovely. That's not in the book. So he's looking at all of the pictures that he's taken of this place that's scaring him and we see him surrounded by blow-ups of his pictures in a dark room and he's just in the corner weeping

[01:12:31] for ambiguous reasons. Like things are happening around him. We don't know what specifically he's weeping about but it's affecting him and you know, you want to feel really bad for him. You can't really. Like, I don't know. I think that this actor is unbelievable. I think that the ambiguity of the show is spot on. He's so good. They're all really good. Yeah. How's the rain in Spain? Still mainly on the plane.

[01:13:00] What's he on about? Be quiet, Roger. Ali didn't say much. I mean, I don't know whether you're using the complete improver pro set or the shorter course of oik's exercises for getting by in the shop. You told him. Was it a good laugh? No, Gwyn. I bet it was. What else? What else was funny? You're wrong. The way it ends is Nancy wants to leave. She knows what's going on

[01:13:29] and she also can't stand this fucking family. Fair fucking family. Yeah. The last episode it's constantly raining. Raining. Yeah, it's hard. It is raining hard and it is probably a rain machine but it looks so good. So she wants to ring for a cab and for a good like half of the episode you between each scene you see an axe cutting a tree. Just cutting, cutting. You don't know. I really liked that. Yeah.

[01:13:59] You don't know who's holding the axe and you don't find out. Yeah. And she's in the phone box calling for a taxi and then you know what, 15, 20 minutes into the episode wide shot a telephone pole falls and it has to be the villagers. Well yeah because I was I'm like I was going to ask you a question but I think I've answered it in my own head where it's like there's she's in the phone box and there's loads of the locals like banging on the windows talking I think they're speaking Welsh I couldn't I assume they're speaking Welsh I couldn't understand them

[01:14:29] and I was like what the window what the fuck is going on what is actually going on and it's they're trying to keep her there to have the story play out aren't they? I think so but her part's done anyway so I'm I'm honestly not sure Yeah. So she is trying to leave she cannot leave in the end we see her arguing with Gwyn on the street the street's a bit rich it's a road in the middle of fucking nowhere the

[01:14:58] suitcases are open on the ground getting soaked and we see her on the hillside screaming nonsense and then we get a beautiful jump cut where we see Gwyn where he was and we see that Nancy wasn't shouting at him she is way in the distance and time has passed and she's going to climb those hills and just go on foot because she's snapped she's finally snapped

[01:15:28] and that is the end of Nancy at some point in the middle as well I'm not I honestly can't remember where Gwyn also tries to run away at one episode six or seven is that when he's repeatedly saying we are united we yeah yeah okay so I was like that got stuck in my head for like hours

[01:15:58] nationalist Hugh Halfbacon follows him on the hills and he explains to Gwyn the entire story of his part in Nancy's downfall and Bertram's downfall and he also shouts quite dramatically I am your father Luke I did the same thing with no one I heard now

[01:16:28] if this was made after 1977 they wouldn't have put that in because modern productions now know you can't have an I am your father reveal so it's been fucked by Star Wars because I think it probably was quite effective before that I can't think of any other things that do that at least not in that phrasing right I can't think of any of the Star Wars quotes that are so iconic you can't use them now I love you I know no it's nowhere near the stratospheric

[01:16:58] I honestly can't think of any other quotes that you couldn't use hello there that's the only other one I can think of what's that from one of the prequels it's like any quotes at all from anything what do you mean from anything from anything that you now just cannot say where forgot that Romeo okay okay call me a shmail that's quite specific as well yeah I guess one that's like could be used it oh

[01:17:27] build it and they will come and that's even no one's going to use that either is that about social housing I know it's from field of dreams Laura I was gonna say no it's from field of dreams I was gonna say it's about baseball that's all it's weird that it's about baseball I thought it was from the bible fair it sounds pretty biblical genuinely write in if you can think of any quotes that are so iconic you just couldn't but general enough because I am your father

[01:17:57] that's so general but you just couldn't use that now in the beginning what you said earlier once in a generation and my brain immediately started doing the Buffy intro once in a generation R.I.P. to a real one such a good show intro it's again it's a little too specific but like live long and prosper

[01:18:26] but it's too specific no one says that no one trying to fit live long and prosper into anything you're trying Laura but we've still not got one no you're so right because like I am your father is is like general like there's loads of dads right loads of kids unusable now unusable I'm an air right enough air to burst on brake blocks no no boy you are wrong I am your father these are the voyages of the starship enterprise

[01:18:55] I was asked by my boyfriend stepdad the other day and he said this he didn't even need to finish the sentence he said I've just got a really important question for you are you a Trekkie or and I was like you don't need to finish that sentence he knew you were one of two and you are a Trekkie more than the other oh I don't know what you call the Star Wars people

[01:19:28] are you a Trekkie or are you a warry I don't know what Star Wars fans are called but I think trooper sounds great yeah Jedi's no no but they like to think of themselves as such celibate whoa yeah involuntarily never mind let's yeah I mean let's go on before I offend anyone else I can't believe that

[01:19:58] like clocked that you were one of two because either he thinks everyone is one of two I think he might have just thought everyone was one of two okay that is fun though yeah I know plenty of people that are neither oh no I like Star Trek I mean I'm not crazy about Star Trek like I like the original series but I don't really know all that would you call yourself like if someone said are you Star Wars or Star Trek I would choose Star Trek over Star Wars you wouldn't say oh not really either you'd choose Star Trek I'd choose Star Trek I mean I like Star Wars I've watched quite

[01:20:28] a lot of Star Trek together I've never watched any Star Wars with either of you I'm not gonna make have we watched Mandalorian together some of that maybe yeah I think because it's like it was removed enough it's not it's not good anymore was it you once yes who else yes so they're on the hillside this father and son I am your father Gwyn this is where Gwyn finds out that Hugh Halfbacon

[01:20:59] has had a role in the past in this story of putting women through mattresses excuse me no never mind yeah huh huh that was his role dicking down Nancy well oh my god well you miss have become vulgar vulgar

[01:21:28] in your old age he makes Gwyn put his hand into a nook in a tree and and Gwyn pulls out an amulet with an owl and a spearhead and a spearhead yeah that is supposedly an ancient stone um yeah whatever all that bollocks I do have one query that this may be addressed in the book a little I don't know because it

[01:21:58] says as you said once a generation right um how are we defining generation there is that I guess no well that's it I think that these plates sort of pop up whenever there's two boys and a girl in the area is what I would assume but because it's always plates don't know because this is folklore plates haven't always existed hmm yeah I agree you used to just use bread um the

[01:22:27] if it's happened multiple times because like how it plays out in this it seems like it's only happened twice before because there's only the motorcycle and the spear thing that is how it seems for sure I couldn't tell you it's loose and fuzzy for time purposes yeah yeah that's why I went maybe there's more context in the book for like it happening more times it's a soft magic system I would say soft magic yeah liberties yeah from this tree he also pulls

[01:22:57] out a set of breaks and that's when he learns so he goes it's the evidence tree yeah it's the evidence tree he goes back um because Hugh convinces him you gotta finish you gotta finish it because Alison's in trouble he goes back he asks Hugh to give Alison as a present this owl amulet I don't know why some of the stuff is just not clear like that it's like I get that you're like trying it feels like you're trying to

[01:23:27] finish the story but like there's aspects of it that are not explained enough for us to like engage fully with what's going on like why does because Hugh is trying to get him to do something regarding the owl amulet and Alison and it's like and then Hugh gives her the owl Alison owl amulet take your time and it makes her freak the fuck out yes so right in in the very last sequence Hugh gives it to Alison

[01:23:56] she puts it on or he puts it on her and she collapses and she's having a fit yeah that shot was really good like the one he's put that was really yeah yeah I don't want it that's a beastly trick it is yours the present is inside I know what's inside I don't want it it is special a present from the wife scratches appear on her face like they're like they look like scars yeah horrible yeah and feathers from nowhere

[01:24:26] are flying around feels so bad for the people that had to clean that up it's raining as well so they're just sticking to everything Hugh carries her inside lays her on a bed and in his dot dot dot in his like weird hut thing how do you function where do you keep your clothes and he's like I wear my clothes it's not as offensive as that she's more like what do you do in winter when it's really cold yeah she says what happens in winter

[01:24:56] and he says yes winter is a cold time that's what we wear your clothes and he says I wear my clothes yes okay you live here yes always how long always I'm not good at counting years yeah he's quite nomadic she says where do you put your things and he says I've got the whole valley to put my things in I love him he's like I don't own the house

[01:25:25] but I own the land I own the valley I'm like you can't own a valley no one owns a valley the king owns a valley probably just one probably several cambria I don't know Hugh rushes to get Roger Roger is in the bath so yeah I mean it's it's not that consequential but he he's covered in feathers and he decides to get in the bath covered in feathers

[01:25:55] beautiful shot where he sat in the bath with like dirt all over his face and feathers in his hair like that's not the order you clean yourself in you don't get in the bath actively covered in mud and feathers you don't get in the house covered in feathers you get rid of those it's raining enough outside that you could have like turned up to the sky and scrubbed your face a bit my guy so he he pulls roger out of the house and there is like mud

[01:26:25] outside like mud and the two of them it's nearly slapstick no it is slapstick they are it's quite a long scene from them from the to the house to the hut sliding around like roger is a brilliant pratfall actor yeah he's so he's so good it's really impressive he is sliding around flipping all over he's covered in mud it would be very funny but the music is very dramatic you are the three

[01:26:55] you have made this together I'm not doing anything for them I've finished stop jabbering and do something get these feathers off get them off always it is owls always we are destroyed why must you see owls and not flowers always it is the same what is it you want me to do so he gets there and Gwynn gets there as well and Hugh is going off on one as he has been talking weird fucking nonsense talking in ridicule well it is in ridicule

[01:27:24] in ridicule in ridicule talking in like weird limericky nonsense you're like if you have all the pieces maybe you'll understand what he's saying kind of shit he's being quite explicit but you need to know the story yeah you need a lot of context oh yeah if you tuned in for the final episode you'd be like what is oh you would have no idea so he's saying comfort her comfort her Gwynn's saying no because he's been hurt too deeply

[01:27:53] also she's clearly having some kind of spasm maybe we should go to hospital yeah so he has been hurt too much he doesn't want to help these people and he thinks about it and you can just see the conflict in his face but he he's just he's just too proud Roger who has been denying all this and has fallen out with Alison quite a lot also says is that it is that it

[01:28:24] is that all it is as easy as that without end without end owls or flowers and he just sums up kind of what you're thinking for the whole thing like this isn't that complicated it's a simple story we just have to comfort her and she will be flowers so there's a beautiful yeah you roll your eyes I get it no I'm just like not rolling my eyes and that's just like a what huh

[01:28:54] huh so then there's a lovely scene where he gets down on Alison's level and says you were making them into owls Ali you silly gubbins he says it's flowers of course it's flowers it was always flowers that's what you are flowers that's better oh yes of course they're flowers what made you think

[01:29:24] those plates could be anything else and says this for ages until she calms down and in the book all the feathers while no one's looking turn into flowers and flowers fall from the ceiling and she's okay and it ends I have to say that if one of you two was having a fit and there was magic scars appeared on your face and feathers were falling from the sky I'm not just going you just need to be flowers that's not my route that's not what I'm going to do I'm going to take further action

[01:29:53] there are so many beautiful symbolic moments in the show and there's a bit we were watching together me and Elsie last night and there's a bit where her and Gwyn have been on a walk it's when they've kissed and stuff and they come back ah yes no kisses in the book three or four in the series amazing loved every moment of it they come it's very sweet they come back down through the the path

[01:30:23] that they've they've passed through this gate that I mentioned earlier where he's like hanging on this gate they come back that way and there's a daisy chain hanging from the gate and I said to Elsie is that that daisy chain wasn't there before and you were like oh do you think it's because she's happy now so there's flowers yeah yeah I think it's because she was happy so there were flowers I I also think so I mean I was like I couldn't I couldn't remember if it I was sure it hadn't been there before and I was like

[01:30:53] is that was that there the whole time and then it zoomed in on it and made a point of it and I was like oh yeah they want us to notice that yeah I don't remember the zoom in no yeah they make a point of it okay you think you're being clever and then they go yep you are fully right we want everyone to notice please notice the curtains are blue for a reason always and Gwyn doesn't get a happy ending and I want to talk about that I want to talk about how satisfyingly

[01:31:23] unsatisfying it is that Roger is the one I think it would be too easy for Gwyn to be the one that saves the day I think it makes sense that Gwyn is the one that's hurt out of all this the it is a happy ending it's a bittersweet ending because finally she's flowers which has never happened before I like that Roger has had his good ending I'm happy he's done something useful you know and before he does this

[01:31:52] before he goes over to Alison he apologizes to Gwyn he's like I'm sorry please please help her yeah he's like she didn't say those things I twisted everything that she said like it was all me not her because he's trying he is trying to get a happy ending for as many people as possible right at the end yeah and Gwyn is going in on him like like say it and oh god the two of them are so fantastic in this scene it's so dramatic

[01:32:22] it's my fault it was me not Ali she never laughed at you about those records don't let it happen Gwyn Gwyn if you really can stop it don't let it happen get lost mummy's boy go and play with her if you can find her okay okay Gwyn and how is the Birmingham bell

[01:32:51] still ringing yes I wonder who's swinging on her rope who's twisting her tassels eh yes I think the entire series is so like sweepingly romantic it's not in any way realistic and a lot of it doesn't make any sense but I adore it it's got a bit of a Wuthering Heights-ness to it it does it really does yeah

[01:33:20] but the way the series ends this wouldn't make any sense being in the book but the way the series ends is you see through the stone of Gwano three very young like what like five year olds maybe like seven or eight yeah because they're on their own yeah children two boys one girl speaking Welsh

[01:33:53] I love hearing kids speak different languages me too I love when a toddler comes into where I work and they're just babbling in their own language it's so fun and they I think the girl leaves like a daisy chain on the stone love that and that's it that's how the series ends but I yeah that would be weird in the book that'd be like a really show it would make any sense it was just weird telling you oh no it was good don't worry and I really like the I mean I don't like it but I think

[01:34:22] it makes a lot more sense for Roger to be the one that finishes it I agree I agree I love that the whole series is shot like three kids were given a camera on their summer holidays to make a film except except it's like three kids were given a camera to make an amateur film with exclusively sparkling acting performances I love that when you pointed that out

[01:34:51] it made me love it more because even the biggest fans of the owl service would not call it sleek there's one scene where Gwynn is talking to Alison at that like little tree house thing that she draws at or whatever and he's in the not rape scene no no no no no the little hut outside where she's like this is my place that's where that happens though it's big enough for that to happen

[01:35:20] oh they're crammed in I was confused about that okay so there and he's like oh you were supposed to meet me why didn't you meet me but you don't see Gwynn at all it's like he's holding the camera speaking to Alison and all you see is his arm take the sketchbook or whatever that she's using and then she runs off she's like no my mum can't see me with you she stares at the camera at the audience

[01:35:49] for a good long time saying don't look at me like that stop it stop it stop looking at me like that that is the only scene in the whole series where that happens it felt very Ari Aster the way some of his folk horror stuff is shot because it felt like something really really

[01:36:19] bad was about to happen and it was like because she was slightly dim so I remember having to concentrate on seeing her it was shot really I thought that was very interestingly shot I was like this makes me feel really tense just this framing sorry go on Meg I was going to say shall we talk about the fact that it was controversial that it was for kids because I love that this is for kids like I understand why it was controversial but I also very much agree with just giving kids normal

[01:36:48] stuff like I don't think there's anything in it where you're like no a child should never ever ever say that I think that we're looking at it through a lens of what we grew up with and that would never have been broadcast to us but I fine time I have not a hand turned to help me drop dead you miserable cow

[01:37:17] oh you shouldn't have done that if I belted Roger what would happen would he be sacked depends how hard doesn't it I stay clear it's not worth a fuss in case Margaret's upset she'll just have to be upset once bitten twice shy that's your motto isn't it I think like if this was now if it

[01:38:02] media and which is why a lot of people think that this is the first sort of quote unquote YA because it's difficult to know where to put it under 12 I think it's too complex to necessarily unless you're like you're a sharp 11 year old and you're really paying attention and you have interest in this kind of thing over 12 nothing wrong with them watching it I don't think there's anything in it that would be inappropriate and I also think they would have the mental acumen to get what's

[01:38:32] going on I think it's good for kids to be slightly scared and slightly challenged that's fair with no qualifications to allowed to speak on this subject at this point and then they revisit it and they're like oh okay

[01:39:01] that's why I was so and I think that aside from the material like the sort of psychosexual undertones and the horror and the folklore and the class divide I think one of the reasons it might have been considered too unusual for children is a modern editing or at least like not maybe not like 2010s 2020s

[01:39:31] modern but like not stuff I've seen from the 70s editing yeah I mean this was 69 yeah so like yeah you're rounding up yeah because yes they have one scene where Allison is speaking to the audience and you you are Gwyn just looking at Allison's face and her face turns into there's like owl imagery

[01:40:01] on her face which you see for like a second which you know that sort of unsettling nature of it could also be the reason that a lot of people thought is this for kids because they themselves were scared by yeah because it's like well folktales originally were for children and they are scary because they're supposed to well like this the use of fear in stuff for children is to impress upon them I do have the qualifications

[01:40:31] to impress upon them like the importance of the message is like we're heightening the emotions because I need you to pay attention I need you to understand what's going on and I need you to internalize it so we heighten the emotions we make it scary so that you pay attention I think it's a good thing as well to not hand hold kids through things so much because when I remember when I was a child and I was reading kids books but I remember I

[01:41:19] reading I a grown up book I read to kill a mockingbird because everyone in my family was reading it and I might feel left out I to read this because when you start to read more

[01:41:49] advanced stuff it's in my opinion it's one of the most notable things like I was struggling with these books because they were expecting me to know things in a way that kids books don't expect you

[01:42:27] like they're supposed to like your not actually in danger and so what is happening can be explained if you need it explained kind of thing so it's like if you were reading to kill a mockingbird in conjunction with one of your parents you would have understood it more kind of thing yeah fair that's the fun thing about TV because you

[01:42:59] looking through the three channels but yeah back then Granada was doing some really really cool stuff I think I don't know would it

[01:43:29] fair but not aiming it at children I would they would be maybe going for the early adult young adult audience the thing about a remake is that I love the shaky zoom ins I

[01:44:00] radio yes absolutely Lord of Fentland look don't you people talk about anything else you'd think it's the only thing that's ever happened in this valley there's a world outside it's not flipping cherubs blowing their gaskets and a whale in a top left hand corner also it was up for an award when it first came out an international children's TV award and the Munich panel said sorry this isn't for kids what are you thinking

[01:44:30] what Germany said wow I disagree like I remember me and Laura watched the first four episodes together and then me and else watched the last four episodes together and when when me and you were watching the first four episodes we were like what the fuck is going on how is this for kids you told me that you both hated and I was like I have got some work to do but I knew I had a lot to say about it but sitting here talking about it I

[01:45:20] and I think that's a valid reason to not like something there was like I'll give you that every so often they were talking and I don't know what they're saying what are they talking about like I understand the words but what do the words mean I'm like what is more contextually what is going on it might be that I'm watching simplified meeting these days and my brain isn't working super well I don't know I like it when some scenes are boring I like being forced to lock in and look at a

[01:46:09] like slop blockbusters the streaming services and stuff are doing and one of the things in was like the way in which some of these are made and like stuff for streaming is made whereas something has to happen in

[01:46:39] especially there's so much nature in this as well I like it when something forces me to watch yeah so it's like so many movies especially ones on streaming start with fast paced moving shot of a cityscape or a quip yeah that you know something is about to happen to keep you really really engaged and it's like the whole thing like it being content not media to like engagement farm as much as possible when it's like I don't think that's how you go about making art especially because this

[01:47:09] you do need your wits about you to understand the story so when things are taking a breath you're still locked in which I think is good one of my favorite shots of the whole show was when Alison and Gwyn are on their little countryside walk and it's shot from within a field they're on a country path it's shot from within a field and it's like the camera is facing like just a pile like a bush of flowers

[01:47:38] you can't see them for the flowers you can kind of make them out walking past you know they're there but you can really just hear them and I love that I wish I was like you you belong here me it's the first time I've seen the place that's it you came here a week ago

[01:48:09] and watching what they're doing yeah actually do you know what there were so many really good shots we were we were all saying to each

[01:48:40] just in like a broken piece of rafter and he's like so you can just see him and nothing else and he's like calling her name and looking for her and it's like there's so many just really well placed convenient you're standing right in the right place at the right time it it the shots are they're really good I know they had no choice but this like 4-3 and

[01:49:10] they had to but like because of they use the 4-4 really well all the time the bits where Nancy we didn't talk about this but Nancy comes into

[01:49:40] really creepy and then Nancy comes in and just destroys a load of shit that was shot really really well it's a clutch where a stuffed owl is in

[01:50:10] and I said to Elsie how many takes do you think he stacked in because he's so close to falling over on some of the shots it's really well done like I think he's I don't know it does give you a really good sense of his character but he's so close to fucking up every single time falling over like ruining his entire face I also love the scenes in Roger's dark room

[01:50:40] because the dark rooms are just cinematic I think there's only one scene though where it's red I wanted more red I love dark rooms because red light is always having a room be entirely one colour that is not the normal colour of a room dark rooms are warm white wash or night club scenes a lot of blue and purple sometimes they're red a lot of sci-fi does this where they have the neon blue and I really like it when you

[01:51:09] remove the normalcy of a space if that makes sense you make it red one thing that Meg said to me when the two of them watched the four episodes together she said Elsie where are just want to see a bird that's about one if you've

[01:51:39] picked up on this at all over the years of listening to us Meg loves birds she loves that makes me sound nice and normal doesn't it I took you on a bird experience I helped some owls yeah like Meg loves birds so I can imagine you'd be very disappointed by a show called owl service lacking in any real owls I hadn't obviously because I'm I was born in 1999 didn't occur to me that service could be a dinner service yeah

[01:52:09] when you were because you explained the book to me while we were on holiday and you said it was a dinner set and I was like huh Meg you should watch Kez I think I've seen some of Kez Kez is unbelievable is he a birdie yeah oh famously yes oh yes no yeah it was a kestrel yeah I love kestrels sorry they're so cute they're so cute or maybe you won't like kest oh anyone know how it ends so um

[01:52:38] something I didn't mention is that it was produced by Peter Plummer and produced by Peter Plummer there is not mention of any director at all so I wonder if I think that he also yeah I imagine everyone I imagine David Wood was also involved in some directing as the cameraman yeah given he was doing all these incredible shots he must have been thinking about the blocking he had to have tiny crew um I think that IMDB

[01:53:08] does list Peter Plummer as the director but even more interesting than this is that the photograph they have of Bertram that's Peter Plummer and he looks great he is so fit Nancy's packing and she like puts this photo of a guy smoking a cigarette and it's just he looks fierce you're not going to nick it are you no do you have pocket money every week yes bit quaint isn't it is it

[01:53:38] well if that's how you're fixed I suppose it's okay to take some early so now that we know the story I will explain how Alan Garner came up with this so Alan Garner had heard this Welsh folklore and he was then given a set of plates by his wife and it had been in her family for a long time actually there's conflicting stories and I've not worked out which one's right I don't know the providence of these plates yeah I don't know if these

[01:54:07] plates were in Alan Garner's family for a long time or her family but either way he'd not seen them and he saw these plates and it had a flower design which could be turned into an owl and he realized that this completely matched up with the story yeah then he went to I think on a holiday to the Welsh Valley and the place gave him the creeps a little bit

[01:54:36] and he'd had this story kind of percolating and he um went to this place and he was like this has to be where it happens and he befriended um I'm not sure what his job was he was an old man who lived in the valley and he was called Daffod I think and Daffod was etching something onto a stone and he said what's that and he said it's the name bloda with which obviously Alan Garner knew and he said

[01:55:06] oh what does that mean knowing what it meant and the guy just put it away and said oh nothing it's just a name that's creepy yeah and then he was standing on the doorstep and he got hit by a spear he got he got brushed by an owl oh that's nice that sounds like a really good day for me so he said that with this story he he doesn't believe he came up with it he thinks of himself as

[01:55:35] finding it he thought he felt more like an archaeologist than a writer it was just sort of working itself out he's not described any of his other books like this but thematically it is very similar like he does use folklore and places in his writing as I said Alan Garner for years and years and he's he's still with us I believe he's in his 80s he might even be older he has

[01:56:05] battled depression and bipolar disorder and a lot of this was triggered by the the Welsh I thought that's where you were going you really thought that's where I was going no this kind of he had always struggled but after the production of the owl service he entered into a lifetime

[01:56:34] of therapy he found myself out he found it a really really difficult shoot so it has never been said which actor it was it was one of the young actors he had to be restrained from assaulting them because they were I don't know how badly I have no idea like messing around a little bit on set and not taking the story very seriously so he had to be removed from set

[01:57:04] for a couple of days and I I back that yeah I hate you when kids fuck about 25 year olds they were but yeah I hate you when people two years you're gonna be fuck about he when when he first met the actors and saw the place they were filming and saw it happening he found it to be a deeply weird and uncomfortable experience because it was exactly how he pictured it and he felt like it was coming to an end and it was done and it had left him

[01:57:33] so when it finished and the actors went back to France London probably well one London one France one Wales and it was done and he couldn't handle it and it was just a very tough time for him please dad let's go home no can do we're geared to stay here for three weeks it'd be

[01:58:15] watch watch this now and not before when we did children of stone I'm glad we did it this way around because since children of stone not because of children of stone but in the times could you say children of the stone any faster could you just say it sorry I mean I was gonna let it slide twice but then it happened to you're so funny I'm not doing anyway we all know what you mean

[01:58:44] you're very sweet and lovely laura we love you not because of children of the stone but since that show me and meg watched a couple of things one notably about wales because it's like i didn't know much about recent welsh history at all like hands up didn't like mayor culprit no idea like i didn't know that they didn't get a parliament until like what 1999 it is not it is not something we're taught at all yeah um because we watched a thing about um

[01:59:14] a village getting taken over by the british government or the liverpuddlean yeah it was flooded and made into a reservoir reservoir for liverpool yeah because liverpool was beyond its capacity for water and they needed water really badly and they were like where can we get water from and they just flooded a community in wales that took water from there just kicked a village out and just flooded the village um and it gave them no option like yeah there's just this is what's happening

[01:59:44] leave um and one of one of the like knock-ons from this was the welsh independence movement welsh nationalist movement all of these things that like it was one of the dominoes in this long list of things that was going on that i had no idea about like fair fucking play i do i really don't like blame scotland and wales at all for wanting independence i get it or ireland like well that's different yeah that one's a bit hotter i still support it

[02:00:14] but it's not the same it's different and a bit more hot right now anyway um but like i didn't know about any of this stuff i knew a little bit about the suppression of welsh but like not a lot at all um and it was just like illuminating to realize how recently how fucking racist england was to wales and i was just like aghast at how like horribly welsh people were treated within our lifetimes it's the only thing i've ever ever

[02:00:44] heard learned about this came from horrible history surprise surprise learning about the welsh knot do you know about the welsh knot do you remember that from so i believe this was victorian times in school in schools they were encouraged to speak english if they spoke welsh they had to wear something around their neck called the welsh knot because they spoke welsh and they had to wear this like board saying that they spoke welsh i have a second language

[02:01:13] yeah no it's the welsh language was decimated there aren't that many speakers or not as many as there were anyway yeah now a lot more now which is great um like a lot more now a huge movement um to teach welsh in schools it's a sick language it is a sick language apologies once again for my butchering of it it's a tricky language for english speakers um like it's probably not actually when you learn what the different letters are

[02:01:42] supposed to sound like but i guess it's when you're approaching it without having any context you're like oh that's a that's a tricky syllable um well because like i think scottish gaelic fucking gone right i don't know like i don't know i don't hear much about it because i know uh there is a there is a movement currently in ireland for people to learn irish um your grandma speaks irish no yes but she doesn't speak it very often and i she she hasn't spoken it she from northern ireland no your granddad's from northern my granddad's from northern my granddad's from um ennis gillen oh my god

[02:02:12] romeo and juliette they're both catholics that's why yeah yeah if one of them was protestant it would be a bit of a trickier situation do you know that you say catholic and protestant like i yeah um there's some things i say is super irish and i like it's genuine effort for me not not catholic and protestant i can say that more normally but it's funnier to not um but yeah because like uh it was again it was another thing that was like suppressed by the english because of course it was um

[02:02:41] my grandma hasn't spoken gaelic well irish uh commonly in decades and one time she at bingo won irish classes and she went what's the fucking point in that why have they put this as a prize that is a weird ass prize what bingo in london and his irish classes yeah yeah that's so funny because like irish well they know their audience yeah irish is genuinely really difficult like you can look at just irish names to get an idea of how difficult it is it's like oh some vowels are together how do you think they're

[02:03:11] said it really pisses me off when people complain about irish names being like oh that that's not how you say that's like it's a different fucking language you would never complain about any other language like oh how do you say that that's ridiculous it's a different language i learned how to spell my mum's name before i learned how to spell my name so my mum's called siobhan and i learned how to spell it it's a bohan and but it's a different language exactly and my full name is elspeth

[02:03:41] but when i was like five or six i could never remember if it was a p or a b because it's sometimes both and i very rarely had cause to write elspeth and not elsie yeah so i sometimes would write b and i would sometimes write p it is a p for context b is also acceptable but it's not what i'm called elspeth i remember it took me i was probably like 11 before i could spell one of my middle names properly oh also welsh right yeah two of my names i've got oh georgia rianne yeah no no no

[02:04:11] megan is welsh oh yeah that is georgia is english rianne is welsh oh right okay yeah oh because george no because well yeah because george but rianne is just a derivative of rianne okay i still struggle with where the eye goes in eileen like every time i'm like wait where do i put it i'm not sure um yeah no so it's like the when when he's talking about doing elocution lessons i was just like it made me really

[02:04:41] sad because i think he's got a lovely accent you wouldn't i don't think you'd have a problem now yeah allison was saying like no don't do that and he's like sorry i have to and it's like i'm afraid he does and it's heartbreaking and him not having a record it's one of my it's one of the saddest bits of the whole show but i'm a taff aren't i it doesn't matter i like it it's you and not 10 000 other people it doesn't matter as long as you haven't got it she's so sweet in that scene

[02:05:11] because he's like people don't understand me and she's like but i think you sound like you not like everyone else not like 10 000 other people yeah because i and i i like i love the welsh accent i think it's a great accent um i know there's lots of different kinds um and some welsh people don't have that like really stereotypical welsh accent a lot of people in north wales sound quite english yeah and i it makes me really sad that he's like oh to have the life i want i have to not sound like myself that makes me

[02:05:41] feel really sad that man's gaga he's so far gone he's coming back half baked half bacon suits him look it's just his nickname who half bacon who the flitch i do feel like there are scenes that i loved that i want to talk about that but it's kind of like every single one so i feel like i'm missing things out yeah i feel like i'm really missing things out that i want to talk about but does anyone have any closing statements about the owl service

[02:06:10] a gate if you put a gable hood on roger he would look like a tudor queen yes he's got a very regal nose and a very high forehead yes he looks he looks like a painting yeah no i know what you mean you were saying to me as we were watching it they don't make faces like that people don't look like roger looks like anymore yeah he was like a 20 year old with like the face and soul of like a 60 year old we've talked about this i thought it was kind of fine fine we've talked about this a bunch like over the years and

[02:06:39] i've seen like a few videos crop up and i recommended about like why no one in movies looks like normal people anymore so i do love watching this older stuff where it's like yeah i mean they're all quite attractive like i'm not trying to say anyone is an i'll go in this um but okay but they are but they are they also do look like people you could just run into none of them have they all have the opposite of an iphone face yes and i would say specifically

[02:07:08] jillian hills yeah has a 60 she's a super 60s face and she's so beautiful she's so beautiful she looks very bridget bardo esque well the person that plucked her out for stardom thought that she was the next bridget bardo specifically so there you go and it's just like because yeah i keep seeing stuff talk about this because it's like everyone on like in movies and stuff now it's like maybe not so much like british specific i think um maybe the more like hollywood

[02:07:38] it's like everyone just doesn't look normal anymore everyone just look everyone's had work done everyone's this that and the other and it's like what's that that famous article everyone's beautiful but nothing is sexy yeah well actually if you think about it it makes um it makes hollywood a lot more accessible because before you had to be naturally beautiful and now you just buy it no because i also think they used to have just more like not everyone had to be this like high ceiling of like really perfect looking you had just more regular looking people

[02:08:08] i'll say it as i've said it before billy crystal in the best ever rom-com ever made when harry met sally i would i would it's the way he is with her i love him in that film yeah me too i just really like billy crystal subtly caked up subtly he's just caked up he's no glenn powell he's just caked up they put him in some really nice jumpers oh the knitwear in that film he's funny he's charming yeah funny

[02:08:37] it's like i don't think attractiveness is built entirely off of having like the perfect grecian fucking features that you've gone to a doctor and had them shave your bones into i think you also need to be like apart from the fact that roger looks like aphrodite you need like i like some stuff needs to be on you being charming on you be having chemistry and i think that that gets lost in going oh they're hot it doesn't matter i think the chemistry between these actors is unbelievable i think that

[02:09:07] sparks are flying and i think i know you have convinced me i am yeah i think i i hope that you don't think this is pedo-coded oh but well walk with me yeah yeah because i have some thoughts on this okay i think that the love scene or like beginning of love scene with infatuation infatuation with gwyn and allison

[02:09:37] staying overnight in the hut and their walk on the hills when they first kiss i think it is in one sense very very sweet and very very innocent and you're really rooting for them and it's lovely and another element of it is like sparkly like i want someone to do that to me like there is electricity between them when i first saw it before i'd read it i remember thinking like this is wonderful

[02:10:06] and it is the first it's in episode two or three i think and it's the first moment where i went i love this show and i adore all of it i unabashedly love this show so much and i didn't think i would think this when i started it but i prefer it to children of the stones i love that they kiss and then he bangs on about a nettle for a bit and then they go back again it's a really drawn

[02:10:36] out shot i i love the nettle symbolism though i once saw a nettle growing in an old garage and abba a pale little thing it was it had split the concrete floor because i what i took away from it was that he's talking about them like they're the nettle but also he does say

[02:11:05] the nettle cracks the concrete like no nettle doesn't crack a concrete the crack was there the crack was the plants do but not a nettle not a nettle they find the cracks after they formed i thought that was so well done because i was like they kiss then he bangs on about this nettle then they kiss again and i was like what are you doing mate and actually i was like no this is this is perfect this is absolutely perfect the way he puts

[02:11:34] his arm around her like oh my god it's just so lovely then he went in for a third and i was like my arm was pumping her fists like like like goals it was like elated she's onside so onside i was so happy because i you else you hadn't watched it by this point we were watching this episode oh i'd seen it in the past like a while ago oh had you i saw it a couple of years ago that i read the book on holiday and i saw it again yesterday

[02:12:04] i remember saying out loud oh are they going to kiss and then looking at elsie and elsie was side eye and trying not to give anything away with her face and the fact that she wasn't she was trying not to give anything away i was like okay they're gonna kiss and they might do it more than once you also asked me if they were going to die and i couldn't answer that for you either i knew they weren't gonna die i didn't think they were gonna die no it's for kids what i thought you were gonna say was different when you said pedo yeah what are you thinking laura some of the ways that

[02:12:34] allison is shot oh i know yeah well that's what i meant when i said that she had a reputation before because of the films she'd been in okay because like there's there's shots of her very early on where she's very early on she's in like a swimsuit she's in like a bed shirt and there's oh first she absolutely slays in that bed shirt to be honest she does but she's also meant to be like 15 so there's like some of the approaches to filming like

[02:13:03] it's male gaze-y it's very let's cut her body into pieces and show parts of it and it's like you could argue yes what's the woman blow to earth blow to earth has been made for men yeah no i can a hundred percent see that aspect of it you could argue if i was writing an essay right now i feel like we should i i said to meg well no actually elsie not everything

[02:13:33] has to be a comedic essay sometimes it can just be a podcast because i said to meg i think there is some potential discussion for like psychosexual agency that could be like really big brain but i don't know if any of us are gonna come to the table with those notes we didn't it's fine someone will hopefully maybe one of us in our spare time oh there's so much we can do a follow-up episode when we've gathered our thoughts pop it on patreon there you go there is so much writing on this yes and something that i i mean i know about this show because

[02:14:02] i was researching children of the stones and that's where it came up but otherwise i wouldn't have heard of it and i think that's very sad because it is landmark telly and it is kind of mad to me that it's not more well known in the culture i guess it's one of those things where it's like for some reason movies get more staying power than tv some tv does some tv does like 100% some tv does it's just like i could probably name i can

[02:14:32] definitely name more movies from the 60s than i can tv shows yeah like just it just is the case well it wasn't really considered like art was it until kind of recently yeah that's 20 years i'd say yeah it it's like i get it um i don't think it's necessarily fair because like obviously there's some stuff should be tv shows some stuff should be adapted into tv um like this i think was a good decision to make a tv show um i still think it would be a great film i do think it would be a great film um but that is if it

[02:15:01] was for adult eyes i think you could easily string it together with no changes and would be a perfectly acceptable film but you don't get the this is the explanation which i did need i did i did yeah um you know i just like i understand the the psychological reasoning behind framing her in that way it's just because like in my head i'm like this is for kids and i didn't because of that i wasn't appreciating it because

[02:15:30] like otherwise i would have appreciated her body like i think if you if you come at it with i've got two films for you if if if have you come at it from the from like an adult watching it and you have the nuance and you have the approach because you can understand the psychology of these shots you can understand the intention behind these shots you're a kid watching this no depending on your age but like no you don't know what what you're taking from that is not the same as what an adult will see with

[02:16:00] that you've got a very good point and i don't think that's like normalcy is what you see right so it's like if you are breaking a woman down into her parts and teaching kids that's how you can look at a woman that's how you can look at a girl not good didn't like that in film and tv text mean text will stay in your head um for a lot less time than form and imagery that is what will inform the meaning for you in in that medium it's just how it works yeah and i

[02:16:29] just don't like that lesson of that's how you can look at people that's how you can look at girls yeah because it's it's it's part of it is the whole we always have 25 year olds playing teenagers and that means that you have leeway to do these kind of things because it's an adult but it also means you are teaching people that children's bodies are adult bodies yeah and i disagree or owls and i just i just disagree with that and i disagree with the mentality that has created in society because like you cannot disagree that that

[02:16:59] has caused the adultification of teenagers that is really a problem not to say all of its adult services faults but it's like a part of the whole media thing yeah i just really like the the magic element i like i love i love folklore i love the like ancestral links that things are not as happenstance as you think they are i've got about eight more

[02:17:29] books to recommend to you all by the same guy i i just love that i love the idea that there's like not that i necessarily believe it yeah i'm like a logical perspective but i love the idea that like things happen again because they're written so cool to me i love the time as a flat disc trope yeah yes yes not haunted more like still happening think of it man a woman made out of flowers and then

[02:17:58] changed into an owl the plates man it's all there if you could see it like banshees some of the stuff in it like oh yeah banshees oh banshees of inna sheeran to be clear we're not just talking about the mythical creature banshee still not seen it no i really want to i know i've actually got goosebumps talking about it because it's such lc bait as well as this is it's a phenomenal film i also love that if you take away the scratches

[02:18:28] on her face that okay there's a there's a lot of um qualifiers here but if you take away like the weird photographs scratched on her face and like the pattern from the plate disappearing you could easily rewrite this without that have everything happen the same and just put it down to do these people believe it's magic or is it just a psychotic break yeah a psychotic break is

[02:19:00] yeah is alison actually having a breakdown is this the place that's having this effect on them is it the people around them that are talking them into this you cannot argue that there's nothing paranormal going on because of everything i mentioned yeah but you could easily do it without that and it would still be a really compelling story it would be but i just love the idea of like magical places and magical times yeah like weird shit going on like inexplicable weird shit i love that ley line bollocks yeah i'm getting i'm getting chills like oh

[02:19:30] god i love it so much like i remember we were on the plane going to greece and you said you looked over to me and i was so engrossed like i you were i nearly i when we got to crete i had like two pages yeah to read i felt so bad because you were like read it in the queue for immigration oh my god i should have done we were in that queue for ages but then i had the weird stone of bryzen garmin to read yeah so i had one of his other books so whatever i had reading material as we were like being told like get up like we

[02:19:59] have to get off the plane else he's there like god damn it no no no the lights went off oh yeah you couldn't yeah but i gotta say like even though it is very faithful to the book with a few they don't even take anything away take a few kisses and take some trousers it is written so well like the imagery it's like they there are just sentences where i'm like oh that goes so hard like and it's just so tight there's nothing there that doesn't

[02:20:29] need to be there killer no filler i think you should read it it's fab no i enjoyed it there's so much to say about it you should definitely watch it oh yeah watch it i've just spoiled the whole thing go and watch the upscaled version on youtube where there's like 16 views i was i went on to you from going i hope there's some comments no it's a travesty 16 views and like four of us it's only been uploaded in the last four months uh fair enough so it's like there's because

[02:20:58] elsie you said to us you were like try and find a better version and bfi has it but me if i could figure out how to get access to it i should have access through my uni but i had no idea how to get it um and then we went on to youtube and we were like oh let's just see and there was 180p i'm sorry 1080p upscaled version yeah there's a there's a blu-ray that was released in like 2011 okay and i was like let's just let's just check this one out and then we for the second episode we switched to a different one i went oh my god this is so much worse um let's let's so that's the one

[02:21:27] i thought i watched at first the 1080p upscale is really good thanks to that person for uploading it i i what i've gotta say and we should we should wrap this up but i do want to say thank you to the two of you for um staying with me on this and giving it your best go because i know that at first you weren't convinced and i do understand why so thank you for really just committing i it's so nice to have a lot to say yeah i i know like before we start recording you

[02:21:57] were like do you have stuff to say and i went nope but i just off the top of my head that's not true because we were watching it together and you had stuff to say then it was because like off top of my head when you asked me i was like my head feels pretty empty but i know when we got into it i knew i was gonna have stuff to say i actually do want to re-watch it now we've talked about it like with extra context and stuff i want i want to go back and re-watch it it's not that long so it's not like a big commitment there are some things that you just don't understand first watch but they're compelling enough that you go back and have another go yeah i had

[02:22:27] to give bbc show like a fair crack before i fully understood an episode really yes oh okay well bear in mind i was like 14 when they came 13 14 when they came out and i was like i've still long and dense yeah and dynamics i still don't quite understand scandal in belgravia the story is never really i'll explain yeah we can i i didn't watch it when it was coming out so i was a bit older it's fair enough i i remember when they come

[02:22:56] out i would then go up to my room and watch them again immediately on bbc i play and be like no i need to get this and then we also we did text an adaptation in lower sixth and we did that sherlock so it's like wow i really understood everything because we talked about it for weeks season season four i think i watched over like new year's the when it came out and i did i couldn't remember anything i was like i don't understand what's going on at all everyone would say it was really shit and i was like what's it i don't know and then i re-watched i went oh yeah no that that last

[02:23:26] episode is bollocks i remember thinking it was so bad when it came out and then watched it again quite recently and i was like you know what just accept it for the romp that it is it's like they i've they wanted to go out with a bang it's just the leaps of logic really really pissed me off oh yeah no it's not realistic in any way but if you accept it for what i divide series one and two and series three and four quite distinctly and i'm like if you just set your standards a bit low you'll have a great time that's what i think yeah i agree with

[02:23:55] that so we've got around round this up but one thing we've not spoken about um we can spend a minute on this then we'll say our thank yous and do the socials the opening is stunning changes every time it was very um it's quite an alarming noise yeah it's i think it's a chainsaw so it's like this beautiful like harp that goes on for a few seconds gets interrupted by a chainsaw and then there are like some

[02:24:24] sort of clacky yeah weird sound and then more beautiful music and then it's very sort of jarring and stilted and the imagery it's like a image of the plates and then a shadow doing the wings with hands and then making the um image of a circle like the hole in the stone and then a candle yeah it's just really beautiful

[02:24:53] no i really liked that that is my introduction the first thing i ever saw of it i was like oh this is some lc bay i'm gonna love this laura's just made herself into an owl she's made out of glasses that's so uncomfortable you need to take your glasses off me skill issue no i don't right i'll ask this one more time final thoughts i think it's great very complex you say um thank you for like indulging and like coming along with

[02:25:22] us it's like i really enjoy these like weird folk diversions we do because it is a genre that i really like but don't ever like independently go and learn search for stuff you just bring it to us which i appreciate i i'm glad to provide that service i've got so much there's always so much to say about them i like i like actually doing an episode where there's a bit of analysis rather than just this is for five minutes here's what we did

[02:25:50] our last episode was well we spoke for about an hour and then the clips brought it up this has been long yeah yeah here you go guys who's missing time on topic for most of it can i just say as well that we this is was a late to record for us i don't think we started recording properly until about 10 o'clock no it was later than that and we didn't we didn't start setting up till 9 30 it's 20 past midnight and we've been

[02:26:19] tomorrow and i could keep going yeah i can i'm happy to do that once once we stop honestly we've got there's more alcohol in the house oh hello hello hello bonjourno so laura ask you ask you a question uh would you recommend a watch or a rewatch yes 200% yes yes i i i can't imagine there's many people that it's a rewatch for um so

[02:26:47] 100% like clear two evenings and have a very interesting time if folks stuff is your jam yeah you're gonna this is the bollocks it's so good because like our parents were only just alive yeah and yours were not no so i'm imagining i don't know if they would have seen it my dad was two there's no way my parents have even heard of this well we'll bring it home to all our families and they'll can look at us and go yeah i don't think my parents will indulge me like this i love a rogue submission

[02:27:17] yeah something like we've not heard of really well i'll try and think of another else indulgent episode for next series then shall i and i'll come up with something that's racially heated i tend to do this stuff where i have to do an entire section about racism yeah that is so true that's always you i just bring you guys loud colorful cartoon network shows yeah you do so you can find us on twitter at thoughts underscore underscore tv on instagram at

[02:27:46] thoughts tv the o is a zero and on tiktok at thoughts tv pod and you can email us at thoughts tv 2002 at gmail.com uh we have a discord and a patreon there linked on all the socials i've loved talking about this this has been so fun the only thing i would change is a breeze through this room it's so hot in right what do you know what we're doing do we know what we're doing next do we have any idea no no okay fine let's not forewarn them you don't get to know all right good

[02:28:38] this podcast is part of podomity the uk's podcast comedy network why not laugh at what else we've got visit podomity.com