Think
back – who, in your opinion, is the best Brenda villain or monster?
My
top five would be:
5)
Karla Sorenson – polymorphously perverse vintage film starlet who unleashed all
kinds of chaos with her remake of ‘Get Thee Inside Me, Satan’ in ‘Hell’s Belles’
(2009)
4)
Goomba the Bamboo Deity from the Dawn of Time in ‘Something Borrowed’ (2007)
Was he wicked or just horribly misunderstood? His brooding presence resided in
a set of garden furniture in Sheila Manchu’s beer garden and he ended up
enslaving almost all of Whitby as the dreadful Wickerwork Man.
3)
Kristoff Alucard. He was washed up on the shore of Whitby in the 1890s and no
one’s been able to get rid of him since. Effie’s some-time beau and a bit too
dapper for his own good. Brenda wouldn’t trust him as far as she could chuck
him, and perhaps she was right.
2)
Mrs Claus. The grotesque old bag who rules the Christmas Hotel and makes it
forever Yule. She starts out in the series as an out-and-out horror, but maybe
she redeems herself by the end, when certain revelations are unwrapped?
1)
For me number one has to be Mr Danby – that most persistent of villains.
Whether it’s a Deadly Boutique or a muck-raking late night chat show, or a
bookshop housing a celestial gateway into the wicked land of Qab – this oleaginous
fiend keeps coming up with crackpot schemes designed to suck the life essence
out of our two leading ladies. Is he and his dessicated Mother Superior (whom
he carries about in a suitcase) still at large? And will we ever find out?
Let
me know if I’ve missed anyone even more horrible out…!
Also - there's now a Brenda and Effie facebook page! Do pop along and join!
It has to be Mrs Claus.She was so deliciously repulsive.It set me thinking of other favourite Brenda things.My funniest moment has to be in Something Borrowed whenBrenda's body parts march Brenda and Henry to Effie's library. I was helpless with laughter
ReplyDeleteI have a soft spot for Mrs Claus, her connection with Branda and Effie feels more intimate and therefore I've invested more in their connection. She's also, as a character, deliciously OTT in a way that reminds me of one of my aunties! I must hasten to add, she never indulged in the sort of nefarious schemes that Mrs Claus has. That I know of...
ReplyDeleteFor me, a tie between Ma Danby & Son and Alucard. Adored Henry and that whole backstory of his and Brenda's. Brenda and Effie are unique, (their dialogue especially, is to die for), all the more so for their setting in Whitby. The books are a huge canvas of magnificent creativity. Please Paul, whatever your growing writing commitments, never shut the door on Brenda and Effie?
ReplyDelete(Jane, Devon)