Technically, Fitzroy Maclean Angel began life at the age of thirtyish in the mind of one Mike Ripley in the mid eighties, who was aiming to develop a comedy detective series in the ever changing landscape, attitudes and music of the era.
As this sounds totally unromantic, I'd like to give my take.
Fitzroy Maclean Angel was born, in the fifties or sixties (dependant on which book you are reading), somewhere in Suffolk, father one Christopher Cleves Angel, who was something in trade unions, and mother Elizabeth Angel, who was theoretically a housewife, but called herself an artist. Fitzroy was so named as Christopher had been reading Eastern Approaches by Fitzroy Maclean, a soldier alleged to be the inspiration for Ian Fleming's James Bond.
He had an elder brother, Finbar Miles, and a few years after Fitzroy, there was a sister, Finnoula. Now, being the middle of three kids, particularly with the youngest being a girl, meant that Fitzroy would either grow up fighting his corner, or would be continually going in and out of therapy. Fitzroy chose the former, and left to therapy to his family, and anyone else he came into contact with.
He left the family home as quickly as he could and went to university as far away from his family as possible. This may make some readers mistakenly think that relationships to him are unimportant, or even to be avoided: not so, in fact Fitzroy's attitude to relationships are that so long as it doesn't involve spending too much money, or may risk certain popular parts of his anatomy, loyalty and longstanding affection are all important. Unfortunately, his family fail on all counts, thus he avoids contact with them, but sometimes he doesn't run away quickly enough if they catch up with him. He eventually settled in Southwark, but after a sort of accidental explosion which sort of totalled the place he was living in, he moved north of the river to Hackney, and although a few years later he officially moved away, the ties there are still strong, for various reasons.
It is unclear as to when Fitzroy felt he had some talent on the trumpet; the reviews on his musical ability are mixed, to say the least. What is clear is that his musical tastes are somewhat different to all but his very closest friends, and they are few, as most of his generation were either into the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. Fitzroy is into jazz in a big way.
Due to some unscientific magnetism, or maybe it is yet to be discovered or at least proven, Fitzroy has accumulated a number of friends, acquaintances, and hangers on. Most of them were encountered in his early, unrecorded years, but include: a mad Irishman who is rather good on the banjo and also rather good at keeping Fitzroy stocked up with everything that is illegal and bad for the brain; a saxophonist working his way through the bedrooms of the female population of London (and beyond) on a kind of revenge mission after an acrimonious divorce; probably the best car mechanic in the world, and needs to be, as the cars that Angel drives get more prangs than he does; a hostess who has worked for various travel companies who is attempting to make Sex an Olympic sport; an ex drug addict turned optician ; a blonde, 6 foot, southern Yank who thrives on danger ; a Scottish chef whose top talent is fighting, along with his Welsh journalist wife whose top talent is ballbreaking ; a lesbian couple, one half of which seems to fancy Angel, but the other half is far too scary to even contemplate it.......there are lots more, introduced gradually in the biographies, but perhaps the most important of these is Springsteen the cat, the flat mate from hell.
Angel is more than just another reluctant detective.
Looking for an Angel
Those that come into contact with the series frequently ponder: why hasn't at least one made it to TV? The answer is described in depth, by the author in his foreword, in the 2007 reissue of Angel Hunt. It's a sorry story, and maybe typical of a lot of characters and books that are waiting in the wings for a TV series, and it would take just one person, with influence, to believe in them enough for Angel to be transformed from paper to a living, breathing star of the little screen. Ripley seems philosophical about it, not bitter or regretful, just hopeful.
I have mixed feelings about this. When you have an artform which is off the beaten track (like Angel's preferred form of jazz), popularity can breed attention that die-hard fans find an intrusion, as if the hoi-polloi have broken into an exclusive club that was loved purely for how uncool it was, and may provoke criticism which takes away the spirit in which the stories were intended. However, popularity will get the Angel books more widely read, for sure, and such is my love for them that it would be enough for me, (I don't know about the author) as least I will be able to start conversations about them, without the blank looks.
The serious crowd have debated about who should play Angel since the rights for TV were first considered. Nick Berry, Lenny Henry, Sam West, Kenneth Branagh....um, some are serious, some are pure fantasy...at the risk of hurting someone's feelings, I'll leave it to you to decide in which category they fall.
My thoughts? Well, plenty with some of the regular characters, and a few of the one-offs, but Angel himself? As various actor's names came to mind, they were quickly rejected as too tall, too short, too vegetarian, too luvvie, too....hang on, casting directors have a heck of a problem. The dialect of the actor doesn't matter, I'm sure voice coaching has improved since Dick Van Dyke.
I was stuck until fairly recently: I read an article on one Rupert Penry-Jones, and as a bonus, he wants to be James Bond, and I thought, close enough. And considering this thing that Angel seems to have about names, it would be the ultimate cherry on the icing (or something) to have someone with a name like that playing him. Oh, hang on, he's a bit tall too....
But whilst I wait patiently for Angel's fifteen minutes of fame, I consider the facts: much like there is a little bit of James Bond in every male from 12-120, there's a little bit of Angel there too. He's in my better half, when he comes up with his latest get-rich-no-doubt-about-it-this-will-work, scheme. He's in an old acquaintance who could grin his way out of trouble (particularly with women), no matter how thin the ice, and could blag for Britain. He's in a current work colleague, who is turning into the chopsiest git in North Wales (and he's from East Sussex) and that's before he's 30 (if he lives that long).
Angel will attain immortality, I'm sure, in some way.
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