Welcome to the Angus Donald website
Angus Donald is the author of a new series of books about the legendary outlaw Robin Hood. His first two books, Outlaw (published in the UK by Sphere in July 2009) and Holy Warrior (July 2010) are available from all good bookstores and online retailers.
Read on for more information on the books, as well as Angus’s historical notes on the stories and his news and blog posts.
Oliver Stone, Colin Farrell and The Mousetrap
I used to work for The Times newspaper, which was quite a good rag for a while but, naturally, it has totally gone downhill since I left two and a half years ago to do my Robin Hood thing. But I remember one competition that the paper ran in T2 back in the day which was inspired. It was called “World’s shortest reviews” or “Micro-reviews” or something similar.
One of the entries that stuck in my mind was a review of the 2004 film Alexander, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Colin Farrell. You might expect it to be a real humdinger of a movie with one of the world’s greatest conquerers as its subject and those two illustrious movie names attached; actually it was pretty much “meh”. The Times’ micro-review summed it up in three words. It said:
Alexander: not great
Anyway, I went to see The Mousetrap in the West End with my beautiful 18-year-old god-daughter Bina last night, and I’d like to offer my own micro-review of the show.
The Mousetrap: cheesy
Don’t worry, I’m not going to give away who dunnit – although it is pretty easy to guess. (I knew for sure by the beginning of Act 2 who the murderer was.) But to be honest, I was a bit disappointed by the simplicity of the play, by its lack of depth. And I thought the acting, particularly by some of the younger cast members was distinctly am-dram.
I went to see it because I had been told that it had been running for 58 years – and so it must be good, I thought, to keep pulling in the punters year after year. But boy did it show its age. In a world where every second TV show is a murder mystery, we are all used to watching something and trying to guess who the villain is. Usually, to hold our jaded attentions, TV-makers add layer upon layer of twists and turns, surprises and shocks. The Mousetrap had only one: the identity of the murderer.
But I did think it was interesting to go back to the source of all those TV and film murder stories: Agatha Christie. She was the original suspense writer (OK and Arthur Conan Doyle) but she was the woman who refined the art of mis-directing the viewers, planting red herrings and delivering a surprise ending. And for that I salute her. If audiences are more sophisticated now than in her day: well, that’s not exactly her fault. Actually it’s an achievement – she created a whole genre, practically an industry.
So it wasn’t a totally wasted evening: I felt as if I were watching archive footage of Charlie Chaplin – something preserved in time from an earlier, simpler time – you can see the Tramp constructing his famous comedic moments, building physical gags, but you don’t really expect a belly laugh. It’s fascinating rather than funny. The same with Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap: it was interesting rather than intriguing.
Plus, I had a great time hanging out with and talking to Bina.
PS If anyone has any micro-reviews they want to share, please go ahead. I love them.
It’s not bloody better to travel hopefully . . .
Is it just me? Have I missed the memo on this? Or has everyone who gets on TV sworn a secret oath to describe making a television programme as a f*cking JOURNEY. If so, it really, really bugs me.
Whiny girl’s voice: “Oh, choosing my blind date in a crap show about single people has been such a JOURNEY.”
Minor celeb on Who Do You Think You Are: “Finding out that my ancestors were actually people who worked in a dress shop and didn’t have all that much money has been such a JOURNEY.”
Tweedy don with a massive chin: “Reading these original medieval texts, standing in fields and talking to camera about people who’ve been dead for 1,000 years has been such a JOURNEY”.
And by the way, mate, it’s pronounced “Known”, only one syllable, not “Kno-wen” – yes, Professor Bartlett, I’m talking to you!
(Deep breath)
OK, I guess the popular idiom of the day reflects the culture we live in. We travel a lot nowadays. We didn’t use to in the past. Research has sho-wen – damn, I’m doing it now – that in 1971 only 6.7 million Brits took holiday trips abroad; in 2008, we took 69 million trips; more than a tenfold increase. Travelling has got a helluva lot cheaper, so we do it more. In the 1950s a two-week summer package cost £35 – which was then one fifth of the average national income. Today the national income is £25,000 – would you pay £5,000 for two boozy weeks on the Costa del Sol?
I have to admit, here and now, that I got the above figures from Popbitch, so I’m not saying that I stand by them to the death, but you get the idea.
In the High Middle Ages, most peasants lived and died without moving more than ten miles from the village they were born in. People did travel, but there was no concept of travelling for a holiday. You went on a pilgrimage. If you were sick or unhappy or had committed some major sin – you went on a pilgrimage. That was it in terms of wandering around in foreign countries for 90 per cent of the population.
Travelling was a nightmare in the Middle Ages: it was long and boring and uncomfortable; you risked being robbed by unscrupulous people, you had no idea where you were most of the time. Hang on a second! Has anyone flown on a budget airline recently? The point is, it was tough getting about the world then, and you did it for the good of your soul – not to get pissed out of your mind and laid by half a dozen mingers in Malia.
Not saying it was better then. I would have hated living in the Middle Ages – no decent coffee for a start, a little too much Black Death for my liking. All I want is for people to stop calling the antics that they do in front of a camera for loads of cash a bloody JOURNEY. If you must, call it a pilgrimage: it has much nicer connotations.
Posh woman whose trips to a private doctor have been televised: ‘Oh yes, discovering that I, and all my family, have genital warts has been such a PILGRIMAGE!’
OK, maybe not. But while I’m on the subject of irritation modern verbal idiom, I wish people would stop talking about their bloody PASSION for things. Drinking tea is my PASSION! Cooking is my PASSION. Smoking crack mixed with heroin is my PASSION. Actually, what you mean is that you are quite fond of these things . . .
Anyway, enough ranting. Probably time I went to bed. Night-night. It’s been a real JOURNEY!
Weird sales patterns and Simon Amstel
This is a bit weird: I’ve just looked at Amazon.co.uk – OK I admit it, I do that quite a lot; it’s a bit addictive when paying your mortgage depends upon the results – and Outlaw, which was published last year, is selling more than Holy Warrior, published last week. At time of writing Book 1 was 1,294 in the sales ranking, and Book 2 was 1,848. Something odd is going on. Are people ignoring Holy Warrior and ordering Outlaw instead? Why?
On a totally unconnected note: I watched Grandma’s House yesterday, which I’d recorded on Sky Plus. For those of you who don’t know, this is a new sitcom vehicle for Simon Amstel, erstwhile presenter of Never Mind the Buzzcocks. I thought Simon was brilliant on that show but this sitcom was dire. It’s about a presenter of a show pretty much the same as Buzzcocks who quits to do something meaningful with his life. Basically Simon playing (with?) himself.
“I could be an actor,” Simon’s character (called Simon) says. His mum replies scathingly: “You can’t act!”
Never was a truer word written in a TV script. While Simon was great at taking the piss out of popstars, the boy really cannot act to save his life. Between pouting and smirking, he looked, almost all the time, whatever line he was delivering, as if he was about to start giggling. For God’s sake, go back to Buzzcocks, Simon, or stand-up comedy or something, and leave acting to the professionals. You’re just embarrassing yourself.
