The Enid Blyton Society

Ming wrote:I don't understand what you mean at all PC Sharp. Perhaps you can explain it further more eloquently?

Hi Ming

Kirrin said that her home is listed - meaning that is an old building therefore she cannot add or take away certaint hings and if you do, there are strict rules. To use her exmaple - there are no plastic double glazed windows as these wouldn't be in the style of her home, but sash windows are.

Constable Sharp is punning on listed in the sense of something leaning to one side, of which the Tower of Pisa is an excellent example!

Manzy

Thanks, Manzy! I'm glad someone saw through my intended pun! Incidentally, it was my weak attempt at humour, not PC Sharp!

Merged with an older topic

I am not terribly familiar with actors and actresses. So I can only suggest some Blyton characters for matching. I am sure everyone will have his/her own favourite not mentioned here.

Mr Goon, Uncle Quentin, Mr Lenoir, Block, Aunt Fanny, Tiger Dan, Rooky, Mr Perton, Inspector Jenks, Aggie, Hunchy, Pa Stick, Mrs Stick, Mrs Moon, Mr Luffy, Joanna the Cook...

Perhaps it would also be more fun not to restrict ourselves to 'living' actors and actresses. After all, deceased ones might be better fits and, of course, we all remember them fondly. For example...

How about Roy Kinnear for Mr Goon? Or Michael Robbins for Pa Stick?

Two random thoughts here. When I was a child, I used to like 'Take Hart' which was an art programme hosted by Tony Hart. There was a caretaker character in it called Mr Bennett played by Colin Bennett who was a sort of cheerful, yet irritating comic relief foil for Tony. Anyway, I always used to visualize Mister Meddle looking exactly like Colin Bennett!

Secondly, another programme I watched was 'Huckleberry Finn and his Friends' which was a rather lavish Canadian/German production of the Mark Twain classic. Aunt Polly was played by this rather stern-looking old German lady (apparently something of a pin-up in her youth) called Brigitte Horney - and I always used to visualize Mam'zelle Rougier looking just like her!

I always imagined Maggie Smith as Miss Grayling, or maybe even Mam'zelle Rougier.

I always see a grown up Fatty, being played by the fabulous and handsome Martin Shaw. He plays George Gently in the detective 60's series.

The late Michael Sheard (who I see was in the 70s Five Go To Mystery Moor) would surely have made the perfect Horace Tipperlong. And I could probably see him doing someone like Mr Eppy as well.

     Dawn French was once going to play Mam'zelle Dupont in a Malory Towers adaptation that I think never actually happened. Probably just as well, actually, because I think it was going to be updated in that very un-Blytonian style that almost placed "adult" issues centre-stage.
     I don't know enough about actors to have an opinion about whether she'd be a good choice for this or not. I know her only from "The Vicar of Dibley".

Regards, Michael.

I've been pondering about Mam'zelle Dupont. Miriam Margoyles crossed my mind, but I can't really see it. The trouble is I've got such a definite mental image of Mam'zelle (along with many other Blyton characters), that whoever played her probably wouldn't seem quite right no matter how good they were.

However, if they were to do an animated version of Malory Towers, so all they required was a voice artiste, I think the perfect person to play Mam'zelle would be Bernard Cribbins! The way he used to do Madame Cholet in The Wombles is exactly the way I imagined Mam'zelle to sound! Probably wouldn't happen even if they did do a cartoon of MT - but I don't think that voice can ever be beaten!

Stephen wrote:...if they were to do an animated version of Malory Towers, so all they required was a voice artiste, I think the perfect person to play Mam'zelle would be Bernard Cribbins! The way he used to do Madame Cholet in The Wombles is exactly the way I imagined Mam'zelle to sound!

Inspired! Yes, that would be fantastique!

Stephen wrote:The trouble is I've got such a definite mental image of Mam'zelle (along with many other Blyton characters), that whoever played her probably wouldn't seem quite right no matter how good they were.

     To generalize this, it is, to me, the biggest argument against the success of making film or television versions of books.
     Another thing is that, inevitably, film makers either have to leave out bits because of time constraints, or just decide to alter the plot to their own ideas. Sometimes they even leave out characters, merge two characters into one, or invent new characters.
     I think the actors not fitting one's mental image of the characters is especially an issue with books you knew as a child, because it seems to be much easier to form vivid mental pictures of anything then. For instance, I have a very definite image of the Famous Five, whose adventures I first read as a boy. To be sure, Eileen Soper's illustrations had a huge shaping influence there. I may not have quite such a vivid impression of the Secret Seven, even though I read those at about the same time, because the characters themselves are not as distinct from each other. (The good illustrations in the then-current editions didn't entirely help either: illustrations, however good, probably can't go further than a certain limit in compensating for characters the author has not depicted so distinctively.)
     I don't have such vivid mental images of the characters in the Malory Towers or St. Clare's books, and that's partly because I first read those only as an adult, and the magic that creates vivid pictures had largely faded by then. (It seems to be something that belongs only to childhood.) That wasn't helped, either, by the fact that the illustrations in the editions I've read are pretty nondescript.
     So I think the very strength of books - that they are good for encouraging you to develop your own imagery - is also the very weakness of films, which dictate the imagery to you. And even if a film maker could somehow satisfy my own way of seeing characters or places, it would fail someone else's, because we all see things differently.
     All these issues are amongst the main reasons I've never really had much interest in film or television versions of Enid Blyton's works. (I never saw any except, once, the first half of a two-episode "Five Get Into Trouble". I seem to recall it stuck to the plot well enough, but the characters and places just didn't look or feel right to me, somehow.)

Regards, Michael.

I just searched through a list of child actors and found these. I've only seen pictures of them, but these reminded me of some of Blyton's characters, what do you think?

Max Baldry - Hmm... maybe Julian?
Tyger Drew-Honey - I don't what his acting's like, but going from pictures he really has something of Fatty about him.
Charlie Rowe - Maybe Dick?
Danni Bennatar - Reminds me of Bets a bit.
Holly Bodimeade - Maybe Daisy?
Jamie Borthwick - Would have made a great Ern!
Asa Butterfield - Maybe Philip?
Alex Etel - Reminds me of Larry!

This is an interesting topic. I can envisage Barney in his early twenties (when he first really got together with Diana!) being played by Leonardo di Caprio, as he was in Titanic - the character of Jack Dawson was very Barney-like, I thought. I could also see Diana being played by Kate Bekinsale, who is very dark and attractive. Red haired actors such as Damian Lewis could play Snubby and Simon Woods (Mr Bingley in Pride and Prejudice) could play Jack Trent (I envisaged him having similar colouring to Snubby but having finer features and being slightly taller and slimmer).

Who could play Fatty? a tough call - if he joined the police force, he would undoubtedly have become slimmer but likely to still be a big build and have a plumpish face. He would have such charisma and personality that he would carry it off anyway!

Suddenly thought - Fatty could be played superbly by....Stephen Fry! Stephen's intelligence, humour, sly wit and obvious kindness would shine through, and everyone would love him.

Sally wrote:Suddenly thought - Fatty could be played superbly by....Stephen Fry! Stephen's intelligence, humour, sly wit and obvious kindness would shine through, and everyone would love him.

Isn't he a bit too old!