BS: BBC and J. K. Rowling (Br. Museum)

Subject: RE: BS: BBC and J. K. Rowling (Br. Museum)
From: ChrisJBrady
Date: 12 Apr 18 - 03:00 PM

Harry Potter: A History of Magic

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09d5n6b/harry-potter-a-history-of-magic
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09d5n6b

It is 20 years since JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone first cast its spell on readers across the globe. But Rowling's fantastical creation wasn't entirely make-believe.

In the run-up to the exhibition Harry Potter: A History of Magic, JK Rowling ventures behind the scenes of the British Library, revealing the real-life counterparts to her fantastical world. From shrieking mandrakes and Elizabethan invisibility spells to the mystery of ancient Chinese oracle bones and the real life search for the Philosopher's Stone, it is the start of a warm, playful and inventive journey round some of the most magical places in the land - from wizarding wandmakers in the English forest to the beguiling witchcraft of Boscastle, Cornwall.

The film features readings by actors from the Harry Potter films, including David Thewlis, Evanna Lynch, Warwick Davis, Miriam Margolyes and Mark Williams, while Rowling's illustrator Jim Kay illuminates her imaginary world. Narrated by Imelda Staunton. Less

Credits
Role                        Contributor
Narrator                Imelda Staunton
Executive Producer        Janet Lee
Director                Jude Ho

Subject: RE: BS: BBC and J. K. Rowling (Br. Museum)
From: robomatic
Date: 12 Apr 18 - 02:48 PM

So do the wand makers refer to any good wand polishers? The BBC cover that?

Subject: RE: BS: BBC and J. K. Rowling (Br. Museum)
From: keberoxu
Date: 12 Apr 18 - 12:49 PM

AAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNDDD here they ARE, if this link will work!

BBC clip

I think it's very amusing AAArrrrrggghhhhh the link WILL NOT work.
I managed to search my way there somehow...

They are wandmakers Dusty Miller XIII and Dusty Miller XIV. Elfin, they said?

Subject: RE: BS: BBC and J. K. Rowling (Br. Museum)
From: keberoxu
Date: 12 Apr 18 - 12:38 PM

So I looked this up online today, and feel a little foolish.
Like the whole world knew about this except for me,
and I'm the last to know.

The subject of that BBC special broadcast on united-states network TV last night
was a British Library exhibition which
opened October 2017 and has since closed.
Here's an article.

"We've never known anything like it at the British Library"

Now Google has links regarding the same exhibition.

Harry Potter links at Google Arts and Culture

I still wish, however, that I could look up
that elderly father-son wand-maker pair.
"Why can't you do it at lunch or something?"
"Trees don't have lunch."

If I find them again,
you all shall be the first to know...

Subject: RE: BS: BBC and J. K. Rowling (Br. Museum)
From: meself
Date: 11 Apr 18 - 11:06 PM

I suspect that that was not the first time father and son exchanged those particular remarks ... !

Subject: and a British Library exhibit
From: keberoxu
Date: 11 Apr 18 - 10:01 PM

Just this moment finished watching television
(staying someplace away from home, which unlike my home
has a television and a computer)
and there was a BBC documentary of
a Harry Potter exhibition featuring the British Library.
It might have been ninety minutes long;
it lasted longer with the commercial advertisements.
Broadcast locally on the CW network.

J. K. Rowling played herself, as it were. On camera, beautifully made up, hair just so.
Some of her own things were in the exhibit, drawings she had made or
drafts from her old typewriter.

Actors like Miriam Margulies (no, I spelled that wrong surely)
David Thewlis, recognizable faces and voices.
Not Gary Oldman nor Ralph Fiennes however.
Nor the used-to-be-children actors.
I'm pretty sure the lady who played Luna Lovegood was in there.
They all performed excerpts straight from Rowling's book texts.

Librarians, curators, scholars, custodians ...
the Ethiopian fellow spoke excellent English.
He found an ancient Ethiopian Defense Against The Dark Arts tome
with really cool illustrations in black and red ink with staring eyes.

The ones I could not understand
were a father and son who were descendants from a long line
of wand makers, intimately acquainted with native trees.
What part of England they live in, they must have said, it escaped me.
As did much of what they said, the local accent was so strong.
I could have done with subtitles.
They explained for whom wands have been required to be made,
and I TOTALLY lost that, could not understand their speech.
But I did understand:
...."you have to do --- at dawn.
I've never understood that.
Why can't you do it at lunch or something?" grouses the white-haired son.
His wizened father retorts, "Trees don't have lunch."

Thoroughly G-rated, suitable for the whole family,
charming soundtrack with celesta and pizzicato strings,
and the occasional bassoon solo.
I loved it. But not the commercial breaks
which were genuinely interrupting --
this program was not structured for frequent commercial breaks.