Alright, alright, what's going on here? Perusing the Actors section on BA I came across, completely by chance I might add, a boy actor called Derek Senft. Totally obscure, of course, but he acted in one of a series of films made by a company called Devine Entertainment. This DVD I purchased from them, and by no means cheap, was about Johann Strauss Jr who, amongst composing his wonderful waltzes and polkas, apparently took the time to befriend a stableboy, Nicholas, played by the aforementioned Derek Senft. The company is based in Toronto so it's a safe bet that Derek Senft is from Canada. Doh! HOWEVER, what is of special interest is that this film is connected to another one I remember seeing years ago about Beethoven. It seems this great composer of the classics also befriended a boy who happened to be the son of the landlady from whom Beethoven was renting the upstairs room. Hence the title of that film being 'Beethoven Lives Upstairs'. I had often thought I would never trace where to obtain that film. Now I know.

'Strauss: The King of Three-Quarter Time', to give it its full title, lasts only 51 minutes and seems to have been made for TV. The DVD is, therefore, not only costly but short in length to boot! The story is quite good but there is no time to really develop the characters. Also Strauss's music is rather limited being often talked over by the actors. Derek Senft is great though I hardly think his haircut would have been much in evidence in 19th century Austria. HOWEVER, the DVD does have a number of Strauss's compositions on an audio soundtrack which I thought was a good gesture.

Devine Entertainment has noble aspirations of gaining children's interests in classical music. I wish them the best of luck if they can wean the little beggars off their pop and boringly repetitive rap rubbish. I fear they have an uphill struggle. HOWEVER, this company has made a whole series of films on composers and famous historical figures but all with a child central character in them. Wonderful! These seem to have afforded an opportunity for some obscure Canadian boy and girl actors to get a chance to appear onscreen.

Which brings me back to the fact that BA is a veritable fount of hidden treasures which, if one searches around sufficiently will pop to the surface. Isn't this site just great?

So, who has any of these films and what about them?

I think The Composers was broadcast as a TV series here but I assume it was actually a group of TV Specials (also released as Videos) The name Derek Senft certainly does ring a bell. He was one of my favourites from that series, along with Tod Fennel and Illya Woloshyn. Illya went on to do the excellent "Odyssey" series. Well, excellent to start with but they dragged it out and I eventually stopped watching it. I'd certainly recommend the first series.

I'm rather surprised The Odyssey hasn't had a DVD release. It's disappointing that quite a few excellent 'kids' series, in fact most of the good ones from the past have not come out on DVD.

I've been trying to purchase a DVD from Devine Entertainment but without success. Does anyone know if these films are still available?