Continuity

[rhythmaning]

I have just watched Ken Stott as DI Rebus in The Falls. It was good TV – quite a taut drama; and not having read the book, it was pretty tense, too. (In case you are wondering, I taped it last night. I love timeshifting.)



But whilst most of the production had very high values, there was a wanton disregard for geography.

We are used to this kind of thing from American TV – anyone see the Friends London tourist board ad episode when they came over to London – which suddenly achieved a strange topography, as if the iconic tube map was twisted into a moebius strip?

But where London is concerned, even English productions manage to get lost in the A-to-Z – for instance, the first Bridget Jones film has her leaving her flat south of the Thames and suddenly arriving beside the Royal Exchange, by Bank.

Still, The Falls was produced by SMG – that is, Scottish Media Group. So we can rely on them to be faithful to Edinburgh, can’t we? Oh no.

The evidence: right at the start, a police car containing Rebus was heading along the Meadows (it looked really good, driving past the trees – I think that they were heading east, but I could be mistaken…), then driving east down Manor Place (the cathedral was behind them – again, it looked great) before arriving in either Moray or Ainslie Place.

OK, perhaps they were just trying to set the scene – get some real value out of their expensive location shots – despite some picturesque views of Princes Street in the credits. Let’s give them the benefit of doubt.

But then… Then they have to drive from Moray Place to the Oxford – a bar which is perhaps three minutes walk away. And they do this via West Bow, a good ten minutes’ drive, and in totally the wrong direction.

Still, it made for an excellent backdrop against which to play a reconciliation between Rebus and his bidie-in. (Note to frankie_ecap: Scottish term; not made up. Though possibly mispelled. Ask yer man.)

Comments

[frankie-ecap.livejournal.com]

Scottish term = made-up.

I used to get a morbid pleasure out of identifying the college space-warps in Inspector Morse: walking through a door in Christ Church and out into Merton, etc. etc.

Later, the wife of my applied maths tutor (the one who gave us jelly babies) told me that there had been a spate of burglaries in North Oxford on Wednesday nights, because all the dons had been glued to the telly doing exactly the same thing.

[unblinkered.livejournal.com]

Bidie-in....my most favourite Scottish word ever! That, and dreich.

*misses Scotland*

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Well, dreich is a pretty good description of Edinburgh today - thick, clammy freezing fog!

[frankie-ecap.livejournal.com]

I like gleikit. Especially when applied to a cat.

[unblinkered.livejournal.com]

Heh.....too true, I have friends who called their cat that!

[unblinkered.livejournal.com]

Ack, should specify.....I have friends who named their cat Glaikit.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Favourite definition of glaikit - someone who when they walk into a room you get a feeling that someone just walked out.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

My favourite space warp is done deliberately at the beginning of "Down With Love" (a musical. With Ewan MacGregor. No, wait, come back, it's actually great fun) where they send up the usual New York montage.

Having read the nose, sorry the book, the Rebus tv show didn't do it justice, but then it's never a good idea to compare adaptions to the original (plus it got very hectic at the end, and left a few plot holes you could have driving a nose, sorry, bus through).

I thought Ken nose, sorry, Stott, was much better than John Hannah as Rebus, but something about him stuck out so much that I got distracted.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I thought it felt so much more Rebus than the John Hannah ones, which never grabbed me at all - far too pretty, not enough gritty.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Definitely, though I felt he was gratuitously rude, which Rebus never is - incidentally rude, or unknowlingly rude, yes.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Nice icon, btw. Number?

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

2.61 - The Glenlivet.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

A classic.

I go with the 4's - 4, 14 and 24 mostly.

[frankie-ecap.livejournal.com]

Highland Park, Talisker and Macallan?

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Correct, although I should probably have put them in order of pref: 14, 4, 24.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Talisker was the first whisky my wife liked. She had it in her head that she didn't like whisky. We were on Skye, staying in the pub across the road from Talisker (where, by the way, they made the most delicious herring in oatmeal for breakfast) and I demanded we go around the distillery. It was actually closed for repairs or something, but they had a nice little visitor centre where we watched a film (possibly the whisky film, since I bet they use it in each of Diageo's distilleries), and lots of drams to make up for the disappointment that they couldn't show us around. I was going to take my wife's share, but she wanted a wee sip...

And she's never looked back - she loves whisky!

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Talisker is in a class of its own (well, obviously: they don't make any other whisky on sky)and it's not hurt by the glorious location of the distillery. I envy you staying there - I made a quick visit by car, and took the tour a number of years ago.

Oban is another good one to visit, because it's just off the high street and is a nice dram to boot.