When it comes to television mysteries, I generally prefer Sherlock Holmes or Inspector Morse, Numbers or Bones. But every once in a while I get in the mood to watch a cozy mystery. Nothing heavy, just a cuddle-up-with-a-cocoa kind of show. Tonight I opted for “Rosemary and Thyme.” It’s a little light fare featuring a pair of gardeners (Felicity Kendal and Pam Ferris) who travel around England taking on tough horticultural challenges and stumbling across murder wherever they go. It strikes me as something of a British “Murder, She Wrote.” But this post isn’t really about my taste in mysteries.
One of the most entertaining things about watching a lot of British television & movies is the constancy of the actors. By “constancy” I mean they are always the same. For instance, as I was watching “Rosemary and Thyme” tonight, I recognized Laura Thyme (Pam Ferris) as The Trunchbull from “Matilda.” She also played Aunt Marge in “Harry Potter,” and more recently Sister Evangelina in “Call the Midwife.” As I was mentally roaming through her resume, I realized I had to look her up on IMDB. There I discovered she had played Grace Poole in a 2006 mini-series of Jane Eyre which I happen to own, and that she appeared in a production of “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.” I didn’t realize that Bronte novel had been made into a mini-series. Something I’ll have to check out.
If it were a long holiday, my family and I may have indulged in a game we like to play. We link together a series of movies and/or TV shows based on commonalities such as actors or locations. A simple version would be to watch Pam Ferris movies. Usually we don’t focus on one actor, however. What’s the fun in that? We like to make weird connections, so we might watch
- Pam Ferris in “Harry Potter,” then jump to an episode of
- “Cracker,” starring Robbie Coltrane who plays Hagrid in HP. After that we might follow
- Barbara Flynn (who plays Judith Fitzgerald) to “Cranford” where she plays Mrs. Jamieson alongside
- Dame Judi Dench as Miss Matty Jenkins who might lead us to an episode of “As Time Goes By” which, of course, would lead to
- Dr. Who, where we can watch Geoffrey Palmer, Judi/Jean’s lover Lionel, as Captain Hardaker.
And there, I suppose, we’d have to end because everyone knows all roads lead to Dr. Who. This game can go on for days. Usually we don’t have the leisure to actually watch this much tv, so we’ll just make the connections verbally. It’s still fun. We also play with the limitation of only using what we have available on Netflix and in our dvd collection. And when we get stuck on the “I know I’ve seen that person in something else,” we resort to IMDB.
I know there is a name for this type of game, but I cannot remember what it is and it’s driving me crazy! If any of you, dear readers, know it, would you please jog my memory?
The Open-Faced Sandwich 