Lovin' that Lupin!

I know exactly when I became aware of the lupin flower. It was summer 1963, and Miss Holdforth, our teacher, said we were going to make a floral mural for the classroom wall. 

Everybody was given a piece of pale green sugar paper, cut in the shape of a cucumber, and two little packets of crepe paper petal shapes. We each had two colours - mine were purple and lilac. We spent one long afternoon sticking our petals on the cucumber, to make a lupin. It was flour and water paste, and the purple colour came off the crepe onto my fingers. I didn't really enjoy the activity [I wanted to do a red one, but you never got a choice!] but I became fascinated with the actual flowers. I decided that at some point I would grow lupins in my garden. As yet this has not happened!

However I have recently discovered a TV show called LUPIN, showing on Netflix. It's another Eurocrime series, set in Paris [subtitled] with an intriguing plot. Assane Diop is a 'gentleman thief', who sets out to avenge his father for an injustice inflicted on him years before, by a wealthy family. Diop takes his inspiration from the fictional character Arséne Lupin, created by the writer Maurice Leblanc.

Assane, like his hero, is "un gentleman cambrioleur" - he steals from people who are worse villains than he is, often in a Robin-Hood sort of way, to benefit those worse off. And always to avenge wrongs. He first appeared in print in 1905, just a few years after A J Horning;s "Raffles" stories arrived in the English press. AJH only wrote from 1899-1909 - but Leblanc kept the Lupin chronicles going up till 1940 [Lesley Charteris introduced his gentleman burglar, The Saint in 1928 - although most of us only know of Roger Moore's 1960s incarnation of that character]

The Diop storyline is very clever- there are parallels with the way the contemporary 'Sherlock' Benedict Cumberbatch relates to Conan Doyle's Holmes. You don't need to know the original Leblanc stories to enjoy Lupin. Bob and I knew nothing about them, but both thought that it was a good tale well told.. 

The actual details behind Leblanc's writing are fascinating. The first book was about Arséne LOpin - but a politician with that same name insisted he change, hence LUpin. He also wrote a story called Arséne Lupin Versus Sherlock Holmes. The estate of Arthur Conan Doyle protested, so he called the character Herlock Sholmes instead [weird but true]

Having watched series 1 & 2 of Lupin, I plan to borrow the original stories from the library. BTW if you do not know the "Raffles" stories, listen out for them on Radio 4 Extra, they are repeated on a regular basis and extremely well done.

I definitely rate Lupin [series 1 and 2] starring the gifted actor Omar Sy, with a clear *****