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blakes7-d Digest				Volume 99 : Issue 120

Today's Topics:
	 [B7L] Paul Darrow Interview - extract 1
	 Re: [B7L] After Star One
	 [B7L] Eastercon
	 Re: [B7L] The Last Train
	 Re: [B7L] After Star One
	 [B7L] Re fans and the media
	 [B7L] any London fans interested in an evening out?
	 Re: [B7L] Illustration for Flat Robin 35
	 Re: [B7L] any London fans interested in an evening out?
	 Re: [B7L] After Star One
	 Re: [B7L] Illustration for Flat Robin 35
	 [B7L] SFX...and counting...
	 Re: [B7L] Illustration for Flat Robin 35
	 Re: [B7L] After Star One
	 Re: [B7L] any London fans interested in an evening out?
	 [B7L] Paul Darrow interview - extract 2

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 10:46:59 +0100
From: "Alison Page" <alison@alisonpage.demon.co.uk>
To: "space city" <space-city@world.std.com>,
        "lysator" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: [B7L] Paul Darrow Interview - extract 1
Message-ID: <004201be7b5b$a591f8c0$ca8edec2@pre-installedco>
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Hi folks

A few people have said they'd be interested in seeing parts from the Paul
Darrow interview of 1982 which we have been transcribing. Here (with
permission) is the first of a few short extracts. This one touches on
leadership and emotion, so I think it might be relevant to things we have
been discussing. I'll do
one on the relationship with Servalan next if you like.

Shall I continue to post these to both lists or not?

The comments and questions from the floor were very hard to hear, but I
think I've got Paul's words verbatim. In the transcript MV means Male Voice
and FV female voice from the audience, words in angle-brackets are
paraphrases of stuff I couldn't hear properly.

>>>>>

(MV - <something about, is Avon a leader?>)

No, he doesn�t regard himself as that. He regards himself�   (well, this is
my opinion anyway) he doesn�t really want to be associated with them, but he
�s forced�(laughter) No... he doesn�t. He actually said to them at the end
of the last series �If you follow me I�ll kill you. I don�t need you� and he
doesn�t.

(FV � Yet you have Tarrant obeying orders from you.)

Well clearly he has to. (laughter)

(FV � Therefore you are a leader)

Yes, but� He�s stuck with them, and so yes I suppose he leads them. But he
will go wherever he wants to go and if they want to follow him then fine.
And sometimes they want to stop him, and in fact it�s very unfair... Because
they blame him for everything that goes wrong and� it is� you�re crying aren
�t you?

(laughter)

And the Tarrant character actually turns round to Avon in one episode and
blames him for the death of Cally. Which is absurd, because he actually said
�Do not follow me.� Tarrant said �I�m going to follow him � come with me
Cally�. So she followed him, and Cally was killed. So, whose fault is it
that Cally�s dead? Not Avon�s!

So... I pointed that out... Which upset curly a bit.

(FV - <something about Avon�s reaction to Cally�s death>)

Well he did say to me �Where�s Cally� and I said �She�s dead� and he said
�Are you sorry?� and I said �Yes.� Now... whether that was a reaction?

The thing is that was a deliberate policy. They said �What do we do? Do we
write a scene where Avon sits down and says <puts on tragic voice> �Oh, I
loved her� and all that. Because he would kill everyone then wouldn�t he? He
�d say �You are responsible,� bang, bang, bang. And they all had contracts
so we couldn�t do that.

So they said the person who would be most affected by Cally�s death would in
fact be Avon, so they said �How would he react?� He�d either react that way,
or he would not react at all, and leave it to you out there to decide what
his reaction would be. And so they decided to do that; whether it was right
I don�t know but that�s what they decided.

<<<<<

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 12:22:01 +0000 (GMT)
From: Una McCormack <umm10@hermes.cam.ac.uk>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] After Star One
Message-ID: <Pine.PCW.3.96.990331121326.2735C-100000@umm-pc.jims.cam.ac.uk>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Neil said:

>How do you rebel against the Federation when there is no Federation to
>rebel against?  The chaos implicitly wrought by the destruction of Star
>One would have given many planets more than enough to cope with, and the
>ensuing balkanisation of the former Federation would lead to most worlds
>looking inward to their own concerns.

I think you're right - and it ties in with what you say about common
purposes:

>A lot of people had cause to resist the
>Federation, but only the Federation's existence might have stood to unite
>them - a common cause engendered by a common enemy.  Remove the common
>enemy and the cause no longer remains common.

People soon turn from fighting a common aggressor to fighting each other.



>Were the people Anna 'conned' really rebels in the pre-War sense of the
>term, or were they just Terran parochialists out to claim Earth and its
>remaining territories for themselves?

I assumed they were some handy remnants of a group like Kasabi's that she
used for her own purposes.


>The radical spirit of
>the 80s seems to have disappeared, coincidentally or otherwise, with the
>collapse of Communism and the perceived demise of the Bomb. What was once
>a mutually supportive protest movement (CND, animal rights, radical
>feminism etc) seems to have splintered into tunnel-visioned single-issue
>campaign groups that have lost touch with the 'big picture' that once
>united them. Come back, Cold War, all is forgiven?

I think it's at least partly the case that the people who were once
teenage revolutionaries are today's MPs and civil servants. Our parents
are the people our parents warned us against.

Anyway, isn't what you describe 60s/70s radicalism? Surely the radicalism
of the 1980s was Thatcherism? <ducks and heads to the spin, taking her
stirring rod with her... ;) >


Una

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 21:51:22 +0100
From: Steve Rogerson <steve.rogerson@MCR1.poptel.org.uk>
To: Lysator <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>, Space City <space-city@world.std.com>
Subject: [B7L] Eastercon
Message-ID: <37013945.A27BDF47@mcr1.poptel.org.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Anyone else on list going to Eastercon in Liverpool this weekend?
--
cheers
Steve Rogerson

"Get in there you big furry oaf, I don't care what you smell"
Star Wars

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 10:27:52 +0000 (GMT)
From: Una McCormack <umm10@hermes.cam.ac.uk>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] The Last Train
Message-ID: <Pine.PCW.3.96.990331102646.6791M-100000@umm-pc.jims.cam.ac.uk>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Steve said:

>According to the April issue of Cult Times, a new UK series, The Last
>Train, is due to start on ITV on Thurdays at 9pm from 8 April. The
>reason I mention it is that it seems to have more than a passing
>resemblance to Terry Nation's Survivors, except that instead of a plague
>wiping out most of the population it's an asteroid (presumably cashing
>in on last year's blockbuster movies).  It is set round Sheffield and
>focuses on a group of survivors who were on a train at the time, hence
>the title.

There's also some mention of it in the new Radio Times - it looks quite
good. From one of the people who brought you 'This Life' (and it has the
actress who played Milly in it).


Una

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 09:56:38 EST
From: Pherber@aol.com
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] After Star One
Message-ID: <cedea900.370237a6@aol.com>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit

In a message dated 3/30/99 11:00:40 AM Mountain Standard Time,
egomoo@mail.geocities.com writes:

> Ahem. No doubt disaffected youth all over the galaxy had posters
>  of Blake a la Che on their walls long after his demise.

Every generation needs *some* symbol to appall their parents. <grin>

Nina

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 16:53:28 +0100
From: Steve Rogerson <steve.rogerson@MCR1.poptel.org.uk>
To: Lysator <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: [B7L] Re fans and the media
Message-ID: <370244F6.ED13782E@mcr1.poptel.org.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Debra wrote:
>so what exactly is it then that men talk about
>when they are on their own?

Pool, football, work, who's round is it, so-and-so hasn't been in for a
while, what are you doing at the weekend, the usual stuff.

--
cheers
Steve Rogerson

"Get in there you big furry oaf, I don't care what you smell"
Star Wars

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 11:31:43 -0500
From: "Ann Reckner" <Ann_Reckner@hmco.com>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: [B7L] any London fans interested in an evening out?
Message-ID: <85256745.005A92DE.00@checkout.hmco.com>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline

I unsubscribed last fall because my new job precluded keeping up with the list,
but I'm going to be in London 10-12 April (Sat.-Mon.) and wondered if people
would be interested in meeting for a drink or dinner? I remember that people
used to go to Pages bar occasionally and something like that would be really
fun.

Ann Reckner

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 08:20:05 -0800
From: Pat Patera <pussnboots@geocities.com>
To: B7 Lysator <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Illustration for Flat Robin 35
Message-ID: <37024B35.E81C6878@geocities.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Penny Dreadful wrote:
> Available for your perusal at:
> > http://members.tripod.com/~Penny_Dreadful/fr35.html

Penny, your drawing style is lovely. I like the soft round edges of your
work. Surely you are an art student? How did you do the red background
on the "serious" Travis portrait? It doesn't "quite" look like
watercolor. Too contrasty. A great looking effect.

Re the rest of your site. You are one sick puppy! (er, poodle) :-) Wish
you could come visit and barf on my rug.

Pat P
________________________________________________________
NetZero - We believe in a FREE Internet.  Shouldn't you?
Get your FREE Internet Access and Email at
http://www.netzero.net/download.html

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 12:19:33 EST
From: SupeStud00@aol.com
To: Ann_Reckner@hmco.com, blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] any London fans interested in an evening out?
Message-ID: <345d6a1c.37025925@aol.com>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit


------------------------------

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 18:48:47 +0100
From: "Jonathan" <jonathan@meanwhile.freeserve.co.uk>
To: "Ellynne G." <rilliara@juno.com>, <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] After Star One
Message-ID: <005001be7b9e$bbbc94a0$de24883e@ming>
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

>Before Star One, there seemed to be a solid, widespread rebel movement.
>Afterwards, nothing (not counting the people Anna conned into helping her
>own bid for power).  Why was this?
>
>A lot of Federation planets seemed to have broken away after the war, but
>there was never much talk of them helping the others still under
>Federation rule.  The only idea I've been able to come up with is that
>support for Blake was about a mile wide and an inch deep.  The Federation
>seems to have been formed after some big wars they mention, and its
>initial excuse for existance probably was to protect humanity.  It may
>have even been a valid claim, like lords in the Dark Ages who could be a
>real pain but were a lot better than the viking raiders they were
>hopefully protecting their people from.  As the Federation became more
>oppresive and powerful, the dangers it had existed to protect its people
>from were seen as diminishing.  Support for reform and outright revolt
>grew.  Then along came the Galactic War and the near extiction of the
>human race.  Suddenly, all these people (who didn't have a big tradition
>of rights of the common man to begin with) began rethinking the
>profit/loss relationship of overthrowing the Federation.
>
>Also, Servalan had seized power and overthrown the government people were
>used to, replacing it with one where (I'm guessing) dictatorship was more
>obvious.  She destroyed the traditional seperation between the military
>and the civil government, either destroyed the council or openly replaced
>it with her own people, destroying any illusion of power or real
>authority it may have had.  After that, it would have been easy for those
>seeking to get back into power (or seize it, as Anna attempted) to use
>Servalan as both a focus for discontent and as a scapegoat for earlier
>wrongs.
>
>Any thoughts?
>Ellynne
>


I'd agree with everything Ellynne has written. Servalan is more competent
than her predecessors. And she's more ruthless. Revolutions need some degree
of latitude to succeed - Perestroika was replaced by democracy, not hardline
Stalinism. And talking of Stalin, the Federation benefitted in quite a few
ways from the Andromedan war. No independent planet could hope to fight off
the aliens alone.

But let's not forget that Blake went looking for revolutionary
opportunities. Avon was much less eager to make contact with potential
allies. At the very least he'd have been much cautious at the possibility of
contacts hiding traps, and also inclined to ask what he would get from other
rebel's in return for his help.

Jonathan

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 08:11:29 +1000
From: Kathryn Andersen <kat@welkin.apana.org.au>
To: "Blake's 7 list" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: Re: [B7L] Illustration for Flat Robin 35
Message-ID: <19990330081129.A734@welkin.apana.org.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Carol McCoy wrote:
> 
> Penny wrote:
> 
> > Available for your perusal at:
> >  
> >  http://members.tripod.com/~Penny_Dreadful/fr35.html
> 
> Seriously, there's some great art there, Penny.  My favorite is Travis with
> the red background; it's gorgeous.  I hope you're sharing your talents with
> zine editors.

<artist>
Hmmm, what a fascinating effect, that red background.
Must keep it in mind next time I do colour pics.
</artist>

<editor>
Hey, why hasn't she contributed to zines?  My zine in particular?
Doesn't she know that all zine editors are desperate for artists?
</editor>

Kathryn Andersen
-- 
 _--_|\	    | Kathryn Andersen		<kat@welkin.apana.org.au>
/      \    | 		http://home.connexus.net.au/~kat
\_.--.*/    | #include "standard/disclaimer.h"
      v	    |
------------| Melbourne -> Victoria -> Australia -> Southern Hemisphere
Maranatha!  |	-> Earth -> Sol -> Milky Way Galaxy -> Universe

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 14:53:53 PST
From: "Joanne MacQueen" <j_macqueen@hotmail.com>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: [B7L] SFX...and counting...
Message-ID: <19990331225355.51916.qmail@hotmail.com>
Content-type: text/plain

Well, issue no 48 was in my local newsagent yesterday (30/3/99), so for 
the Australians that makes it a month, approx., until Steve's long 
promised B7 fest in issue 49, and two months until this mysterious page 
23 in issue 50. My stock of patience is about to do a marathon, and may 
be thinly spread by then <smile>

Regards
Joanne
(have a good Easter break, everyone, regardless of creed)

Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 14:33:54 -0800
From: Julia Jones <Julia.lysator@jajones.demon.co.uk>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] Illustration for Flat Robin 35
Message-ID: <5MK5rtASLqA3Ewji@jajones.demon.co.uk>

In message <19990330081129.A734@welkin.apana.org.au>, Kathryn Andersen
<kat@welkin.apana.org.au> writes
>
><editor>
>Hey, why hasn't she contributed to zines?  My zine in particular?
>Doesn't she know that all zine editors are desperate for artists?
></editor>
>
Geroff, I saw it first.

Although as I probably won't be doing anything zinish for several
months, I don't suppose I should jump up and down demanding first dibs
on Penny's artwork. Not even that charming one of Travis and Tarrant.
-- 
Julia Jones

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 06:26:13 -0700
From: "Ellynne G." <rilliara@juno.com>
To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] After Star One
Message-ID: <19990327.062616.9598.0.Rilliara@juno.com>

On Wed, 31 Mar 1999 18:48:47 +0100 "Jonathan"
<jonathan@meanwhile.freeserve.co.uk> writes:
>
 Servalan is more 
>competent
>than her predecessors. And she's more ruthless.

She's only more competent in some ways (nobody beats her for ruthless).
She had very poor leadership skills.  Lots of palace coups have succeeded
where revolutions failed.  Whatever her restructuring/destruction of the
council was, it probably offended a lot of people who still had positions
of power.  Their insecurities porbably went into overdrive as she
casually executed officers for problems which weren't their fault, wasted
resources on questionable goals, committed genocide, etc.  Fortunately,
she spent so much time chasing after the Liberator (and Avon), she left
herself wide open to them.
 
. And talking of Stalin, the Federation benefitted in quite a 
>few
>ways from the Andromedan war. No independent planet could hope to 
>fight off
>the aliens alone.
>
Good point.  Although I'm surprised the war didn't buy the Liberator crew
more good PR.  

>But let's not forget that Blake went looking for revolutionary
>opportunities. Avon was much less eager to make contact with potential
>allies. At the very least he'd have been much cautious at the 
>possibility of
>contacts hiding traps, and also inclined to ask what he would get from 
>other
>rebel's in return for his help.

Very good point.

Ellynne

___________________________________________________________________
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------------------------------

Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 01:04:13 EST
From: SupeStud00@aol.com
To: SupeStud00@aol.com, Ann_Reckner@hmco.com, blakes7@lysator.liu.se
Subject: Re: [B7L] any London fans interested in an evening out?
Message-ID: <10145516.37030c5d@aol.com>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit

If it involves gorgeous women, good food and great drink.....count me in.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 14:08:48 +0100
From: "Alison Page" <alison@alisonpage.demon.co.uk>
To: "space city" <space-city@world.std.com>,
        "lysator" <blakes7@lysator.liu.se>
Subject: [B7L] Paul Darrow interview - extract 2
Message-ID: <002d01be7c40$e7811460$ca8edec2@pre-installedco>
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

The last extract looked OK to me on lysator but not on space city. Calle
tells me the version he downloaded was full of odd characters even on
Lysator. So what the heck, I'm posting this to both lists again and if it
looks funny you'll either have to read past the squiggles or do a
copy-and-paste.

This lot is about Avon/Servalan, and sado-masochism (shameless promotion)

FWIW My comment on this is that there's some interesting stuff here but I
think he's quite wrong about the second Travis.

>>>

(MV - <something about, is there a relationship with Servalan?>)

Well she thinks there is. Ah� (laughter)

Yes, she was meant to be� er� Originally the character that was meant to be
the big baddy was this character called Travis, with a patch over one eye,
and he was played by a very close friend of mine called Stephen Greif. And I
was delighted when he got that part. I thought 'This is going to be great'.
And at the end of the first series Stephen got a movie, and they would�t
wait for 10 days for him to come back from this film. Well, it wasn�t their
fault, they had to shoot for our show and he was ten days over. But, they
had to choose, so they got another Travis to replace him, and that was a big
mistake. And it�s very unfair to ask an actor to play somebody else�s part
really, and continue it. They should have let him play it a different way.
So then they got a bit stuck.

So then they didn�t have a big baddy. So, Servalan, that�s how she became
the big baddy.

And� yes, there is an sort of attraction there because� Terry Nation, again,
said he liked the idea of the villain being a woman, and quite sexy. And the
�hard man� as it were, coming up against her, to see what happened. So, he
wrote this scene, and when the scene arrived there was no � er� love� in it
or anything. No kissing or anything like that.

But Jackie and I read the script and she said to me �What shall we do with
this scene?� because obviously we were kicking it around, and I said �Well,
maybe we could have a couple of � clinches, all this sort of thing� and she
said �Grrreat!�

(laughter)

And I said �Well, then I could throw you on the floor� and she said
�Wonderful!� (She�s into that sort of thing) �As long as I get a shot of the
tigress at bay�. And it sort of developed from there. We said to the
director we�d like to do it, and he had kittens, but then he said �OK fine,
we�ll do it� and it got a very good reaction from the public. So then we
decided then that we�d develop that, and I suppose there is the respect that
they have for each other. Though, I mean, she needs killing. I mean let�s
face it really. She�s a nasty piece of work. But so is he�

(MV - <something about, could he kill her?>)

Yes. Yes. Yes, I think he could. But I don�t know that she could he�
err�him. Is that grammatically correct? Mmm� She thought actually � and she
came up with this idea � she said that as I was developing this character,
and as I was becoming more and more shall we say �unpleasant (as somebody
said earlier on) why couldn�t he change sides? And then she said they�d have
Servalan and Avon up against the others.

And they�d be going �Orac, tell us�� and then they�d have to say �Wait a
minute, he programmed Orac!� So they�d be in all sorts of trouble. So�

Eventually Jacqueline suggested that Avon should change sides and go for
Blake. But then Blake left� so� that�s what eventually happened.


<big snip>

(FV � Would you yourself like to write scripts, or direct?)

I did write one actually. Ah� They rejected it. (laughter) They were very
polite. They said they thought it was very good, but it would be too
expensive. I was getting fed up with being stuck in a studio all the time,
so I wrote this by the seaside, and I had all sorts of lovely things
happening there.

I showed it to Jackie who plays Servalan, and she said �Oooh! It�s
wonderful!� (laughter) because she...  I was beaten up and covered in blood,
and sort of lying there, and she came in and kissed me, and all that sort of
thing. And she thought it was wonderful that she was covered in my blood.
She was a bit masochistic like that.


<<<


Alison

--------------------------------
End of blakes7-d Digest V99 Issue #120
**************************************