P. L. Travers and Walt Disney Farther to my recent thoughts on biopics, over Christmas we recorded Saving Mr Banks and watched it a few nights ago. As most of you probably know (spoiler alert!) this tells the story of Walt Disney’s attempts to get P.L.Travers’s agreement to let him film Mary Poppins despite her … Continue reading Believing Mr Banks: a lesson in how to link fiction and history
In a recent blog post I looked at how cinema’s love for the bio-pic allows for a certain massaging of history. This month I’m thinking of the dangers of dabbling at all in the borders of fact and fiction. First of all, there’s the fracas over Netflix’s next series of The Crown, slated for depicting … Continue reading The Crown and The Lost King: the cost of playing fast and loose with ‘history’
Sometimes a book just jumps out at you, and this is how it was when I spotted The Edinburgh Skating Club in this photo on Twitter. Edinburgh, history, art! All things very close to my heart since writing In the Blink of an Eye. Then there were the references, not just to the iconic portrait … Continue reading The Edinburgh Skating Club #art #history #Edinburgh @michlsloan
Previously published at justwritebristol.org.uk Let’s be clear, I’m a very intermittent cinema goer and I was never a big Elvis fan, but sometimes its good to get out and so I went last week to Baz Luhrmann’s biopic which I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed. It also made me think what a popular film … Continue reading Elvis rocks back to life: comparing a good film to a good read
‘This is a private house …’ says a small but noticeable addition to the doorbell of 17 Heriot Row in Edinburgh, the home for many years of writer Robert Louis Stevenson, his parents and their small entourage of servants. Thanks to the hospitality of current resident John Mcfie and his family, a private house, albeit … Continue reading A private house, not a museum: visiting the Edinburgh home of Robert Louis Stevenson
Ali Bacon / Books and Other Things 