BS: The Lost Prince:Good news for the US

Subject: BS: The Lost Prince:Good news for the US
From: jimlad
Date: 28 Jan 03 - 12:07 PM

I have just read in todays newspaper that the BBC has sold a programme called The Lost Prince to the US TV neyworks. It has been received here with the highest praise I have ever known for a docu/drama.It Is about Prince John, King George V's youngest son who because of epilepsy and learning difficulties,was shut away by his family until he died aged 13 in 1919.There is much more than this brief precis can cover,but watch it!!.

Subject: RE: BS: The Lost Prince:Good news for the US
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 28 Jan 03 - 12:15 PM

My children, (Charotte 14yrs and Joe 9yrs) and I really enjoyed it and we all sobbed at the end. Best thing on a Sunday on the BBC for ages.

Sal

Subject: RE: BS: The Lost Prince:Good news for the US
From: NicoleC
Date: 28 Jan 03 - 12:20 PM

Sounds good. I hope it didn't end up on the International History Channel -- we can't get that here. The only History Channel we get here covers nothing but US fighter planes and navies. Maybe PBS picked it up.

Subject: RE: BS: The Lost Prince:Good news for the US
From: vectis
Date: 28 Jan 03 - 03:42 PM

A story well told. Liked it loads.
Mary

Subject: RE: BS: The Lost Prince:Good news for the US
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 29 Jan 03 - 06:25 AM

BBC at its best. No wonder Channel 4 is trying to have its funding cut.

Subject: RE: BS: The Lost Prince:Good news for the US
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Jan 03 - 07:00 AM

And I noticed yesterday in Sainsburys that the videos and DVDs are already out - so anyone who missed it or cannot get it has no excuse:-)

Cheers

Dave the lost Gnome

Subject: RE: BS: The Lost Prince:Good news for the US
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Jan 03 - 11:17 AM

I had a look, and they do actually include the boy in the Roiyal Famil Treehttp://www.royal.gov.uk/files/pdf/windsortree.pdf Just name and dates.

Incidentally his elder brother "Georgie" who figures prominently and sympathetically in the film was to be the Duke of Kent, killed in a military plane crash in the Second World War.

Subject: RE: BS: The Lost Prince:Good news for the US
From: Mudlark
Date: 29 Jan 03 - 01:44 PM

My English friend raved about this...looks like maybe US will get it as a movie, slightly re-edited for time. So we'll be able to see it on the big screen (and they are very big these days...the screens, that is). Watch for it in a theater(re) near you!

Subject: RE: BS: The Lost Prince:Good news for the US
From: Penny S.
Date: 29 Jan 03 - 03:05 PM

It's a stunning piece - I've just been watching the second half again. The actor who takes the part of the prince has given him very convincing mannerisms, like those of a boy with Asperger's I have taught. And has a most entrancing smile.
If his problem was autistic spectrum disorder, the play made clear that there were hints of odd obsessive behaviours among others in the family. Makes one look at the current bunch with new eyes.
He was lucky, though - they had the resources to push him off into an isolated cottage with friendly retainers. With the doctors' advice the family were given, a commoner would have ended up institutionalised in one of the great blocky asylums somewhere in the country.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: The Lost Prince:Good news for the US
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Jan 03 - 03:29 PM

The irony is that these days the birth of a child like that, at the heart of the Royal Family, would be seen as a life preserver, which could do more than anything else to save the monarchy. (Whether they would realise that is another matter.)

Subject: RE: BS: The Lost Prince:Good news for the US
From: jimlad
Date: 29 Jan 03 - 03:39 PM

McG

Our current lot are too thick to realise.I hope they wouldn't anyway.Lets hope they stay on the self-destruction path they are on.

The programme showed that dysfunctionality is not a new trait for the Windsors.
If we must have another Monarch lets hope it's William,tho' he might have been programmed by now.

Subject: RE: BS: The Lost Prince:Good news for the US
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Jan 03 - 03:57 PM

Why is being "too thick" considered to be a bad thing in Royalty?

The film was a fantasy of course - a fantasy set in history - but, in the context of the film, the young prince was presented as being the one with by far the most royal presence, style and grace.

"Disfunctional" - actually I'm not sure I know any families that aren't "disfunctional" when you really get down to it. And that is not meant as a criticism of families as institutions. But the truth is just about everyone is what someone else would consider crazy, in our own way.

Subject: RE: BS: The Lost Prince:Good news for the US
From: Penny S.
Date: 29 Jan 03 - 03:59 PM

Actually, I started feeling sorry for them - it makes a third strand of negative genes that we know about - there was a program the other night reviewing the porphyria and haemophilia inheritance. One of my colleagues who's been on a course about special needs said that the tutor had pointed out features of Charles that fit some syndrome or other. Another communication problem, I understand. They can't help being the product of all that inbreeding, and they have been avoiding that situation recently.
It did occur to me that being a royal family is quite a good condition for ASD sufferers. Rigid conformity and timetables, no disorder, everything done in the way that makes for the comfort of the sufferer. It could explain the insistence on peculiar and apparently irrational behaviours being imposed on the staff. If it wasn't them, they would have been identified some time back as having something wrong with them. And imagine being a more normal person, with instincts that lead you to want to do things spontaneously, creatively, to choose to do things without obsessive patterning of your day, trapped in that life?

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: The Lost Prince:Good news for the US
From: Penny S.
Date: 29 Jan 03 - 04:43 PM

Just been watching David Attenborough on macaque monkeys. Boy, does that status rubbish go back a long way! One "highborn" female was actually taking food from the cheek pouches of a lower status female - who would apparently be beaten up by others in the troop if she did not comply. Bang goes my autist hypothesis for autocrats.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: The Lost Prince:Good news for the US
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Jan 03 - 09:20 PM

I saw that too. And the highborn one even had a snooty expression on her face. I was waiting for the other one to bite her, but she knew better than that. Still kept her teeth shut though, which was something.

I suspect that kind of thing is cultural rather than genetically conditioned, and that in other places you'd have macaque colonies that aren't like that at all. I wonder if macaques have revolutions?

Now that was a great bit of thread drifting, Penny.

Subject: RE: BS: The Lost Prince:Good news for the US
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Jan 03 - 04:26 AM

The fate of Georgie who would have been Duke of Kent reminded me that one of the (few?) endearing features of our Royalty is that they have maintained the tradition of their offspring taking their chances in war, most recently Prince Andrew in the Falklands.
Would that it were true of our political leadership. Things might be done differently.
Keith.

Subject: RE: BS: The Lost Prince:Good news for the US
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 30 Jan 03 - 06:15 AM

Joining in the apparent thread drift, David Attenborough is another reason to give thanks for the BBC.

Last night's programme on mammals gave interesting glimpses of insight into the human condition too, including group dynamics.   Poor little Georgie's environment could hardly even be described as a family.

I have often described the group dynamics of the organisation that I work in as those of a troop of baboons, and the programme only reinforced that conviction. I reckon the next programme is not to be missed as it deals with the primates who rule the world (Hail to the Chimp?).

By the way, US Catters, your turn will come, as the BBC series on mammals is co-produced by the Discovery Channel. Don't miss it.

Subject: RE: BS: The Lost Prince:Good news for the US
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Jan 03 - 03:54 PM

Well here's cartoonist Steve Bell's take on the Primates who Rule the World.