A political ambition thankfully unattained - UPDATED

The publicity about the Netflix remake of the political thriller "House of Cards reminded how much I enjoyed the original BBC series featuring my fine actor namesake, Ian Richardson. I was working at BBC Television Centre at the time and much of his fanmail came to my office without any indication whether it was for me or the actor until it was opened. I would forward the fanmail to the other Ian and we exchanged several friendly letters, although we never met.

Not ever having received fanmail in my own right (why the hell not?) I found some of the other Ian's mail amusing. My favourite was this one from a young man in Kent who thought Ian's character -- the evil, manipulated Francis Urquhart -- was a man to be admired:

"Ever since I was eleven years old I have been interested in Politics. The Character you play, Prime Minister Francis Urquhart, is I feel is quite excellent. I want to become Prime Minister when I grow up and it is your character that has given me added inspiration to go for my goal. I would be very greatful [sic] and most happy if you would perhaps send me your Autograph or perhaps a signed Photograph of yourself. I really admire you Mr Richardson as Francis Urquhart."

I have Googled the writer of the letter and I am happy to report that, so far at least, he has failed in his ambition to become a politician, let alone Prime Minister. Indeed, I can find no trace of him at all. He seems to have remained in well-deserved obscurity.

LATER ADDITION: After writing this post I was reminded that there was one other particularly amusing fanmail letter for Ian. It was from an American with the surname Urquhart and suggesting that he was probably related to Francis Urquhart. He seemed to be under the impression that the House of Cards was a documentary, rather than a work of total fiction.

An above-Everage honour

Strewth! I'm a Dame Edna favourite!

Just before Christmas, I posted a fairly routine tweet about Dame Edna Everage appearing on BBC Radio Four's Today Programme. Now, after all this time, I get this message (see below). Can there be any greater honour for an Australian?

Top of Form

Back in the Dim Dark Ages (the 1970s) I used to freelance as the London correspondent for Australia's TV Week magazine. I got to know Barry Humphries a bit before he became seriously famous outside Australia. Sometimes when I would ring him, "Edna" would answer the phone and tell me that "Mr Humphries is busy just at the moment, but he will call you back as soon as he is free" -- and he would, returning the call as himself. 

We would sometimes chat about his Private Eye strip, The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, and make up deliberately-crude Aussie sayings. One of these, I remember, was "Go stick your head up a dead bear's bum". 

On one occasion, at a social function in London, Barry/Edna agreed to do a radio interview (for 3AW, Melbourne, I think) and the only quiet place we could find was the men's toilet. Fortunately, no-one burst in on us during the interview, as there would have been a lot of explaining to do.

Barry never liked being interviewed as Edna unless dressed in character. However, on this occasion I remember that he was wearing a dinner jacket. I wish I still had that interview, but it was back in the days when 1/4" recording tape was expensive and was bulk erased after being broadcast. However, I still have a copy of one interesting (mostly serious) interview with Barry done in January 1970 before he became seriously famous. 

A mystery solved, but only after a long investigation

I was mystified why my mother, then living in Melbourne, Australia, wasn’t keen to talk about my missionary great aunt Florence “Florrie” Cox, whom we found pictured in this old photograph. My journalistic curiosity set me off on a 10-year investigation that led to my battling the Victorian Supreme Court in Melbourne to gain access to Florrie's divorce files which had been mysteriously and uniquely marked “Closed for all time”.

When the file was eventually shown to me, I discovered that my aunt had a very rare gender condition that had passed unnoticed in an era when the discussion of anything related to sex was considered a total taboo.

An affair by her husband with a fellow missionary caused such scandal that the Australian Baptist Church, with the co-operation of the court, the Freemasons and the media, mounted a hugely-successful cover-up.

My account of the investigation is revealed in God’s Triangle, available here in paperback or Kindle ebook: http://www.godstriangle.com/   

A detective story dilemma

I have a particular problem with marketing and publicising my book God's Triangle. Briefly, the book is a chronological diary of my investigation into why there was such a mystery surrounding the break-up of my missionary Great Aunt Florence "Florrie" Cox's marriage. After a long battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court of Victoria, Melbourne, I discovered both the cause of the marriage breakdown and why the Baptist Church, the press and the Supreme Court colluded in a cover-up. Put simply, it is a true detective story.

The book reveals the cause of the marriage failure, but should potential readers be told this before they buy it? Before you react with "of course not", let me say that I fear I am missing out on a significant number of buyers with an interest and/or involvement in intersex issues by not explaining that Florrie was born with a very rare intersex condition and had no vagina.

When in Australian recently, I did a talk to a genealogy group and decided that I would reveal Florrie's problem -- the first time I had done so at a book talk. Despite this reveal, I sold all my books.

For various reasons not worth recounting, quite a few readers of God's Triangle did know about Florrie's problem beforehand. I asked a selection of them whether this had spoiled their enjoyment of the story. Most said it didn't because they enjoyed reading about it in more detail and because of the story's several other aspects. These included the explanation of how an intelligent and sensible person had been able to reach womanhood without knowing about menstruation or having any real idea how babies were made, how her husband and his second wife had been able to eradicate seven years from their troubled past while rising to become pillars of society, and how the scandal cover-up was organised.

God's Triangle is currently in development in Australia as a feature film and the producers have already decided that the audience should be told about Florrie's problem at an early stage. I think that is the right decision. It should mean that audiences feel emotionally engaged throughout, watching Florrie and her husband struggling to cope with a situation they don't fully understand. We shall see!

Feel free to offer your views, either on this page, or by contacting me by email at books@richardsonmedia.co.uk

If you wish to buy God's Triangle, here are the links for the paperback and the ebook.

Wonthaggi, Australia: fond thoughts of a warm welcome

Although I spent just the first four years of my life in Wonthaggi, I have a tremendous fondness for the former coal mining town in Gippsland, Victoria. It is where my Scottish grandfather, John S. Richardson, a mining engineer, put down his roots after emigrating to Australia following the First World War. I never knew him because he died about two years before I was born, but from all reports, he was an entertaining and talented character with an interesting history. His death was brought about at the very early age of 54 by illnesses he caught when serving with the military in the Middle East. He was buried in the Wonthaggi Cemetery.

My father, also called John S. Richardson, was 10 when he arrived in Wonthaggi and after completing his schooling, he became an apprentice printer and later a reporter with the Wonthaggi Sentinel.

I was recently invited back to Wonthaggi by the local historical society to give a talk about my book, God's Triangle, which is currently being developed as a feature film. I was surprised at the large turnout for the talk, and I had a most enjoyable interaction with the audience. This is how the local newspaper, now called the South Gippsland Sentinel-Times, reported the visit:

And here's a story written about God's Triangle published in the South Gippsland Sentinel-Times of June 20, 2012:

:

Cinema: how breaking the rules can work

IN PRAISE OF LOCKE:

For a creative industry, the movie business can be extremely conservative. From the time I became interested in writing for the screen, I was frequently told "you can't do that", often without any rational explanation. It seemed to be a simple case of rules being passed down as the received wisdom from one generation of writers to another without a recognition that these rules are often there to be broken.

One of the first things I was frequently told was that it was wrong to have a one-sided telephone conversation, because that would mean the audience would not be able to understand what was going on. In many cases, yes. But not necessarily so. These people have obviously not heard the hilarious telephone conversations that took place in the excellent American TV series, Hill Street Blues, between Detective Belker and his interfering and possessive mother. We never heard her side of the conversation, but we always got the drift because of the way he responded.

Another instruction I was given was that as the cinema and TV are visual, I must keep changing scenes, so that boredom doesn't set in with the audience. Reasonable advice, but again not necessarily so. Further, I was told that in structuring a film and drafting the scenes, I should insert the dialogue last, and the dialogue must be kept to the absolute minimum. Above all, the dialogue must not tell the audience what it can see for itself. In other words, "show; don't tell". That is good advice in most screenplays, but again not necessarily so.

This leads me on to heap praise on the British feature film Locke, which I have only just seen. This is a brilliant movie, but I wonder how difficult it must have been to pitch to producers and financiers: "So this is a story about a guy who is supposed to be pouring cement, but is going through a marriage-wrecking emotional crisis. He is the only person we see in the film as he drives along a motorway at night, constantly on his mobile/cell phone to workmates, family and his pregnant former one-night stand." Not a grabber, you must admit, but the end result is an outstanding film with a stream of flawless dialogue and never a dull moment. It is arguable the most wonderful, imaginative rule-breaking film I have seen in the past year.

Finally, back to the rigid advice often handed out to those hoping to become screenwriters. Your must-read is William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade. His message is "Nobody [in Hollywood] knows anything".  Just keep that in mind next time someone tells you what you can and cannot do in screenwriting. 

Celebrity books at Christmas

UPDATED

One of the most depressing issues facing independent book publishers and authors is the prominence given to books by celebrities. We're still almost two months away from Christmas, but the adverts are already out there, offering "discounts", real or fictional. Sadly, these celebrity books will sell, even though they are usually shallow tomes produced by a ghost writers and may never be read by the recipients.

UPDATE: Now W. H. Smith is offering this book for a huge "discount":

 

So, why would anyone want to part with a tenner to hear this self-important clown's views when they are already well known -- too well known, indeed --via the broadcasting and print media? Further, for less than a fiver you could have a pint at your local pub and hear some bore leaning on the bar expounding similar unsustainable opinions.