[Closed] PSA: Birdsong Bbc1 9pm

clemence poesy always looks good ;o)

Ooooo she looks kooky.

I was in my local last night and it was full of nerdy cute girls.

I don't believe for a minute that it will be even close to being as good as the book but I will give it a go.

I don't believe for a minute that it will be even close to being as good as the book but I will give it a go.

Agreed.

Grumpy gits

🙂 yep

I don't believe for a minute that it will be even close to being as good as the book but I will give it a go.

A sneak preview.

Birdsong? Has there been any good tweets?

I don't believe for a minute that it will be even close to being as good as the book but I will give it a go.

The book was excellent. I'm prepared to give the TV show a chance, just hope they focus on the interesting tunnel stuff (not a euphemism) and keep away from the boke kissy romance stuff. (Hey - I think I may have just spotted a metaphor)

Not a patch on the book. Pretty dire IMO.

Poor casting, poor scripting and poor sets/choreography (especially in and around the trenches). A real dis-service to Faulk's original.

Of course I've not read the book but I can spot something terrible. Why were both the lead actors twitching as though they were receiving ECT?

A gun shot in the top of the shoulder - is that where you keep your major organs?

..and why did he have his mouth sagged open the whole way through?

And they spent FAR too much time staring into each others eyes dreamily. Michelle Pfieffer and Daniel Day Lewis might have got away with all that gloved hand touching passion in The Age of Innocence, but they are good actors.

More tunnel action please !

In my humble opinion it needed a bit of tweaking..

Certainly needed more flesh.. a better looking leading lady.. and maybe a one on one with her and the french bird.. cut out all the trench stuff too (or at least put some chics in there to liven it up a bit).

Apart from that it was ok..

I was disappointed by the lack of exploding helicopters and alien invasions

Fussy now, are we?

Damn right. My Sunday evenings telly is a cat walk for the great and beautiful..

Previous moobs winners include James May, Clarkson..

Hora, you're the least qualified bloke ever to be talking about....

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A gun shot in the top of the shoulder - is that where you keep your major organs?

Bullets ricochet off bones, a bullet to the shoulder can end up in the chest.

Looks like I'm the only one who liked it then 😳
I'll certainly be reading the book.

Bullets ricochet off bones, a bullet to the shoulder can end up in the chest.

Colonel H Jones.

Entertaining "light" entertainment for a Sunday night but not up to "expectations"!

Trenches too sanitised but at least Redmayne's blue and swollen lips suggested constant hypothermia throughout.

7/10 for a Sunday

More tunnel action please !

That's a good point Binners. The inclusion of Space Ships improves most TV shows, I don't see why that wouldn't have worked here. There could easily be some aliens buried in capsules in the earth below Flanders.

I cant believe I've just had a 'warning' for my previous post on this thread.

Are people on this site really that sensitive? I was commenting on a program that had LOTS of (lets call it 'intimacy' for the timid minds on here) in it.. IT WAS A JOKE FOR GOD SAKE!!!!!!

Blimey, a warning for a bit of humour. Wonder if hora's disappointment with Clemence's baps was punished...

Hels - I think on a Sunday evening you need to go one way or another. Its either space ships and aliens, or at the other end of the spectrum, some nice cute furry animals, maybe with a poorly paw or something...

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How come Hora's been edited? My floury baps have been robbed of their context. How frightfully embarrassing! 😳

There is nothing wrong with any part of Clemence.

I cant believe I've just had a 'warning' for my previous post on this thread.

Unbelievable.

IT WAS A JOKE FOR GOD SAKE!!!!!!

That answers my question!

Now I'm asking if someone's fussy about helicopters and aliens! 😕

It was a tongue in cheek comment about the amount of 'intimacy' in the program.. I've never read the book (never heard of it) and only caught the last 15 minutes of the program but those 15mins consisted mostly of 'female chests' and 'intimacy'.

Apparently I have to tone down the 'sexist fantasies'.

Apparently I have to tone down the 'sexist fantasies'.

'sexist fantasies'??

Was she doing the ironing?

Moving swiftly on.

Binners - I'm fairly sure at least one of the people in that picture is an alien...

You could well be right Hels. One things for sure, none of them look like they've any idea about the impending air strike

The question is, do we invest more of our time watching the second part?

i.e. will it pick up?

I'll be honest, I really don't buy into the lead bloke at all. In the book, whilst in the trenches does he come across as reluctant and abit oafish to the ranks?

do we invest more of our time watching the second part?

Yeah I'm going to see it through. Its never going to be the same as the book, its someones enterpretation of the book.
One thing that made me laugh was the lack of recoil when they were firing their rifles...

What else were you going to invest 90 minutes of your Sunday evening in? Give us the options, and we'll pass comment. Let me guess....

1) Rollerblading
2) Doing your pelvic floor exercises
3) Dismantling another set of forks and losing some bits
4) Infiltrating American evangelical christian websites, pretending to be the prophet Mohamed

I'll be watching next week as it only clashes with a Roman Polanski film on C4. And we don't watch stuff made by paedos now do we.

I could have rewatched this

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I like the sound of 4....

The question is, do we invest more of our time watching the second part?

Only if I really have nothing better to do.

Bloody awful adaption. I reckon the Beeb farmed this out to C5 to produce.

I'm definately going to watch the second half, what we've seen so far is by far the simplest aspects of the book, the naive "boy", the desperately unhappy wife and the juxtoposition with the war, there's a lot more to come if it's to do the book justice.

I did find the flashback approach a bit jarring compared with the way the book moves through time in a sequential manner, which emphasises the way he changes in a much more believable and tragic way, from a idealogically immature fool, through the horror of hell (Rene predicts he will go to "hell" for his affair with his wife), before we have redemption and hope again, but not before a bit more tragedy.

In the book, whilst in the trenches does he come across as reluctant and abit oafish to the ranks?

Nothing I have seen so far comes close to communicating the conditions the men really endured that came across so vividly in the book.

MF - any book recommendations?

This is a good read http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nst4PwAACAAJ&sitesec=reviews

MF - any book recommendations?

I currently have a couple more books lined up to read but can't for the life of me remember what either are called. One is about the days around the eventual victory in WWII and the other I cannot remember a thing about (it was a present and I haven't even looked at the sleeve notes yet 🙁

Nothing I have seen so far comes close to communicating the conditions the men really endured that came across so vividly in the book.

I agree, but I'm prepared to conceed that might be down to my imagination being different to that of those who have created this TV drama, and that as I mention above, the sudden change from one life to the other, makes the horror seem even worse in the book.

I agree, but I'm prepared to conceed that might be down to my imagination being different to that of those who have created this TV drama, and that as I mention above, the sudden change from one life to the other, makes the horror seem even worse in the book.

But it seemed the programme wanted to concentrate on the love affair more (to me that was almost secondary in the book with much longer sequences on the frontline).

But I did have a lump in my throat when he was holding the hand of the dying lad, telling him to think about his girl.

I have never understood why everyone raves about Amelie. She was clearly mental and a stalker, not quite as mental as Betty Blue but on the way. Not to mention the dubious child-like behavior.

The Director has made much better films, try Delicatessen.

If you met her in real life all the advice on here would be to run as she is clearly a bunny boiler, and if not physically underage, definitely can't sign her own legal documents.

Bullets ricochet off bones, a bullet to the shoulder can end up in the chest.

Colonel H Jones.

I take your Colnel H Jones and raise you an Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson.

For those who want more tunnelling try the Poppy Factory by William Fairchild.

Ah! Good point.

I have never understood why everyone raves about Amelie. She was clearly mental and a stalker.

Being stalked by Amelie is pretty much my ideal romance, tbh.

hels I take it you aren't a fan.

Delicatessen - will do..

As to [i]Birdsong[/i] - it was alright. It's been a long time since I read the book, but they looked the part.

The flashbacks-whilst-close-to-death stuff: it did make me think of my great-great uncle, Major Noteeth, listed on the Menin Gate as missing in action in the Ypres Salient. Many years later it emerged that he'd had an affair with a Ugandan woman, whilst working for the British protectorate in East Africa. A son was born, and as well as paying upkeep, he offered to bring him over to England, but the lad chose to stay with his mother's family. It was only recently that we discovered that we have a whole bunch of cousins over there!

If he wasn't killed instantly, I imagine his dying thoughts probably lingered on that love affair, and his far-off son.

It wasn't bad...certainly better cans than the book.

*awaits ban*

Wasn't going to watch it but the missus did plus I was too knackered to move ... A worthwhile improvement on the first episode; still didn't find the 'battle' scenes particularly good, but at least the love story (cough cough) conveyed well. Makes me hate the futility of war even more.

So will there be a third episode with all the bits from the book they couldn't be arsed with?

So was that a mini series based on the book 'Birdsong' by Sebastian Faulks?