Dan
It's Christmas Eve in Wales. A young boy named Thomas is excited about the holiday, but he's also disappointed because it's raining instead of snowing. His grandfather gives him an old snow globe as an early Christmas present and starts telling colorful, amusing stories about his childhood Christmases that are shown in flashback. Thomas keeps asking his grandfather more questions because he likes the stories and because he doesn't want to go to bed. His parents finally insist that he go to bed, and his grandfather tells him one last story about going to bed on Christmas night while listening to his family singing carols downstairs. After Thomas falls asleep at last, his grandfather opens the bedroom window and sees falling snowflakes.
Director
A film biography by David Jones with Freddie Jones as John Clare "I am - yet what I am, none cares or knows" (John Clare) John Clare (1792-1864), farm labourer, had three obsessions: his youthful love for Mary Joyce, the countryside of his native Northamptonshire, and the need to celebrate both in his poetry. Clare cracked under the increasing strain of poverty and neglect, and spent the last 23 years of his life in Northampton General Lunatic Asylum. He imagined himself to be Lord Byron, a bigamist, and a prize-fighter; but the poems of his madness are perhaps the most remarkable he ever wrote. "Clare's asylum foretells our need for an asylum, his deprivation foretells our deprivation" (Geoffrey Grigson) Commentary spoken by Tony Church (from BBC Midlands) (David Jones and Patrick Stewart are members of the Royal Shakespeare Company; Tony Church appears by permission of the Northcott Theatre, Exeter)
