Wikipedia:Peer review/Ian Carmichael/archive1

Ian Carmichael

Ian Carmichael was one of those who appeared in the Boulting brothers’ unofficial repertory company of actors that gave the cinema some wonderful and very British comedies in the 1950s - Private's Progress (1956), Brothers in Law (1957), Lucky Jim (1957) and I'm All Right Jack (1959), often appearing locked in a battle of wills with Terry-Thomas. He went on to play Wooster and Wimsey - two very different characters but with the same core that Carmichael had been honing for years. This has gone through a complete re-write recently and it is hoped that an FAC is the next step, unless people suggest otherwise. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 19:20, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Comments from Tim riley

Not much from me about the meat of the piece. All looks well balanced and suitably sourced. A few suggested tweaks to the prose:

• "appearing with comic actor Leo Franklyn" – clunky false title which can be avoided with a definite article
• "Although Carmichael tired of being typecast as the affable but bumbling upper-class Englishman, he cultured his performances" – I'm not sure what you mean by "he cultured his performances"

  I meant nothing by it at all. My auto-correct however... - SchroCat (talk) 09:30, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

• "His second role was as Francis Flute in A Midsummer Night's Dream at RADA's Jerwood Vanburgh Theatre" – three points here. First, the way you've written it makes it appear that Flute was his second professional role, but if it was at RADA I imagine it was an unpaid student performance. Secondly, although Flute's Christian name is undeniably Francis, I don't think I'd mention it here, any more than I'd give Starveling, Snout or Bottom their respective Robin, Tom or Nick. Thirdly, I don't think RADA's theatre was called the Jerwood Vanburgh in Carmichael's day – just the Vanburgh.
• "Frankie Howerd, who Carmichael auditioned" – whom, please
• "in mid 1946" – hyphen?
• "the operetta The Lilac Domino." – could be linked
• "transferred to the The Globe" – double the
• "for his comic performance one sketch.[32]" – missing a word?
• "I’m afraid" – curly quotation mark
• "Robin Cartwright, a officer in the Guards" – an officer
• "Carmichael was contacted ... They wanted Carmichael to appear" – perhaps "him" rather than the second "Carmichael"?
• "from the Evening Standard" – really a lower case the?
• "slightly crazy, wonder fully ridiculous comedy" – is wonderfully really two words in the original quote?
• "Stanley Windrush, the same character as he portrayed in Private's Progress" – awkward prose: perhaps better as "Stanley Windrush, the same character he portrayed in Private's Progress" or possibly better just "Stanley Windrush, the character he portrayed in Private's Progress".
• "of which he was becoming increasingly bored" – does one become bored of rather bored by or at a pinch with?

  All three are allowable, n'est pas?

• "to discuss the possibility of him taking the role of Bertie Wooster" – "his", not "him"
• "the most highly paid actor at the BBC" – "highest-paid"? (You'd write "best-paid" rather than "most well paid", and the same goes here I'd say.)
• "Peter Jones as Mervyn Bunter, Wimsey's butler" – is Bunter a butler? I think, like Jeeves, he's better described as his employer's manservant or personal attendant

  As he lays out the clothes and advises on selection of clothing I went with valet. (Gentleman's personal gentleman is a bit Wodehouseish, but it would also have sufficed)

• "there was an innocence about about her" – double abouts.

That's my lot – hope it's useful. The article is clearly of FAC quality, I think. Pray ping me when you get there. Tim riley talk 19:30, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Many thanks Tim. All your points bar one dealt with here. The only quibble is over of/by/with, for which I'd be glad to hear your thoughts. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 09:30, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Although my thoughts are, of course, immensely interesting and important, some might prefer to see what the current (2015) edition of Fowler says (p. 116)

bored. The normal constructions are with with or with by: they were bored with being left alone in the country; he became bored with Patrick; they were bored by the party political broadcasts before the general election. A tendency has emerged in recent years, especially in non-standard English in Britain and abroad, to construe the verb with of, especially in conversation and on blogs, by analogy with tired of. The construction should be avoided in writing.

Over to you. Tim riley talk 10:09, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

"with" it is. Thank you, Tim Fowler! - SchroCat (talk) 11:21, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Comments from UC

The usual parade of nitpicks and quibbles -- hope that at least some are helpful. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 13:15, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

• On Carmichael's military service -- as the article alludes, the Royal Armoured Corps is a collection of regiments rather than a regiment in itself; most people would describe themselves as being in e.g. the Queen's Royal Hussars or the 9th/12th Lancers rather than in the RAC (compare "he commissioned into the infantry" vs. "he commissioned into the Blankshires"). I appreciate that things may have been different in wartime, but do we know his regiment (or does the London Gazette, for example?)
• After his demobilisation he returned to acting and found initial success in revue and sketch productions: initial success would seem to imply that the success dried up?
• by the film producers the Boulting brothers: I'd see if there's a more elegant way to phrase this: the double the reads awkwardly.
• In the mid-1960s he played the character Bertie Wooster: could cut the character, as we have the verb played and Wooster is clearly not a musical instrument.
• in his early years he has a "privileged, pampered existence" in a home that included maids and a cook: should be past tense rather than present, I think.
• It's a little woolly in the MoS at the moment, but I'd always attribute quotations: who, for instance, was alarmed by his foul language?
• Carmichael was sent to Scarborough College, prep school in North Yorkshire,: a prep school?
• Consider a Wiktionary link for spartan, as we're using a common but secondary meaning of the term (it wasn't in southern Greece).
• He soon established that "the new curriculum was not arduous": as this is his opinion of it, I think we should use a more hedgy word than established: it might have been more arduous for other pupils, or if he'd tried harder at it!
• Perhaps a matter of taste, but I'd be explicit that RADA is in London: perhaps "to study at London's RADA ... when he left for his studies in ...".
• Again, personal taste, but I'd usually start a long blockquote with a capital letter.
• Link "Hitler invaded Poland" to Nazi invasion of Poland?
• RADA shut down in anticipation that war was about to be declared: we haven't actually been explicit that it was, or as to precisely when (3 September, so they didn't have long to wait).
• completed the forms to become an Officer Cadet Reserve: I'm not sure this is quite grammatical, unless 100% definitely the official rank: a reserve Officer Cadet (but probably decapitalise) or an officer cadet in the reserves. Even if it's the rank, we might not use it: we'd probably say "become a police officer" rather than "become a Trainee Constable", for example.

• I've decapitalised. (Some additional searches show numerous references from the 30s and 40s to the term and an explanation here to its origins). - SchroCat (talk) 12:01, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

As I see it in that source, Officer Cadet Reserve is the body (like the British Army), not a member of it: that is, it's the reserve of officer cadets. Suggest "to join the Officer Cadet Reserve". UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 07:26, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Done - SchroCat (talk) 10:23, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

• He helped gather the harvest in a nearby farm until 2 October, when he was enrolled into the army; he was informed he would have to wait until he was twenty until he formally joined up.: I'm not clear on this: was he in the army on 2 October or was he not? It might help to remind the reader of the date when he would turn 20.

  Picking a nit: we now have that he was attested, which is the point when you formally join up; presumably he had to wait until he was twenty before he began his training (and so practically joined up)? The word formally isn't right here, since the formalities happened before the practicalities. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 07:31, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

  Tweaked this a little; should be okay now. - SchroCat (talk) 10:23, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

• two fellow students, the actors: as we've already introduced them as fellow students, and RADA is a drama school, might consider cutting the actors as obvious.
• After the tour Carmichael reported for training on 12 September at Catterick Garrison. After ten weeks' basic training, he was posted to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst to become an officer cadet.: was this normal? Most officer cadets go straight to Sandhurst; it sounds as though he enlisted as a private soldier but was picked up/volunteered for officer training (like Enoch Powell, for example)?

  I'm not sure what the process was in the 1930s/40s, although the two main sources have it as we do here (ie that he attended basic training and was then posted - with no reference to him undertaking any action to specifically trigger it). I suspect there was more than one way to get into Sandhurst, particularly as he completed the forms to become a cadet in '39, but undertook no training at all until he was enlisted. - SchroCat (talk) 14:59, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• Carmichael struggled to close the hatch of his Valentine tank when it slammed down: tenses are awry here: the slamming came after the struggling, so perhaps was struggling... Presumably this injury is also (partly?) the reason why he doesn't seem to have been deployed until 1944?
• He described it "Dashed unfortunate: as "dashed unfortunate" is better, I think.
• In between training in preparation for the liberation of France: reads awkwardly; would cut in preparation (isn't all training in preparation for something?)
• the brigade's: I don't think we've introduced this formation, so his brigade's is better.
• and fought through to Germany with the regiment: all on 16 June? That's good going.
• One of the comedians who auditioned was Frankie Howerd, who Carmichael thought "very gauche: strictly, whom Carmichael thought...

  I'm surprised Tim riley didn't pick up on that one - he's normally rapping me over the knuckles for the same error in most of my reveiews. - SchroCat (talk) 12:31, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• The corps' company was also joined by actors from Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA), although Carmichael did not often appear with them, but acted as producer of twenty shows: I'd rework this: the but doesn't follow well from the although. Consider a different verb to acted, given that the point is that he didn't act on stage.
• Should Major be linked, as Captain is?
• In July 1946 Carmichael signed on with Stone, who had also been demobbed: I would use the more formal demobilised, and consider a clearer way to say signed on (which can also mean "applied for unemployment benefits", not entirely out of the question for two actors who have just lost a job). Don't you generally sign with an agent?
• the industry publication The Stage, who which: would go with which.
• Consider a link on the "hitting the bullseye" idiom per MOS:IDIOM.
• the reviewer for The Times thought Carmichael "acts with an unfailing tact and sympathy: need to sort the sequence of tenses: thought... act[ed].
• The reviews for the film were not strong: do we mean "not good"? I'm not sure that a strong review is really a phrase.
• Some actors had to point out that he was "doing a Carmichael" whenever he tried to improve his billing, or upstage his fellow actors: a little unclear; did they warn him that he was "doing a Carmichael" as a way of discouraging him from doing these things?
• moving towards working-class and non-establishment-based plots: might be clearer the other way around: "moving away from plots centred on the upper classes and the establishment"?
• the run ended after 23 performances, with the farce not being to the taste of New York audiences: perhaps neater as since the farce was not... -- "with" clauses often come out a bit clunky and slightly ambiguous (Latin head on: causal, concessive or circumstantial?).
• Carmichael negotiated a fee of 500 guineas (£525) per half-hour episode: a common refrain in my reviews, I know, but any sense of how much that was in relative terms?

  We've got the conversion showing it was over £10k per episode, which is a good start. There isn't much more I think we can add to it. It's not far from the "£1,500 per episode, making him the best-paid actor at the BBC", which is quite useful (although obviously the salaries from then pale compared to the current earnings of big names, so I hope people are not making comparisons with those!) - SchroCat (talk) 17:30, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  It's not far from it, but it is above it, which isn't ideal. Were the £1500 episodes also only half an hour? UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 07:25, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

  It's not ideal, no, but as we've got the conversion to £10k, that should suffice for most. I've done some additional searches to see if I can find a way of putting that amount in a context that would be readily understandable, and aside from the fact £1,500 would get you a Triumph Dolomite, I'm coming up short! - SchroCat (talk) 10:22, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

• Pym died of cancer: is Pym a nickname? Would go more formal with "Maclean", personally.

  I'm not sure about this one, as she wasn't Maclean for two-thirds of her life. I think I'll leave it for now, and if anyone else complains about it at FAC I'll swap it over; does that sound OK? - SchroCat (talk) 17:30, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  Personally, I don't have a problem with using maiden names for disambiguation ("Smith married Ms. Jones in 1914; Jones died in 1920"), but not a huge problem. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 07:23, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

• would relax on film sets playing a relaxed game: can we avoid the repetition?
• appearing in a thirty-week tour of The Lilac Domino in the late 1940s: this is almost an exact repetition of a similar phrase further up, which was a bit jarring to read. Perhaps "from the thirty-week tour of The Lilac Domino he undertook in the late 1940s"?
• appearing in a thirty-week tour of The Lilac Domino in the late 1940s, where he appeared opposite the comic actor Leo Franklyn: repetition: can we do something about appearing ... appeared?
• describing how Carmichael would "slave for hours to perfect one stumble on a stairway and, having got it, will make it seem effortless thereafter: sequence of tenses: will should really be amended to would.
• Carmichael's choice of comedy was character, rather than situation-based: suspended hyphens needed here, I think, after character: it wasn't character, but character-based.
• and when the work generated its atmosphere from normal or recognisable life: I'm not sure this bit is quite grammatical.
• He selected his work projects very carefully: the ghost of Robin Williams would like us to get rid of the very.
• "he polished this persona with great care": whose quote? The sentence is doubly cited.
• One of the attractions for the public was that he played them for sympathy, but with a measure of dignity that viewers could relate to: I'm not totally sure what this sentence means.

Thank you so much for all of this. Most of them have been done, but there are still a couple I have kept back to work on a little more carefully. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 14:41, 3 January 2024 (UTC)