It has taken me the better part of six years to find the audio for this program, and last night I finally did. On Christmas Eve 2014, BBC Radio 2 broadcast All Is Calm, a program on the Christmas Truce of 1914, narrated by Sir John Hurt. Hurt, while in treatment for pancreatic cancer, participated … Continue reading The Christmas Truce of 1914
Tag: John Hurt
Yesterday afternoon, my buddy Julio Angel Ortiz quote-tweeted this to his Twitter timeline: I thought about it for a moment or three, and one scene came to mind: I ran out of characters while typing that, hence some brutal edits that resulted in the double “and” I noticed five seconds after hitting “Tweet.” The longer … Continue reading Contact
With 2017 drawing to a close and 2018 about to begin, I decided to take a look back at 2016 and spotlight the best (or most significant) blog post of each month. John Hurt, a Reminisence – Sir John Hurt died, aged 77, of pancreatic cancer. I can’t say that what I wrote was profound, … Continue reading On the Year That Was, 2017
In the mid-90s I bought an audiobook read by John Hurt. The book was Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I found the cassette one day at Big Lots, along with some others (Ian Fleming’s “The Living Daylights,” read by Anthony Valentine; Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the … Continue reading John Hurt, a Reminisence
I have finished War and Peace. The BBC audio drama, that is, not the novel. Which I have read; I read it in high school a long time ago. It was a bit flat. No, more than a bit. It was a lot flat. A decade after Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, the Rostov family and … Continue reading War and Peace
A few months ago, BBC Books announced George Mann’s Engines of War, a hardcover Doctor Who novel that starred John Hurt’s Doctor, seen in the 50th-anniversary special, “The Day of the Doctor,” during the Time War. The Great Time War has raged for centuries, ravaging the universe. Scores of human colony planets are now overrun … Continue reading Doctor Who: Engines of War
Two quick things. First, the more I see of Matt Smith and David Tennant together, the more I really wish the “two Doctors” series idea Matt pitched to Steven Moffat had come to pass. They have such brilliant chemistry together. They’re both goofy, but in entirely different (and complementary) ways. And second, I would really … Continue reading Two Doctor Who Thoughts
Years ago, a little more than a decade now, EB Games put me and thirty-odd other managers through a pilot management training program. Our instructor was a man by the name of Harry Friedman. He had created a sales management training program, and EB wanted to see if it would work for the company. I … Continue reading Thoughts on “The Day of the Doctor”
Over on TrekBBS, there was some discussion last night and today about John Hurt’s tenure as the Doctor. A poster by the handle of Newspaper Taxi kicked it off: I don’t really see a lot of people talk about the Hurt serials that ran from ’01 to ’05. I really felt that the show took … Continue reading Appreciating John Hurt’s Tenure as The Doctor
The news has broken on casting for November’s Doctor Who anniversary special — in addition to John Hurt, the special will also guest star David Tennant and Billie Piper. Fandom, naturally, is sharply divided. There is wailing that there’s no Eccleston from the new series. Classic Doctor Who fans are wailing that the pre-new series … Continue reading On Doctor Who Casting News
For some reason I do vocal impressions. Kermit the Frog. George Harrison. John Hurt. No, I have no idea why anyone would ever want, or need, a vocal impression of John Hurt, but if you got the skills… 😆 While driving home from work yesterday evening something on NPR had me thinking of, of all … Continue reading On Someone Who Should Play the Doctor