RIP Peter Sallis

News of another sad loss has been announced, Peter Sallis has died at the age of 96.

Sallis was best known for his performance as flat-capped philosopher Norman 'Cleggy' Clegg in all 295 episodes of the record-breaking BBC sitcom Last of the Summer Wine which ran from 1973 to 2010, and for providing the voice of Wigan-based cheese loving eccentric and inventor Wallace in Nick Park's Wallace and Gromit series of films.

Sallis' lengthy TV career also included performances as Samuel Pepys in the 1958 adaptation The Diary of Samuel Pepys, the 1967 Doctor Who serial, The Ice Warriors, The Persuaders!, The Kamikaze Ground Staff Reunion Dinner, the voice of Rat in Cosgrave Hall's acclaimed The Wind in the Willows, The New Statesman, Come Home Charlie and Face Them, and playing his Last of the Summer Wine character's own father, in series prequel First of the Summer Wine. Films included Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Charlie Bubbles, Taste the Blood of Dracula, and Wuthering Heights. 

RIP

Garage (2007)

When it comes to director Lenny Abrahamson, I've come quite late to the party. Earlier this year I was blown away by Room and became intrigued to check out his earlier work, set in his native Ireland. I was especially excited to hear his cult classic Adam and Paul referred to as the kind of film Mike Leigh would make if he made a film about two Dublin drug addicts. Whilst I've yet to see Adam and Paul, Garage bears some of those Leigh hallmarks. This is the kind of film that reflects the minutiae of reality, featuring the kind of people who wouldn't normally grace the big screen. Real people, real lives, acutely observed.

Garage tells the story of Josie (Pat Shortt) the caretaker of a crumbling, run-down petrol station on the outskirts of a rural town in the mid-west of Ireland. It's clear that Josie has some form of learning disability and that this has made him something of a loner, always on the periphery of a community that regard him as harmless at best and, at worst, a soft touch to take advantage of. But despite his shortcomings, Josie remains optimistic and is clearly relatively happy with his simple lot in life. He had the opportunity to move to England as a young man, to work in a meat rendering factory in Leicester, but he turned it down to work at the garage owned by Mr Gallagher, the father of a classmate from school. Now, it is that self same classmate - Mr Gallagher (Jr) - that Josie works for and he's hit upon the idea of keeping the garage open later at weekends over the summer. To help Josie out, he arranges for a local teenager to start work there too. It's a decision that will change Josie's life forever.

This is a beautifully shot and performed production that hides much beneath the surface of its seemingly slow, 'everyday' narrative. There's an undercurrent of things being stifled at birth, literally in the case of the puppies one of Josie's barfly friends takes down to the river to drown, or in Josie's anecdote about the eels he caught as a young man that strangled themselves in the bucket whilst he deliberated over what to do with them. It's there too in the horse tethered out in the field who offers arguable the only true and pure intimacy that Josie is clearly searching for. The theme of a small town crushing potential is not a new one, but its handled so accurately and so subtly by Abrahamson that it stands out amongst other films that address the notion, particularly in the wake of the Celtic Tiger's painful economic demise. 

And then there's that ending, when everything that's been bubbling along under the surface finally comes to a head and we can see this small story actually had big themes to deliver. It's really, utterly heartbreaking to watch those final twenty minutes and Shortt delivers the agonising injustice of the piece in a way which leaves a sombre lasting impression on the viewer. The final shot of the horse walking down the railway track is magical, at once both tragic and yet strangely uplifting; the sense of a spirit finally becoming free.

Reflective, quietly comic and beautifully observed, Garage is a film that deserves a wider audience.

Tory Junk Mail - And What To Do With It

In the run up to the election on Thursday you've probably found yourself inundated with propaganda from parties you loathe. No doubt you feel the best place for this literature is the bin.

But wait!

There's something much better you can do with them.

This morning some glossy leaflet from the Tories plopped through my letterbox and, just like you, my natural instinct was to tear it up and bin it. But then I remembered something...

You can actually post their crap back to them - and it doesn't cost you a penny, in fact (and this is the best bit) it actually costs them!

Just return your unwanted propaganda to Chairman May's freepost address above. If you can't read my handwriting it's;

FREEPOST RSBB-XRZT-ZTXE
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY
30 MILLBANK
LONDON
SW1P 4DP

And why not be a bit creative with their lies while you're at it - that's what I did, as you can see here

Silent Sunday: We Stand Together

London

Whenever these horrific atrocities happen I feel lost for words. That they happen so frequently leaves me further dumbstruck. I sat and watched the rolling news come through last night and the early hours feeling so numb.  I haven't the words again today; all I have is thoughts and those thoughts are with the families of the victims and those people injured and receiving treatment as I type.

I do think it's right that election campaigning should continue as soon as possible. I know it's not a popular view, but these murderers (and that's exactly what they are, I think we do them a favour sometimes in calling them terrorists, like it legitimises or makes sense of their cause and actions somehow) want to destroy democracy and we simply cannot allow that to happen.

Out On Blue Six: Liam Gallagher

Here it is, Liam's new one, Wall of Glass

There are rumours going around that he'll heal the rift and reunite with his brother Noel for the big concert in Manchester on Sunday in aid of the families of the victims of the terror attack last week. That remains to be seen but for now at least we have this new solo stuff

End Transmission

RIP Roy Barraclough

Roy Barraclough, the Preston born actor famous for his long running role as Rovers Return landlord Alec Gilroy in Coronation Street and for his partnership with the comedian Les Dawson, has died aged 81.

Barraclough began his career at an Isle of Wight holiday camp as a comic and pianist before treading the boards with rep companies in Huddersfield and Stoke, as well as Oldham's Coliseum Theatre. He even played piano for celebrated Northern comedienne Hylda Baker during this time, before teaming up in the late '60s with Les Dawson. The pair became famous for their much loved drag act of gossiping northern housewives 'of a certain age', Cissie and Ada; characters Dawson regularly showcased in his TV series across the 1970s and '80s.  

Barraclough's association with the nation's longest running soap, Coronation Street, began in 1964 with the small role of a tour guide. He returned to the cobbles for some infrequent appearances as Alec Gilroy, Rita Littlewood's somewhat sleazy theatrical agent, in 1972 and '75, before becoming a regular character with the show in 1986. His character married brassy blonde barmaid Bet Lynch (Julie Goodyear) and the pair took over the Rovers Return. Barraclough left the show in 1998, his status as a legend in the soap's history firmly secured.

Life after the Street saw Barraclough with his own sitcom, Mother's Ruin, alas not a success, a recurring role in Sally Wainwright's Last Tango in Halifax and guest appearances in Last of the Summer Wine, Casualty and Peak Practice. He was last seen on our screens in the BBC revival of Are You Being Served? last year, playing Mr Grainger. He also enjoyed an enduring and acclaimed career on the stage with performances in everything from musicals such as Gypsy and The Boyfriend to dramas like Death of a Salesman and Spring and Port Wine. 

He was the recipient of three Manchester Evening News theatre awards and a Liverpool Echo theatre award and, in 2006, was awarded an OBE for services to drama and charity in the North West.

He died today at the Willow Wood Hospice in Ashton-Under-Lyne, following a short illness.

RIP