Entertainment For Lively Minds
It's like a prison camp in here...
Posted by Metal Mickey on 26 October 2010 - 1:57pm.
Members of The Massive of a certain age will be delighted that the classic 70's BBC drama "Colditz" begins a long-awaited repeat run on the Yesterday channel (Freeview 12) at 10.00 pm tonight and each weeknight thereafter (and it's repeated 3 times each day after in case you forget!)
Unseen for many years, it's come up here before in the "Why isn't that on DVD?" threads, and one presumes some rights issues have suddenly disappeared, because it's also coming out on DVD on 15th November.
It was certainly required viewing when I was at school and I'm looking forward to seeing these again, though I'm bracing myself for mild disappointment... anyone else tuning in?
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I set the box
for series record last night when I saw a trailer during TOTP2. I am surprised at how excited I am.
Achoo!
The only thing I can rember about this is that Christopher Neame's character had the most snotty cold anyone had ever portrayed on TV up to that point, but I can't remember if he got rid of it before the series ended.
Thats me Dad's Christmas present sorted
and like all great Xmas presents - i can borrow it when he's done with it. And he can throw away the UK Gold repeats from the 90's I taped for him
series linked and ready to go
loved this as a kid even got the boardgame for christmas anyone else still hoarding the wirecutters
brilliant casting....
... was there ever more perfect casting than Hans Meyer as Hauptmann Ulmann ?
Monopoly ? Pah !
..and prepare for it all by dusting off that box from the attic.
We all had a set, didn't we ? (What ? No...?)
Now then, all I need now is 50 foot of rope, and hope the other guy doesn't have the Shoot To Kill card.
I call "APPEL"
It's time for a Roll Call, everyone muster, out of your tunnels ...
I still have my copy of the game.
Query
is that the original box ?.I thought this was the Original box circa 74/75 (see Below) Is there a new Version ? Me too ,eHM. I'm playing my talisman card (A four leaf clover).
JAMES MAY
James featured this game in one of his TV programmes. IIRC there was always a problem with deciding who'd be The Germans and THE SLIGHT PROBLEM THAT IT WAS INCOMPREHENSIBLE. OOPS
Mr Mandy concurs
One mention of Escape from Colditz and he was off, rollcalling, reminiscing about the rope and complaining about the size of the pieces (and the incomprehensibility of the game).
More interesting was the fact that his friend who's half German admitted during the World Cup that he had inherited a board game from an uncle with a slighty different angle - Bombers Uber England ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6955249.stm
You can probably guess that the Humax is set to series record in the Mandy household (and both of us are pathetically excited at the prospect).
And when a German says
"Good luck" make sure you're not with Dickie Attenborough.
Gert and Daisy send their best to all in Stalag Colditz
Oooh fab
Can't wait. I loved it! Philip Maddoc as a Nazi Officer! I went to the Colditz exhibition at the Imperial War Museum with my Dad. Thrilling. That glider!
Vot is yor name boy?
Don't tell him, Twang!
Ruth Madoc as a Nazi officer?
Are you sure you're not thinking of the classic sitcom, Heil de Heil?
Oh, no, wait... I see I've read that wrong. As you were.
Wasn't there the officer who faked insanity
to get repatriated, and then actually did become insane because of the way he isolated himself? I don't know if this was based on reality, but it seemed to take the story away from basically jolly pranks against the Gerries, into a scarier world, which suggested what things might have been like. It's certainly the only part that has stuck in my mind. (Apart from one of the Men From Uncle being in it.)
I'm sure you're right
That definitely rings a bell, and I can't recall any other story lines. This really gave my 10-year-old self a chilling feel.
No Spoilerz!!
I'm still waiting to see if the bomb goes off in Threads
There was indeed
The part was played by the late Michael Bryant.
It was a riveting episode and the first (only) one that sprang to mind at the mention of Colditz.
It was a very powerful episode
I caused a minor sensation at the time as the first sign of his "madness" was him urinating himself on parade. The tabloids thought it in bad taste.
That was the only episode of Colditz I ever saw.
Superb. I remember it to this day.
All I Remember Is The Ending
But don't worry I won't give it away
You vill tell us.
Ve haf vays of making you talk.
We used to call it Cold Tits
Thought we were hilarious
Similarly Spoofed on ISIRTA
(I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again)many years ago: -
'We present Ice Cubes Down The Cleavage, or....The Colditz Saga'
It's not about WW2
Colditz was really a thinly disguised portrayal of what it was like to be trapped in Britain in the 1970s.
As Tim Brooke-Taylor said..
Based on an original idea by Sir Billy Butlin...
Late to the Party
Ack. I've always wanted to see this. If only I'd seen this thread yesterday. No matter, I've set the recorder for tonight's episode, and will do my best to try and keep up with it.
I do have fond memories of the aforementioned board game whilst growing up. Can't imagine a games company would get away with putting a swastika on the box nowadays, mind.
Quick! Set your recorder for 5.00 pm!
Episode 1 is repeated at 5.00 tonight, hope you see this in time!
There is always
although the genuine stuff is here
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-476361/German-children-played-Bo...
Watched last two episodes....
Both are scene setters introducing us to "Pat Grant" and "Simon Carter" played by Edward Hardwicke and David McCallum respectively.
Both are portrayed as thoroughly nasty boys to the boche who will insist on tying to escape. Both episodes end almost identically, with the culprits up before the harsh but fair commandant of their current camp after another failed escape attempt, to be told they are being sent to "Sonderlage 4C - Colditz, from whence there i(st) no escape!!" Den, Den Den.....
McCallum seems to be affecting a slight Lancashire accent that I can't remember from the later episodes. Perhaps he thought better of it. Also a joy to see the cream of British character actors from the 80/90's in minor roles as almost juvenile leads. "Taggart" McManus played a keen as mustard young subaltern in the Hardwicke episode.
Generally it still wears well, although the liberal switching between German and English for the Germans does undermine the "fourth wall" a bit.
The subject matter may seem ancient history now, but at the time of first broadcast (1973) it was still a very real memory for many of those watching - I remember it being required viewing for my dad on Sunday evenings and wo betide any childlike noisemakers. Strange to think it was only as far away in time for them then as the Falkands is for us now.
I thought it had aged badly
Like everything I've rewatched from my youth, it had aged badly. See also Do Not Adjust Your Set, Ace Of Wands, early Dr Who etc etc.
I was intrigued when they had their hair shorn off on arrival and within a minute, without a by your leave or "six months later" it had completely grown back. Very interesting, but stupid, as someone once said.
I though that was quite an elegant device
to express the fact that, though this was a brief TV drama we were watching, in the men's lives some considerable time had passed since their de-lousing on arrival. It also served to illustrate the likely state they would have been in after their capture and a long march through the German countryside; filthy and smelly and infested. Surely an on-screen caption, the time-lapse leaves-on-the-trees cliche, or some clumsy narrative exposition, would be far more intrusive?
Punishment
It hadn't occurred to me that it was de-lousing... I thought the Germans were just being nasty!
As for the passing of time, each to his own. I'm used to being spoon fed with the likes of "Two weeks earlier" "Six months later" "1997" "A week on Friday" etc but then I've watched too much Flash Forward.
I'm looking forward to going back in time 1 hour tonight. I'll be holding up a caption "One hour earlier" for the GLW.