Page 24 - 05_Bafta ACADEMY_Phil Jupitus_ok

Inside 195 Piccadilly & Reviews
JOHN MORRELL’S
“baftalk”
BOOKREVIEWS
BY QUENTIN FALK
of World War Two. By 1947 she was
(with the sole objec- tion of, she recalls,
Rank board member Michael Balcon) run- ning Islington Studios
while Sydney was in overall charge of
Gainsborough.
After marrying her
second husband Peter Rogers - with whom she
would share more than 50 years - Betty moved to her long-time
base at Pinewood where she actively produced scores of films, including the Doctor series as well as grittier fare such as Conspiracy of Hearts, No Love For Johnnie and Nobody Runs Forever.
Her tales from the backlot, not to mentionallkindsofexoticlocations,add up to this fascinating self portrait of a workaholic for whom the combination of a changing industry and deteriorating health sadly spelt premature retirement. ■
upward a year later with Carry
On Nurse.
The familiar
team of actors soon became
established too, but it wasn’t
until the sev- enth in the
series, Carry On Cabby, the
first scripted by Talbot Rothwell that sexual innuendo vied with
slapstick to become its comic staple. Rogers’ own personal favourite
turns out to be Carry On Dick (as in Turpin) which he had to “polish” because Rothwell was afflicted by a sort of mental block during writing. In fact Dick proved to the beginning of the end for a series increasingly diminished by death and - judging by the final quartet, up to and including its underwhelming swansong Carry On Columbus - poor comicjudgement.
This is a useful biography that’s also not afraid to confront the wealthy producer’s legendary meanness while conducting Car r y On business. ■
be the most comprehensive critical companion ever.
Also available from October 26 will be a complemen- tary searchable data-
base online covering film in all forms – TV,
cinema, video and DVD - at www.radiotimes.com/film
Special BAFTA issue available to members for
£17.99 inc p&p.
Q. What do Sarah Palmer and Mitzi Cunliffe have in common? A. The BAFTA Mask, of course.
Mitzi, as many members will know, created the British Academy Award in 1955 when she designed what has, over the years, become one of the most recog-
nised trade marks in the
UK. In a recent street
survey, 85 out of 100
people sampled, recog- nised the Mask.
So who is Sarah, and
what’s her connection with
Mitzi? Both are Fine Art graduates.Botharesculp-
tors. Mitzi worked in Paris,
London and New York.
Sarah works at Legoland
on the outskirts of
Windsor Great Park. Mitzi
worked in bronze. Sarah
works in bricks. Tiny yel-
low bricks. Mitzi’s mask is
about eight inches tall. Sarah’s, the height of an average child (see Contents page).
She used ten thousand lit- tle yellow
bricks, a spe- cially con- structed
steel frame and oodles of glue.
Sarah’s BAFTA/Lego
Mask has
been spe- cially created for this year’s Children’s Awards and will be centre stage at the ceremony in London’s Hilton Hotel, on
Nov 12 to symbolise the recently formed partnership between the Academy and our most welcome new sponsors Lego.
The fifth BAFTA Children’s Awards will be another star-studded evening fea- turing the chart-toppers S CLUB 7.
Tickets from Lisa Prime, e-mail
lisap@bafta.org or call 0207 292 5820. Congratulations to BAFTA member
(since 1979) Helen
Tennant who filled inourCateringSurvey and won herself a mag- num of champagne. Helen, who worked in BBC’s Drama Department with, among many others, Peter Cregeen and Gerard Glaister, was happily stunned when I called her. “But I
never win anything” she protested.
Our thanks to Albert Roux for picking out Helen’s entry from the 500 plus in his
copper rondeau.
reminder to members that if you would like your name to go forward
for consideration as a jury member,
please drop me a line. Also, please remember that all membership cards are
to be shown when attend- ing the Academy, especial- ly on Membership evenings. This is for iden- tification, security and safety as we need to know who is in the building at any time.
Committee meetings and Council will not be the same without Desmond Wilcox. I shall miss him a great deal. Chairman Simon Relph summed up for staff and
colleagues when he said: “We were all shocked by the news of
Desmond’s sudden death. He has been a member of the Academy for well over 30 years, ten of them as a member of Council. We have all enjoyed his excellent company and his witty and incisive con- tribution. BAFTA has benefited from his wisdom and his enormous experience as a broadcaster.”
All of us at BAFTA will miss him greatly.
As members may have read in the trade press, I have decided to step down as Executive Director before Christmas and hand on the baton to the extremely able, dedicated and entrepre- neurial Amanda Berry.
As a team (and that includes the entire staff and officers) we have achieved a tremendous amount over the past 18 months. The Academy financially and in terms of profile and brand image is in excellent shape. I now need to spend more time outside BAFTA on specific areas close to my heart - and also with fourchildren,twograndchildren,aninety year old Mum who is not as agile as she was - and a golf handicap that is woeful.
Very many thanks to members for your support, kind letters
andbest wishes.Allmuch appreciated. I am delighted that Simon Relph has asked me to work with Amanda on
a consultancy basis in 2001 on a number of projects, one of which is
the continued develop- ment of ACADEMY.
So, going but not quite gone. ■
LIFTING THE LID
BY BETTY BOX (BOOK GUILD, £16.95)
Her long-time collaborator, director Ralph Thomas, describes her proudly
but modestly as “the
most successful woman producer of her day.” Betty, who
died last year aged 83, may well
be eventually regarded as one of
the most successful, and certainly prolif- ic, film producers ever.
Nepotism got her started but, as Betty herself writes defiantly in this very read- able posthumous memoir, “I don’t see anything wrong in that, provided the recipient of the job can do it as well as the next man (or woman).”
From a cash-strapped large family in suburbanKent,Bettyeventuallygother big break courtesy of big brother Sydney who co-opted her to work with him on more than 200 films - mostly Ministry of Information “flashes” - from the outbreak
MR CARRY ON:
THE LIFE AND WORK OF
PETER ROGERS
BY MORRIS BRIGHT & ROBERT ROSS (BBC, £15.99)
Rogers, still going strong at 86, admits he was once known to the press as “Mr Betty Box.” But that would, of course, all change after the successful launch in 1958 of the world’s longest running comedy film series which he’d carefully supervise over the next 30 years.
Costing under £80,000, Car r y On Sergeant was produced at the height of The Army Game’s success on TV. Screenwriter Norman Hudis recalled many saying while it was shooting, “Who’ll pay to see a khaki comedy with The Army Game free on TV?”
Helped no doubt by the fact that threeoftheTVshow’scast (William Hartnell, Charles Hawtrey and Norman Rossington) were in the film too, Sergeant proved to be one of the year’s three biggest box-office hits. It was onward and
RADIO TIMES
GUIDE TO FILMS (£19.99) After five years out of
the game due to a lit- tle local difficulty, the RT guide is back with a vengeance,
Boasting more than 20,000 titles – from silents to the lat- est blockbusters – this may
A
John Morrell Executive Director BAFTA
Photos from top: Sarah Palmer creator of the BAFTA/Lego Mask (and six-year old Lauren Mohammed showing it off on the Contents page); Champagne winner Helen Tennant
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