But none upset me more than the death of writer and Activist, Sir Terry Pratchett, A writer who's works had reached into all medias, TV, Radio, Theatre Adaptions, Even a Video Game, Being a small few of authors to have his works transcend to that accolade, in his lifetime.
And while he was a versatile Writer, Writing books for Adults and children, It's his 39 (including his last this Christmas) series that forever resonates with lovers of fantasy: Discworld
The Discworld is actually that, A flat 2-dimensional world held up by 4 elephants standing on the back of a turtle swimming around the sun (taking nods from Malay Creation Myths)
Because of this, this world is not our own, at least not entirely, as the stories are also satirical in nature,this is a world of wizards, witches, dragons and medieval city states, but one where wizards are lazy academics, the witches are the Women's Institute, Dragons are no more than exotic pets and the city states' affairs are ran by guilds, Patricians, and the important things ran by steampunk and magitek machinery.
Today's story is a 6 parter based on Terry's 6th novel, an animated one-shot made by Cosgrove Hall (they of Badly Animated/ and recycled frames of Dangermouse and Gruesome Tales) is an adaption of the continuing adventures of the Witches of Lancre, Granny (Esme) Weatherwax, Nanny (Giltha ) Ogg, and Margat Garlick who are trusted into political intrigue when King Verence is killed by his brother Felmet on the behest (ok nagging!) of his wife, when a royal messenger dies giving the 3 a surprise delivery: a baby wearing a crown! So it's a sideways look at the works of Shakespeare and of the words he used and of theatre traditions.
So Now Let Pratchettober Commence! This is Wyrd Sisters
We start with the opening Which is a beautifully 3D Rendered Turtle, I have to say this much about Cosgrove Hall, their 3d stuff always looked better than their 2d stuff. and that theme! What an Ear-gasm!
Sadly this goes straight to hell as Cosgrove Hall's famously bad missing frame animation kicks in, the Constant close-up of these grotesque looking characters and the frame speed is just the worst. it gets better after 15 minutes!
To the Story itself, It's a starless night under a full moon in the country of Lancre, Terry's version of Oop Norf ov IngLand, as evident by the accents of Granny and Nanny, they are stirring a cauldron as witches do, but it's filled with tea, Magrat hands out scones, with a bat design.
" I made'em mesel'! I've even used currants fer eyes!"
Now that's how great Sir Terry was as a writer. anyone can make the Mundane Awesome, but a true talent can make the Awesome Mundane, here are witches that are making tea, baking, look after grandchildren, using laundry items for spells and are still credible as witches!
But the coven's quiet cuppa is interrupted by the arrival of a dying messenger who hands a baby over to the trio, Back at the Castle King Verence meets Death. He tells the now former king that he is a ghost which means his afterlife has become complicated.
Back at the Witches, they are accosted by Felmet's men, but Granny uses a spell to make one kill the other, he flees when he realises what he done. They wonder why the guards want the boy, when something metal falls to the grass, answering Ogg's Question: a crown!
Back at the castle, Lord Felmet is half listening to his domineering wife. Verence learns he is not the only ghost as he meets Champot, A headless ghost, Verence Pines for food, But Champot only tells him that's just his memory. It's here that the ghosts losing their heads and eavesdropping only become Funny Background Events of this series.
At Nanny Ogg's, Granny Weatherwax holds the crown as it sends a psychic message of a promise of wealth and glory, Nanny resists but Magrat is still a trainee, given her age. A passing comment on how crowns don't look like the one that Travel Acting Troupes use, Gives Esme an idea to where the baby can be save.
Back at Lancre Castle, the surviving Guard tells Felmet that Witches have the child, Felmet sends more to capture them, In the scullery as Verence cries for all the meat thrown out on command of the slight-built Felment, The cook asks a fool a question. When he answers it correctly, he shoots him a look making the Fool spout gibberish
Watching the play in town, Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax think it's real!
After the show Granny meets Vitollier, Master of this troupe and explains the situation, she then bribes him and "tom-jon" is adopted. at the same time Magrat hides the crown in a prop-box, where she is goosed and cat-called by an actor, causing her to run off embarrassed. Nanny celebrated the adoption by quaffing ale and singing bawdy songs
"a wizard's wand/is 4 foot long!/and it's got/A KNOB AT THE END!
Magrat decides to give him a magical fairy godmother gift to the boy, and the others agree, Magrat, Nanny, and Granny bless the child with Charisma, Memory and Sense of Self, respectively, with Granny avoiding arrest at the time, Felmet asks the guard if he was seduced by the witch and gets more descriptive and red-faced describing the scene...Only for the guard to tell him "er... no,sir, she gave me a cup of tea!" Lady Felmet takes the fool to one side and asks him to tell her everything about the Witches thus ending episode 1
Episode 2 starts at Nanny's house, with the 2 senior witches telling Magrat off for wanting to draw runes.
"Oi wish yer wouldn't! Our Chell spent 'ours tryin' to scrub out them whatsnames outta me carpet!"
They all tell terrible stories about Felmet. About Raising taxes, burning villages and the forest, but the straw that broke the camels back is he expects witches to pay taxes!
The witches are a source of great paranoia to the House of Felmet, whose ramblings and nightmares have woke the entire castle. Lady Felmet asks the Fool to explain what she has learned. The Jester explains that witches have one weakness: Words! Certain words have certain power behind them, As evidenced by the the way Granny casts spells by commanding it with orders, but negative words about witches draw their power.
This is a major part of how magic words in Discword, Magic is the unending cycle of Belief and Miracle, a lot of people rely on the witches, thus making them strong.This was also the major plot device of Hogfather, where a voodoo curse killed the belief of most of the children in their Santa figure and the void of belief gives birth to a new slew of demigods and fairy folk.
Also not getting a sound sleep is Granny, but she has a terrible feeling using her Mircosoft studio filter, I mean second sense she recognises what's present and doesn't like it. Evoking a Camp Demon, he tells the trio that the land of Lancre has awoken, it seeks to find a king that will care for it. and while Lancre cannot react with earthquakes and landslides it extends it's influence to the now orphaned forest animals to pester the witches, At Vitoliers Caravan, a now 3-year-old Tomjon, not only says his 1st words but his 1st piece of prose, Nanny's gift of Memory kicking in.
As the Fool contemplates his loss of being a serious man forced to be fool by his family, he looks over and sees Margat picking herbs, overcome by her beauty, the nervous fool runs off, knocking over a cow in the process!
That night at Granny's, the young witch talks about meeting the fool and what the others know about him. Nanny Ogg chimes in this
"His mother was the local bike! You wouldn't believe who she slept with, even if i tole ye!"
FORESHADOWING!
This leads to an argument all of a sudden, Magrat calls the 2 senior old and The 2 turn on each other, Nanny making fun of her seriousness, and Weatherwax telling some home truth about her drinking and dirty mind! and so Episode 2 ends with the words getting the best of our heroes!
Part 3 is the shortest of events, but important stuff does happen!
It opens with Magrat researching how to make a love potion, however she needs to learn the fool's name, her Kerchief falls in the shape of a "V", Causing the young trainee to exclaim, "fancy that!"
MORE FORESHADOWING!
Nanny has Arrived at Lancre Castle, where it's revealed that the ghost of Verence had kidnapped her cat, Greebo, in an attempt to be seen! It's also revealed that the captain of guard is one of Nanny's many sons. Shaun. Felmet is freaking out and Nanny is arrested and sent to the dungeon, it's there Verence apologizes for his plan going tits up!
Shaun let's Magrat and Granny Weatherwax know that his mam has being captured, he also wants to know if the rumours that Felmet are speaking about them being wicked witches are true! Both pretend to be apple sellers to get into the castle (With Magrat succeeding because she doesn't look like an old witch!) but being young and pretty backfires when 2 guards attempt to rape her, the fool saves her, or at least distracts the long enough for Magrat to fetch her knife to stab the one holding her arms. She calls the fool by his real name, VERENCE! He brings the young lady to the dungeon, she attempts to use a Door Reversing spell. It works!...by the wooden door Reversing back to when it was a tree! Granny arrives and tells Magrat that she wouldn't have done it like that!
BACKSTORY!
Most witches have learnt their craft from learning it from their mothers over generations. However, because of her mother's inability to spell "Margaret" the young girl for better or worse was marked with Magick, the most powerful of someone un-trained as Mentioned by Granny in her first outing, Equal Rites!
Meanwhile in the town of Scrote, Tomjon is being hailed as an acting prodigy, But Vittolier wants more for the boy.
Felmet Releases the witches and publicly undermines them further, he also threatens to kill every Ogg in Lancre, which given on how we are led to believe how promiscuous Nanny Was, and we see her daughters' equally big brood of babies, that's practically every 2nd person!
To stop this they must get rid of Felmet, Killing him is out of the question, that's what Felmet wants, to turn Belief into Hatred, no Succession is the way to go. so they cast a spell to speed time up by 15 years! The story continues when Tom-Jon comes of age in Part 4.
Setting off on their broomsticks, each of the witches deplete their finite amount of magic, Magrat is first to to this and falls on Verence, the fool sleeping under a tree, as the man kisses the fair maiden, he feels that the world has moved under him and time has stop still, Magrat tells him the 1st is true and the 2nd is technically sped up time. as the seasons slow dance has now moved at a pace similar to Knight Of Knights! 15 Years have passed in their home in the country of Ramkin, a strapping young lad called Tom-jon is helping his adoptive father, build a theatre in the ancient and modern city of Anhk-Morpork, despite Protection from the troll mafia and premonitions of witches!
Back at Lancre the only ones that realize that 15 years had passed are the witches and Verence the Fool, Felmet seeing the trees grown closer in the space of what he believes is 5 minutes flares up his paranoia, making Lady Felmet has no choice but to take helm of the production of the propaganda play against the witches!
Only 2 Episodes left! Episode 5 opens with Verence the Fool in Ankh-Morpork to find actors and writers for the propaganda play. Magrat's gift of Charisma, stops him and Hwel (Discworld's Shakespeare. GET IT? Because Hwellyn is welsh for William?) survive a bar-room brawl and saves the fool from a mugging! Hwel sees the 2 young men face each other and Hwel realises how much alike they look, but dismisses it as being drunk
YOU CAN'T MOVE FOR FORESHADOWING HERE!
When Hwel asks the Fool his business, they convene on how it was a big coincidence that they should meet. Enter Crissaface who takes the poke of gold coins that Vittolier just received from Verence, but the fool says that was just a down payment. and the fool says he will act has a guide to get to the secluded country that has being wiped of the map for 15 years! The witches sent up roadblocks to get a good look at Tom-Jon and agree he has the qualities needed to overthrow Lord Felmet, and so the penultimate episode ends with the troupes traveling into the castle grounds as Felmet Laughs his wicked Laugh!
Only 30 minutes left! lets do this!
By making their preparations, In Lanre, the witches buy tickets to the show. Meanwhile on his white horse, Death crashes the party.
With the Entire Country forced to watch, the hasilty and shoddy play has turns of problems, noone can remember their lines, Death replavces the actor who's playing him, and the crown is missing so of course Tomjon picks up the true crown!
Let's wrap this one up!
The Witches worst fears come true, With Felmet seemingly winning he orders them to be arrested...only for the guards to arrest the actors playing the witches! Hwel mistakes the actual witches for his actors and both a spell and a possession by Verence, makes the actors act out the the actual Murder of events with the voices of the parties involved! This causes Felmet to go Mad and thing he is a ghost, until he falls off the castle and does and becomes one for real. Lady Felmet escapes with intention of raising an army but the land awakes and Her Ladyship is fed to the wild animals. Without a King, Granny tries to exclaim Tomjon as king but then remembers her gift, word for word
'E Should be whoever 'e thinks 'e is! that's all you really want!
Which means there is only one choice Left, Verence the Fool...Tom-jons Older Brother and therefore the true successor!
I'd say Foreshadowing have arrived! but the kinda ruined it by revealing his name early! so make do with this!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N3Uk8Y5km8
With Verence the second in power, Fame and title has given Tomjon enough money to pay off Crissaface, Give Hwel inspiration, the balance of the universe restored and so the film ends with the young king paying a surprise visit to Magrat's.
THIS SPECIAL DOESN'T SUCK...BUT THE BOOK IS FAR MUCH BETTER!
Posistives: Having Northern Actresses play the witches was a masterstroke, because that's how they sounded in my head! In a nod to Pratchett's Asterixed Footnotes where most of the humour laid, they had funny throwaway scenes in this series, such as Hwel thinking of writing Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers, Nanny is total state of near sobriety, and i suppose Champot losing his head constantly was supposed to be funny! Cameos by Discworld favourites Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, the Librarian and Fingers Boggis were a nice touch!
Negatives 2 words!-Cosgrove. Hall.
They are cheap!
Reused Frames, very little lineart cleanup, and generic music that doesn't have the power to capture magic, or a villainous tirade. it's obvious why they only do preschool shorts because you'll have to be very low to critique Pre-school programs! Also annoying was the need to censor the few killings in this show, this was shown by Channel 4, who are now being blasted by Simpsons fans for editing their episodes. This got the same treatment, but a few sploshes of red paint, isn't going to give kiddies nightmares!
Also all the jokes about Shakespeare...Went over my head, but that because I'm a product of the Irish Education English Curriculum that focused solely on Irish writers and American Post-Morden. it was only when i left school I discovered Shakespeare!
In conclusion, Channel 4's adaption of Wyrd sisters-Merlot in a Coke Bottle!
CREDITS
Wyrd Sisters was Reviewed, Compiled and Edited by Eamonn Bermingham (@RealEnli)
With clips from
Blackadder the 3rd
Robot Chicken
Wyrd Sisters was adapted by Cosgrove Hall for Channel 4. All rights reserved.
All clips belong to their respective owners!
NEXT MONTH: ONE OF THE MANY BRO-MEDIES SPAWNED BY THE RUNAWAY SUCCESS OF DODGEBALL-ALL ABOARD THE BAD TASTE TRAIN WITH BALLS OF FURY!
