Friday, 16 January 2009
Brendan: Sad news. The Prisoner was my favourite TV series. I remember seeing some of it when it was first broadcast in the 60's, I was about 11 years old. It took ages to repeat it too, about 10 years or so... That was in the days before VHS recording, so it became a kind of weird memory of a TV show as time went by and in my young mind, different to what was actually shown.
Naturally, I became a member of 'Six of One' and made the pilgrimage to Portmerion.
I wonder if any of you remember the REBOOT TV series I created the visuals for? There was an episode that paid homage to The Prisoner: "Number 7"
Also, when I was working on Mad Max 4, I met Mel Gibson, about 4 years ago. The first thing I asked him was what happened to his production of The Prisoner movie, in which he was going to play the McGoohan role, nearly 20 years ago (See him in Peter Weir's The Year of Living Dangerously to get a feel of how good he might have been). The movie didn't happen, for whatever reason, but he liked McGoohan as a person after spending some time with him, and so cast him as Edward Longshanks in Braveheart.
I worked briefly on a movie version of The Prisoner a few years back. I wasn't in love with the script and had some serious objections to it, so they 'let me go'! Rightly, I suppose...
I even did a short "Punk-Prisoner" comic strip in my punk fanzine, Electrick Hoax, about 30 years back, in which Patrick McGoohan meets Johnny Rotten! Maybe I can dig it up from somewhere.
What a great and wonderful TV series!
Good luck to you Mr McGoohan, wherever you may be - you have escaped from the Ultimate Village!
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2 comments:
Sad news indeed.
I always loved your Mcgoohan ship illo. Can't remember where it was from, maybe one of your super illustrated interviews.
Yeah, very said news about Patrick, but he left a magnificent legacy.
I caught maybe 1 or 2 episodes of The Prisoner the second time around on ITV, well after my bedtime when I was around 11.
It made such an impact on me, that I had recurring dreams about it and still do.
That opening sequence is so visceral with strong visuals and awesome sound effects and music, that I was hooked from then on.
I didn't know much about the series and tried to draw the opening sequence as a comic strip and I remember asking Garry Leach years later, who was my studio manager, if he knew much about it, but I did such a piss-poor description or maybe just sounded like a mad teen that I had to wait for Channel 4 to finally show them again to get any satisfaction.
Another thing Brendan, your illustration for 'McGoohan 7' haunts me also, in a funny way since I first saw it in ARK (or was it FA?), cause every once in a while it pops into my head, maybe when I see some reference to McGoohan or the Prisoner or maybe when I see large foreheads (I'm cracked!). Did you insert subliminals into that one? :) One of my favourites.
BTW. I'd love to see that strip you mentioned.
McGoohan is one of the greats. He was an actor who really mastered his art and brought high intellect and emotional integrity to even the most innocuous roles.
All my best,
Derek
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