Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘winston graham’

POLDARK–Marking 45 Years

Posted in other sides to this life, tagged , on October 5, 2020| 130 Comments »

Winston Graham’s emotionally-charged tale of life in late 18th-century Cornwall, first hit the TV screens in the UK at 7.25pm on October 5th,  1975–45 years ago today.

Remembering Angharad Rees, Ralph Bates, Paul Curran, Mary Wimbush, Richard Morant, and Frank Middlemass.

The cast and crew had been hard at work on location in remote Cornwall and at the BBC-TV White City Studios in London. If I remember rightly, we hadn’t finished all sixteen episodes by that October evening–and were feeling nervous about how it would be received.

We knew it was a good story, with all the right ingredients to engage–and even entrance–an early-evening audience–but you never know.

I only remember one review. It was from the witty and candid Clive James in The Observer the following Sunday. At the end of three paragraphs reviewing other programmes he wrote:

“Oh yes, and there is POLDARK which I can’t help noticing is an anagram for OLD KRAP. I rest my case.”

It was a bit of a shock at the time–and made my mother very cross!

Well–when the run of the first series came to an end four months later, with viewing figures topping 15 million, we had the last laugh.

A quarter of a century after that October evening and not long after Winston’s death, Angharad Rees and myself accompanied Winston’s son, Andrew and daughter, Rosamund, on a return to Cornwall to launch Winston’s autobiography–Memoirs of a Private Man.

Andrew Graham signing Winston’s autobiography at Waterstones in Truro in 2003.

Rosamund, Robin and Angharad signing Winston’s autobiography.

I took the opportunity to revisit the house that had served as Nampara–to the surprise of its owner at the time.

The last time Angharad Rees and I were on the cliffs of Cornwall together.

It was a poignant trip for everyone.

An opportunity to remember and celebrate the life of a man who had had a lasting and positive influence on each and every one of us.

Still does on my life.

Read Full Post »

Remembering Winston Graham…

Posted in other sides to this life, tagged , , , , on June 30, 2020| 59 Comments »

Winston Graham–who would have been 112 today (!)–and all things Poldark have featured in my life since the day I walked into BBC-TV Centre, for my first audition for the role of Ross Poldark in January, 1975.

Of course, I had no inkling then how significant the outcome of that test might be for me.

I wrote about it in Making Poldark:

It was a lovely sunny day, I remember, and I was going to an interview at the BBC. Another interview! I’d been to hundreds before. I’d been to three in this particular building—and I’d got all three jobs. What had my agent said? It’s for a thing called Poldark, written by a man whose name rang a bell—Winston Graham—and set in 18th century Cornwall.

I sat facing the sun in the producer’s office, my eyes twitching, and thinking of the third degree. As always happens, he covered the awkwardness of the situation by giving me an outline of the story while looking me up and down and through and through. The subtext of first interviews is always more interesting than the scene itself.

“Thanks for coming in. Of course, I’m seeing others for this part….I want to get it right—but very good to meet you at last. I’ve wanted to use you for some time.”

I found a bookshop in Gloucester Road, bought the books and attacked Ross Poldark for the rest of the afternoon.

I went through two more of these interviews and read a scene or two for the directors. By the end of the third interview I was quite keen to get the part.

The rest is history–a history that keeps refreshing itself.

Bonne Anniversaire, Winston!

I have much to thank you for.

Read Full Post »

Winston Graham’s 111th Birthday!

Posted in other sides to this life, Poldark, Robin Ellis, tagged , on June 30, 2019| 37 Comments »

Today–30th June 2019–Winston Graham would have been 111!

I’m re-reading the Poldark saga books at the moment and being reminded of why this story still resonates.

WBGH Boston–home of Masterpiece, showcase for the majority of British TV drama in the States–is producing a series of podcasts to run with the showing of the fifth and final series of Poldark, stateside.

Mining Poldark is an epic undertaking–40 half-hour segments.  I’m co-hosting with Barrett Brountas.

It involves watching each episode–old and new– and re-reading the original books.

Barrett and I then spend  a half-hour dissecting each episode–agreeing and disagreeing in an agreeable fashion.

Coming Soon from MASTERPIECE – Mining Poldark

The team: Susanne Simpson (Exec Producer), me, Barrett (co-host), Nick Andersen (Producer)

We are nearly half-way through–and it’s a pleasure!

His wonderful writing lives on and is again a source of joy as well as–in this case–employment!

He wrote Ross Poldark, the first in the saga, in 1945 when he was 37 and bringing up a family of his own with his beloved wife–Jean at their home in Cornwall.

He finished the twelfth and last book, Bella Poldark, in 2002 at the age of 92!

This last tells the story of Ross and Demelza’s youngest child who becomes an actress–and with whom I’m sure Winston fell in love, as he’d done with Demelza–11 books earlier!

There’s as much PASSION in the last of the saga as there is in Ross Poldark.

He felt a loyalty to his characters–and this he passed on to his readers.

He was a supremely talented story teller.

Bonne Anniversaire, Winston!

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

It’s available at last! “Making Poldark” as an audio book…

Posted in Poldark, Robin Ellis, tagged , , , , , , , on July 6, 2015| 39 Comments »

AT LAST!

Yesterday the audio version of Making Poldark became available for download via Audible, Amazon or iTunes.

http://www.audible.com/search/ref=a_mn_mt_ano_tseft__galileo?advsearchKeywords=Making+Poldark&x=0&y=0

 

Below, I’m re-posting my account of recording it way back in January.

Making_Poldark_3_FRONT_COVER_FINAL_2500x2500_Pixels_20150325

Just back from UK where I recorded my memoir of Poldark as an audio book–with an extra chapter about taking part in the new BBC/Mammoth version–40 years after doing the original!

 

Two days in a small, soundproof booth in a basement recording studio in Hove in Sussex, while the wind and the rain raged above ground.

I was fortunate to have three helpmates in the studio running the show–and keeping my nose to the microphone.

Chris Daniels, sound engineer, owns the studio and is a member of that fraternity of calm console operators who are never flustered.

IMG_8940

They have seen it all before–and behave as though they read the first verse of Rudyard Kipling’s poem, IF, before sitting down to work:

If you can keep your head when all about you
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
 
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
    And you’ll be make a Sound Engineer, my son!
(With apologies to Mr. Kipling.)
IMG_8938
My old friend, Constantine de Goguel Toulouse-Lautrec–his grandmother was in St. Petersburg in the October Revolution of 1917 and survived–sat in the producer’s seat and guided a rusty performer through the sessions with grace and years of experience.
IMG_8931
He’s a fine actor and an experienced dialogue coach for movies.
He also runs Spoken Ink–subtitled “The Home of Short Audio“–well worth checking out.
Meredith made up the triumvirate as back-up producer keeping a beady eye on the script and an ear out for things that could be better (like the American pronunciation of “Potomac”!).
Her occasional ripple of involuntary laughter was a morale boost for The Man in the Sound Proof Booth!
IMG_8937
The project is in post production now. When complete, we’ll announce it here.

Read Full Post »

The End of the Beginning…!

Posted in other sides to this life, tagged , , , on April 27, 2015| 81 Comments »

280DAE6500000578-3057206-image-m-97_1430128501311

The spectacularly staged cliffhanger ending of last night’s 8th and final episode of the First Season of the new Poldark left us and poor Demelza on the edge of the abyss–literally.

The audience with a 12-month wait and Demelza looking at a precipice of worry and uncertainty.

WOW!

Poldark‘s explosion into the nation’s consciousness in the UK is phenomenal. (I’m enjoying riding on the coattails, albeit with a feeling of déjà vu!).

Poldark is referenced daily in the British zeitgeist–in cartoons, radio, TV print and online–sometimes  with a political twist and even academic papers discussing its historical context.

The ancient art of scything is experiencing a re-examination; Colin Firth is getting some free publicity and the British Chancellor George Osborne—at the height of an unpredictable election campaign—finds time to be a fan!

It seems the time was right for Captain Ross Poldark to gallop back into the national psyche and turn up the temperature on Sunday nights.

Aidan Turner has done just that with nobs on–if you’ll pardon the expression, supported by a wonderful ensemble.

His passionate performance as Ross is at the epicenter of the storm over Poldark and it’s exciting to watch him take the thing by the scruff of the neck–literally in the case of the wretched Matthew Sansom. (Good riddance, I say, he was intolerably impertinent to Rev. Dr. Halse at the card table).

Spoiler alert–skip the next paragraph if you have not yet seen all of the first new series.

Eleanor Tomlinson as Demelza–losing her first born and husband at a stroke–matches Aidan, playing Demelza with an honesty that anchors the piece firmly within the truth-telling universe created in the novels by Winston Graham.

280DAED900000578-3057206-image-m-96_1430128434011

She and Aidan have established the emotional heart of the piece–and it’s that that attracts the audience back each week.

As Meredith has just said, it is certainly not my wigs!

Screen Shot 2015-03-25 at 9.22.04 AM

 

IMG_5738

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

Unseen old Poldark pics surface and tell a story of my horse–Ebony.

Posted in other sides to this life, Poldark, Robin Ellis, tagged , , , , , on April 17, 2015| 37 Comments »

Surfing the net for a bit of Poldark news this morning (I’ve become a groupie!) I chanced on a series of wonderful photos, many of which I had never seen before.

They were taken during the filming of the original series by a gifted young photographer, Ian Barnes, who was just starting out in his career.

Here’s his story and the photo slide show, published today by the Western Morning News: http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Unique-record-set-original-BBC-cast-Poldark/story-26324743-detail/story.htmlEbony the Horse

The slide show reminded me that  I had written the story of two of the photos depicted in my memoir Making Poldark. [Also available on Amazon.com]

 My steed for the second series, Ebony, was supplied by the wonderful horsemaster, Ben Ford  (the back of his head is visible in the photo below).

I had more riding to do in the second series, so Ebony and I saw a lot of each other. She never threw me like Dennis (my mount in the first series, an ex-Steeple chaser), but I’m sure she knew she had a novice on board.

Our most difficult day was the first shot of the second series—Ross Poldark‘s return from Holland.

In real life, I had been in London the previous day to see my then girlfriend play Cordelia at the opening night of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of King Lear, which had transferred from Stratford to the Aldwych Theatre. After the performance I caught the overnight train to Cornwall.

So I was there, fresh as a wilted daisy, at 8am on the beach at Caerhays ready to film. It was pouring with rain.

Ebony and I waited until 3:30 in the afternoon before we could even get on the beach. Neither of us was in very good shape by then. The wind was blowing the sea into a frenzy,  and I had great difficulty in keeping my over-large hat on my head. Screenshot 2015-04-17 14.33.12 Ebony, quite sensibly, was none too keen on the conditions. She could see the waves out of the corner of her eye and thought they were coming for her.

With difficulty, trying to control my hat, my flowing cloak and the reins, I managed to get her facing the right way. The camera was mounted on the roof of a Land Rover and we were supposed to follow it at full gallop across the beach. Screenshot 2015-04-17 14.37.37 It should have been an invigorating experience. Instead it was a nightmare.

Ebony HATED the sound of the Land Rover and decided the SAFEST place was her horsebox—so that’s where we headed.

We passed the Land Rover with ease and I managed to stop her only a few feet from the end of the beach. Exhausted I fell off into a puddle!

I remounted. (Well, I was the hero!)

Ben, experienced in such things, placed a sister equine on the seaward side of the Land Rover track, hoping Ebony would run towards her. We tried again and Ebony rejoined her friend rather more quickly than the cameraman anticipated.

By this time, I was losing confidence and my fingers were losing their grip.

We tried once more. Ebony did an impromptu gavotte, crisscrossing the Land Rover, and then another mad gallop.

I decided she’d won the day and walked back to the coach.

Two days later we had a perfect sunny day and managed the shot in one take.

I think Ebony had worked in television before.

Poldark filming seems to attract characterful beasts. Aidan Turner’s steed Seamus (Darkie in the series and Irish, like Aidan) is enjoying his new found fame!

Read Full Post »

Happy birthday, Winston Graham!

Posted in other sides to this life, tagged , , on June 30, 2014| 27 Comments »

WinstonGraham

Winston garlanded with the twelve books of Poldark

Winston Graham would have been 106 today. Hard to believe he died 11 years ago.

His writing lives on and is again a source of joy as well as–in this case–employment!

The filming of the new series of POLDARK is nearing the halfway point and interest is building.

(I still have a second scene to do and am causing some hilarity in Castres market with my mutton chops and straggly hair.)

He wrote Ross Poldark, the first in the saga, in 1945 when he was 37.

He finished the twelfth and last book, Bella Poldark, in 2002 at the age of 92!

This last tells the story of Ross and Demelza’s youngest child who becomes an actress–and with whom I’m sure Winston fell in love–as he’d done with Demelza, 11 books earlier–history repeating itself!

There is PASSION in the Poldark saga from the first book to the last. He loved and felt a loyalty to his characters–and this he passed on to his readers.

The books will be given another lease of life when the new version is shown next year–and this is just.

He was a supremely talented story teller.

Thanks Winston,  and many happy returns!!

Read Full Post »

Forty years on…

Posted in other sides to this life, Poldark, Robin Ellis, tagged , , , , on March 1, 2014| 71 Comments »

and Ross Poldark remounts…

Today the BBC announced the name of the actor who is to play the lead in the re-working of the series  first screened in 1975.

Irish actor Aidan Turner has bagged it.

Aidan-Turner-as-Poldark

Just needs to add the scar and he’s away!

Congratulations to him–I hope he has as much fun as we did filming this wild and wonderful saga written in 12 books over a sixty year period by Winston Graham.

Forty years ago this November I went for the first of three auditions for the part, knowing little about Winston Graham and less of the books.

A brief glance at the first book of the saga, Ross Poldark, was enough–I seriously wanted him to be me or vice versa.

I had to go through two more nail-biting sessions in front of producer and directors before finding myself in the position Aidan is in today….

…Cast to play Ross Poldark.

Ross+Poldark

Now–two generations on–this great piece of storytelling will be enjoyed again by millions on TV and in book form.

The time is right. The wheel of fashion turns and Poldark, an unashamedly romantic tale, can be told again with a straight face.

The new series has the advantage of being adapted from original books written by an exceptionally gifted storyteller–Winston Graham.

The characters develop at their own pace and seem responsible for their own destiny.

No visible puppeteer, no obvious manipulation–just the telling of stories through the characters involved.

Aidan and I share a common debt to Winston, for giving us the chance to play a difficult, contrary, complex man often out of his time.

It’s a roller coaster of a ride!

winston-graham-1000338

Read Full Post »

“Nooked!”

Posted in Diabetes, Food, other sides to this life, Poldark, Recipes, Robin Ellis, tagged , , , , , , on December 1, 2012| 6 Comments »

Making Poldark has been Nooked at last!

Nick it on NOOK–it’s a steal!

It’s available now on NOOK.

Making Poldark: Memoir of a BBC/Masterpiece Theatre Actor
Making Poldark: Memoir of a BBC/Masterpiece Theatre Actor
by Robin Ellis
This revised version came out in April 2012 and is greatly expanded–including new photos from Winston Graham’s personal Poldark photo album.
And while we are at it…
Delicious Dishes for Diabetics
Delicious Dishes for Diabetics 

Read Full Post »

Happy Birthday, Winston!

Posted in other sides to this life, Poldark, Robin Ellis, tagged , , on June 30, 2012| 36 Comments »

Winston as a Cornish gent, eagerly awaiting his debut as an extra in the second series of Poldark!

Today would have been Winston Graham’s 104th birthday!

He was born in 1908 in Manchester. His family moved to Perranporth in Cornwall in 1925 after his father died prematurely at 53.

There he married Jean Williamson–whom he’d first met when she was 13 (Demelza’s age when she first met Ross at the fair). He was just 18. They lived there for the next 25 years, bringing up their two children, Andrew and Rosamund.

Winston–a meticulous researcher as well as a great storyteller–steeped himself in Cornish history and customs. He wrote the first book of the saga–Ross Poldark--in 1945.

Eleven more books followed. The last in the saga– Bella Poldark–written when he was 92!

A month ago I checked out the Desert Island Discs archive ( a popular BBC radio series where guests choose eight recordings to comfort them after supposedly being shipwrecked on a desert island) . I remembered vaguely that Winston had been the subject some time around the screening of the series.

I found it and enjoyed listening to his choice and being reminded of his voice.

Last week when sitting with my back to his son Andrew–whose 70th birthday we had gone to Corfu to celebrate–I heard a voice say–“and what are you going to do this afternoon?”.

It was uncanny–the voice and the intonation were Winston’s!

Winston and Jean at our wedding in 1990.

I will always feel appreciative of Winston for writing such a wonderful tale that has meant so much in my own life.

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »