Up it popped
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01jv1yr/Nina_Conti_A_Ventriloquists_Story_Her_Masters_Voice/
Nina Conti - she's funny I thought, I will enjoy that. so I watched A Ventriloquists Story. Which turned out to be the most emotional and disturbing thing I have seen for a very long time. I can't stop thinking about it and I have to watch it again because I can't decide whether she was acting or not - watch it and you will see what I mean. It's billed as a documentary. And it seems like a documentary. Nina is taking her late mentor (and lover) Ken Campbell's ventriloquist puppets to Vent Haven ( a refuge for bereaved puppets).
I cannot describe it, the Radio Times Review by Jack Seale did a much better job...
A Ventriloquist's Story said profound things about the power of the performer's relationship with fictional characters. A bewilderingly beautiful sequence saw Conti take Gertrude Stein, a puppet of Campbell's which Conti voiced as a gentle surrogate grandmother, swimming in the hotel pool at night. The long-awaited visit to Vent Haven presented the bereaved dolls alongside photographs of their human partners in happier times, confirming that these puppets, these imaginary friends, these comfort blankets meant as much as any living companion.
Check it out if you can bear it. You won't be disappointed.
Sadly, we cannot access it from here in Australia. I would have loved to have watched the programme.
ReplyDeleteI do think the BBC are missing a treat here. There is a vast English speaking world out there, many of whom would happily pay a 'license fee' in order to watch the iplayer. I wish I could suggest some way of your accessing it but alas I know of none (legal that is).
DeleteThere is something called "Hide my Ass" that you can subscribe to - it makes the technology think that you live in the U.K. and you can get all the tv programmes - check it out ladies !
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