Wow, thanks for all the nice comments  

I've also just added a new biography of Donna Wandrey to the site, and stay tuned for a major update to the episode guide this week, courtesy of this forum's very own Mysterious Benefactor

I just got back from seeing the latest London West End production of "Art", which currently stars Ben Cross (1991 Barnabas).

For those who don't know, it's a three-hander play about three friends torn in their relationship when one buys a white canvas at an exorbitant price, drawing conflicting opinions.  I've seen a couple of productions of it, but this one is -- unbiased opinion, honestly -- the best by a long way, with excellent performances and timing.  

Afterwards, I went to the stage door to get signatures.  I was a bit apprehensive, as I get the impression "Dark Shadows" was a somewhat inauspicious career entry from Cross' POV, especially as one of the pics I had was the most OTT fanging shot imaginable.  However, he signed very graciously and chatted graciously enough, though clearly, perhaps unsurprisingly, had nothing much to say of the series.  He looked very well, having not aged much, aside from a few flecks of grey

The production runs until the end of July and is a great play anyway, so I recommend any UK fans get along and see it.  It's at the Whitehall Theatre, and the Box Office number is 0207 369 1735 -- if you quote "Inside Soap" magazine when booking, you can get tickets for £9.00 rather than the usual £18.00.

BTW, Darren don't hate me for this, but I've long thought that it Dan Curtis should remake anything, "Night of Dark Shadows" would be a prime candidate -- it needn't even be done under the "Dark Shadows" banner, and might even do better in its own right for not been tagged with it all...

The problem with DC and "Dark Shadows" is that he seems to assume that "House of DS" was the distillation of all that worked on the show, when in fact it was the product of people who probably hadn't really worked out what was needed to transfer the format to a new medium...

Sigh...  

Not sure -- the John Karlen one was done from the offices of Dan Curtis Productions, IIRC...

Steve, there's a very detailed review on the new discs on my site, which goes into the technical stuff in great detail.  Alan Hayes, the guy who wrote it, really understands his stuff on technical matters, so his opinion is one to be trusted, IMO.

Check it out on http://www.collinwood.net

And shame of EW

Of course there were bad actors and performances on "Dark Shadows" -- no one should have to pull a performance together in less than 24 hours with changes being made up until the last minute, but those were the limitations of the show and the conditions it was recorded under.

There are some painful performances along the way, but generally the results were a lot better than they should have been.

Ah, happy days...  Bob and I played the DS Clue game once and much fun was had -- I even think I won...

[waits to be told that I didn't]