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Friday 28 November 2014

All Our Convention Yesterdays



   This video entitled “Half a Dozen of the Other….” was filmed during the 1996 Prisoner convention at Portmeirion. That year special guests were actress Norma West, Camera Operator Jack Lowen, Production secretary Tina Davis, and special guest appearance {because no-one at the convention knew he was coming} Alexis Kanner. Also present, as he was at conventions in the mid 1990’s, was Frank Ratcliff, a representative of Polygram Television Ltd, who were copyright holders of ‘the Prisoner’ at that time. I used to feel sorry for Frank, because he first informed those at one convention that there was to be a Hollywood production of ‘the Prisoner,’ and at another that the cameras were set to role on the production. But of course they never did, but that wasn’t Frank Ratcliff’s fault, as he could only inform us what he had been told.

   1996 was also the year of the gun runners scene from ‘Many Happy Return’s’ re-enactment aboard the stoneboat. The re-enactment was officially cancelled because an event was to take place in the Hercules Hall at that time. Well I thought to hell with that! So much work had gone into producing the re-enactment and I wasn’t about to let it be cancelled just like that, so we performed the re-enactment anyway, and to a very large, and appreciative audience.
   Since the 1994 Prisoner convention my wife and I would perform a re-enactment for the enjoyment of the audience during the Friday evening in the Hercules Hall. 1996 was the turn for the night cap scene from ‘Checkmate.’

   I was interested and amused, to read in the 1996 Convention report, that editor of the report wrote of the Touring Village Theatre {a series of re-enactments performed around The Village}  “Two highlights stand out to me, for different reasons. The first, when Dave Stimpson finally mutated into Patrick McGoohan on the Belvedere Outlook.”
  
  Here are a couple of links for the 1996 Prisoner convention.

The Interview with Alexis Kanner

And aslo a BBC Documentary filmed during the 1995 Priosner convention.       http://youtu.be/6ClX6TUwcDU

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