Friday, November 13, 2009


BBC enters bedroom to portray the 'dreadful' Enid Blyton Much loved for her children's books such as the Famous Five and Noddy, Enid Blyton is about to have a radical makeover courtesy of the BBC.
By Tim Walker, Published, The Telegraph:11 Nov 2009

On Monday, it will broadcast Enid, a drama starring Helena Bonham Carter as Blyton, which the producers promise will show a previously hidden side of the author's life.
"You get to see in the bedroom, the pyjamas," says Sally Woodward Gentle, the executive producer, breathlessly. "It creates an intimacy that BBC Four is very good at."
Bonham Carter admits that the programme pulls no punches in its portrayal of the writer. "She's dreadful," claims the actress in Ariel, the BBC's in-house magazine. "But she's trying her hardest and I hope people come away feeling conflicted. There's a lot of her in me: she was a 'forever child' who invented a world that was comforting and enchanting."

The drama is expected to delve into the private life of Blyton, whose works have sold more than 500 million copies. The author, who died in 1968, pursued an affair with a married surgeon, Kenneth Walter, whom she later married. She airbrushed her first husband, Hugh Pollock, from her life and denied him access to their two daughters, Gillian and Imogen.
Gillian, who died two years ago, has described her as "a fair and loving mother''. Imogen, who is four years her junior, thought, however, that her mother was "arrogant, insecure, pretentious... and without a trace of maternal instinct''.

Whatever the drama's reception, one person will not be among its viewers. "I won't watch it," says Bonham Carter. "Most actors I know loathe watching themselves. It's not like I am going to do exactly the same part next year, so what's the point?"

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