Manic Miner - The Opera!
Returning to the Manic Miner & Jet Set Willy-themed Yahoo! Group to see if anyone cared about my recently GSW-published article on the subject (yes, yes, vanity!), I came across something pretty amazing - 'Manic Miner, The Opera'.
Composer Colin Broom explains: "A while back (just over a year ago)I was commissioned to compose some music for 'The Franz Kafka Big Band', a radio comedy show on BBC Radio Scotland. The comedy is pretty offbeat and knowing the writer as well as I do, I'm never too surprised at the ideas he wants to do."
"Anyway, one of these was a sketch about trying to make classical music appeal to a younger audience, and involved the supposed premiere of 'Manic Miner: the Opera', an opera about Miner Willy and his journey through the mines, which I had to compose sections of. There were three sections composed: I - Central Cavern; II - Eugene's Lair; III - Warehouse." [.MP3 links!]
Needless to say, this is an awesome idea - and it's carried out really well, too! Of course, only on unlikely places like BBC Scotland would an almost 25-year-old video game be considered likely "to make classical music appeal to a younger audience", but it's certainly right up my personal comedy alley, so all's right with the world.
Comments
Manic Miner holds a lot of memories for me. I first played it on the Dragon 32, the first computer system I'd ever used, as my dad owned it before I was even born. Then he got an 086 when I was around five, and then a ZX Spectrum 128k when I was around six, so I got to play Manic Miner once again... and then Jet Set Willy.
Of course, it didn't end there... I went through a bizarre phase around 1998 or so, where I dragged the ZX Spectrum 128k out of the attic, a really old tape deck that I used to use on the Dragon 32, and some odd DOS program I found on the internets which could play Spectrum .tap files as audio.
I'd then linked up the tape deck to my PC, and started recording a bunch of JSW fanhacks onto casettes to play on the actual Spectrum. I've always been very much into retro gaming, and it was awesome to make custom casettes containing several different games of my childhood. The fad only lasted a few weeks though, after a while I eventually thought "What on earth am I doing, I'm spending about 15 minutes recording and loading just to play a dodgy spectrum game.", and it went back into the attic.
Ah well.
On a completly unrelated note, I'm glad Bully came out and was a success. I've been clamoring for a modern-day 'Skool Daze' or 'Bak 2 Skool' game for years.
Posted by: CherryMay | January 13, 2007 7:10 PM