Talk:Bonnie Langford

Comparison to Bernadette Peters

I would hate to sound negative, but based on only having seen her in Doctor Who and hearing that she'd done stage work, I've always thought of Bonnie Langford as a Bernadette Peters wannabe.

That's not such a negative thing to say. Both are fantastic performers. If Bonnie admires Bernadette's work, one can hardly blame her.

Coward quote

The article has it as: "If they had shoved the child's head up the horse's arse they would have solved two problems at once." But I've always seen it reported before as being something more like "If they had cut the second act and the child's throat they would have solved two problems at once." Does anybody have a definitive source for this? Indeed, is it even true, or a popular myth? Angmering 23:11, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I know its been some time, but some surfing the internet gives [1]; it does seem possible - BL was in Gone With the Wind in 1972 - a year before Coward's death. It would be nice to find a copy of the review referred to by the Guardian...Apepper —Preceding unsigned comment added by Apepper (talk • contribs) 19:35, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I remember hearing this quoted on the office grapevine in 1972, exhorting the insertion per rectum equinus of the allegedly irritating child as a neat solution to the problem of the misbehaved on-stage horse. Trawling the internet just now threw up a page claiming that Noel Coward stole the quote from Wendy Toye. Incidentally, during the performance I attended the horse was impeccably behaved. Ant501UK (talk) 10:17, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I stumbled across this page today and removed the criticism section. It's gone unsourced and unchallenged for some time, "fair amount of criticism" is rather weaselly, and the whole thing smacked of someone trying to prove (gosh, again?) what a sparkling wit Noel Coward possessed. Even if the Coward quotes are sourced, a full section on criticism requires more than just a couple of snarky comments by one individual. As it stood for so long, it doesn't fit the criteria.PacificBoy 14:02, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Cleanup tags

I have applied a number of tags to this article because I feel it falls far short of a good encyclopaedic article. Although I have previously made some major changes to remove some of the obvious fansite qualities (some of which have crept back in) I am more in a position to remove what I feel is extraneous information than add the new content I believe it deserves.

General cleanup

For all the reasons below, plus:

• The early career section is mostly about current or very recent work; much of what remains is about her pre-career training.
• The section Career regeneration 2005 and beyond follows the Dancing on Ice section, but Dancing on Ice appears to be the main catalyst for the career regeneration (and yet was post-2005, so something's messed up).
• The article contains predictions of uncertain future events, such as and later in the year Langford is rumoured to be joining the West End cast but this has not yet been confirmed.
• The article continues to advertise, eg Langford is currently on tour with Torvill and Dean's Dancing on Ice Live which runs until 6 May and 31 dates have now been released and full details can be found on the Bonnie Langford website in the What's On Page.

Fan site

I removed great swathes of gushing fandom from the Dancing on Ice section before, but this kind of thing remains:

• The One Doctor has become a massive fan favourite
• Gary Russell was surprised and delighted that Langford wanted to take part
• On the tour Langford has been delivering a high performance every evening
• Langford's reviews were so good that
• The song has been a huge hit going to number one in March 2007 and staying there for 3 weeks

This last point is an interesting one because it refers to a Comic Relief project which Langford contributed to but can hardly be credited with the success of. It would, IMO, be far more flattering to Langford to note simply that she "supported Comic Relief by appearing in the video for [the song]." rather than making such outrageous claims.

Resume

The whole article is almost entirely a list of work Langford has done, skewed very much towards the present. There is very little else: we have her birthdate (but no specific birthplace), one short sentence about her husband and child, and half a sentence about her training. This is clearly the area where new content is required: I wish to consult the article to find out more about the person; her list of individual achievements is, and for the most past should only be, in the Filmography etc sections.

Ros0709 07:18, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Some welcome changes were made to this article and the tags removed. I do not believe that those changes addresses all of the issues I raised and have made a number of further changes to do that. The main issue remaining to be addressed, I believe, is the lack of content other than that which is a resume of her work. Ros0709 13:56, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

"best-known companions"?

The introduction describes her as one of the best-known companions on Doctor Who. Does anyone have a source for this? I find it rather ambiguous--if it's saying Mel is one of the programme's best-known companions, or that Langford is one of the actors best known for playing a companion, well I'd be stunned if that was true. If, on the other hand, if it's saying she was one of the few companions already famous at the time she was cast, then I think that's a rather more defensible statement. Also, there's a greatly excessive number of headers compared to the amount of text in this artcle—several headers have only a single sentence. I'm going to try to clean some of this up, but someone who comes behind me might want to take a closer look. Binabik80 17:31, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with "best known companion". I am in the US, and have three guys here where I work who were in England when her run on the show was current. They all despised her. Two of them said they had stopped watching the show at that point completely. "Best known" is a seriously subjective term, and almost demands a source. I'm normally someone who argues against the flood of "provide source" tags all over Wikipedia lately, but in this case I have to agree with it, I don't know if it's accurate. Dopefish 17:50, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I also stopped watching because of her. She seems to have made quite an impression on Who fans, so "best known" should stay - it doesn't have to mean "most popular"! Totnesmartin 10:02, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I am not going to edit the main page, but it is a travesty there has not been a focus on her work with Lena Zavaroni in her early career. Someone should deal with this. Silverneedle (talk) 14:15, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Age?

No offence meant at all, but is her age (44) correct? Because she looks much older and I'm wondering if it's just been written wrong here. Sky83 (talk) 10:50, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Robcamstone edits

Robcamstone, I don't spend a lot of time in music articles, but I think it's pretty unusual to include track listings in the performer's bio. The sourcing to iTunes is also problematic, but I think that's a secondary issue. Is there a WP:GA or WP:FA article you could point me to that follows the format you're suggesting?

Thanks,

Lesser Cartographies (talk) 11:07, 3 October 2013 (UTC)