Travellers' Century | |
---|---|
Genre | Documentary |
Written by | Benedict Allen |
Directed by | Harry Marshall Richard Chambers |
Presented by | Benedict Allen |
Voices of | Geoffrey Palmer |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
No. of episodes | 3 |
Production | |
Executive producers | Harry Marshall Laura Marshall Jacquie Hughes |
Producer | Andie Clare |
Running time | 60 minutes |
Release | |
Original network | BBC Four |
Original release | 24 July – 7 August 2008 |
Travellers' Century is a 2008 BBC Television documentary series presented by Benedict Allen that profiles the lives of three influential 20th-century British travel writers.
BBC Four controller Janice Hadlow commissioned the series from Icon Films for broadcast as part of the channel's Journeys of Discovery season.
The series combines footage of explorer and travel writer Benedict Allen following in the footsteps of his subjects with interviews and archive footage to provide an insight into their lives.
Benedict Allen is the real McCoy and has boldly gone where very few have gone before. He is uniquely placed to reveal what these classic journeys tell us about travel and travellers and what makes the British such a restless race.
— Executive Producer Jacquie Hughes [1]
Allen has written that the series was made to answer a question he had first asked himself when he lost his dog team in the Bering Strait pack ice and his prospects looked grim. Where does the troublesome urge of the British to wander off alone, often without even bothering to give a half-decent excuse, come from? [2]
Sarah Dempster writing in The Guardian describes the, wonderful little series, as, part leisurely biography, part arduous travelogue, that, offers an unabashedly nostalgic peek into the life of the 20th-century adventurer. [3]
Tim Teeman writing in The Times described episode one as, hopelessly muddled, slow and uninsightful, opining that Allen managed to extinguish all the lyricism, and spirit of adventure and discovery, from Newby’s work, but concluding that, it was lovely to see Newby in archive footage cycle in the roiling morning commute, head high and defiantly and perilously weaving through the middle lane as beeping echoed all about him. [4] Joe Clay writing in the same publication called it, a mature, inspiring hour of quintessentially British spirit. [5]
I’ve spent 25 years heading off alone into deserts, and jungles and tundra; I’ve been to the last remote corners of our planet. Back in the 16th and 17th centuries, in the age of discovery, men set out to find whole new worlds. The 18th and 19th centuries was the era of exploration, when adventurers went to exploit these discoveries. The last century though was the age of the traveller, when the world was safe enough for individuals to make their own way, to set off and record their personal impressions; as it happens the British particularly loved to do this…But why, and what does this say about us? Is it a legacy of the British Empire? Or perhaps being members of only a small off-shore nation we’ve learnt that we need to study the curious ways of foreigners in order to survive. Or are we just trying to escape what is, let’s face it, a very safe but overcrowded little island? I’m going to follow in the footsteps of those who I think are the three defining travel writers of our time and look through the brief and unique window they gave us onto the world and into themselves.
— Bennedict Allen's opening narration
Allen begins his film chatting with the attendees of Eric Newby's memorial service in Covent Garden. Newby's wife Wanda discusses the curiously British drive for exploration and Newby's split-personality of urbane and adventurous. Allen visits Newby's childhood home in Hammersmith where at St. Paul's School he reads of Newby's poor academic ability. Newby was unable to complete his studies and his friends Pat Allen, Katherine Whitehorn and Adrian House of the Travellers' Club ponder whether this drove him to prove himself by enlisting on the tea clipper Moshulu . Wanda relates how Newby's captioning of his photographs for publication resulted in The Last Grain Race .
On the eve of World War II Newby enlisted in the Black Watch and after Sandhurst he was captured on an SBS mission in Italy. Fellow POW Pat Spooner recalls Newby's positive attitude at this time when he first met his future wife. Wanda recalls after the war the couple joined the family costumier firm Lane and Newby where he indulged his passion for fashion but was ultimately unfulfilled. Allen meets Newby's old travelling companion Hugh Carless at Snowdonia where the two novice climbers spent weekend practising for an impromptu trip to Afghanistan. Wanda gives Allen Newby's bag as he sets off, with cameraman Peter Jouvenal, to follow in his footsteps.
Allen finds life in remote Nuristan little changed since Newby's time and the Panchea Valley and its inhabitants match his descriptions. Allen locates Newby's original guide who reminisces about Newby and Carliss and the impression that they made. Newby and Carliss never made it to the summit of Mir Samir but the author's self-deprecating style is best exemplified for Allen in his book of the trip A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush . Allen is also forced to turn back but pauses at the point where a historic meeting between Newby and the professional explorer Wilfred Thesiger symbolised the beginning of the age of the traveller.
Explorer, writer and broadcaster Benedict Allen retraces part of author Laurie Lee's journey across Spain in 1935, which became the basis for his celebrated travelogue As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning.
Lee thought of himself first and foremost as a poet, and the book reveals a poet's sensibility in its meticulous, distilled observations of the country and people he quickly came to love.
Allen tries to find out whether Lee's evocative prose actually works as travel writing and Lee is revealed as an enigmatic, mercurial figure in the tradition of the wandering minstrel or troubadour, with a huge array of talents and an astonishing facility to charm.
Benedict Allen follows Patrick Leigh Fermor's epic 1934 quest across Europe, tracing the inns, haystacks and castles the young adventurer stayed in as he foot-slogged his way through the Netherlands, Germany, Hungary and Romania towards Byzantium.
With his academic career punctuated by numerous school expulsions, the young Patrick Leigh Fermor put aside his troubles and set out across Europe to reach Constantinople in Turkey. It was the original backpacker journey, but also a quest in the romantic tradition of Lord Byron - that of the man of action and the intellectual combined.
His two accounts of that journey, A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water, are a masterly portrait of a Europe about to be swept aside by war, and also an insight into the brilliant, classically educated mind of the author.
It is in remotest Greece that Benedict Allen finally tracks down the great man himself to discuss the nature, purpose and future of travel writing.
Sir Patrick Michael Leigh Fermor was an English writer, scholar, soldier and polyglot. He played a prominent role in the Cretan resistance during the Second World War, and was widely seen as Britain's greatest living travel writer, on the basis of books such as A Time of Gifts (1977). A BBC journalist once termed him "a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene".
Riḥla refers to both a journey and the written account of that journey, or travelogue. It constitutes a genre of Arabic literature. Associated with the medieval Islamic notion of "travel in search of knowledge", the riḥla as a genre of medieval and early-modern Arabic literature usually describes a journey taken with the intent of performing the Hajj, but can include an itinerary that vastly exceeds that original route. The classical riḥla in medieval Arabic travel literature, like those written by Ibn Battuta and Ibn Jubayr, includes a description of the "personalities, places, governments, customs, and curiosities" experienced by traveler, and usually within the boundaries of the Muslim world. However, the term rihla can be applied to other Arabic travel narratives describing journeys taken for reasons other than pilgrimage; for instance the 19th century riḥlas of Muhammad as-Saffar and Rifa'a al-Tahtawi both follow conventions of the riḥla genre by recording not only the journey to France from Morocco and Egypt, respectively, but also their experiences and observations.
George Eric Newby was an English travel writer. His works include A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, The Last Grain Race and A Small Place in Italy.
The genre of travel literature or travelogue encompasses outdoor literature, guide books, nature writing, and travel memoirs.
A Time of Gifts (1977) is a travel book by British author Patrick Leigh Fermor. Published by John Murray when the author was 62, it is a memoir of the first part of Fermor's journey on foot across Europe from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople in 1933/34. The book has been hailed as a classic of travel writing; William Dalrymple called it a "sublime masterpiece".
Peter Stuart Hopkirk was a British journalist, author and historian who wrote six books about the British Empire, Russia and Central Asia.
Outdoor literature is a literature genre about or involving the outdoors. Outdoor literature encompasses several different subgenres including exploration literature, adventure literature, mountain literature and nature writing. Another subgenre is the guide book, an early example of which was Thomas West's guide to the Lake District published in 1778. The genres can include activities such as exploration, survival, sailing, hiking, mountaineering, whitewater boating, geocaching or kayaking, or writing about nature and the environment. Travel literature is similar to outdoor literature but differs in that it does not always deal with the out-of-doors, but there is a considerable overlap between these genres, in particular with regard to long journeys.
Benedict Colin Allen FRGS is an English writer, explorer, traveller and filmmaker known for his technique of immersion among indigenous peoples from whom he acquires survival skills for hazardous journeys through unfamiliar terrain. In 2010, Allen was elected a Trustee and Member of Council of the Royal Geographical Society.
Charles Robin Allen was a British freelance writer and popular historian from London. His British parents were both born in India and his numerous works focus on the British Raj.
Mad White Giant: A Journey to the Heart of the Amazon Jungle is a 1985 semi-autobiographical adventure novel by British explorer and author Benedict Allen. It details Allen's travels between the mouths of the Orinoco and the Amazon rivers. In the United States, the novel was published under the title, Who Goes Out In The Midday Sun?
David "Dave" Cornthwaite is an English adventurer, writer and filmmaker. He is best known for his Expedition1000 project, a plan to undertake 25 separate journeys of 1000 miles or more, each using a different form of non-motorised transport.
Dickens in America is a 2005 television documentary following Charles Dickens's travels across the United States in 1842, during which the young journalist penned a travel book, American Notes. It is hosted by British actress Miriam Margolyes, a lifelong fan of Dickens, and intersperses history with travelogue and interviews. It was produced by Lion Television Scotland for BBC Four. Nathaniel Parker provided the voice of Dickens, quoting from his texts throughout the journey.
Love and War in the Apennines is a 1971 Second World War memoir by Eric Newby. In the United States the title was changed to When the Snow Comes, They Will Take You Away. It was dramatised as the 2001 film In Love and War starring Callum Blue and Barbora Bobuľová.
A travel documentary is a documentary film, television program, or online series that describes travel in general or tourist attractions without recommending particular package deals or tour operators. A travelogue film is an early type of travel documentary, serving as an exploratory ethnographic film. Ethnographic films have been made for the spectators to see the other half to relate with the world in relative relations. These films are a spectacle to see beyond the cultural differences as explained by the Allison Griffith in her journal. Before 1930s, it was difficult to see the importance of documentary films in Hollywood cinema but 1930s brought about a change in the history of these films with the popularity of independent filmmakers.
The British Guild of Travel Writers Limited is a private company limited by guarantee formed in April 2015.
Rob Lilwall is a British-born adventurer, author and motivational keynote speaker. He currently lives in Singapore, and is one of the most popular and acclaimed professional speakers in Asia.
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush is a 1958 book by the English travel writer Eric Newby. It is an autobiographical account of his adventures in the Hindu Kush, around the Nuristan mountains of Afghanistan, ostensibly to make the first mountaineering ascent of Mir Samir. Critics have found it comic, intensely English, and understated. It has sold over 500,000 copies in paperback.
In the Footsteps of Marco Polo is a 2008 PBS documentary film detailing Denis Belliveau and Francis O'Donnell's 1993 retracing of Marco Polo's journey from Venice to Anatolia, Persia, India and China. The movie documents the first quest "to visit and document every region Marco Polo claimed to have traveled" using only land and sea methods of transportation. Mike Hale of The New York Times writes that the documentary includes how Belliveau and O'Donnell "encountered Mongol horsemen and hostile Chinese security officers and survived a firefight between Afghan factions. In the spirit of Polo's journey -- and to prove a point regarding the authenticity of his account -- they disdained airplanes, traveling by foot, on horses and camels and by jeep, boat and train." A text by the same name as the video, In the Footsteps of Marco Polo, written by Belliveau and O'Donnell, and published by Rowman & Littlefield, serves as a companion to the documentary film. In the Footsteps of Marco Polo has been used by Belliveau to create a unique interdisciplinary educational curriculum that he presents at schools and libraries across the United States and internationally.