Hello, it's Reviewsday tuesday and it's time for a new episode of Discworld Discourses, how have you been?
We're coming up to Christmas now so I thought it was the perfect time to re-watch and talk about the TV adaptation of Hogfather.
This was a two-part TV adaptation of Terry Pratchett's Hogfather, first shown on Sky One in the UK at Christmas 2006.
In it, the Hogfather, who is remarkably like our Father Christmas, goes missing,
And Death has to step into his role, while Death's granddaughter, Susan, tries to figure out what has happened.
It has two episodes, each is around 90 minutes long,
And the cast includes Michelle Dockery as Susan, Ian Richardson as the voice of Death,
Mark Warren as Teatime, and David Jason as Albert.
I've watched the show quite a few times in the past, but I think the last time was around seven or so years ago, so a while back,
But I noticed when I was re-reading Hogfather as part of Discworld Discourses a year or so ago,
The adaptation was very fresh in my mind, I was picturing the actors and the sets often when I was reading Hogfather,
And I wasn't doing that with any of the other Sky adaptations,
So I was excited to re-watch this adaptation especially, more so than the others, since it seems to have had more of an impact on my brain.
I think as an adaptation it's very good. The Discworld is very vast and difficult to adapt, I would imagine,
And although of course plenty of stuff has needed to be tweaked or cut out completely,
I think that this adaptation of Hogfather really stays pretty much as true as it can to the book.
The running time helps with this. It is quite long and it sometimes feels quite long.
I personally feel like about half an hour so could have been chopped off.
But the benefit of the length does mean that we get to see a little bit more of the world that we know and love.
I think the casting is excellent, from main characters like Susan and Death,
To more minor characters who have more or less cameo roles, like Constables Nobby Nobbs and Visit.
I feel like the casting was pretty spot on.
And places like the university and Death's house, I thought they looked really good.
I would say that Ankh-Morpork felt less like a whole character in itself.
Ankh-Morpork is such a big part of the Discworld series and I don't feel like it translated as well into the film,
I feel like Susan could have been living anywhere.
But overall I feel like if you are a fan of the book you would, at the very least, like this.
I feel like they did a good job of keeping the style and the tone and the feel of the Discworld.
And they kept most of the story of Hogfather as well.
I would say that if you haven't already read Hogfather, the show would be less of a fun and interesting watch.
I can imagine it being quite confusing at times, I feel like some prior knowledge is kind of useful.
So I'd be interested in knowing, if you haven't read the books but you have seen this adaptation, what did you think about it?
I mean maybe it's what introduced you to the books.
So yes, I really enjoyed this adaptation overall.
The two episodes did feel a little bit different to each other.
In episode one we're flitting an awful lot between two or three different plots and often not spending very much time at each one.
There'd be like 20 seconds or something with Susan, and then 20 seconds with Teatime, then 20 seconds with Death,
And it just felt a little bit too much to me, and by too much I guess I really mean too little.
I felt like some of the the cutting between the scenes in episode one was a little bit over the top.
In the second episode, the stories were converging more and we had different characters meeting up.
Susan ends up at the university, Death also ends up at the university, everyone ends up at the Tooth Fairy's place.
The story just felt a little bit more structured in episode two due to that.
It felt like there was more sort of a through line.
And in this re-watch especially, compared to my previous watches of Hogfather, I enjoyed the scenes with the wizards more than I did previously.
iIve talked about this before in Discworld Discourses but I have got along far better with the wizards than I have previously when reading the books,
And it turns out that that extends to the TV adaptations as well.
Anyway, I will give Terry Pratchett's Hogfather 4.3 out of 5.
I'm planning on watching the other sky adaptations next year and i'm looking forward to it.
I'll be interested to see how the others fare in a re-watch.
And I'd really love to know what you thought about Hogfather if you have seen the TV adaptation.
Now some facts about Hogfather.
This was Ian richardson's last TVrole before his death and the DVD version is dedicated to him.
David Jason, who plays Albert in this, goes on to play Rincewind in the Sky adaptations of The Colour of Magic.
The character of Death of Rats is credited to Dorckey Hellmice, which is an anagram of Michelle Dockery.
Two of the most prominent Discworld audiobook narrators appear in this adaptation.
Nigel Planar plays Mr Sideney and the voice of the Auditors
While Tony Robinson plays Mr Crumley.
And Terry Pratchett has a cameo as the toy maker,
Who he named Joshua Isme, and he called his shop Toys Is Me.
That is it for today, thank you so much for watching!
This is going to be the last video on my YouTube channel before Christmas,
So if you're watching at time of upload I hope you have a wonderful Christmas if you are celebrating.
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