Dang -- pipped to the post again!! He he -- nice one Jamie, will have a look at yours once this one's posted
. This one's even longer than the last one I'm afraid and has been a bit rushed -- in the middle of moving house at the minute!! But here we go ...
T.BAG AND THE REVENGE OF THE T.SET, EPISODE 4: ‘TURKISH DELIGHT’The score so far: Sally – two silver spoons, T.Bag – nil. Needles to say the prickly old enchantress isn’t too happy about this state of affairs and, blaming her misfortune (as usual) on T.Shirt, she’s working the poor lad into exhaustion with a long list of chores. Meanwhile, arriving in a Turkish market, Sally isn’t having much luck in her search for the next spoon. One step ahead, T.Bag spots the prize in the hands of Karim Karamel (sweetie stall extraordinaire) and quickly nabs it from under his nose. Unfortunately for her she hasn’t banked on the appearance of a mischievous silver-stealing sprite called Fizz, who pops out from a bottle of ‘lemonade’ …
Before I go any further, I really must confess my huge bias where this series is concerned;
T.Bag and the Revenge of the T.Set is without a doubt my favourite slice of T.Bag. This is as good as the series ever got for me and I’m afraid I may well gush whenever the subject comes up in future. That said, this happens to be my least favourite of the ten episodes, but then that’s like saying Ringo Starr is the least appealing of The Beatles!
When interviewed for The High-T Website in 2007, Lee Pressman, noting what changes director Leon Thau had made to the scripts, commented of this episode: ‘Script hacked to pieces. Nonsensical last scene added’. It’s therefore quite difficult to know what in this episode belongs to Pressman and Cathro; it’s certainly less action-packed than other episodes in this series.
This is the third outing in the series’ history of the genie-in-a-bottle concept; though typical of the writers’ recycling of old ideas, this one is strikingly different from previous efforts and, to my mind, is the best of the bunch (but then, like I said, I’m biased). We’re presented here with a very non-traditional genie, the ‘proper little magpie’ Fizz, who rather than granting wishes, pilfers whatever little silver trinkets he can lay his hands on. This is also one of those wonderful episodes where – hoorah! – T.Bag gets the spoon first. ‘Sally Simpkins didn’t even get a look-in this time’, she crows victoriously. The joy of these episodes is (predictable though it may be) the ever ingenious ways the writers come up with of relieving T.Bag of the treasure; and here (as with Episode 8 of
Revenge) her downfall is very cleverly set up at the start of the episode, with Karim discovering Uncle Abdab’s inheritance isn’t what it appears to be. The combination of these two plot threads (especially with Fizz’s appearance in the T.Room) provide some of the best moments.
And I suspect that’s what my problem with this episode might be: not a lot else really seems to be happening. T.Bag and T.Shirt are mostly absent from the Turkish setting, spending the majority of the twenty minutes in the T.Room. Not that this is a bad thing: these for me, with T.Shirt’s feigned illness (more on that later), are the highlight of the episode. However, this lack of interaction (especially between T.Bag and Sally) leaves the rest of the episode feeling a bit flat in places. I am being very picky here because I have happily sat through the episode many times.
Frank Coda gives a spirited performance as Karim, one of the show’s silly-old-duffer guest characters; but it’s Martino Lazzeri (many years before he turned up in
Hollyoaks) who steals this one with his cheeky turn as ‘little gremlin’, Fizz, scampering round the sets causing havoc and running rings round the other characters. As forgiving as you can be, when there are so many questionable performances from child actors in television programmes (and T.Bag was no exception to this), it’s quite something to have three very good young performers in the one episode. I can not rate Kellie Bright highly enough as Sally. Even here, as inexperienced as she clearly is, her talent is unmistakable. ‘Bright by name and bright by nature’, as Elizabeth Estensen puts it on the Reunion DVD and I couldn’t agree more; there’s a twinkle in her eye and, in spite of the goody-two-shoes nature of the character, a streak of mischief running through her (see how she tricks T.Shirt into accepting the lemonade bottle) which Kellie Bright plays so well. As far as I’m concerned, in terms of acting prowess at least, of the treasure-hunting girls, Sally was never bettered.
And then of course there’s John Hasler. His scenes with Elizabeth Estensen in the T.Room are some of the funniest T.Bag/T.Shirt moments in the whole series. ‘This goes on forever’, he complains of his list of chores; ‘that’s right’, she replies gleefully. We’ve seen T.Bag force an endless round of housework on T.Shirt before, so it’s great here to see him turn the tables on her with his faked illness. It just gets funnier as it goes along, from the thermometer scene to T.Bag’s gradual realisation of the put-on; from her punishment of greedily eating all the sweets backfiring to the arrival of Fizz. The rapport between Estensen and the young Hasler reaches its peak in this series and it’s interesting to speculate how it might have developed had the former remained with the show. Also worth mentioning is T.Bag’s sole scene in the market place with Karim; her chasing after the spoon is very nicely done, with the growing frustration on Estensen’s face, another cause for a giggle.
John Plant’s scenery is as charming as ever, even if the sets are a little cramped on this occasion. The bright lighting effectively enhances the supposed location, as does the use of stock music in the market scenes.
Having expressed my disdain for Leon Thau’s rather ‘safe’ style of direction in the last review, it’s interesting that in this episode he’s taking a few more risks. OK, so the uniform static shots are still all over it and the blocking of the actors here is, if anything, even more unimaginative than the previous episode (witness Sally’s meeting with Fizz in the Turkish street, and later with T.Shirt).
However, there are some very interesting special effects going on here … and now I’m going to go all geekily technical! Straightforward appearances and disappearances back in the day were very easy. You simply took two different shots with a camera locked into a position on a set; one featuring an actor (say Elizabeth Estensen) and one without. When these two shots are cut together, Estensen clicks her fingers and – hey presto! – she disappears. Creating this effect while other actors are present is understandably more difficult and there were generally two ways of going about it. The first method is pretty much the same as described above: one shot is taken involving all the actors. The disappearing actor will then step out of the shot, while the other performers remain completely still, only moving when the scene begins again. The disadvantage of this method: it’s incredibly hard to stay completely still for any length of time and there’s usually a sudden jump of movement from the stationary actors when the shots are cut together. The second, more effective approach (known as ‘split-screen’) again involved two separate shots being taken on the same set, one with actors and one without. Only here the two shots are mixed together so the stationary actor can move freely within the limits of one half of the screen. The other half is masked with the actor-free shot while the relevant performer is stood in place opposite the moving actor. The mask is then taken away, giving the illusion that the actor has appeared from nowhere. The disadvantage of this approach is that it takes a lot longer to set up.
That was all very long-winded! The point is that having watched the whole series very closely over the last couple of years, I was surprised that Leon Thau favoured the first, more cumbersome approach (especially during the early series); but when you look at his direction more closely, it’s no surprise he goes for the quicker method. In this episode, however, he’s actually doing some really interesting stuff with spilt-screen, with the disappearances/reappearances of T.Bag and T.Shirt, and especially the appearances of Fizz. Best of all is the rather complicated split-screen effect during Fizz’s time in the T.Room. Elizabeth Estensen is sat in the middle of the sofa, while, disappearing and reappearing at various moments, T.Shirt and Fizz are either side of her, masked with a shot of the empty set. The shadows on the floor by Estensen kind-of give the game away, but it’s nonetheless quite impressive for those of us who notice these things. In spite of all this cleverness, Thau still opts for the speedier effect in some instances: when T.Shirt disappears from the market place having handed back the lemonade bottle (watch Karim and Sally suddenly jump); and when T.Bag conjures up the thermometer (although the jump here is the fault of the camera moving slightly to the left; Elizabeth Estensen stays completely still!)
Overall it’s an enjoyable little romp and I’d give this episode seven out of ten (four out of five). It loses some points for lacking a little something, but that’s as low as I’ll rate any episode in this series – my bias knows no bounds!
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