Portmeirion - the psychedelic side of wales

[The Black Adder]

Love this place.

Just come back after a 4 day stay and it's been belting weather. Portmeirion is one of those places where you can honestly think you're abroad.

It's a jewel in the crown of the UK. If you've never been, it's a must for you.

The food is totally amazing too, the wine is fabulous also.

A few pics,







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[Marco]

Nice pics Jo, and glad you guys had a good time. We went a few years back and agree it's a magical place with a top-notch restaurant, too!

Marco.

[The Black Adder]

Nice pics Jo, and glad you guys had a good time. We went a few years back and agree it's a magical place with a top-notch restaurant, too!

Marco.

Damn right. We've been quite a few times over the years and it never loses it's magic.

Also, big fans of The Prisoner are we. Even our teenages love it. Very cool [emoji41]

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[Barry]

It was a "folly" built by Clough-Ellis. Interestingly the distant buildings are just facades, a bit like early Hollywood film sets. They certainly make a lot of fuss about the 'Prisoner' being filmed there: the gift shop is full of Prisoner souvenirs and memorabilia.

I used to enjoy The Prisoner when it was shown on TV, but the revelation as to "who is number 1?", was so unbelievable that Patrick McGoohan was obliged to leave the country out of embarrassment.

I went there some 15 or more years ago, and whilst we ate there I don't remember too much about the venue.

Well worth a visit, especially if you have children.

[Lawrence001]

Love this place.

Just come back after a 4 day stay and it's been belting weather. Portmeirion is one of those places where you can honestly think you're abroad.

It's a jewel in the crown of the UK. If you've never been, it's a must for you.

The food is totally amazing too, the wine is fabulous also.

A few pics,







Sent from my moto g13 using Tapatalk

Can you actually stay there or do you stay nearby and go there for the day? If you can stay overnight it must be great waking up there every morning.

[Pigmy Pony]

I think it was 1977 when I went, I know Roadrunner by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers was in the charts. Hmm, nearly 50 years ago, maybe time to revisit.

I liked The Prisoner, in '77 it was being re-run on TV, so I had no idea whether all the souvenirs on sale were to do with that or just a permanent thing. Barry, I can't remember what the deal was with Number 1, can you enlighten me?

[Barry]

'The Prisoner' was a sort of sequel to Patrick McGoohan's 'Danger Man', in that the secret agents are retired and against their will are located to The Village (set in Portmeirion). There McGoohan is told he is Number Six, to which he asks "who is Number one?". The whole of the series is more or less his attempt to find out who that is. The result is implausible; almost as if the writers didn't know how to end the series.

[Macca]

'The Prisoner' was a sort of sequel to Patrick McGoohan's 'Danger Man', in that the secret agents are retired and against their will are located to The Village (set in Portmeirion). There McGoohan is told he is Number Six, to which he asks "who is Number one?". The whole of the series is more or less his attempt to find out who that is. The result is implausible; almost as if the writers didn't know how to end the series.

It wasn't really the sort of series to have any sort of conventional ending, so it doesn't. A conventional ending wouldn't work because it wasn't about telling a story with beginning, middle and end. It was about exploring concepts, ideas, ideologies, identities and all that stuff.

I think there's at maybe three or four episodes of it that are amongst the best television ever made. Plus some real duffers.

[Barry]

I think it was the New Wave film director Jean Luc Godard who said that "a film should have a beginning, middle and an end - but not necessarily in that order".
The series did have its imaginative and surreal touches: such as the doors of the prisoners' homes automatically opening on approach; the Village is bounded between a mountain range on one side and the sea on the other, and is guarded by giant inflatable spheres which come out of the sea if any Prisoner is trying to escape, and, of course, the overall monitoring of the Prisoners by some central control. So, yes some of the episodes were very well made and eidetic - but if the overall thesis of the series was as you say, then it was lost on me.

I have since found out that the some of the episodes of the televised screening were shown out of order, but that wouldn't matter if as you suggest The Prisoner is not a linear narrative.

It would be a good idea if it was televised again; I might think differently about it - Rotten Tomatoes gives it a rating of 100%!

[Macca]

Other than the first, second and final episode I don't think that the order matters although may be a far more serious Prisoner fan than me who disagrees with that.

When I was at University there was a Prisoner society which I joined. Someone took the A4 map of the campus which was issued to all new undergraduates and modified it to look like the Prisoner village map with the 'Your Village' label and using the font that was developed for the series.

This was back in 1988 so not at all easy to do like it would be now. Multiple copies of it were left in the public areas, I really regret not keeping one.

No-one in the society admitted to being responsible for it and despite extensive enquiries, we never found out who had made them.