Truth, Lies and Videotape

As you may be able to tell from the fact that I am illustrating this article with a picture taken from Wikipedia, I was extremely scrupulous about the rules against on-set photography.

On Saturday night, my first excursion outside of Bristol in eighteen months was to Pinewood Studios to be in the audience for a recording of Would I Lie to You? I have some (spoiler-free) notes on the subject.

Get a Clue

The episode of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue I was in the virtual audience for, with the panel of Tony Hawks, Marcus Brigstocke, Henning Wehn and Vicki Pepperdine, was broadcast on Radio 4 this evening, and is available to listen to for another 30 days here. Here's some notes, mostly on things that didn't make the edit, for the curious.

The Diamond Problem

When I first wrote about the incredibly obscure 1991 Diamond Brothers television series, I really wasn't expecting to get the response I did. I have received many, many e-mails and tweets on this subject -- more than everything else I've written about put together. People digging out old TV listings to prove the series actually did exist. Supportive and informative messages from those who remembered watching the original and only broadcasts. People putting me onto the trail of other information, and where I could possibly track down a copy. The second post in this series -- as far as I am aware, the first time any visual record of the series had ever been posted online -- is the most-viewed post on this blog by some distance.

But before there was the 1991 series of the third Diamond Brothers book, there was the 1988 film of their first adventure, which also starred Colin Dale and Dursley McLinden as the brothers and was also adapted by Anthony Horowitz from his own novel (the film's director, Stephen Bayly, served as an executive producer of the TV series). And, thanks to one of those correspondents, Simon Drake, I've learned that the film has its own interesting story. Here's what Simon had to say on the matter:

In the mid 2000s, I picked up a DVD of Just Ask For Diamond, a childhood favourite that i'd had on VHS for years. When I watched the DVD, I was convinced it was missing a load of Nick Diamond voice over and some other bits. I used to regularly post on the IMDB forums asking if anyone else's DVD was incomplete from their VHS, but no one really responded. I picked up a couple of different JAFD DVD releases (there were several versions on multipacks) thinking they might contain the extended voice over and they all seemed to be missing what I was sure I'd remembered being in the film. 

So I spent £20 on a VHS copy, and did a side by side comparison. And I can confirm the VHS version from the early 90s and the UK DVD release do differ.