shapinglight | (no subject)

Oh, I was so disappointed. In the end I had to turn the sound off and just watch the pretty scenery. I love Byron. I loved the Victorian prog Rupert did previously, but this was just him getting off on his Byronic fantasies.

but this was just him getting off on his Byronic fantasies.

Quite true, but I did find his planet-sized ego and flaunting of his body quite amusing all the same.

The bingo ladies at the end were good too.

Yep - just you. I found the ads previewing the show annoying, so knew I wouldn't handle a whole hour of Rupert Everett talking about himself.

I am watching 'Desperate Romantics' though, which has a pretty vampire doing a nice little turn as Rossetti :D

Desperate Romantics is THE programme I am watching atm. I'm loving the nastiness of the beautiful Rossetti and also shouting at the screen when he's being such a manipulative little snake. Fab telly.

XXX

It's great telly. Not only is Rossetti intriguing, I'm trying to work out why Ruskin keeps throwing his wife at Millais. Is Ruskin meant to be gay or just a bit twisted?

I'm old enough to remember when BBC2 did another Pre-Raphaelite drama back in the 1970s. I was obsessed with Hunt in that one. In this one, Rossetti is definitely the more interesting character. Roll on 9pm :-)

I think Ruskin is gay and is secretly wanting Millais and is throwing his missus at him to see if he can catch them in the act and get off over it.

I may be watching through slash goggles though. ::blushes::

We are both not-very-youngish and yet I do not recall the drama of which you speak. I was probs obsessing over Brideshead. :D

I watch everything through slash-tinted goggles *g*

I'm racking my brain to try and remember the name of the drama. I know it didn't have the words 'Pre-Raphaelite' in the title though. It was on very early in the 1970s around when 'The Pallisers' was screened. It's a bugger because without the title, I can't even find it on IMDB :(

Try harder Ali, try harder. :D I love my period dramas and I can't believe I missed one. I was brought up on By the Sword Divided and The Onedin Line and Poldark and Flambards etc.

<3

I remember it too but also can't remember the name.

Ah, I knew it, I knew it! The Brotherhood.

You beat me to it; I remembered on the tube going home :)

Yep - just you

:( I was hoping to have someone to snark about it with. Oh well.

I haven't managed to watch Desperate Romantics properly. It's been on in the background, so I've seen it in passing.

Also, I remember that other Pre-Raphaelites series. Wasn't Rossetti played by Ben Kingsley?

I didn't remember much about the other drama except that I enjoyed it. However, having seen the IMDB page for it; you're definitely right about Ben Kingsley. Gold star that girl :-)

:preens:

I saw bits of it but he looked a bit of a twat, so I stuck with my Sherlock Holmes DVDs.

He was a bit of a twat, but I found him highly amusing. Wonder how many complaints Channel 4 had about the program?

I watched Desperate Romantics last night - that was hilarious!

Kitty told me you'd posted about this. I was so annoyed with it and it all started right at the beginning of part one when RE said that Byron had 'lost his virginity' at nine-years-old. It was like he'd said it to imply what a stud Byron was from such an early age. He sees a stud, I see child abuse.

Then he interviewed a call girl! Why?!?!

And in the second part he casually dropped Percy Shelley's 'free love' policy into the mix completely out of context and then asked if they'd had orgies. It was all about sex. Where was the poetry? And yet again Shelley was reduced to a side-kick. Grrr.

So as a whole, I would have enjoyed the documentary much more if it had actually been about the poetry rather than two hours of scandal and celebrity and RE's personal opinion. Both Byron and Shelley were worth so much more than that.

Suki Blue, a very irritated Shelley fan.

I feel your pain, love - and would add to the mix RE sexually assaulting one of the poor women he used as a prop in the program (the one who was looking through the telescope with him at Villa Diodati). Really, the program wasn't about Byron at all but about RE's enormous ego.

For that reason, I found it mildly amusing. He was out to shock and I'm sure he did. The general TV watching public, who are not au fait with slash, were probably shocked rigid by all the mentions of sexual practises that are mostly kept under wraps etc etc.

And I agree that being more interested in whether Shelley and Byron were 'doing it' than in their poetry is doing both of them down. It was weird. Even RE said that Byron's relationship with Shelley was one of the most important in his life, yet he spent very little time on it.

What did make me laugh and cringe at the same time was when RE told Byron's 'sodomy and sherbet' joke to anyone he could find. Oh dear.

Yes, that poor woman from the university. You could see she was desperate to escape.