At Long Last: The Return of Mitchell and Kenyon

We interrupt your normal programming to bring the following announcement:

Following on from the hugely successful BBC TV series The Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon and the BFI’s first DVD volume Electric Edwardians, come two DVDs containing a new selection of films – Mitchell & Kenyon Edwardian sports and Mitchell & Kenyon in Ireland.

Mitchell & Kenyon Edwardian sports offers an unparalleled opportunity to see and learn about sporting action at the turn of the century. A remarkable selection of sporting highlights from the Mitchell & Kenyon Collection, it brings together some of the earliest surviving films (1901-7) featuring the titans of professional football, cricket and rugby whilst also rediscovering the Corinthian spirit of amateur sport and leisure in Edwardian life. Liverpool, Hull, Kingston Rovers, Everton, and Blackburn Rovers football teams are all featured, alongside a swimming gala in North Shields, the AAA championships of 1901 and the Mold cricket controversy – an early ‘chucking’ storm with an Australian umpire at its centre.

The DVD is programmed by Dr Vanessa Toulmin of the National Fairground Archive at the University of Sheffield Library, author of the BFI book Electric Edwardians: The Films of Mitchell & Kenyon (2006) and editor of The Lost World of Mitchell & Kenyon: Edwardian Britain on Film (BFI, 2004).

Although the commentary has been written by Toulmin, it’s actually being read by Adrian Chiles, which leaves you to wonder how close we came to getting Chris Waddle or Les Ferdinand. Nevertheless, Chiles is a proper broadcaster, so whatever the BFI had in mind with him will result in a good job being done.

The DVDs are released tomorrow, and I for one am going to swing by the South Bank before my evening clinic tomorrow.