imported>LordTBT at 22:21, 25 February 2024

2024-02-25T22:21:03Z

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'''The Bookworm''' was a BBC One TV show about literature hosted by Griff Rhys Jones that aired from [[1994]] – [[2000]]. [[Brian Jacques]] was a guest on the show, appearing in the episode that was broadcast on November 5, [[1995]].

===Interview Transcript===
*Originally appeared on [[Redwall.org]].

KATIE GWILTS: In ''[[Redwall]]'', there are mice, rabbits, hares, squirrels, nice animals, like a safe haven.

SIAN HOGAN: The [[Redwall Food|food]] is gorgeous, as you read it you feel really hungry.

MATTHEW LEWIS: The best thing about the Redwall books is the fight at the end, the goodies and the baddies always have a fight at the end of the book and it takes about 30 pages maybe.

GRIFF RHYS JONES: 8 Redwall books have been written since [[1986]], classic tales like Watership Down and the Hobbit, they are epic adventures steeped in old fashioned sentiment and set in a timeless world where good always overcomes evil.

We see Brian walking in the grounds of a ruined medieval building. The interview takes place here.

BRIAN: This is Stanley Park in Kirkdale, Liverpool. To me, this is Redwall. When I'm going to write a book I come here for inspiration to see the places I went to as a child. This is a magic land.

We see a boy dressed in a British school uniform walking round the grounds clutching a soccer ball by his side. Probably to signify Brian as a child.

BRIAN: I could stand here and gaze at the walls and imagine things like battles. Just look at the back here. This is some medieval abbey. So, once upon a time, long ago, far away, there was this abbey and the monks were mice. All the other woodland creatures, they all inhabit this world of mine.

We see Brian in front of a class of British schoolchildren. He stands before them, and recites the description of [[Cluny the Scourge]] from ''Redwall''.

BRIAN: I've always been a folk singer so it's no trouble to me to get up to speak to children and I also like children. I think to myself, these fellows who write books and lock themselves away and hide from the world, what for? They might as well be working on a supermarket checkout! I like to talk to children because you get so much back off them.

GRIFF RHYS JONES: It was because of Brian's involvement with children that ''Redwall'' was born.

Brian walks into The Royal School for the Blind.

BRIAN: I became involved with the Royal School for the Blind when I used to play with the children and we'd have loads of fun. I sat down with them and I'd tell them stories. One time I thought I'd like to write them a story of the type I used to read when I was young. The books about heroes and heroines, great quests, battles, wars, the right and wrong of it all. That was how ''Redwall'' was born. I didn't intend them for publication, merely as a story to read to the children at the school. A mouse is the child and the child is trying to resolve something, to be better, to be a hero. If the little mouse can, why can't the child? This is what I wrote about. The mouse overcoming everything but not without any magic. It's done by their own resolution. There's a moral there somewhere for them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps like [[Matthias]] and [[Mattimeo]]. They had to learn how to do those things. They have to learn to be warriors.

GRIFF RHYS JONES: What do you say to those people that say that children's books should be about real things that people do?

BRIAN: Rubbish! They get that all around them don't they? Teenage angst, divorce, technology. They don't want that. What they want is a little bit of escapism. Once upon a time, long ago, far away.

KATIE GWILTS: I think that ''Redwall'' is in everyone's minds, it's a place where you can go if things aren't working out.

NEIL McDONNELL: Modern writing's usually about people under pressure from exams and that. I don't like that. I want to be taken away from that.

MICHAEL DRAPALA: [[Redwall Abbey]], it's seven miles high, six feet under, next to the gnome at the bottom of the garden, it's anywhere your imagination will accept it as being.

[[Category:Filmography]]

The Bookworm - Revision history

imported>LordTBT at 22:21, 25 February 2024