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Kes
Dubwise
The
Ayup boys are all in a tiz about the new DVD
of Kes, Ken Loach's classic 1968 film set in
the Yorkshire coalfields.
Rumour
has it the they've re-dubbed the voices so that
cloth-eared southerners can figure out what's
going on. Got some voice-over people to screw
with the broad Yorkshire.
No-ones
got their hands on a copy this DVD to check
that this has actually happened, so it's all
a bit of a storm in a teacup.
But
if they've really done this, the insult to all
of us is pretty big. I mean do we speak some
incomprehensible language or something? Is the
dialect perfectly acceptable to the Joint Matriculation
Board, who stick the book that the film is based
on in the A Level Syllabus every other year.
But not to the corporate filmheads who own the
rights to Kes these days.
It's
not as if the film world is entirely unused
to a South Yorkshire accent on celluloid. Brassed
Off and The Full Monty (despite both featuring
Scots actors - Ewan McGregor and Robert Carlisle)
are both pretty authentic, and made shedloads
of dosh internationally.
So
why do we have to put up with a big corporation
screwing with one of the finest films ever set
in Yorkshire?
I'm
going to reserve judgment until I've seen the
darned thing - packaged up by MGM Home Video,
who presumably inherited the rights to the film
from United Artists. U.A., the American company
who funded Loach's masterpiece originally, only
to be totally baffled by the results must have
been tempted to monkey with the voices at the
time, so why wait thirty years to mess with
it?.
That
the film has made it to DVD at all is a minor
miracle, though how they've padded it out with
outakes, and 'extra material' gawd knows. I
do hope we aren't going to find a load of outtakes
of Dai Bradley nicking the wrong library books,
or Jud camping it up in the pit showers or something.
Word
is that the people who put together the DVD
omitted to put emphasis on Brian Glover's star
turn (and the funniest part of the movie) as
the games teacher - depriving us of skipping
to a classic UK film moment, but that's probably
because they spottedColin "The British
are coming!" Welland on the cast list and
thought we'd be more interested the chubby Lanky
feller instead of one of Yorkshire's legends
in full flight.
As
for dubbing out the Yorkshire accent, well if
this is true, then MGM need a serious talking
to. You just can't insult an entire county by
treating us like illiterates. If Barry Hines'
book can find its way on to the schooldesks
of a nation, surely a filmic masterpiece can
get re-released without the Yorkshire accent
being dubbed by some posh actor.
Ayup's
on the case, folks, and the lads promise to
get to the bottom of this..
B
Selland
Road
So
Leeds Untied choose to flog one of their best
young players instead of their increasingly
unimpressive Aussie superstars and their car
salesman manager. Hmm. The way things are going
I reckon Sheffield United will be the top team
in Yorkshire by this time next year. I'm off
down to Ladbrokes to check out the odds...
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