Omnibus (1967)

The Ken Russell Festival (2): The Dotty World of James Lloyd & Always On Sunday (1x33)

Air date: Jul 02, 1968

Michael Caine introduces the second of four programmes devoted to the early films from television's prize-winning director. The Dotty World of James Lloyd (1964) Ken Russell took a film unit into the Yorkshire home of the self-taught painter whose pointilliste technique was developed with no knowledge of Seurat and under the most extraordinary domestic circumstances. Always on Sunday (1965) A dramatised reconstruction of the life of Henri 'Douanier' Rousseau. The style of filming was made to match the style of Rousseau's painting and the difficulty of casting the supremely innocent French 'primitive' painter was resolved by using the one man Russell knew who could bring real understanding to the part - James Lloyd. "The result was a partially comic, affectionate, intense, and beautiful film. Some of the images were extraordinarily true." (The Sun) "There were many images here which showed television as an art in itself." (The Guardian) "It is a long time since a television programme