The Young Visiters (Author's spelling) DVD and book

The Young Visiters, or Mr. Salteena's Plan

I just stumbled across the film The Young Visiters from 2003 on the BBC Canada website  and I had to find out more about it. After all, look at the DVD cover. It stars Jim Broadbent and Hugh Laurie! How bad could it be? And then I find out that it also stars Bill Nighy, Geoffrey Palmer, Sophie Thompson and Sally Hawkins. Awesome! But what is it about?

The Young Visiters written by 9 year old Daisy Ashford in 1890

It is a hilarious story written by a 9 year old Victorian girl Daisy Ashford in 1890 (with rather creative and variable spelling) about a young girl Ethel Monticue, who meets Mr. Salteena, "an elderly man of 42", who falls in love with her at first sight and promises to introduce her to high society. Only one problem... he only knows one aristocrat by the name of Lord Bernard Clark! Hilarity ensues.

Daisy Ashford, authoress and child prodigy

I shan't say any more about this except that it is adorable and very "BBC", so very well done. So if you would like to travel back in time through the imagination of a little girl, this is the DVD for you. And now excuse me while I go order the book for Christmas. Apparently, it has never been out of print.

P.S. This would be perfect to watch or read WITH a similar little girl with a good imagination.

Any Human Heart on PBS Masterpiece this Sunday!

Matthew Macfadyen and Hayley Atwell in Any Human Heart

I have been lucky enough to see a preview of the first of three episodes of Any Human Heart, premiering on PBS this coming Sunday night, Feb 13, 2011. It is very good!

This adaptation of a fairly recent novel by William Boyd can probably best be explained as a life in flashbacks. It starts out showing the main character, writer Logan Mountstuart, as an old man (the lovely Jim Broadbent). He is living in a villa in the South of France with piles of books, photos and boxes of journals detailing his very interesting life all around him. As he sorts through these memories, we get to relive his life with him.

Matthew Macfadyen, Jim Broadbent and Sam Claflin as the three phases of Logan Mountstuart

As he travels through his past, starting not at his birth in the exotic sounding Montevideo Uruguay, but as a student at Oxford in 1926, we get to know him through his journal. "I, Logan Mountstuart, do solemnly declare that in this my final year at Oxford, I will lose my virginity." Needless to say, this one has a warning about explicit content right at the beginning. We get to see the loves of his life (in and out of bed) and as well as having the great good fortune to encounter many stunningly gorgeous women, he also stumbles across many famous people. Made me really think of a smarter, English Forest Gump to be honest. Not that that is a bad thing. It certainly adds spice to the story to have Logan hanging out with Ernest Hemingway, Ian Fleming and The Duke and Duchess of Windsor (played to a tee by Tom Hollander and Gillian Anderson).

Well, I won't say any more other than that I think this is a wonderful addition to the Masterpiece lineup this winter and I look forward to seeing the next two episodes to see what else Logan Gump gets up to in his travels through the 20th century.