With thanks to Andy Bogen for the scans
You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view it. Acrobat Reader is free software that lets you view and print Adobe PDF files.
| Who Pays the Ferryman? |
| Radio Times Publicity |
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With thanks to Andy Bogen for the scans |
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You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view it. Acrobat Reader is free software that lets you view and print Adobe PDF files. |
| Michael Bird was not one to stand on the sidelines while any of his creations were being produced. As evidenced by this extract from a letter he sent to Ferryman's producer Bill Slater in September 1977, Bird even turned his hand to writing the little blurb that appeared in Radio Times as a teaser for each week's episode. | |||
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I gave a lot of thought to this and finally decided that this was the best and most novel way of interesting the viewers. It's almost impossible to give a taste of our episodes conventionally without revealing too much of the plot and, anyway, I prefer this style to, say: "Alan Haldane returns to Crete to discover, in the present, more than a memory of the past." as the lead into Episode One for instance. I hope you agree, both with the style and the dialogue extracts I've chosen. |
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Presumably Slater did not agree since, apart from the last episode, none of Bird's suggestions (reproduced below) were used. |
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Episode 1
"So tell me. Did you find anything?""Only the memory. Ghosts." "They are always with us" Or
"Holiday?""Stocktaking. For a week or two". "Where are you going?" "Back." |
Episode 2
"Everyone in Vraskas knows why Pavil Makridakis is coming down from the mountains of Sfakia. He is coming to kill the Englishman."
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Episode 3
"It could be that if I sneeze he catches cold. And if I spit, he drowns."Or
"We were lovers. Were! Past tense.""Oh, really! And the present indicative?" |
Episode 4
"But this is the twentieth century.""Yes. But even now, in parts of Crete, the vendetta is still a reality." |
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Episode 5
"One of the sicknesses of Europe.
And the carriers of that sickness arrive here every day by air and by sea.
And even we Cretans are not immune to infection."
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Episode 6
"And he's my man! The only one who's ever made me truly feel like a woman. What you saw this morning doesn't change that. Just complicates things, that's all. For both of us."
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Episode 7
"But to kill the Englishman!""The last resort. We agreed that. But now you do not have the stomach for it, Matheos Noukakis. Is that it?" |
Episode 8
"But in a lifetime every act, among the seeds we sow is the seed of tragedy. And tragedy is a plant which can take many years to grow. And even longer to blossom and bear its bitter fruit."
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| Michael J Bird Tribute Website |
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