People I was always a bit disappointed that Brian Blessed wasn't physically going to be in that film. He's such a presence and it would have meant he could have updated the story he always tells on chatshows about forgetting there are special effects in 'Flash Gordon' ('And I gave out a great WHOOSH!'). And I miss the laugh. 'The Lady' magazine interviews the big man as he steps onto the stage in 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang':
"I always loved nature and spent hours exploring the Gam, a stream which flowed across seven fields between Wakefield and the moors. The wildlife was magical. I remember there being millions of newts - pink, white, beige, pale blue, great crested. To me it was Shangri-La. All this has been destroyed, flattened, used as a dumping-site." As his face registers the pain of this vandalism, his voice amplifies as if in a Shakespearean tragedy: "It's gone. It's dead. We are the guardians of this planet and we must act responsibly to ensure its future."
You can almost here him holloring through the screen ...

No comments: