The Philip Mackie Collection and Raffles adaptation study 💎✨
When I did my bachelor's in film studies two years ago, I chose to focus on the Raffles TV series — what a surprise, eh? At first I wasn't sure exactly what the focus should be, but I was interested in conducting some sort of adaptation study based on archival materials. Well, it didn't take long before I stumbled across what felt like a goldmine: the Philip Mackie Collection at Solent Library, Southampton — the personal collection belonging to the late scriptwriter, which according to the archive record contained eight (!) boxes of material relating to the production of Raffles 1975-77. I could hardly believe it, and could also not believe no one had found this record earlier, considering how good this fandom tends to be at finding obscure sources — I had myself tried to find more information about the production of the series multiple times. I later found out that the archive had only been listed online about six months prior! (Who believes in fate? I know I do.)
Long story short, I set off to Southampton and spent the 9th-15th March (yes, Rafflesweek) down in the basement of Solent Library, blissfully alone with thousands of pages of the typewritten original scripts for the series, along with correspondence, invoices, schedules, handwritten notes, and other obscure things that might not have been relevant but certainly interesting. I'm hardly exaggerating when saying it was the best week of my life, and I considered just moving there at the end of it (who doesn't wanna live in a basement??).
(⬆️my new safe space)
The material and the research I took with me from that week eventually resulted in a 13 000 word adaptation study of the TV series, conducted in two stages: from book to screenplay, and from screenplay to televised series. The focus was on the themes of aestheticism and queerness, and how these had been transmediated from Hornung's stories to the silver screen. In addition, I managed to — with a little help from the fandom, shout out to Gaby and partner! — contact Christopher Strauli, who agreed to be interviewed over email and provide some additional insight into the production of the series. 💝
Now, naturally I wanted to share my findings and research with the fandom immediately; and if you are in the Discord server, you have already been able to see bits and pieces. But since I am Swedish and study at a Swedish university, my thesis was also written in my native language which meant I couldn't share it with the non-Scandinavian part of the fandom (which is... most of it). I began the work on translating it not long after it had been marked approved, but due to life being busy and due to the time consuming work of translating and editing 13 000 words from academic Swedish into academic English without losing important nuance (English is hard, guys...), it has really taken me two years to finish the translation.
But — now it IS finally finished! I only have some formatting and exporting to do, and then I will actually be able to share it with anyone who wants to read it. And I thought, what better occasion to do that on than the 50th Anniversary of the pilot episode, "The Amateur Cracksman", this 10th of September!!
So: if you are in the Discord server, you will be able to download it from there. If you only see this on tumblr and want to read it, send me a DM with your email and I will send it to you on Wednesday! (Of course, there's no expiration date — if you see this later, you're still welcome to message me!)
The version you will be able to read now is simply my bachelor's thesis translated as-is into English, with some minor edits. However, I'm happy to say that the professors at my university were very enthusiastic regarding the study due to its obscurity and the combination of adaptation theory, queer theory, and the use of archival materials, and during the examination and peer review session encouraged me to rework it into an article for possible publication in a UK film journal. That is what I will do next; of course there is no guarantee it will actually be published, but I will do my very best!
In the meantime, I am really happy to finally be able to share this with you all! Working on this study was a great joy, to say the least. I hope it will prove interesting and provide some new and interesting insights into the TV series and the conditions under which it was made! 💎
