Going Postal on BBC?

[pendell]

So on youtube I caught this interview of an actor -- the same one who plays Tywin Lanister in GOT -- talking about playing Lord Vetinari in a live-action version of Going Postal.

I assume it's BBC. Might be something else.

So... where is this show and how do I see it?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Rynjin]

I know at least it used to be on Netflix, I watched it a few years back. Not sure if it's still there or not.

[Rodin]

Netflix looks to be DVD only unfortunately, even if you do shenanigans to access the UK site.

For Amazon , it looks like they HAD it available to rent, but took it down with no explanation (and leaving the item on their store, just with no way to buy it).

So, it looks like either Netflix with DVD or just outright purchasing the DVD.

It's worth watching if you can get hold of it - one of the better adaptations of Pratchett's work.

[Eldan]

BBC did three live movie adaptations of Pratchett's works. Hogfather was good, despite Papier maché death looking really cheap, Going Postal was a lot of fun and The Colour of Magic... had Tim Curry. Oh, and David Bradley as Cohen the Barbarian being the only good thing in the movie.

[lunaticfringe]

BBC did three live movie adaptations of Pratchett's works. Hogfather was good, despite Papier maché death looking really cheap, Going Postal was a lot of fun and The Colour of Magic... had Tim Curry. Oh, and David Bradley as Cohen the Barbarian being the only good thing in the movie.

The opening of the Colour of Magic is one of my top 3 favorite movie openings of all time. It got my sister hooked on discworld novels. As a whole it's just ok, but I'm not the biggest Rincewind fan. I liked the other 2, though I still enjoyed the novels more.

[Androgeus]

BBC did three live movie adaptations of Pratchett's works. Hogfather was good, despite Papier maché death looking really cheap, Going Postal was a lot of fun and The Colour of Magic... had Tim Curry. Oh, and David Bradley as Cohen the Barbarian being the only good thing in the movie.

Just to be a little pedantic, none of them were made by the BBC. All 3 of the adaptations were made for Sky. The BBC does have a Watch series that's been stuck in preproduction since 2011.

For actually seeing them, your best bet would seem to be getting hold of the DVDs.

[Aedilred]

I've only seen the Hogfather adaptation and I found it a bit pedestrian. It was ok, and about as faithful an adaptation of a book as you're realistically going to get... but it all seemed a bit flat to me, somehow.

I think it comes down in part to two elements that are always going to present problems with adapting Pratchett's work: firstly that, apart from those poor souls who've only seen the "serious" covers, Discworld visuals feel like they should be a riot of crazy nonsense, courtesy of Josh Kirby. Everything is larger-than-life, impossibly crowded and jumbled, competing for attention, and while that works in a single illustration and fires the imagination while reading, it's all but impossible to convey on screen. I don't think it's a coincidence that the decline in balance and quality that many people say they see in the later books coincides fairly neatly with the point at which Paul Kidby took over the covers. A fine enough artist and probably better technically than Kirby had been, but a much more sober one. And it's not just the artwork, though that's a big part of it. How do you put Nobby on screen? Or Foul Ole Ron? Moist von Lipwig's exceptionally bland face? These are characters that work largely because they don't have to be realistically depicted.

Secondly that so much of what makes Pratchett's writing special is in what is not said: in the descriptions, the winks by the narrative voice to the reader, the footnotes, the use of language to draw the world. The books are great fun to read, but if you fall back on just dialogue and plot a lot of the stories aren't actually that interesting. That means the visuals - not just the sets and effects, already struggling thanks to the first point, but the actors too - have an awful lot of work to do to convey the same thing, if they can at all. And none of the adaptations have had the budget yet to do it.

Having said that I do think at times some discreet editing could be done and that it might be possible to make some scenes work better than they do on the page, because Pterry did sometimes miss the point at which he should have stopped, and eke out a scene for too long trying to pile on more jokes when he could have called it quits at an earlier zinger. But that sort of thing's going to be a matter of opinion.

[hamishspence]

I vaguely remember an animated version of Wyrd Sisters on TV a couple of decades ago. Death telling the evil king that he's not a ghost (he's gone mad) right before he falls off the castle walls and becomes one, was the scene that stuck in the mind.

Now that I look it up:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyrd_Sisters_(TV_series)

apparently it had a pretty good cast.

[Kato]

... Rumor has it you can find it cut into parts on a certain well known site for videos... Otherwise I'm afraid I can't help except: DVDs.

While I think it's a decent adaptation, I prefer Hogfather by a lot. Going Postal is decent but a few things are kind of cringy... Might be because, while I also like GP as a book well enough, it doesn't compare to Hogfather. (That damn speech at the end gets me every effing time)

[Brother Oni]

How do you put Nobby on screen?

I think Nicolas Tennant did a decent job in the expression of sheer joy that Nobby had when he got the crossbow in Hogsfather.

Going Postal is decent but a few things are kind of cringy... Might be because, while I also like GP as a book well enough, it doesn't compare to Hogfather. (That damn speech at the end gets me every effing time)

I preferred Going Postal over Hogsfather, probably because of its relevance at the time when it was originally screened in 2011 (the fallout from Moist's Cabbage pyramid scheme had a lot in common with the financial crisis), plus seeing Richard Coyle and Claire Foy sheer antagonism as Moist and Adora was very entertaining.

[Manga Shoggoth]

I vaguely remember an animated version of Wyrd Sisters on TV a couple of decades ago. Death telling the evil king that he's not a ghost (he's gone mad) right before he falls off the castle walls and becomes one, was the scene that stuck in the mind.

Now that I look it up:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyrd_Sisters_(TV_series)

apparently it had a pretty good cast.

There was also an adaptation of Soul Music and Truckers (not Diskworld, still by Pratchett). Both, if I remember rightly, done by Cosgrove Hall, who also did the original Danger Mouse (also not Pratchett, but I suspect people here have heard of it).

[tomandtish]

Netflix looks to be DVD only unfortunately, even if you do shenanigans to access the UK site.

For Amazon , it looks like they HAD it available to rent, but took it down with no explanation (and leaving the item on their store, just with no way to buy it).

So, it looks like either Netflix with DVD or just outright purchasing the DVD.

It's worth watching if you can get hold of it - one of the better adaptations of Pratchett's work.

I assume you mean no way to rent it? It's available for purchase (at least in the US) on blu-ray and dvd.

But you can't watch it digitally through them.