The Therapy Zone

The Prisoner Explained?

    Well no not really, and when I originally watched the Prisoner Companion Video, which is a bonus item on this DVD, I was truly disappointed.

    Some fans of the Prisoner have described it as "very good," but I have never been able to watch that video companion more than once, and that was probably more than enough. I never learned anything I didn't know at the time, and make no mistake we are going back several years, and no answers were really put to the many questions posed by ‘the Prisoner’ and his Village, but clouded the issue even more!

  All I can say that was a good thing about ‘the Prisoner Companion video,’ were the video clips. I've watched it once and will in all probability never watch it again.

Portmeirion And Brian Epstein

    August 1966 Brian Epstein was recovering from a very serious bout of glandular fever. His doctor prescribed a quiet vacation to convalesce, "he went by himself to a luxury hotel in Portmeirion on the North West coast of Wales that overlooked the Sea, and wind-swept beach, as remote a place as you could get from London. Everyone’s advice was the same try not to worry." He had been there only four days when uproar occurred in parts of America when John Lennon's famous quote about the Beatles being more popular than Jesus was published out of context in a teen magazine. He felt compelled to leave his convalescence in Portmeirion to go and sort it out.

   This was not Brian Epstein's only visit to Portmeirion. Apparently he used to stay in Gatehouse cottage, which in those days was much smaller than it is today. Brian said to Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, architect and creator of Portmeirion, that what the cottage needed was a dinning room. Consequently Sir Clough built one, but in my opinion it is rather large and ostentatious for such a small cottage.

   If Brian Epstein had not have had to cut his stay in Portmeirion short, having had to leave, and had he still been there in early September 1966........... Well who knows.

Sound Recordings

    Fans of ‘the Prisoner’ have it easy today, especially when it comes to the availability of actually watching their favourite television series, either on video or DVD. But I think in that there lies a lack of excitement, as it was in the early days before I, and many like me, could actually afford a video recorder. In those days of the middle to late 1970's, all I had were audio tape recordings which I had made of each episode, and would listen to at night in bed, whilst trying to put pictures in my head to the words, music and sounds I was hearing. Why did I make audio recordings? Well when you can't see ‘the Prisoner,’ then next best thing was to listen to it.

  Today fans of ‘the Prisoner’ are spoilt for choice, but in the pioneering days of Prisoner appreciation, you got of the Prisoner what you could, when you could, and I think in that there lies a much deeper appreciation for the Prisoner, than perhaps there is today.

Be seeing you