Yorkshire nostalgia: '˜Mad as a hatter' cellist plays in field
This week's featured film clip, available to view on the Yorkshire Film Archive website, is a comical fiction film by a local York filmmaker Patrick Olsen and features two characters dressed in 18th century clothes: a cellist and, presumably, his servant. The film stars a young David Bradley, now a famous actor of stage and screen, in an early role as well as fellow York actor Tony Akrill.
The opening has the ‘servant’ in top hat and tails sitting next to a sign of the film’s title, ‘It’s A Mad, Mad World.’ He holds the ‘W’ as it is falling off the wall, and smoke is coming out of his hat.
The film begins with a cellist, dressed in Georgian costume and a white wig, sitting in a field playing his cello. Next to him on one side is a sculpture of the Venus de Milo and a table with an antique telephone on the other.
With a happy expression on his face, he begins to play the cello, but then stops and looks into the distance. He picks up some binoculars and looks at a musical score on a stand in the next field. Looking agitated, he picks up the phone.
A man is lying on a fallen tree branch asleep while an antique phone is hopping about on its cradle besides him. See more on the YFA website.
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