Unman, Wittering and Zigo - Wikipedia. Unman, Wittering and Zigo is a 1. Anglo- Irish playwright Giles Cooper. The main character is John Ebony, a teacher in his first job, brought in as a temporary measure, though one he hopes will be confirmed as permanent. Between his rebellious wife Nadia, the eccentric art master Cary Farthingale and the class of Lower 5. B, Ebony struggles to exercise power, but is thwarted by reality and a disbelieving Headmaster. The resonant quotation from the play falls to the wise old Farthingale. It was the BBC's Italia Prize entry that year. It featured a number of young actors who gained a higher profile including Hywel Bennett and Dennis Waterman. The play is part of the curriculum for GCSE and Standard Grade English coursework in the United Kingdom and is frequently performed in public schools. Cooper himself attended Lancing in Sussex from 1. Evelyn Waugh, Sir David Hare, Christopher Hampton, Tom Sharpe, Sir Tim Rice, and the playwright Royce Ryton. Both Cooper's sons, Guy and Ric, also went to Lancing. A feature film version, directed by John Mackenzie, was released in 1. Simon Raven which stayed true to the basic plot, but added sexual scenes and changed Ebony's wife's name from Nadia to Sylvia.
The 1. 97. 1 film featured actors including David Hemmings and a young Michael Kitchen, and is also currently used for educational purposes in the UK. Screen: 'Unman, Wittering and Zigo'I think it was Fran. In the history of connoisseurship this ploy may be worth recording, but for practical criticism I doubt that it has much to recommend it—ignoring as it does movies that take a while to find themselves (at least in the viewer's mind), and movies that from a position of relative strength work inexorably toward a condition of absolute, unredeemable loss. In the latter category belongs John Mackenzie's . His appointment is something of a fluke, his predecessor having died in midterm from a tumble down a nearby cliff, and almost no time at all is lost before the gentlemen of Lower 5. B inform their new master that the death was no accident; his predecessor was pushed, and they did the pushing. Ebony's problem, as Lower 5. B knows full well, is that if he reports the murder, nobody will believe him (he doesn't, at first, believe it himself), but if he keeps quiet and does a few favors for the class—not much work, decent grades for those who want them, bets placed and winnings collected from the local bookie, etc.—they will protect his academic career and perhaps let him survive the semester as well. A modus vivendi, the boys call it, but one that fails when Ebony learns that his appointment is not to be renewed and that he has, at Chantry, no academic career to protect—but only his own sanity and the well- being and perhaps respect of a wife (Carolyn Seymour) who is not long on wifely indulgence. It is when this happens, when the mood has all been built and the story begins to move, that . And Mackenzie's spectacularly subjective camera and his Latin- encrusted boys' school and even his Lower 5. Having seen Unman, Wittering and Zigo several years ago, I feel that this review would be better if it were more concise and stopped side-tracking into references with The Wicker Man, Straw Dogs and several other. Scenes for radio inspired by the play, 'Unman, Wittering and Zigo', by Giles Cooper. Written and performed by Year 8 students. Not so much a whodunnit as a 'did they actually do it?', this posh school chiller is full of intriguing twists and turns Unfairly neglected British psychological horror, in which Hemmings' jittery schoolteacher is informed by. B, which speaks in unison or to instantaneous cue—like some evil, over- trained minstrel troupe—invite if not the willing suspension of disbelief at least the expectation of pleasurable surrender to efficient nonsense. When that expectation is not satisfied, when the movie becomes too absurd in its inventions and too indifferent in how it works them out, the failure seems of more than ordinary proportions. Most of the performances are good, up to the level asked of them. David Hemmings's neophyte master suggests enthusiasm without sentimentality, and the boys mostly manage to project malevolence minus any regrets for their lost innocence. Nicholas Hoye as Cloistermouth, the prettiest of the fallen angels, is especially scary. Carolyn Seymour plays the young wife as if she were competing for the Glenda Jackson award in emotional reserve. But when the chips are down and she must show some feeling, it becomes apparent that there isn't any reserve; there is only no emotion. The Cast. UNMAN, WITTERING AND ZIGO, directed by John Mackenzie, screenplay by Simon Raven, based on the play by Giles Cooper; photography by Geoffrey Unsworth; music by Michael J. Lewis; produced by Gareth Wigan; released by Paramount Pictures. At the Cinema II, 1. Third Avenue at 6. Street. Running time: 1. David Hammings. Headmaster . Douglas Wilmer. Cary Farthingale . Anthony Haygarth. Silvia Ebony . Carolyn Seymour. Cloistermouth . Nicholas Hoye. Cuthbin . James Wardroper. Terhew . Michael Cashman. Trimble . Michael Howe.
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