All things Fine and DANDY

  Anthony Andrews bestows exquisite majesty (from an erstwhile aperture) as Lord Sebastian Flyte. Evelyn Waugh's fanciful rebel shares sources of inspiration akin to those of Anthony Blanche – an infinitely camp creature. And secondary dandy to Sebastian among the author's idealised Oxford set. The Granada Television series (1981) fulfilled the 1920s decadence of Waugh's 1945 novel. And became an aesthetic masterpiece in its own realm. Even with the absence of Aloysius the teddy bear on this occasion 🧸

(The mobile version of this feature got rather tipsy -  there's a more moderate helping here:https://medium.com/@nuromanca )  “ Do you realise, Harold – please pay attention to this – that you and I are going to  have a rather famous career at Oxford?” It could so easily have been a line from Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. And so distinctly attributable to Blanche – should a prequel scene at Eton have arisen. However the pledge was conveyed from one impending member of Waugh’s social set (and fodder for future novels) to another. An elegant pair who would converge to form “an aesthetic bugger who sometimes turns up in my novels under various names.” (1) They were Harold Acton and Brian Howard: both of whom led a relatively rebellious sixth-form existence. At a particular theatre performance: “ Brian and Harold walked into the stalls, in full evening dress, with long white gloves  draped over one arm, and carrying silver-topped canes and top-h...