#ask sfs

I don't, I'm afraid! It's not one I have myself and the only link I've got is a now-defunct Dailymotion one.

I think everyone believed The Rainbow to be the only nude appearance! I’ve not got round to watching Gaskin yet (I have a massive collection of stuff I need to get through but I’m not often in the mood for watching TV, even with Paul).

These are personal preferences but:

Sweet Revenge, a two-part drama in which Paul plays a university professor who arranges paybacks in his spare time (Part One) (Part Two)

Perplexed Music is a short film written and directed by Paul’s brother Mark and also features his younger son, Sonny. Paul plays a widower coming to terms with his loss.

I’ve always been fond of short-lived series Fish, where Paul is an employment lawyer struggling to cope with raising his son on his own after his wife goes off to ‘find herself’.

Give Us A Break, a very early role, a comedy drama series co-starring with Robert Lindsay. Here he’s the younger brother of ducker and diver Lindsay’s girlfriend, who turns out to be good at snooker, something Lindsay decides to try and make use of. Probably the most Scouse you’ll hear Paul on screen!

Paper Mask Hospital porter wants to be a doctor. It does not go well.

Luther Not to everyone’s taste and some episodes are rather unpleasant (3 and 5 of the first series) but I want to take Mark North home.

Withnail and I, of course; every Paul fan needs to see it at least once! (No active link for this one that I can find right now)

If you fancy a documentary, Victorian Sensations: Decadence and Degeneration is a strange but compelling watch, and one that Paul presents rather than just narrates.

And here he is talking about Hornblower

@prydon made a filmography masterlist (from which some of these links have been gratefully taken) which is well worth a look. His CV tends to range through Great, Good, WTF did I just watch? and Oh, dear God, why?! but I can also recommend Our Mutual Friend, Forgotten and Poirot: Sad Cypress. I know other people would say you should definitely see The Monocled Mutineer and The Hanging Gale (the latter stars all four McGann brothers) but I personally found those two too depressing to watch more than once. Horses for courses.

I’ve actually had to look it up myself, as I’ve only watched the series once and it was a long time ago, so this will be a bit basic:

According to Wikipedia it seems to have been to do with the fact that not only was there was a lot of dramatic license taken which offended some people, particularly in the military, but also the sitting Conservative government and others objected to what they regarded as left-wing bias (I think I read somewhere that the treatment of the mutineers was seen as a parallel to the government’s handling of the miners’ strikes, which was writer Alan Bleasdale’s intention), with questions raised in Parliament. Conservative Party chairman Norman Tebbit was apparently monitoring the BBC for this as its charter was up for renewal at the time; there had already been legal action against Panorama in 1984 over a programme that claimed that the government had links to far-right organisations both at home and abroad and which caused 100 Tory MPs to sign a motion calling for the resignation of Director General Alasdair Milne. The BBC was also criticised for marketing the series as a true story when it was only very loosely based on actual events and one of the advisors, a WW1 historian, distanced himself from the production over factual inaccuracies, the main one being that the real Percy Toplis was never involved with the Etaples Mutiny in France.

From Wikipedia:

 The Daily Telegraph's Defence Correspondent John Keegan criticised The Monocled Mutineer. He said: "The Étaples 'mutinies' amounted to no more than a few days of disorder, a little disrespect to officers and some loudly-voiced demands for humane treatment. The army reacted briskly. It restored discipline by bringing in unaffected troops. It removed the cause of discontent by replacing the worst of the staff with wise men. That is about all there was to the British Army 'mutinies' of the 1914–1918 war."

As a direct result of the mutiny, only a few individuals were punished. Corporal Jesse Robert Short (Northumberland Fusiliers) was condemned to death and shot by a firing squad; three other soldiers were sentenced to 10 years' penal servitude and others were jailed for up to a year's imprisonment with hard labour.

Keegan's piece was followed on 12 September by a statement to the press by Julian Putkowski, who had acted as a historical adviser to the series. He claimed that the serial was "riddled with error" and The Daily Telegraph reported that "He accused the producer of ignoring his advice ... Mr Putkowski disclaimed all responsibility for what he says are factual errors and misinterpretations in the series. He accused the BBC of failing to consult him on the final version of the script and described the book by William Allison and John Fairley, on which the series is based, as 'a sensational version of the mutiny and Toplis' life.'"

In response to this, series producer Richard Broke admitted that there had been "small examples of dramatic licence [taken]", and went on to point out that "Mr Putkowski did not point out to us at any stage that Percy Toplis was not at Étaples Camp and he never challenged the book he knew we were working from." The BBC's Managing Director of Television, Bill Cotton, further defended the series on the basis that it expressed "the greater truth about World War I". The BBC's official line was that the series is a drama, not a documentary and made no pretence at being a precise historical record. However, the damage had been done thanks to their original press campaign which had called The Monocled Mutineer a "true-life story"; Alasdair Milne blamed this on their advertising agency.

I haven’t watched it myself (I’ve got so much stuff on my watchlist that I never get round to) but if you’re interested to know more there is a debate on Youtube from Liverpool John Moore’s University with Paul and Professor Frank McDonough on the subject which probably explains it better than I can:

Hello! I’ve had the DVD since it was released but the whole thing has been uploaded to vk.com:

Main interview

Paul and India

Extras

Thank you, my dear! ❤️