Rugby (Union) and fannish thoughts

[nineveh_uk]

In the previously-mentioned universe in which Harriet Vane’s detective novels are made into a TV series (hopefully more faithfully than your average Christie adaptation), someone will have to be found to play her detective, Robert Templeton.

[Robert Templeton] was a gentleman of extraordinary scientific skill, combined with almost fabulous muscular development. He had arms like an orang-utan and an ugly but attractive face. She took conjured up his phantom before her in the suit of rather loud plus-fours with which she was accustomed to invest him, and took counsel with him in spirit.

I can now announce that that man is French rugby union player Sebastian Chabal. If this was Harriet’s vision of the archetypal great detective, no wonder it took her a while to reconcile herself to fancying Lord Peter Wimsey, who undoubtedly spent his first two terms at Eton having his head stamped into the mud every time he was forced, white knees trembling, out on to the field.

Still perfecting my Yuletide sign-up plans. Question, if twenty-one people have already volunteered to write Wimsey fanfic, why the hell aren’t they doing it the rest of the time?

Comments

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I think I'd like A.A.Milne fanfic only if the hundred acre wood caught Dutch Elm disease. I'm not sure about ASOIAF and the like - presumably if you like the books well enough to write for them, you do at least start with an idea of where those necessary details will be found, rather than being someone like me who just skips to the good bits, and therefore misses entire characters, let alone eye colour.

I've never really sat down and worked out my RPF feelings. I'm sure that some of my aversion comes not from fanfic, but from the incredible smugness of the TV/film scriptwriters who perpetrate modern RPF in the commercial media.

Have you noticed that there are four people offering The Slipper And The Rose?
I have! The only question is whether my request should be for “Why Can’t I Be Two People” angst fic in which Prince Edward actually suffers from schizophrenia. Answer, definitely not.

I am now kicking myself for not thinking of nominating Calamity Jane, but am delighted that someone is offering Ngaio Marsh. I wonder which characters they've all volunteered for? Must sign up and find out.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

I've never really sat down and worked out my RPF feelings. I'm sure that some of my aversion comes not from fanfic, but from the incredible smugness of the TV/film scriptwriters who perpetrate modern RPF in the commercial media.

Oh, those things that always have some dreadful impressionist playing the Prime Minister, whoever the Prime Minister happened to be at the time? Barf. I suspect the recent The Tudors comes into the same category considering that the scriptwriter was patting himself on the back in the Radio Times about conflating both Henry VIII's sisters into one princess, though I've recorded it anyway just so that I can see how bad it is.

I wish I'd had a look when I signed up to see exactly who they've got under 'RPF - Misc Actors'. The mind, it boggles.

There are probably people out there who'd be perfectly willing to write 'Why Can't I Be Two People' Edward / Edward, which would at least get round that faint grimace of distaste that Richard Chamberlain always seemed to produce when expected to do a het love scene, poor man.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

some dreadful impressionist playing the Prime Minister, whoever the Prime Minister happened to be at the time?

That's it exactly. I think part of the issue is that such shows rarely seem to be about a good story that the writer/director really wants to tell, and much more about “ooh, how clever/daring/satirical we are”. The Queen works because it has a story (and perhaps because in a sense the Queen is already a fictional character), and Cambridge Spies and that ilk can work because they can be about Big Themes, but dramatised political gossip is not the same as art.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I am sure that somewhere on the internet I read an account of a film school assignment to re-edit a Richard Chamberlain film so that he didn't look faintly nauseated at the het love scenes. I am rather charmed to learn via Wikipedia that he has retired and lives with his partner for 30 years in Hawaii.

[bronze-ribbons.livejournal.com]

I think I'd like A.A.Milne fanfic only if the hundred acre wood caught Dutch Elm disease.

*inordinately amused at the thought*