The Wild Cats of Piran – Image trailer

Yes, I know it’s been a while. Well, what do you expect? I’m Creator and Sole Writer of a new weekly series for AXN SciFi which goes to air in fairly short order across the Central European region. I’ve had my work cut out, writing scripts. We’re pretty confident it will roll out to other countries before too long, but in the meantime, I’m searching for a publisher for my children’s book, The Wild Cats of Piran; which, incidentally, would also make for, I think, an enchanting animated film.

This is the mood trailer for my book, The Wild Cats of Piran. They’re a colony of smart and generally courageous if also sometimes rather lazy feral cats that live in a small seaside town in Slovenia. Facing out onto the Adriatic Sea, Piran is a kind of miniature ‘Slovenian Venice’. It is a serene, almost forgotten place — at least in the eyes of most humans. Every day, the wild cats work the tables of the restaurants along the seafront promenade, hunting for scraps; and the pickings are rich. There’s one nasty, cat-hating Maitre’D to contend with, but the wild cats toy with him. Life is good in Piran.

In the animal realm, and in the sphere of the supernatural, things are rather different. No one needs be more aware of that than Felicia, who is the Queen of the wild cat colony. In the summer which our story begins, she is presented with a perfect storm of troubles, for there are strange forces at work in this genteel town. For one thing, Piran’s rats have become mysteriously evolved lately, and are mobilizing under their leader, the sinister ‘General Rat’. As well as the newly formed rat army, there is an Alsatian dog and worse, meddling and incompetent humans to deal with. There is a near death encounter with the local thug after which one of the gang is kidnapped. A vengeful Maitre’D with a meat cleaver is on the warpath. Even the relationship which the cats have with the town’s ghosts begins to change. In short, the life the wild cats know and cherish, and which Felicia has fought so hard to defend, is under threat from all sides.

Can Felicia hold her clan together, against all odds, or is their idyllic way of life doomed to extinction? The answers, some of them anyway, are in the first of three sets of nine tales bound to please literary cat lovers of all ages…

Midsummer Nights in Hungarian Shakespeare Country

Troilus & Cressida outdoors in a 15th century fortress, a carriage ride through the old town of Gyula, lunch at a 170 year old confectionary, a ride on an air boat (think CSI Miami) where the Black River meets the White, a tasting at a Palinka factory- A Report from the deep in the heart of Hungarian Shakespeare Country.

 

In the centre of Gyula you’ll find – indeed you can hardly miss it – an imposing gothic fortress, built as defence against the Turks. This is apparently the only purpose built brick fortress still standing in Central Europe. It’s a terrific setting for a Shakespearian theatre festival. Like many other great ideas it seems obvious – after somebody else thinks of it. Fortunately somebody did. The Shakespeare in Gyula festival is the brainchild of one József Gedeon, the Gyula Castle Theatre’s director. A large man with a winning manner and high hopes, his festival has grown each year since 2004, with theatrical troupes from all over the world now coming to Gyula to perform. This week a Lithuanian production of King John will have its world premiere and a troupe from South Korea will perform A Midsummer Night’s Dream!

The performance which we attended on Saturday night was the third show in a run of Troilus & Cressida. Now, Troilus & Cressida – this is not exactly one of Shakespeare’s better known or more accessible works. Yet the 300 plus seats inside the fortress theatre were almost full. My Shakespearian Hungarian isn’t accomplished enough to tell you how well the actors spoke the bard’s blank verse. But the physicality and daring of the production was plain to see. Actors scrambled up and down scaffolding, they stood on top of each other, and generally did everything they could to make the play more difficult for themselves – and more entertaining for us. They didn’t miss a beat.

Hungarians love their theatre. Indeed, while it’s only really in the corporate sector that anyone really dresses up to go to work, when it comes to a night at the theatre, you’ll see people dressed to the nines. I find this to be an enormously endearing characteristic, just like the bouquets and rosettes left every day by the statues and gravestones of composers and writers all over the country.

But the Gyula weekend wasn’t all Shakespeare and high culture, far from it.

Farewell, the city of yesterday

Hello all my tomorrows… Oh dear. I’ve been posting vacation snaps again on Facebook instead of writing in my blog. Naughty. To make good, my first travel story for a while.

‘The past is a foreign country’, famously observed genteel English author LP Hartley, ‘they do things differently there’. Well, this is a postcard from the so-called ‘city of yesterday’. It’s a town called Oradea, in Transylvania. Don’t be too hard on yourself if you haven’t heard of it. (Oradea I mean, not Transylvania.) This small city in North Western Transylvania is a repository of faded grandeur, which just happens to be just my favourite kind – of grandeur that is. Though not as well known as other Transylvanian towns such as Braşov, or Sighişoara, it has a baroque and art nouveau splendour all its own and an historic timeline teeming with incident; from the inspiring to the tragic. For inspiring, look to its role as a centre of humanism and the Renaissance in Central Europe, and the university originally built here in that time; for tragic, try the burning down of Oradea Fortress in the Tartar-Mongolian invasion of 1241 – described in the famous poem Carmen Miserabile. Nine hundred years later and the city’s Jewish population were all but annihilated in WWII. The remaining Jewish population is miniscule; as evident in the decrepit state of the synagogue.

There is however a significant Hungarian population in Oradea, and you can recognise the language being spoken on the streets. You can recognise it that is, if you know what geese choking on foie gras sounds like looped backwards. Romanian of course, is a curious tongue with its own peculiar charm; sounding like Italian spoken with a thick Russian accent. (Is there any other kind?)

Meanwhile back here in Hungary, there are nationalists who believe Oradea should be within Hungarian borders, as it was before WWI, for example.

A pack of Space Cadets

A treat for a Friday. My friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter may be a little frustrated by some of the video links on my posts. I’ve been inviting them to check out a series called Space Cadets which is currently playing on AXN SciFi across Central Europe. The various country websites, such as AXNSciFi in Hungary have been firewalled rather expertly, to prevent copyright. Which in general, is a conspectus I heartily endorse. But just this once, for friends in the UK, US, New Zealand and so on, a sample of what they’re missing.

By way of explanation, the animation in Space Cadets was originally known as Youri the Spaceman and was directed and produced in la belle France by Raoul and La Machine, respectively. I changed the series name to Space Cadets, scripted a commentary which I then voiced with my brother Craig and Voila! The rest is hysterical. We recorded the voiceovers in a place called The Farm, a post production facility on Soho Square in London. It’s the kind of place where you can order lunch – and a glass of Champagne if you like – off menus from the local restaurants. After two days of character voicework, the 26 episodes were done and dusted. Craig and I wandered over to Soho Square on a pleasant summer evening and had a couple of beers. I remember saying then, and it holds true still, that no matter what we did in our entertainment careers, it would be difficult to surpass the joy of being well paid for doing silly voiceovers for such wonderful animations in a posh London studio.  As a fan of shows like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Red Dwarf, I believe this series to be one of my finest hours. I do hope you’ll concur.

A Warrior Poet in the Age of Chivalry

Well, it’s Discop this week in Budapest, which may or may not mean anything to you. According to Wikipedia, this was “originally founded in 1991 started as an audiovisual television content market for Eastern Europe”. It’s certainly grown since then, and now rivals even Mipcom, another TV market with a not particularly alluring sounding name, that takes place every year in Cannes. Anyway, as well as everything else that’s going on – especially in the Third Dimension – I have a historical drama series in the hunt at this festival. It’s called Valint, and it is based on the life and times of a real life Hungarian bard and brawler, named Balint Balassi. Specifically, a smart and enterprising young Producer named David Timar is taking it to market. Here’s a taste:

VALINT

Valint, the famous Warrior Poet of Renaissance era Transylvania, goes on a life-long quest for glory and true love on the frontier land between warring empires. Romance and mystery follow this 16th century James Bond…

The Medieval Trip, (2nd Fragment)

So, this week is a big week in broadcasting, at least for your correspondent.

We’re expecting some decisions from household name broadcasters, about obtaining our infotaining (yes, intentional pormateau word) our informative and entertaining documentary ‘The Medieval Trip 3D’. I’d love to tell you who is taking a look at the special, it’s a roll call of household name broadcasters, something we owe in part to a great distribution agent. But in the interests of confidentiality, and also because I’m a superstitious sort and don’t wish to ‘jinx’ these transactions, no more in the way of specifics. At least not until blood, er I mean ink, dries on a contract.

You can take a look at an interview with Director Balazs Jekler, here.

And what you’ve all been waiting for, a sneak peek at the show. The opening title sequence of The Medieval Trip. The handsome, well built and altogether heroic chap undergoing Medieval deprivations, that’s a Hungarian by the name of Attila Muller. Attila is already world famous in Hungary – this show may well expand his horizons. The rotund fellow swanning about in a coat and doing bits to camera, is well, me. Enjoy.

We return now to our regular programme…

With a few differences. My apologies, loyal readers, for my absence. I simply have to get over the idea that every time I post, it has to be with an essay of Clive Jamesian perfection; somewhat lengthy (by standards of the internet), well argued, humorous and eloquent. I suppose that’s because for me, the greatest pleasure in the blogosphere, is coming across such writing. This doesn’t happen very often. And it may even be missing the point of what blogging is all about.

Certainly I haven’t abandoned my literary ambitions. I still seek a publisher for my children’s books The Wild Cats of Piran, and for my travelogue memoir, which I’m now thinking about calling ‘An Expensive Education’.

But. These works will have to wait until publishing deals are in place. At the moment, my focus is on the telly. A thing for “appearing on, not for looking at”, as Noel Coward put it. I wouldn’t go along with that necessarily, especially when you compare the state of television drama with the big, dumb loud and bombastic experience that seems to characterise most feature films these days. An overpriced run down the multiplex to watch Green Lantern or Transformers XVII. No thanks, I’ll stay at home with Boardwalk Empire. Or for that matter, reruns of I Claudius, Brideshead Revisited – or practically any BBC documentary with David Attenborough, Terry Jones or even that prickly old lush, Keith Floyd.

Perhaps also I’ve been getting up to on Facebook what I really should be doing here. Short, sharp and concentrated updates on my progress as a writer, producer, presenter and actor; along with plugs for people and places I think deserve it. If there’s one life lesson that has had to be drummed into me, it is that less is so often much more.

So, the Jet Set Hobo’s home in the blogosphere is being repurposed, rebooted somewhat. Do not adjust your internet.

This Town – Hollywood was never like this

Though I’ve shows in development and on the verge of being commissioned, they can’t all be winners. Here’s a series idea that didn’t quite make it with HBO Central Europe, but I still think has ‘legs’. Incidentally, if you’re confused by my last post it was essentially the same thing, but in Hungarian.

This Town is a drama series that takes place where the A-List meets the underworld in Budapest. The principle characters are Hungarian, American, British, Chinese; from anywhere and everywhere, a reflection of modern day Central Europe. Some are the so-called beautiful people of Budapest, the high flyers and the wannabes.

This Town – Hollywood sosem volt ilyen

A ’This Town’ (“A Város”) egy Budapesten játszódó dráma sorozat, amelyben a budapesti felső osztály és az alvilág találkozik. A főszereplők – a mai modern Közép-Európának tükröt tartva – magyar, amerikai, brit és kínai származású karakterek a világ minden részéről. Van közöttük Budapest ún. jól öltözötteiből, a gyorsan meggazdagodottakból és a wannabe-kből egyaránt. És vannak, akik a társadalom margójára szorulva kábítószer kereskedelemmel, pornográfiával, vagy bármi mással foglalkoznak, ha a boldoguláshoz éppen az kell. Minden egyes szereplő kikerülhetetlen, valós figura, megragadó történettel. Bohóckodásuk felháborítja és elbűvöli majd a nézőket.

A The New York Times-tól, a Variety-ig mindenhol erről beszélnek: Budapest egy kis, Duna-parti Hollywooddá kezdi kinőni magát. Kegyetlen, kicsi „világ-a-világban”-ná, amelynek egyik fő idegközpontja a Central Casting szereplőválogató ügynöksége. A Central Casting vezetője az egygyermekes, elvált Anikó, aki bizonyos értelemben a sorozat központi alakja.

The Medieval Trip, (1st fragment)

Yes. It’s been a while, but then Time as we understand it is mostly an artificial construct.  While we have in the last century or so arguably gained some understanding of both Matter and Space, it seems to me we still know rather too little about the other two legs of the table, which I take anyway to be Time …and Luck. (Prove me wrong if you can.)

My qualifications to comment on the Nature of Luck, we’ll have to discuss in another post – but while we’re still on the subject of  Time, how do The Dark Ages grab you? Well, bear with me for it was only a few days ago I clambered out of my Time Machine from a stint in the Medieval Era. But I hope to be back soon. I refer of course to the 3DTV pilot The Medieval Trip, which I’ve been working on, off and on, since March.

Filmed on location in Hungary: quite possibly the most medieval country in the world, and I say that with no disrespect intended.

In The Medieval Trip, a very fine Hungarian bloke named Attila Muller is plunged back into a reconstructed Medieval Hungary where he has to find food and shelter, learn to fight and hunt and connive his way out of serfdom…