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The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾

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  • The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾

    When I first got my hands on The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ (Adrian Mole's age not mine - I was eleven) I read the line 'Barry Kent trod on my head in the scrum' repeatedly, with tears of laughter clouding my eyes. When I got the book back out again (aged thirty plusalittlebitmore...) that sentence just makes me smile now rather than giggle hysterically, but the book definitely stands the test of time and is still highly amusing. Adrian Albert Mole worries. About the state of the world, the state of his parents' marriage, the state of his skin and other teenage-body-related matters and the state of his love life. The only place he can let all these anxieties out is in his diary; a journal containing his innermost thoughts and fears. And poetry. Let's not forget his poetry. He regularly sends verse to the BBC in the hope they will recognise his talent. This is an example of his talent:'The Tap.The tap drips and keeps me awake, In the morning there will be a lake.For the want of a washer the carpet will spoil,Then for another my father will toil.My father could snuff it while he is at work,Dad, fit a washer don't be a berk!'Moving on. There is something vulnerable about Adrian; he's been lumped with a thin skin plus an over-analytical mind as well as a bad haircut and unfashionable clothes. In his eyes he is a sensitive and mature writer; an intellectual unfortunately surrounded by philistines who don't understand him. In the readers' eyes, of course, he is a precocious, childish hypochondriac but the book is written so beautifully that you are often able to look past the adolescent navel-gazing and angst, and feel the genuine teenage heartbreak beneath. (Saturday January 31st: 'It is nearly February and I have nobody to send a Valentine's Day Card to.')He has a wonderful ability to over-dramatise, in the way that only an inwardly-looking adolescent can. In his second entry, on the first page of the book he writes: 'I felt rotten today. It's my mother's fault for singing 'My Way' at two o'clock in the morning at the top of the stairs. Just my luck to have a mother like her. There is a chance my parents could be alcoholics. Next year I could be in a children's home.' To be fair, his parents do sound pretty awful...father George is not exactly a man bursting with vitality. Or employment. And mother Pauline is having an affair with next door neighbour 'Ratfink Lucas'. The dog is, quite frankly, a liability. Adrian doesn't seem to have all that much in common with best friend Nigel, and his new relationship with Bert Baxter - a revoltingly unhygienic pensioner - and his Alsatian Sabre is going to take some working at. School bully Barry Kent menaces him for money and his headmaster is a psychopath. The one beacon of light in Adrian's life is new girl Pandora Louise Elizabeth Braithwaite, a beautiful 'treacle-haired' fourteen year old who Adrian decides to fall in love with when he sits next to her in Geography class. Pandora is intellectually superior to him, very political (she goes on to become one of 'Blair's Babes' in the Labour government) and, sadly for Adrian, going out with Nigel. Thankfully this doesn't last for too long and shortly after they break up Pandora and Adrian become a couple. At the end of the book Adrian reveals that he has just begun to commit 'non-sexual adultery with Barbara (Boyer - a new addition to Adrian and Pandora's radical group 'The Pink Brigade').' He swears Nigel to secrecy, only to have Nigel 'blab it all over the school' and Pandora break up with him. There is a glimmer of hope however; the day after his fifteenth birthday Adrian accidentally glues his nose to a model aeroplane and has to endure the embarrassment of being laughed at by the staff in A&E. Crushed, he rings Pandora and she agrees to come round to see him. As we turn the final page we're left wondering whether she has forgiven him for the Boyer episode? Adrian's diary was published in 1982. He was created by Sue Townsend, an author and playwright who writes both fiction and non-fiction. The story is set during 1981 and '82, and part of its humour comes from not only Adrian's anxieties over his own life, but also the ill-informed views he assuredly holds on real-life events, such as the Royal Wedding, the Falklands conflict, and the reign of Margaret Thatcher.Mole's story was quickly continued in The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole with further updates on his tragi-comic life coming in Adrian Mole from Minor to Major (1991); Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years (1993); Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years (1999); Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction (2004); The Lost Diaries of Adrian mole 1991 - 2001 (2008) and Adrian Mole: The Prostate Years (2009). In 1985 the first series of the television adaptation of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ went out. It's rare that a character that you've taken to your heart in print can be played on the screen without disappointment, but in Gian Sammarco the casting crew found as close to Adrian Mole as they could ever get. He took on Adrian's characteristics with ease, and his voice as narrator allowed you to believe that he really was the nerdy teenager. In fact, most of the casting was pretty spot on, with Stephen Moore (the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Felicity Kendal's cheating boyfriend in Solo, and for an extra trivia point he is also step-brother to S'Express music maker Mark Moore...) playing Adrian's dad, and Julie Walters his mum. Everybody's favourite dotty relative Beryl Reid took on the role of George's mum and the other two notable pensioners in Adrian's story, the disgusting Bert Baxter and his wife Queenie, were played by Bill Fraser (Hancock's Half Hour, The Army Game, Ripping Yarns) and Doris Hare (theatre, film and television actress who memorably turned down the role of Ena Sharples in Coronation Street). Lindsey Stagg stepped into Pandora's indomitable shoes, pulling off her intellectual dominance over Adrian with ease.The series was given an extra dose of cool by its theme music, the very eighties 'Profoundly in Love With Pandora' (of whom more later) written by Ian Dury and Chaz Jankel (guitarist, keyboardist and song writer in Dury's band The Blockheads), and sung by Dury himself. (Sing along everybody...'My mother's heart and soul have gone halfway up the pole, my father's on the dole....') It was released in October 1985, but it didn't make much of an impact on the singles chart, reaching only number 45. Whilst the fashions and references to culture and world events may have dated, the trials and tribulations that Adrian Mole face will still seem relevant to today's teenagers: parents, romance, bad skin and wayward dogs.

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  • #2
    Re: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾

    I received the Sue Townsend book from a friend for my birthday when I was 14 - I wonder whether she was trying to tell me something?

    Regarding the TV series, I know it was on Monday nights sandwiched between Coronation Street and World in Action in September and October 1985, and it was a good series as well even if it was a big too old for someone like myself. I was a bit surprised that it got a pre-watershed slot considering Mole's adult humour which is explored in more detail in Townsend's books. The series was set in 1981 (hence the Charles and Diana Royal Wedding mentions, and also the Falklands mentions in the second series) but not shown until 1985, and I believe that it was set in Leicester where Townsend grew up - the liberal feel of the comedy drama as well as the Midlands setting made it feel like a Central rather than a Thames programme.

    It did have a reasonable star cast, and a scantily clad Su Elliot was one of them. Stephen Moore played his Conservative father. Who would have thought that Julie Walters and Lulu could become the same person? And Beryl Reid had plenty of get up and go (no pun intended) playing his grandmother. No coincidence that 2nd April was Mole's birthday as it was Townsend's birthday as well.

    I think that the highlights are Pandora of course as a traditional stereotypical schoolgirl most of the time; the red socks scenario (instead of black socks, or even Pandora's white "Nicole Franklin" ones), and also Mole painting his bedroom black, but using several coats because of the Noddy wallpaper characters kept showing through. They did a Christmas themed one, although it was shown as part of the regular series - cue the protagonist trying to sing "Silent Night" at Bert Baxter's old people's home. There were a lot of satire creeping into the series, in particular, Mole was an anti-Thatcher sub-Guardian supporter unlike his father, and would have preferred Michael Foot setting foot (if you excuse the pun) into number 10 - someone drawing a moustache on Thatcher's picture owned by Headmaster RG Scruton - a Hitler stereotype.

    Growing Pains aka the second series was shown in early 1987, which would have been set in 1982, and it was a long way before the Cappuccino Years and series like that which to me feels like it is not connected to the original, mostly by virtue of the fact that it was shown on the BBC. A repeat of the Secret Diary on Tuesday evenings in April and May 1989 made me assume that a third series of that was made, but it was a repeat of the 1985 series. I believe that UK Gold may have shown it a few times as well. The Secret Diary was the original and the best. I suppose that The Grimleys was a bit like a late 1990s equivalent of that?

    Ian Dury of the Blockheads fame did sing the theme tune - I heard it on Radio Trent back in 1988 during their one of their "Music Jam" hours and not ever heard it played on the radio since. Gian Sammarco (whose name sounds like a brand of pizza) kept in the limelight for a few more years after Mole co-hosting Saturday morning ITV series, while Lindsey Stagg thought that acting wasn't her thing and gave it up soon afterwards.

    The episodes were on YT a few months ago at least, but I hope that one of the Gold channels would show it again to the new generations.
    I've everything I need to keep me satisfied
    There's nothing you can do to make me change my mind
    I'm having so much fun
    My lucky number's one
    Ah! Oh! Ah! Oh!

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾

      WOULD LOVE TO SEE IT ON TALKING PICTURES TV AS THEY DO LOTS OF OLD STUFF.


      YES IT WAS A SHOW I WATCHED ALL THE TIME WHEN IT WAS ON.

      AND DID ENJOY IT VERY MUCH.
      JUST NOTICED 2ND SERIES WAS CALLED THE GROWING PAINS OF ADRIAN MOLE FROM 1987.

      EPISODES IN THE LINK

      https://youtu.be/vslGvxu6Rao



      Originally posted by George 1978 View Post
      I received the Sue Townsend book from a friend for my birthday when I was 14 - I wonder whether she was trying to tell me something?

      Regarding the TV series, I know it was on Monday nights sandwiched between Coronation Street and World in Action in September and October 1985, and it was a good series as well even if it was a big too old for someone like myself. I was a bit surprised that it got a pre-watershed slot considering Mole's adult humour which is explored in more detail in Townsend's books. The series was set in 1981 (hence the Charles and Diana Royal Wedding mentions, and also the Falklands mentions in the second series) but not shown until 1985, and I believe that it was set in Leicester where Townsend grew up - the liberal feel of the comedy drama as well as the Midlands setting made it feel like a Central rather than a Thames programme.

      It did have a reasonable star cast, and a scantily clad Su Elliot was one of them. Stephen Moore played his Conservative father. Who would have thought that Julie Walters and Lulu could become the same person? And Beryl Reid had plenty of get up and go (no pun intended) playing his grandmother. No coincidence that 2nd April was Mole's birthday as it was Townsend's birthday as well.

      I think that the highlights are Pandora of course as a traditional stereotypical schoolgirl most of the time; the red socks scenario (instead of black socks, or even Pandora's white "Nicole Franklin" ones), and also Mole painting his bedroom black, but using several coats because of the Noddy wallpaper characters kept showing through. They did a Christmas themed one, although it was shown as part of the regular series - cue the protagonist trying to sing "Silent Night" at Bert Baxter's old people's home. There were a lot of satire creeping into the series, in particular, Mole was an anti-Thatcher sub-Guardian supporter unlike his father, and would have preferred Michael Foot setting foot (if you excuse the pun) into number 10 - someone drawing a moustache on Thatcher's picture owned by Headmaster RG Scruton - a Hitler stereotype.

      Growing Pains aka the second series was shown in early 1987, which would have been set in 1982, and it was a long way before the Cappuccino Years and series like that which to me feels like it is not connected to the original, mostly by virtue of the fact that it was shown on the BBC. A repeat of the Secret Diary on Tuesday evenings in April and May 1989 made me assume that a third series of that was made, but it was a repeat of the 1985 series. I believe that UK Gold may have shown it a few times as well. The Secret Diary was the original and the best. I suppose that The Grimleys was a bit like a late 1990s equivalent of that?

      Ian Dury of the Blockheads fame did sing the theme tune - I heard it on Radio Trent back in 1988 during their one of their "Music Jam" hours and not ever heard it played on the radio since. Gian Sammarco (whose name sounds like a brand of pizza) kept in the limelight for a few more years after Mole co-hosting Saturday morning ITV series, while Lindsey Stagg thought that acting wasn't her thing and gave it up soon afterwards.

      The episodes were on YT a few months ago at least, but I hope that one of the Gold channels would show it again to the new generations.
      FOR THE HONOUR OF GRAYSKULL

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾

        The scenes when Adrian accidentality glues a model Spitfire to his nose had my Dad laughing his head off.
        The Trickster On The Roof

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Richard1978 View Post
          Re: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾

          The scenes when Adrian accidentality glues a model Spitfire to his nose had my Dad laughing his head off.
          And the nurse writes "glue sniffer" in his medical records.
          I've everything I need to keep me satisfied
          There's nothing you can do to make me change my mind
          I'm having so much fun
          My lucky number's one
          Ah! Oh! Ah! Oh!

          Comment

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