Electric Sheep podcast: Living in Harmony with Ian Rakoff

Electric Sheep podcast: Living in Harmony with Ian Rakoff

Patrick McGoohan filming Living in Harmony / Ian Rakoff at Comica 2003

Patrick McGoohan filming Living in Harmony / Ian Rakoff at Comica 2003

To coincide with the 42nd anniversary of the broadcast of the episode he wrote the original script for, Alex Fitch talks to writer, editor and raconteur Ian Rakoff about his experiences working on The Prisoner and being an observer of British Film culture in the 1970s and beyond. Alex and Ian talk about the bowdlerisation of his script for ‘Living in Harmony’, the latter’s experiences with Lindsay Anderson on such films as If…. and O lucky man!, working with Nicolas Roeg, Stephen Frears and John Boorman and his lifetime interest in comic books.

For more info about the variety of formats you can download this podcast in / stream, please visit www.archive.org

Links: (Limited) info about Ian Rakoff at www.imdb.com
Interview with Ian at www.paulgravett.com
Info about the Victoria and Albert Museum‘s comic book collections
Buy The Prisoner on blu-ray from Network DVD
Buy Ian’s book Inside the “Prisoner”: Radical Television and Film in the 1960s from amazon.co.uk
Last month’s appreciation of The Prisoner at wired.com

Listen to / watch Alex’s interview with Malcolm McDowell and Mike Kaplan about working with Lindsay Anderson
Photo credits – Ian Rakoff courtesy of “Jinty” and Patrick McGoohan courtesy of www.amctv.com

For info on the latest issue of Electric Sheep magazine, please click here / read Prisoner inspired rock group Do not forsake me oh my darling‘s list of favourite films in Electric Sheep Magazine online

In association with
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Encyclopodia – V – Paul de Vree

26 interviews by William English

Paul de Vree, recordings by the Belgian sound poet.

Encyclopodia. 26 interviews, 1 for each letter of the alphabet, on and around the subject of books, intended to accompany the London Art Book Fair 2009 at the Whitechapel Art Gallery.
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Encyclopodia – U – Lawrence Upton

26 interviews by William English

Lawrence Upton, sound poet and collaborator with Bob Cobbing for many
years.

Encyclopodia. 26 interviews, 1 for each letter of the alphabet, on and around the subject of books, intended to accompany the London Art Book Fair 2009 at the Whitechapel Art Gallery.
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Encyclopodia – T – Tim Byers

26 interviews by William English

Tim Byers from Sims Reed Rare Books describes valuable artist’s books
by Richard Long and Matisse.

Encyclopodia. 26 interviews, 1 for each letter of the alphabet, on and around the subject of books, intended to accompany the London Art Book Fair 2009 at the Whitechapel Art Gallery.
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Encyclopodia – S – Gerry Smith

26 interviews by William English

Seekers of Lice interviewed and Gerry Smith.

Encyclopodia. 26 interviews, 1 for each letter of the alphabet, on and around the subject of books, intended to accompany the London Art Book Fair 2009 at the Whitechapel Art Gallery.
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Encyclopodia – R – Ron Heisler

26 interviews by William English

Ron Heisler and his collection of 30,000 political pamphlets donated to
Senate House Library.

Encyclopodia. 26 interviews, 1 for each letter of the alphabet, on and around the subject of books, intended to accompany the London Art Book Fair 2009 at the Whitechapel Art Gallery.
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Encyclopodia – Q – Quot

26 interviews by William English

Quot: Extract from an artist’s book by Seekers of Lice.

Encyclopodia. 26 interviews, 1 for each letter of the alphabet, on and around the subject of books, intended to accompany the London Art Book Fair 2009 at the Whitechapel Art Gallery.
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Reality Check: Christmas ghosts and skeletons with Ray Harryhausen and Michael Punter

Reality Check: Christmas ghosts and skeletons with Ray Harryhausen and Michael Punter

Ray Harryhausen makes a monster while Julian Rhind-Tutt and Pamela Miles have a ghostly encounter in Darker Shores. Ray Harryhausen photo courtesy of Hulton Archive / Getty Images. Darker Shore photo courtesy of Hampstead Theatre.

Ray Harryhausen makes a monster while Julian Rhind-Tutt and Pamela Miles have a ghostly encounter in Darker Shores

Alex Fitch talks to two creators of excellent Christmas entertainment. Oscar winning animator Ray Harryhausen has long been associated with Bank Holiday TV programming and Christmas wouldn’t be the same without an appearance of Jason and the Argonauts or Sinbad facing off mythological creatures. Elsewhere, the Hampstead Theatre in Swiss Cottage is the home of Michael Punter’s ‘Darker Shores’, a new play in the style of M.R. James’ Ghost stories for Christmas, which stars Julian Rhind-Tutt as a spiritualist escaping the traumas of the American Civil War. Alex talks to Ray about his career and meeting a new generation of fans at the launch of his coffee-table book “Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life” and to Michael about using stage magic and cathartic laughter to haunt theatre-goers in the gentility of West London.

For more info, please visit the home of this podcast at Sci-Fi London (originally broadcast in an edited form as an episode of I’m ready for my close-up on Resonance 104.4 FM).

Links: Info about Darker Shores at The Hampstead Theatre
Review of the play in the Camden New Journal
Aurum Press website, publishers of Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life
Ray’s official website
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Encyclopodia – P – Peter Gidal

26 interviews by William English

Peter Gidal (Index Books) on the anxiety of lost books.

Encyclopodia. 26 interviews, 1 for each letter of the alphabet, on and around the subject of books, intended to accompany the London Art Book Fair 2009 at the Whitechapel Art Gallery.
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Hooting Yard: With My Fife and my Drum

With my fife and my drum I wandered in the hills. I tooted my fife and I banged my drum. This was why I was wandering in the hills, for I had been banished from town. My tooting and banging unnerved the good burghers, and the bad burghers too, and I was escorted to the town perimeter and shoved across the line. It was an actual line, painted in whitewash, and regularly repainted wherever it lost integrity through scuffing by bootsoles and the like. I was told plainly, by way of an edict, that I could never again toot my fife or bang my drum within the town, due to the unnervement I caused. I accepted this, and wandered up into the hills.

This episode was recorded on the 7th May 2009. A complete transcript of this episode can be found on Frank Key’s Hooting Yard website. Accompanying Hooting Yard On The Air, the four publications We Were Puny, They Were Vapid, Gravitas, Punctilio, Rectitude & Pippy Bags, Unspeakable Desolation Pouring Down From The Stars and Befuddled By Cormorants are available for purchase.

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