ITV used to broadcast Clapperboard, a film magazine programme aimed at children and introduced by Chris Kelly. As I remember it, it was better than most film programmes for adults.
One item I remember in particular is a report from the set of the 1973 Peter Sellers film The Optimists of Nine Elms that featured him playing the ukulele, though I don't think the clip they showed is the the one above.
My reason for writing about the film tonight is that I've come across a really good podcast about it. It's an episode of Goon Pod, a podcast devoted to the Goon Show and the solo careers of the four original goons.
The blurb for it says:
Between 1970 and 1975 Peter Sellers made films which mostly fell flat commercially, and some of which didn't even get released, but there was the odd little gem and The Optimists of Nine Elms, directed by Anthony Simmons and based on his novel, is perhaps one of Sellers' most personal films.
The task of embodying Sam, a washed-up old music hall entertainer, prompted Sellers to channel both his father and his great hero Dan Leno and look back to his youth, trailing around theatre after theatre with his parents, soaking up the patter and the hoary old routines, the songs and the stagecraft.
There is also a rawness to the film, as in the scene above where the actors perform in front of a real throng of Fulham supporters.
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As you have probably gathered by now, I'm a Mike Brearley fanboy. He spent the summer doing the rounds of podcasts talking about his new book Turning Over Pebbles, and the best interview I have heard from that tour is the one with Gideon Haigh on Cricket, Et Cetera.
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