TV The BBC’s new Doctor Who methadone, Merlin was a very entertaining 45 minutes. And it certainly had a better opening episode than their previous attempt, Robin Hood.
Reinterpreting this kind of legend is a double-edged creative butter knife – stray too close to the established elemental expectations and you risk tediously regurgitating what’s gone before, stride too far away and the exercise becomes pointless; you might as well have made up your own thing. Like Hood, the Arthur myth is a fairly well trodden journey and emphasising Merlin as the main character has also been tried fairly successfully before, notably in the Hallmark mini-series with Sam Neill.
For me, the best Merlins have been tricksters, elemental forces in humanoid form who have strayed into Camelot or Middle Earth or wherever they’ve got their beards caught and get wrapped up in human affairs. I’m not sure there’s been anything as good as Nicole Williamson in John Boorman’s Excalibur in this regard, who managed to be deadpan and dotty as well as dark and demonic – though I’ve also a soft spot for the druid seen in the underrated King Arthur.
I often wonder if it’s possible to tie all of these different versions together by saying that it’s the same force or man, existing on his own plane and we’re simply seeing how it or his manifestation is bent to fit within each reality. I’m sure there’s a book to be written about that some day.
BBC1’s Merlin takes the Smallville approach of making the familiar characters much younger and showing their “adventures” before the time we’re more familiar with. In this iteration, Arthur and Merlin are of the same generation, though not social class, a prince and his manservant and – in an interesting twist – they hate each other, though that’ll change in the future (think Flash Thompson and Peter Parker in the early Spider-man comics). Arthur’s fated to be king anyway through succession, which should make for less amazement when he pulls Excalibur from the stone and declares himself master of the realm. And by that point, Merlin will be about the same age instead of the wizened old gent we’re used to.
Around them buzz the kind of Propps that Joseph Campbell crystalised – the mentor in the form of Richard Wilson’s Gauis (rather fulfilling the slot that Merlin had in Disney’s Sword in the Stone), a companion in the shape of Angel Coulby’s Gwen(iviere) and the unattainable princess Morgana (a glacial Katie McGrath). Anyone who knows their Camelot apples will have spotted an abundance of mythology ripe for the picking. Morgana’s already got her eye on Arthur – will they introduce the rather lovely stumbling branch that she’s his half sister or decide instead to emphasise the potential love triangle between Gwen, Merlin and Arthur… or will the writers simply chuck all of that out for something else?
The real innovation the BBC introduces, is that far from being an autonomous collective, this realm is governed by the usually much talked about but not seen Uther Pendragon who’s banned magic because as far he’s concerned it was used for the wrong ends 20-odd years before. That puts Merlin in the position of being naturally magical without the ability to be practical, not only keeping down the budget because he can’t just fly around or walk through walls without being seen, but also suggesting a future moment when someone he loves is in peril but he can’t risk wobbling his nose (or in this case make his eyes glow) for fear of being found out – see also Clark Kent watching Lois Lane fall from a building without a telephone box or alley in sight. That’s the season ending cliff hanger right there, you mark my words.
On the whole then, really good fun and well directed by Who veteran James Hawes. It’s not perfect – some of the performances have a bit of genre-itis (I’m in a chainmail so that must mean they want my best panto acting) – but Colin Morgan is a real find and brings some geeky charisma to Merlin. He stole many of his scenes – the magnesium chemistry with Coulby’s Gwen a particular pleasure – and the production design is very clever, managing to be both convincing medieval and yet modern at the same time, something which First Knight tried but failed. Plus any series that has John Hurt voicing a dragon can’t be all bad.
Writer Julian Jones’s haikuic revenge plot was good enough for the first episode and helped immeasurably by Torchwood‘s Eve Myles as a witch who sang like an angel. But if all Merlin does is spend the next 12 weeks defending his prince from magical men and women, it could become very repetitive. It just has to be careful not to fall into the trap of having our hero become too powerful so that his magic can simply save the day every week, this series’s equivalent of the kind of deus ex machina brought about whenever the Doctor whips out his sonic screwdriver.
And I managed to get through all that without mentioning a certain other in voguish boy wizard…
Showing posts with label off the telly archive. Show all posts
Showing posts with label off the telly archive. Show all posts
Only Connect.
TV Victoria Coren looks incongruous sitting behind a desk presenting BBC4′s new panel game, Only Connect. That’s because, with the exception of Balderdash and Piffle, all of her other television work is either playing or presenting poker games.
Maybe it just seems odd because she’s holding big question cards instead of the usual slightly smaller playing cards, or I’m too used to seeing her flouncing around searching for or justifying word definitions. Either way, she’s a more genial and forgiving questioner than Jeremy Paxman in the most intellectually stimulating half hour quiz show since University Challenge.
Actually, the closer touchstone is probably the impossibly difficult questions found in the 1970s heyday of this sort of thing in Top of the Form or Ask The Family. The format is fairly simple. Two teams take it in turns to try and work what links four words, pictures or pieces of music before the time runs out. The twist is the answers require some lateral thinking; in one round you’d need to know the pilots of the first three Thunderbirds and in which order so that you could name the fourth one, or what Bertrand Russell looks like and that he unsuccessfully ran for parliament.
BBC4 have been experimenting with this kind of programme for years, their equivalent of Radio 4′s Round Britain Quiz. But unlike Never Mind the Full Stops (too smug) and The Book Quiz (too exclusive), Only Connect enlists shlobs like us rather than celebrities, and there is a genuine competition with a title at the end. The teams are collected together through some shared interest – in the opening episode that was knitting or, um, not being psychologists. Each is asked to introduce themselves at the opening, and fans of nervous banter were well served by a moment in which Vicky asked one of the contestants if the jumper she was wearing was homemade, only to be told that it’s not called that any more.
Perhaps my brain’s gone soft after years of watching quizzes based on multiple choice questions, but much of the time the answer was hidden in the dark recesses of my brain, but only seemed to surface at just the moment after it had been given on screen. I did know Shakespeare’s seven ages of man, but floundered when faced with the final round in which the names of series of mathematicians were flashed up, sans vowels and with the spaces messed up. In other words, imagine A Question of Sport if the contestants were being asked about Ayn Rand rather than Ronaldo. And instead of a numbers board they had to choose from letters of the Greek alphabet. That last bit’s not a joke, by the way, in this quiz you really did need to know your alphas from your zetas before even being given a chance to ponder anything.
Which is probably why I enjoyed it so much. It requires a modicum of intelligence, not just from the viewer but the contestants themselves. Beat that In it to Win It.
Maybe it just seems odd because she’s holding big question cards instead of the usual slightly smaller playing cards, or I’m too used to seeing her flouncing around searching for or justifying word definitions. Either way, she’s a more genial and forgiving questioner than Jeremy Paxman in the most intellectually stimulating half hour quiz show since University Challenge.
Actually, the closer touchstone is probably the impossibly difficult questions found in the 1970s heyday of this sort of thing in Top of the Form or Ask The Family. The format is fairly simple. Two teams take it in turns to try and work what links four words, pictures or pieces of music before the time runs out. The twist is the answers require some lateral thinking; in one round you’d need to know the pilots of the first three Thunderbirds and in which order so that you could name the fourth one, or what Bertrand Russell looks like and that he unsuccessfully ran for parliament.
BBC4 have been experimenting with this kind of programme for years, their equivalent of Radio 4′s Round Britain Quiz. But unlike Never Mind the Full Stops (too smug) and The Book Quiz (too exclusive), Only Connect enlists shlobs like us rather than celebrities, and there is a genuine competition with a title at the end. The teams are collected together through some shared interest – in the opening episode that was knitting or, um, not being psychologists. Each is asked to introduce themselves at the opening, and fans of nervous banter were well served by a moment in which Vicky asked one of the contestants if the jumper she was wearing was homemade, only to be told that it’s not called that any more.
Perhaps my brain’s gone soft after years of watching quizzes based on multiple choice questions, but much of the time the answer was hidden in the dark recesses of my brain, but only seemed to surface at just the moment after it had been given on screen. I did know Shakespeare’s seven ages of man, but floundered when faced with the final round in which the names of series of mathematicians were flashed up, sans vowels and with the spaces messed up. In other words, imagine A Question of Sport if the contestants were being asked about Ayn Rand rather than Ronaldo. And instead of a numbers board they had to choose from letters of the Greek alphabet. That last bit’s not a joke, by the way, in this quiz you really did need to know your alphas from your zetas before even being given a chance to ponder anything.
Which is probably why I enjoyed it so much. It requires a modicum of intelligence, not just from the viewer but the contestants themselves. Beat that In it to Win It.
Spooks: Code 9.
TV The announcement of Spooks: Code 9 was greeted with the kind of collective internet sigh last heard through every episode of ’90s flop Attachments. The trailers looked like something someone might have knocked up for YouTube using clips from that failure to tap into the web zeitgeist, the main complaint being that this spin-off (then called Threat Level) made a nonsense of the parent programme because it showed everyone in London being wiped out, making the actions of the more familiar characters entirely pointless.
The first episode didn’t open well – the too swift description of the catastrophe, then smash straight into spy craft with lots of quick cutting and shouting and pop culture references was particularly dated and Joanne Froggatt seemed unsure how to pitch her performance as leader Hannah, to the point of being irresistibly annoying. Once she got the bullet (the unexpected death carrying on a well worn Spooks tradition begun in fine style when Lisa Faulkner saw the wrong end of a chip pan in the second episode of the parent series), the mis-en-scene calmed down and set about defining the real ensemble and telling a proper story with long scenes full of acting.
On reflection, establishing the status-quo up front rather than having an apocalyptic Survivors-lite first episode added a much needed sense of mystery as the audience attempted to catch up on the intervening history. The plots are typical Spooks fare except, presumably for budget reasons, on a smaller scale – discover who the shooter/bomber/traitor is and stop them. If it’s possible, the series seems to have an even stronger political agenda than the main channel version, speculating on the lengths the security services would go to in protecting society, with civil libertarians becoming terrorists to get their point across.
Doctor Who fans tuning in to see what Georgia Moffat did next after playing the Doctor’s daughter would be disappointed – saddled with a horrifyingly unconvincing character name (Kylie Roman) and bizarre red wig (that can’t possibly be her natural hair colour) she’s yet to really shine. Better was the decision to have the maths geek Charlie (Liam Boyle) in charge rather than at the bottom of the pecking order trying to prove to his boss how clever he is, and even smarter to make him the opposite of the omnipotent Harry Pearce. He’s forever asking his longer serving deputy Rachel (Ruta Gedmintas) for advice, offering her in turn the opportunity to be far more ruthless than her exterior would suggest.
Having these generally less knowledgeable agents also neatly sidesteps the perennial problem of the parent series where the apparently very experienced adults drop a hundred IQ points in order for the plot to move forward. Setting the series in a fiction city and blurring the geography also means the audience is on the back foot even if the place is clearly being filmed in the oh so real Leeds. It’s actually easy enough to assume too that all this is happening in a different timeline to the other show, simply trading on the name, and format. Despite it’s bastard origins this is turning out to be a neat bit of Orwell-lite, Whedon-lite entertainment.
The first episode didn’t open well – the too swift description of the catastrophe, then smash straight into spy craft with lots of quick cutting and shouting and pop culture references was particularly dated and Joanne Froggatt seemed unsure how to pitch her performance as leader Hannah, to the point of being irresistibly annoying. Once she got the bullet (the unexpected death carrying on a well worn Spooks tradition begun in fine style when Lisa Faulkner saw the wrong end of a chip pan in the second episode of the parent series), the mis-en-scene calmed down and set about defining the real ensemble and telling a proper story with long scenes full of acting.
On reflection, establishing the status-quo up front rather than having an apocalyptic Survivors-lite first episode added a much needed sense of mystery as the audience attempted to catch up on the intervening history. The plots are typical Spooks fare except, presumably for budget reasons, on a smaller scale – discover who the shooter/bomber/traitor is and stop them. If it’s possible, the series seems to have an even stronger political agenda than the main channel version, speculating on the lengths the security services would go to in protecting society, with civil libertarians becoming terrorists to get their point across.
Doctor Who fans tuning in to see what Georgia Moffat did next after playing the Doctor’s daughter would be disappointed – saddled with a horrifyingly unconvincing character name (Kylie Roman) and bizarre red wig (that can’t possibly be her natural hair colour) she’s yet to really shine. Better was the decision to have the maths geek Charlie (Liam Boyle) in charge rather than at the bottom of the pecking order trying to prove to his boss how clever he is, and even smarter to make him the opposite of the omnipotent Harry Pearce. He’s forever asking his longer serving deputy Rachel (Ruta Gedmintas) for advice, offering her in turn the opportunity to be far more ruthless than her exterior would suggest.
Having these generally less knowledgeable agents also neatly sidesteps the perennial problem of the parent series where the apparently very experienced adults drop a hundred IQ points in order for the plot to move forward. Setting the series in a fiction city and blurring the geography also means the audience is on the back foot even if the place is clearly being filmed in the oh so real Leeds. It’s actually easy enough to assume too that all this is happening in a different timeline to the other show, simply trading on the name, and format. Despite it’s bastard origins this is turning out to be a neat bit of Orwell-lite, Whedon-lite entertainment.
“You lost me at carrots, which was the first draft of ‘You had me at hello’”
TV As the Big Brother season once again holds us in its grip (is this the worst crop of contestants we’ve ever had?) I thought I’d note two things.
Firstly, that unlike the previous few years, E4′s schedules haven’t been cleared to make way for live coverage from the house, with only an hour’s worth of shouting peaking through in the middle of a weekday afternoon, then through the night footage of them either sleeping, trying to sleep, being drunk, or doing some more shouting. Secondly, the channel has suddenly seen fit to begin broadcasting one of my favourite series of this past decade, the Emmy Award-winning Gilmore Girls , with the same daily episode appearing at 8:50am and 11:30am.
Gilmore Girls began in the US late in 2000 and quickly became one of the highest rated shows on network television. The premise sounds twee and horrible. It’s about the relationship between a single mother and her daughter – the daughter having reached the age the mother was when she gave birth. They live in a small town. The daughter, Rory who’s smarter than everybody, is going through the usual teen angst about not being the most popular girl in school and fancying some boy. Her mom, Lorelai, is the manager of a hotel and has her own issues dealing with her own – up until recently – estranged mother.
I was hooked after the second minute of the first episode.
A woman, who we later discover is Lorelai, walks across the street. On the soundtrack is There She Goes by The Las. Which is a bit of a cliche, but keep watching. The woman walks into a coffee shop and approaches the counter. The owner won’t serve her coffee. He’s cutting her off. She pleads with him and eventually he relents. Somewhere in there I realise that it’s being played as though she’s a junkie and he’s her dealer. Then I remember that one of the few things most TV producers (and Sixpence None The Richer when they covered the song) also miss is the fact that There She Goes is reputed to be about heroin. “The racing through my veins” lyric being a dead giveaway. At which moment I realise this show is intertextual. It selected the music and then played a scene based on the audience being able to understand a really, really zetgeisty pop culture reference. Wow.
Then the real dialogue begins to flow between the woman and her daughter and it’s funny. Not in a forced, sitcom, stream of punchlines way, but like a 1940s screwball comedy, reams of smart dialogue. Apparently each script for a 40 minute episode ran to eighty and it shows. I’ll say it again. It’s really, really funny. At one point, the dynamic between mother and daughter is compared to the Iran-Contra affair. This is one of those occasions when the premise of a show and its potential plotlines are transcended by the script, the performances, the direction, the editing and the production. It doesn’t treat the audience like idiots, yet manages to be accessible. Just look at this mile long memorable quotes page at the imdb.
It feels authentic. It has realism. People pay for taxis. They have snappy arguments that don’t mean anything in the long term. People have to catch a bus to get places. But there’s a weird undercurrent of darkness too. Something that isn’t being said. It’s Capraesque that way. Everything seems sweetness and light but … It’s set in a Bedford Fallsian town and you really get the sense of a community trying to be a what a community should be like. One of the (very) few problems I always had with Dawson’s Creek was that you never felt that there was anyone living in the place outside the main cast. Stars Hollow is teeming with people, people saying hello to each other even if (and this is important) they’re not a massively important element of the plot of the week.
The show eventually ran for seven seasons, the first six of which were largely written by creator Amy Sherman-Palladino (before an unresolved contract negotiation led to her and her husband leaving the series), aided by the likes of Jane Espenson, a Buffy alumnus who would go on to write Battlestar Galactica. It has wobbles here and there, apparently in the later seasons which I haven’t had a chance too see yet. But the first three seasons are as good (in their own way) as any of the imported series which have tended to be lauded over here and if this had been broadcast in a prime time slot I’m sure it would have been mentioned and remembered along with the likes of ER or Desperate Housewives (even though its certainly more entertaining than that). Instead it’ll hopefully build a loyal following in these early slots, even if it deserved much better treatment.
Firstly, that unlike the previous few years, E4′s schedules haven’t been cleared to make way for live coverage from the house, with only an hour’s worth of shouting peaking through in the middle of a weekday afternoon, then through the night footage of them either sleeping, trying to sleep, being drunk, or doing some more shouting. Secondly, the channel has suddenly seen fit to begin broadcasting one of my favourite series of this past decade, the Emmy Award-winning Gilmore Girls , with the same daily episode appearing at 8:50am and 11:30am.
Gilmore Girls began in the US late in 2000 and quickly became one of the highest rated shows on network television. The premise sounds twee and horrible. It’s about the relationship between a single mother and her daughter – the daughter having reached the age the mother was when she gave birth. They live in a small town. The daughter, Rory who’s smarter than everybody, is going through the usual teen angst about not being the most popular girl in school and fancying some boy. Her mom, Lorelai, is the manager of a hotel and has her own issues dealing with her own – up until recently – estranged mother.
I was hooked after the second minute of the first episode.
A woman, who we later discover is Lorelai, walks across the street. On the soundtrack is There She Goes by The Las. Which is a bit of a cliche, but keep watching. The woman walks into a coffee shop and approaches the counter. The owner won’t serve her coffee. He’s cutting her off. She pleads with him and eventually he relents. Somewhere in there I realise that it’s being played as though she’s a junkie and he’s her dealer. Then I remember that one of the few things most TV producers (and Sixpence None The Richer when they covered the song) also miss is the fact that There She Goes is reputed to be about heroin. “The racing through my veins” lyric being a dead giveaway. At which moment I realise this show is intertextual. It selected the music and then played a scene based on the audience being able to understand a really, really zetgeisty pop culture reference. Wow.
Then the real dialogue begins to flow between the woman and her daughter and it’s funny. Not in a forced, sitcom, stream of punchlines way, but like a 1940s screwball comedy, reams of smart dialogue. Apparently each script for a 40 minute episode ran to eighty and it shows. I’ll say it again. It’s really, really funny. At one point, the dynamic between mother and daughter is compared to the Iran-Contra affair. This is one of those occasions when the premise of a show and its potential plotlines are transcended by the script, the performances, the direction, the editing and the production. It doesn’t treat the audience like idiots, yet manages to be accessible. Just look at this mile long memorable quotes page at the imdb.
It feels authentic. It has realism. People pay for taxis. They have snappy arguments that don’t mean anything in the long term. People have to catch a bus to get places. But there’s a weird undercurrent of darkness too. Something that isn’t being said. It’s Capraesque that way. Everything seems sweetness and light but … It’s set in a Bedford Fallsian town and you really get the sense of a community trying to be a what a community should be like. One of the (very) few problems I always had with Dawson’s Creek was that you never felt that there was anyone living in the place outside the main cast. Stars Hollow is teeming with people, people saying hello to each other even if (and this is important) they’re not a massively important element of the plot of the week.
The show eventually ran for seven seasons, the first six of which were largely written by creator Amy Sherman-Palladino (before an unresolved contract negotiation led to her and her husband leaving the series), aided by the likes of Jane Espenson, a Buffy alumnus who would go on to write Battlestar Galactica. It has wobbles here and there, apparently in the later seasons which I haven’t had a chance too see yet. But the first three seasons are as good (in their own way) as any of the imported series which have tended to be lauded over here and if this had been broadcast in a prime time slot I’m sure it would have been mentioned and remembered along with the likes of ER or Desperate Housewives (even though its certainly more entertaining than that). Instead it’ll hopefully build a loyal following in these early slots, even if it deserved much better treatment.
“No consumer advice is available for this work…”
TV If you want even more proof of ITV1′s confidence in their heavily trailed new series, the BBFC have just passed a documentary for the DVD: The Fixer: The Making of a Hit Series.
The Liverpool Nativity.
TV The Liverpool Nativity was rather better than anyone expected. In the run up, cynical writing and comment abounded with some questioning the casting – any scouser with an equity card – and the setting, which could potentially have led to another airing of the usual stereotypes (gosh we’re so chipper and funny and welcoming and not all like you southerners portray us etc). But in the end it was a rather winning bit of television because of the obvious passion which had gone into the organisation and the performances.
This televised modernisation of the story of the birth of Christ kicks off Liverpool Capital of Culture year and was brought to us by the people behind Easter’s Manchester Passion. However, it was logistically an even more complex prospect than the crucifixion; narrated in front of a crowd by joyous MC Geoffrey Hughes as the Angel Gabriel from a stage at the bottom of William Brown Street, his commentary and shouting intercut with scenes set in other parts of Liverpool city centre and beyond. This was everything that might appear in the average school nativity but on a massive scale and with a BBC outside broadcast unit instead of a nervous parent with a camcorder.
In St George’s Hall, Cathy Tyson, aided by some winning Busby Berkley-style dance routines, gave a panto rendition of Herod – in this version a Minister for the Interior bent on chucking out asylum seekers such as the good Joseph. She was visited by the three wise men – who included ex-Chinese Detective David Yip and Joe McGann sporting a rather natty velvet jacket. Up by St Nicholas’s Church, we met the shepherds – Andrew Schofield knocking out a decent rendition of Imagine before being visited by Jennifer Ellison doled up in a silver tracksuit as an angel. Sadly we cut away before seeing the star that would lead them to St John’s Gardens.
The most impressive journey was for Mary and Joseph, who began in the café of the Seacombe Ferry Terminal before travelling across the Mersey by boat (instead of the usual donkey), through the streets of Liverpool and up to the stage. This central couple were rather actually rather convincing – with West End veteran Jodie McNee in particular generating real sympathy for Mary’s plight and clearly in tears at one point. This was some mean achievement when you take into account much of the show was happening across town, the duo had to wait for cues before performing and they had to ensure they reached their goal before the finale.
Most of the songs also worked well, even if the resonance of some of the lyrics was lost, despite the best efforts of the performers – a problem with the microphones led to many of the words not being quite audible. Good job everyone knows the plot. Some thought had clearly gone into the context of the selections – such as the appearance of Mary and child heralded by Lady Madonna – and why not celebrate Liverpool’s musical heritage at an event like this? It’s all a matter of taste, probably, but original composition just would not have worked in this context. It’s far more impressive to have a standing audience that looks like half the population of the city, singing en masse, All You Need is Love.
It was also dead funny – the look on Mary’s face was priceless when Gabriel apparently appeared to her and explained her physical predicament. Ditto her husband, who clearly got the wrong idea. Often the script attempted to burst the expectations of the viewer – when Hughes had to indicate Christ’s parents were taking the ferry across the Mersey he joked, “You might think that’s a cue for a song … well it isn’t.” Schofield, meanwhile, perked up on hearing free food might be available at some point, at which point a fellow shepherd suggested he should stop fulfilling the stereotype. Only some of the material Cathy Tyson had to deal with fell rather flat and listless, but after booing from the crowd, proceedings went right back on track.
I imagine there will still be some viewers who were offended by all this, either because of the appropriation of the key biblical story or a reminder that for some Liverpool is the centre of the universe. But hopefully even they couldn’t deny that, for the most part, this was done with the best of intentions. Everyone involved got into the spirit of the thing, and as the crowd parted to give Mary and Joseph a clear run away from their pursuers, you really could believe that all you need is love.
This televised modernisation of the story of the birth of Christ kicks off Liverpool Capital of Culture year and was brought to us by the people behind Easter’s Manchester Passion. However, it was logistically an even more complex prospect than the crucifixion; narrated in front of a crowd by joyous MC Geoffrey Hughes as the Angel Gabriel from a stage at the bottom of William Brown Street, his commentary and shouting intercut with scenes set in other parts of Liverpool city centre and beyond. This was everything that might appear in the average school nativity but on a massive scale and with a BBC outside broadcast unit instead of a nervous parent with a camcorder.
In St George’s Hall, Cathy Tyson, aided by some winning Busby Berkley-style dance routines, gave a panto rendition of Herod – in this version a Minister for the Interior bent on chucking out asylum seekers such as the good Joseph. She was visited by the three wise men – who included ex-Chinese Detective David Yip and Joe McGann sporting a rather natty velvet jacket. Up by St Nicholas’s Church, we met the shepherds – Andrew Schofield knocking out a decent rendition of Imagine before being visited by Jennifer Ellison doled up in a silver tracksuit as an angel. Sadly we cut away before seeing the star that would lead them to St John’s Gardens.
The most impressive journey was for Mary and Joseph, who began in the café of the Seacombe Ferry Terminal before travelling across the Mersey by boat (instead of the usual donkey), through the streets of Liverpool and up to the stage. This central couple were rather actually rather convincing – with West End veteran Jodie McNee in particular generating real sympathy for Mary’s plight and clearly in tears at one point. This was some mean achievement when you take into account much of the show was happening across town, the duo had to wait for cues before performing and they had to ensure they reached their goal before the finale.
Most of the songs also worked well, even if the resonance of some of the lyrics was lost, despite the best efforts of the performers – a problem with the microphones led to many of the words not being quite audible. Good job everyone knows the plot. Some thought had clearly gone into the context of the selections – such as the appearance of Mary and child heralded by Lady Madonna – and why not celebrate Liverpool’s musical heritage at an event like this? It’s all a matter of taste, probably, but original composition just would not have worked in this context. It’s far more impressive to have a standing audience that looks like half the population of the city, singing en masse, All You Need is Love.
It was also dead funny – the look on Mary’s face was priceless when Gabriel apparently appeared to her and explained her physical predicament. Ditto her husband, who clearly got the wrong idea. Often the script attempted to burst the expectations of the viewer – when Hughes had to indicate Christ’s parents were taking the ferry across the Mersey he joked, “You might think that’s a cue for a song … well it isn’t.” Schofield, meanwhile, perked up on hearing free food might be available at some point, at which point a fellow shepherd suggested he should stop fulfilling the stereotype. Only some of the material Cathy Tyson had to deal with fell rather flat and listless, but after booing from the crowd, proceedings went right back on track.
I imagine there will still be some viewers who were offended by all this, either because of the appropriation of the key biblical story or a reminder that for some Liverpool is the centre of the universe. But hopefully even they couldn’t deny that, for the most part, this was done with the best of intentions. Everyone involved got into the spirit of the thing, and as the crowd parted to give Mary and Joseph a clear run away from their pursuers, you really could believe that all you need is love.
“Dreams of silver screen quotations”
TV One of five’s new imports, the David Duchovny starring Californication which begins on Thursday in a double bill with 30 Rock has attracted some average reviews. It’s rather popular in Australia, although the reaction from some sections of the viewing audience has been interesting. They’re calling it smut basically:
“Protestors are not backing down on their stance against the controversial Californication TV series, with dozens of demonstrators still gathering for weekly vigils. Demonstrators have been gathering outside Channel 10’s Sydney studios every Monday night, when the program is broadcast to a massive audience around Australia. Last night, protesters held candles outside the studios while saying prayers and singing hymns for anyone watching the show.”
Ident heaven.
TV idents.tv is a blog dedicated to bringing television idents and promos from across the world. Oh how I miss the old BBC4 ones and look at those titles – “The Man Who Deciphered Linear B” is a favourite. [via]
“Are you smarter than a 10-year-old?”
TV According to this email I’ve just received, SRO Audiences are looking for punters to watch a new show:
“Hi there!Given the Ask The Family remake debacle, let’s hope that this format is a better fit for the duo. The ticket ordering page is here, which also mentions the involvement of Noel Edmonds. Funny how his name wasn’t in the email.
We thought that you may be interested to know that we are currently booking tickets for Dick & Dom’s’ new quiz show.
ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A 10 YEAR OLD?
Hosted by Dick and Dom this brand new quiz show for all of the family gives grown ups the chance to win big cash if they can answer questions relating to subjects taught in school.
To make it easier, they get three cheats and 5 ten year-olds to help them as they work they way up to the big money prize!
Believe us, when you see what kids learn at school these days, they’ll need it!
It’s a perfect day out for the family during the school holidays, but Mums and Dads beware – this could show the kids whether you really are smarter than a 10 year old! The minimum age for attendance is 8 years and children under 16 should be accompanied by an adult.
If you would like to join us for this exciting and fun new quiz show at Elstree Studios for a morning, then apply now!
Heroes.
TV It’s been a while since I’ve been this excited about the broadcast of a new US import – but then it’s been a while since a series has been trailed by this much critical acclaim from professionals and bloggers and professional bloggers and people with access to broadband all chanting quietly, “Watch … Watch … Watch…”. But thankfully, Heroes, lives up to the hype providing enough gob-smacking moments in its opening two episodes to turn me into an instant fan.
Superhero fantasies have had a chequered history on television, with straight comic book adaptations either throwing out the mythology that inspired the character or misjudging it to the point of irrelevancy. Those series, like Heroes, laying their own path often misunderstand the ingredients fans of these things are looking for, bringing special powers and big explosions to the fore rather than characterisation. For every Smallville or Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, there’s been Superboy or Mutant X … and let’s not even get me started on the ’60s Batman which like many of these series decided costumes means camp and comedy, and how can any of this stuff be taken seriously? About the only show which didn’t featured teenagers but got everything completely correct is the little known version of The Flash which ran through the schedules for one series in the ’90s.
Luckily, Heroes doesn’t fall into these any of these traps because, as the pre-publicity highlighted, the spandex and outrageous powers are dropped in favour of running the concept of humans developing special powers within the real world (or the version of it that appears on US television). Some of the characters introduced across these opening episodes – such as an indestructible cheerleader who saves a worker from fire – find themselves wanting to do good from the off, while others are rendered impotent and bewildered by their power to the point we’re not even sure if they’re going to be a force for good. The pointed non inclusion of the word “super” from the title of the series indicates these characters are not meant to be paragons.
Only a very broad idea of where the story will be heading was presented in these episode which rightly spent their time introducing the characters and concepts, not falling into the other nefarious trap of also shoe-horning in a representative plot. In these opening stages, all of the characters are living in their own little words, each discovering their new powers in separate ways and – as far they’re concerned – in isolation.
As well as the aforementioned cheerleader Claire , there’s Nathan a politician who can fly, Isaac an artist with drug induced premonitions, Matt a telepathic cop, Hiro a Japanese office worker who can bend space and time and Niki a stripper with a split personality.
Series creator and writer of these opening two episodes Tim Kring (whose previous credits include Knight Rider and Crossing Jordon) relies on a sheer sense of wonder that such amazing things are possible – the look that Peter Parker gives in Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man film when he realises he can climb walls rendered across whole episodes. And for every tragic moment such as the brutal solution to the mob problems of the stripper, are those of utter joy , as Hiro transports himself from a subway carriage in Tokyo to Times Square in New York before discovering a bookstore selling a comic book which describes his life right up to that instant.
Cleverly, most of these powers can be rendered on screen with fairly minimal special effects and never in a gratuitous fashion. Telepathy is conveyed by voices on the soundtrack, transportation created by a screen wipe or transition (which is why they were so popular on Star Trek), the stripper’s apparent Hyde appears in her reflection with the invincibility created through the ingenious use of prosthetics and CGI, and the flying scenes (as far as I could tell) a mix of wire work and minimal green screen.
Also in these early stages, Kring imports the quirks of such recent hyperlink dramas as Syriana, Love Actually and Fast Food Nation by slowly revealing these characters scattered across the US nation and further afield are tangentially linked, with Claire’s father potentially being the brain-sucking villain of the piece tailing Mohinder – the son of a geneticist – who’s visiting New York to investigate his father’s death and, who in one scene, taxis a nurse (Nathan’s brother) … who it turns out may also be able to fly (although there’s a hint his power might be far more expansive than that).
Slowly, as the heroes are drawn together, such surprise links may become less important, but Kring is already layering in signs and portents – or as the BBC2 announcer beforehand gamely described “apocalyptic visions”. As is customary in these series, not everything can be taken at face value and – as if the many new characters and situations weren’t enough – we were presented with a gob-smacking finale, in which one of those visions comes true. That naturally makes us question what has gone before and shows the series will not be averse to experimenting with the language of television drama, at least in terms of direction and editing.
Heroes is still resolutely of comic books and fantasy though; with the exception of Doctor Who, it’s been a while since a show has seemingly been specifically designed to stir the inner geek. It’s obviously created by someone who’s consumed cult media and has the an obvious love for it. Where other series have shied away from inserting in-jokes which only a small proportion of the audience might understand, Heroes confronts them head on, referencing everything from Star Trek to a particular issue of The X-Men, to the surnames of characters from The Matrix. Elements such as the episode titles as captions which slip through the very opening of each instalment and a portentous philosophical voiceover from source unknown also give the impression of a comic, without going the whole hog as seen in Ang Lee’s film version of Hulk which actually had frames and thought bubbles appearing on screen.
All of this would be for naught were it not for the characters, and for once there’s not a single principle you’re not happy to spend time with. Of the multitude, Hiro is the stand-out, exuberantly played by Masi Oka, his bursts of excitement being some of the best moments on television this year. A more intriguing figure is the Time Lord-esque Mohinder, whose real power we’re yet to see – but actor Sendhil Ramamurthy is carrying the burden of explaining what might be causing these abilities to emerge with aplomb. If Hayden Panettiere’s cheerleader stands a little too much in a certain vampire slayer’s shadow for now, there’s Alias and Lost creator JJ Abrams stalwart Greg Grunberg playing another sturdy but reliable figure in Matt.
While I agree with some commentators that the first episode is a bit sluggish, something which is inherent in the nature of all of these things – there aren’t many opening episodes which work completely simply because of everything they have to do – taken together this marks one of the most promising television launches of the year, combining fun, intrigue and suspense. BBC2 obviously has enough confidence that they’ve paid through the nose to buy the second series – which means it’ll have plenty of time to bed in before Sky inevitably steals the license.
About the only gatecrasher to spoil the party was their presentation of the episodes. Repeating the experiment which greeted the opening instalments of Torchwood last year, the credits of the pilot were clipped and replaced with a reminder that episode two was to follow (over a specially designed ident) and a bunch of trailers for the channel’s opening line-up spoiling the effect of the cliffhanger somewhat as the viewer had Louis Theroux’s incredulous face glaring at them while they considered the implications of the nurse’s jump from the building – surely a voiceover the first set of credits would have been enough.
More damaging was the introduction of the BBC’s long term policy of clipping out the fades in and out of US imports. More than ever, the lead in to advertising has become a punctuation to the action, with a series of mini-cliffhangers throughout the episode, which in Heroes, at least in these early stages with the action criss-crossing across stories, creates a pacing which helps to orientate the viewer. Losing them in this case left the episodes looking a bit disjointed.
But, not to the point that I won’t be tuning in for episode three …
Superhero fantasies have had a chequered history on television, with straight comic book adaptations either throwing out the mythology that inspired the character or misjudging it to the point of irrelevancy. Those series, like Heroes, laying their own path often misunderstand the ingredients fans of these things are looking for, bringing special powers and big explosions to the fore rather than characterisation. For every Smallville or Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, there’s been Superboy or Mutant X … and let’s not even get me started on the ’60s Batman which like many of these series decided costumes means camp and comedy, and how can any of this stuff be taken seriously? About the only show which didn’t featured teenagers but got everything completely correct is the little known version of The Flash which ran through the schedules for one series in the ’90s.
Luckily, Heroes doesn’t fall into these any of these traps because, as the pre-publicity highlighted, the spandex and outrageous powers are dropped in favour of running the concept of humans developing special powers within the real world (or the version of it that appears on US television). Some of the characters introduced across these opening episodes – such as an indestructible cheerleader who saves a worker from fire – find themselves wanting to do good from the off, while others are rendered impotent and bewildered by their power to the point we’re not even sure if they’re going to be a force for good. The pointed non inclusion of the word “super” from the title of the series indicates these characters are not meant to be paragons.
Only a very broad idea of where the story will be heading was presented in these episode which rightly spent their time introducing the characters and concepts, not falling into the other nefarious trap of also shoe-horning in a representative plot. In these opening stages, all of the characters are living in their own little words, each discovering their new powers in separate ways and – as far they’re concerned – in isolation.
As well as the aforementioned cheerleader Claire , there’s Nathan a politician who can fly, Isaac an artist with drug induced premonitions, Matt a telepathic cop, Hiro a Japanese office worker who can bend space and time and Niki a stripper with a split personality.
Series creator and writer of these opening two episodes Tim Kring (whose previous credits include Knight Rider and Crossing Jordon) relies on a sheer sense of wonder that such amazing things are possible – the look that Peter Parker gives in Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man film when he realises he can climb walls rendered across whole episodes. And for every tragic moment such as the brutal solution to the mob problems of the stripper, are those of utter joy , as Hiro transports himself from a subway carriage in Tokyo to Times Square in New York before discovering a bookstore selling a comic book which describes his life right up to that instant.
Cleverly, most of these powers can be rendered on screen with fairly minimal special effects and never in a gratuitous fashion. Telepathy is conveyed by voices on the soundtrack, transportation created by a screen wipe or transition (which is why they were so popular on Star Trek), the stripper’s apparent Hyde appears in her reflection with the invincibility created through the ingenious use of prosthetics and CGI, and the flying scenes (as far as I could tell) a mix of wire work and minimal green screen.
Also in these early stages, Kring imports the quirks of such recent hyperlink dramas as Syriana, Love Actually and Fast Food Nation by slowly revealing these characters scattered across the US nation and further afield are tangentially linked, with Claire’s father potentially being the brain-sucking villain of the piece tailing Mohinder – the son of a geneticist – who’s visiting New York to investigate his father’s death and, who in one scene, taxis a nurse (Nathan’s brother) … who it turns out may also be able to fly (although there’s a hint his power might be far more expansive than that).
Slowly, as the heroes are drawn together, such surprise links may become less important, but Kring is already layering in signs and portents – or as the BBC2 announcer beforehand gamely described “apocalyptic visions”. As is customary in these series, not everything can be taken at face value and – as if the many new characters and situations weren’t enough – we were presented with a gob-smacking finale, in which one of those visions comes true. That naturally makes us question what has gone before and shows the series will not be averse to experimenting with the language of television drama, at least in terms of direction and editing.
Heroes is still resolutely of comic books and fantasy though; with the exception of Doctor Who, it’s been a while since a show has seemingly been specifically designed to stir the inner geek. It’s obviously created by someone who’s consumed cult media and has the an obvious love for it. Where other series have shied away from inserting in-jokes which only a small proportion of the audience might understand, Heroes confronts them head on, referencing everything from Star Trek to a particular issue of The X-Men, to the surnames of characters from The Matrix. Elements such as the episode titles as captions which slip through the very opening of each instalment and a portentous philosophical voiceover from source unknown also give the impression of a comic, without going the whole hog as seen in Ang Lee’s film version of Hulk which actually had frames and thought bubbles appearing on screen.
All of this would be for naught were it not for the characters, and for once there’s not a single principle you’re not happy to spend time with. Of the multitude, Hiro is the stand-out, exuberantly played by Masi Oka, his bursts of excitement being some of the best moments on television this year. A more intriguing figure is the Time Lord-esque Mohinder, whose real power we’re yet to see – but actor Sendhil Ramamurthy is carrying the burden of explaining what might be causing these abilities to emerge with aplomb. If Hayden Panettiere’s cheerleader stands a little too much in a certain vampire slayer’s shadow for now, there’s Alias and Lost creator JJ Abrams stalwart Greg Grunberg playing another sturdy but reliable figure in Matt.
While I agree with some commentators that the first episode is a bit sluggish, something which is inherent in the nature of all of these things – there aren’t many opening episodes which work completely simply because of everything they have to do – taken together this marks one of the most promising television launches of the year, combining fun, intrigue and suspense. BBC2 obviously has enough confidence that they’ve paid through the nose to buy the second series – which means it’ll have plenty of time to bed in before Sky inevitably steals the license.
About the only gatecrasher to spoil the party was their presentation of the episodes. Repeating the experiment which greeted the opening instalments of Torchwood last year, the credits of the pilot were clipped and replaced with a reminder that episode two was to follow (over a specially designed ident) and a bunch of trailers for the channel’s opening line-up spoiling the effect of the cliffhanger somewhat as the viewer had Louis Theroux’s incredulous face glaring at them while they considered the implications of the nurse’s jump from the building – surely a voiceover the first set of credits would have been enough.
More damaging was the introduction of the BBC’s long term policy of clipping out the fades in and out of US imports. More than ever, the lead in to advertising has become a punctuation to the action, with a series of mini-cliffhangers throughout the episode, which in Heroes, at least in these early stages with the action criss-crossing across stories, creates a pacing which helps to orientate the viewer. Losing them in this case left the episodes looking a bit disjointed.
But, not to the point that I won’t be tuning in for episode three …
“Your logo has a lot of blood in it”
TV I thought some of you might find these of interest - the Premium Hollywood blog is running transcripts from the Television Critics Association’s summer press tour in which various US television stations publicise their new shows to journalists via interview panels with the talent.
BBC America’s contingent consists of the creators and cast of Jekyll, Torchwood and Hotel Babylon and it’s mainly the likes of Steven Moffat, James Nesbitt, Julie Gardener, John Barrowman and Tony Head answering left of field questions as graciously as possible.
Moffat has caused something of a stir in the US for the following exchange probably because of his customary honesty which absolutely goes against the usual policy over there of ass-kissing the network heads:
BBC America’s contingent consists of the creators and cast of Jekyll, Torchwood and Hotel Babylon and it’s mainly the likes of Steven Moffat, James Nesbitt, Julie Gardener, John Barrowman and Tony Head answering left of field questions as graciously as possible.
Moffat has caused something of a stir in the US for the following exchange probably because of his customary honesty which absolutely goes against the usual policy over there of ass-kissing the network heads:
Reporter: Steven, why was (the BBC) version of Coupling such a success and the NBC version – it tanked?All of which is probably correct but the first episode of UK Coupling wasn’t as funny as some of the later classics and like many series it arguably took a few weeks, even the whole first run perhaps to bed in and take flight (and even then not everyone was a fan). US television rarely has that luxury unfortunately [via].
Steven Moffat: I so enjoy answering that question. I’ve only been asked it 24 times today. All right. I can answer it with three letters, N-B-C. Very, very good writing team. Very, very good cast. The network fucked it up because they intervened endlessly. If you really want a job to work, don’t get Jeff Zucker’s team to come help you with it … because they’re not funny. All right? There you go. I can say that because I don’t care about working for NBC. But I think I’m entitled to say that because I think the way in which NBC slagged off the creative team on American Coupling after its failure was disgraceful and traitorous. So I enjoy slagging them off. That’s the end of my career in LA. I’ll be leaving shortly.
James Nesbitt: Taxi for Moffat!
Wrong Des.
TV During a visit to the Channel 4 website looking for more on the news that they’re launching a +1 digital version of the main channel meaning that the same episode of Deal or No Deal could be shown three times in consecutive hours on different channels (and even clash with itself if the More4+1 on Sky is taken into account). Hoping for a press release which might explain where it’s going to replace the hellishly useful timeshifted version of Film Four given that the station only has limited space on Freeview, I stumbled upon their hopelessly out of date FAQ page.
Amongst information that requires updating:
Amongst information that requires updating:
“Big Brother is over for another year. For updates on the housemates keep an eye on the website.” (I wish)At some point in the past this page was probably very useful but as it stands now, what confidence do we have that Jon Snow still buys his ties from Victoria Richards at Clockwork Studios and not M&S? For a channel that is embracing new media in so many other ways, isn’t it a bit sloppy that something this simple isn’t looked at more regularly basis than what looks like annually?
“Countdown is presented by Des Lynam and Carol Vorderman.” (wrong Des)
“Richard & Judy are currently taking a break and will be back in the New Year.” (no it isn’t)
On The West Wing: "The first series is currently showing on More4 on Sunday evenings.” (Season Three has just begun)
Can I have a bid, please, Bob?
TV Some television history is on sale at eBay. A selection of the sculptures that appeared on the set and in the title buffers of the ’80s quiz show Blockbusters have surfaced. Hamlet, Nelson Mandela, Bob Marley, Mother Theresa and Pope John Paul II were saved by the seller during the closure of the Lenton Lane ITV studios where they’d been adorning the cafe for many years.
Despite being made of polystyrene they’re pretty heavy – the Pope and Hamlet are four stones each so you can understand why they’re pick up only. In West Wales. Luckily for anyone planning a trip but doubting their provinance there are pictures of some of them in situ. My only question is were the seller is storing them. They’re pretty big, the height of a person.
Despite being made of polystyrene they’re pretty heavy – the Pope and Hamlet are four stones each so you can understand why they’re pick up only. In West Wales. Luckily for anyone planning a trip but doubting their provinance there are pictures of some of them in situ. My only question is were the seller is storing them. They’re pretty big, the height of a person.
Same but different.
TV Is the BBC working against itself or has The Restaurant been renamed? I’ve just spotted this advert on Gumtree, the online classified ad service:
“If anyone is looking for the chance to own their own restaurant for a day and show off their signature dish then this could be the opportunity. BBC1 is filming a new series this summer called Making A Meal Of It. They are looking for 10 pairs of amateur cooks to have a go at running a restaurant as head chef and front-of-house manager. The BBC will provide the restaurant, the staff and the diners. This is ideal for anyone who has dreamt of running there own restaurant, but has never had the time or money to do so. The restaurant will be yours to cook whatever you want, whether it be a ultra-modern sushi bar or a cheery organic café, nothing could be too wild.”The formats seem incredibly similar, don’t they? There are a couple of differences. The suggestion here is that the restaurant will be a closed environment, they’ll only have it for a day and that the contestants won’t be actually running a business – which is the point of The Restaurant. Any thoughts?
“But it will be important to impress as the diners will be judging the value of each meal on taste, presentation, service and overall dining experience. Each restaurateur will be up against 4 other contestants and the couple that turns over the highest profit wins the total earnings. This could be a life changing opportunity and you could find out if you really have what it takes to run a restaurant. If you think this is the opportunity and challenge you are up to, then email the team at makingamealofit@bbc.co.uk”
I don’t believe it!
TV High Stakes, along with Believe Nothing and Hardware, was part of ITV’s attempt at re-establishing their Sunday night “edgy comedy” slot a couple of years back. Starring Richard Wilson and written by Tony Sarchet (This Is David Lander), this highbrow sitcom set in the financial world was not quite in the same league as its more celebrated ’80s counterparts, and suffered from some unrealistic and overblown pre-transmission publicity, but it was a likeable enough effort and it came as some surprise when the muted response to the first run led to the already-recorded second being shelved and eventually never transmitted.
Now, surprisingly enough, both series have been released on DVD. While there’s hardly likely to be queues of devoted fans filling up their nearest high street DVD shop, this does bode well for other series that were haphazardly scheduled or just not transmitted at all. Any chance of a Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married box set?
Now, surprisingly enough, both series have been released on DVD. While there’s hardly likely to be queues of devoted fans filling up their nearest high street DVD shop, this does bode well for other series that were haphazardly scheduled or just not transmitted at all. Any chance of a Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married box set?
“What’s happening to me?”
TV Those who are still freaked out whenever they see Alan Dale (Jim Robinson from Neighbours) appearing in the likes of 24, The OC and Ugly Betty won’t love this survey from Rob Buckley of upcoming US genre series, since it includes preview clips from the remake of The Bionic Woman featuring Michelle Ryan (best known over ‘ere as Zoe Slater in EastEnders) playing Jamie Sommers.
There’s something distinctly unnerving about hearing her new American accent, but that’s as nothing compared to seeing her in the same scene as Katie Sackoff (new Starbuck in new Battlestar Galactica).
There’s something distinctly unnerving about hearing her new American accent, but that’s as nothing compared to seeing her in the same scene as Katie Sackoff (new Starbuck in new Battlestar Galactica).
Running to the restaurant.
Every now and then the BBC Jobs website includes details of an upcoming programme. Not too long ago a vacancy for a researcher for The One Show revealed that it would be running 50 weeks a year when it returns. The latest is a position for a “‘Location Runner” on something called ...
“BBC2′s The Restaurant, which will air in 2007, features nine couples whose dream is to run their own restaurant. The task is to create their perfect restaurant and then open the doors to the paying public. Every decision, mistake and argument will be filmed as they work and live together 24-hours-a-day, under severe pressure.So that’s Big Brother marinated in The Apprentice then stir fried with MasterChef Goes Large sprinkled liberally with Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares potentially adding just a dash of mixed property programmes. It sounds exciting but what happens to the Restaurants that are opened to the public then voted off? Do they stay open?
Each week, one restaurant is eliminated from the competition by Raymond Blanc, who acts as judge. At the end of the run, the winners get to run their own restaurant, backed by Blanc to the tune of a six-figure sum.”
The Play’s the Thing.
TV On the BBC’s weekly arts strand The Culture Show recently, there was a very good preview of the new theatre production of Pinter’s People, which pulls together all of his collected short work for the first time and features such luminaries as Bill Bailey, Sally Phillips and Kevin Eldon. Coupled with the great number of newspaper interviews and previews about the show, and an appearance by Bailey on Radio 4′s Midweek slot, the production – despite a curmudgeonly two-star review from the Guardian – sounds really exciting.
For a theatre fan like me who lives outside London, this is, as you’d imagine intensely frustrating. Given the amount of hype that’s surrounding the production, you’d think the producers would look for a way for a much wider audience to see the work and make the most of something that is obviously drawing interest.
In other words what I’m proposing is that productions such as this could and should be broadcast on television. As we’ll see this isn’t a bizarre idea.
Historically theatre has always found a place in the schedules, but lately their absence has become noticeable. Writing for the Guardian’s culture blog in relation to the BBC’s recent charter review, John Morrison notes that the perfect way to demonstrate the BBC’s commitment to the arts would be to increase the amount of Shakespeare on the box. I would cast the net wider to theatre in all of its forms.
It simply doesn’t seem fair that classical music fans get a month of Mozart and the BBC Proms every year, devotees of classic literature are able to watch countless book adaptations (should they want them or not) and even opera and ballet followers can see whole productions on a regular basis (and not just clustered around holiday seasons or bank holidays). Us theatre-lovers can see little or none of the drama they admire on screen – even on BBC4, the last bastion of the minority audience.
Obviously works for the stage ultimately work best in their natural home, but it seems strange that these art forms can make the jump into another medium so regularly and coherently now, when theatre – which has traditionally been viewed as aesthetically closer to television – has slowly become squeezed out. Indeed, when television began all drama mainly consisted of re-broadcasting existing stage plays by transforming the original into a piece of TV drama.
The earliest scheduled example was L Allen Harker and FR Pryor’s Marigold in 1936, when selected scenes from a contemporary West End production were broadcast from the studio in the mid-afternoon to what would have been a massive audience at the time of about 300 viewers.
This selected scenes approach became common, and could be seen in the series Theatre Parade, broadcast over the following two years in which moments from current stage productions were recreated, variety style, at Alexandra Palace. Slowly, whole productions were put before the cameras, with the first full broadcast of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night happening in mid-1937. This was followed later in the year by George Bernard Shaw’s How He Lied to Her Husband, which had the blessing of the writer himself, who visited both the rehearsals and the set.
In Autumn 1938, another method of broadcasting theatre was introduced – JB Priestley’s When We are Married, which was running to packed houses at St Martin’s Theatre in London, became the first full length play broadcast live “from the stage”.
In these early days, productions were not viewed by a large television audience, allaying fears within theatre circles that television versions might hurt box office numbers. But what’s really interesting is that, as the number of viewers increased with the resumption of broadcasts after World War II and the new prevalence of regional transmitters, the nature of the plays shown changed. The very day that broadcasts resumed, George Bernard Shaw’s The Dark Lady Sonnets premiered on screen skipping the theatre altogether.
It’s at this point the strong ties between theatre and television really began to slip as drama began to be written to take full advantage of the medium. By the 1950s, such renowned slots as Armchair Theatre and, later, Play for Today and The Wednesday Play combined with one-off presentations, such as a version of George Orwell’s 1984 written by Nigel Kneale. That isn’t to imply television turned its back on theatre. Contemporary playwrights such as Pinter and Samuel Beckett would take advantage of the new medium and shift between the two, providing material for both, and sometimes work premiering on television would later be shifted to theatre and vice-versa.
But its classical theatre that, as the decades passed, would begin to recede. Only the BBC’s Play of the Month slot – which ran between 1965 and 1983 – presenting any kind of commitment for showing challenging theatrical works from the past. Gloriously, though, this would be on every fourth Sunday each month and carry everything from Chekhov to Aeschylus, and particularly Shakespeare. Could you imagine something like that happening now, even on BBC4?
My particular concern is Shakespeare, especially since, if television can’t treat one of the inventors of the English language with respect, what hope do the likes of Camus and Strindberg have? The last most visible act of Bard worship happened between 1978 and 1985, when, despite having covered much of his works in the preceding decades, the BBC set about recording every play in what was then considered the canon. A co-production with America’s Time Life and – oddly enough – an oil company and two banks, it was seen as a landmark, producing excellent versions of plays that could be enjoyed for years to come. However, not all of the productions were critically well received and were often stricken by silly costume syndrome (see the As You Like It for Helen Mirren in a big creme triangular hat so distracting it nullifies her performance). Most, though, do stand the test of time, and this series does include the only filmed record of lesser-known productions such as All’s Well that Ends Well.
Concurrently, ITV was also producing plays, and even featured Lawrence Olivier’s final appearance in Shakespeare as King Lear in 1983 but dropped out of the “race” in 1988 with Ken Branagh’s adaptation of Twelfth Night – the last time the channel presented Shakespeare with the original text outside of a South Bank Show. The BBC continued with four productions during the Performance slot, which included National Theatre productions of Richard II and King Lear, a version of the whole of Henry IV compressed into a single three-hour drama and an Orwell-influenced Measure for Measure. The latter was part of a two-month celebration called “Bard on the Box”, which included documentaries, repeats of earlier productions, and screenings of what seemed like every film ever made based on Shakespeare’s writing.
This is when I became really interested in his work, and I’ve been a fan ever since. Compare all that with today, when the appearance of a new Shakespeare on television using the original text has seemingly become an annual occurrence, with only two live broadcasts from the Globe Theatre for Richard II and Measure for Measure and a Christmas outing on Channel 4 for a rare studio-bound Twelfth Night gracing our screens in the past three years.
Otherwise, in terms of anything that isn’t a documentary – such as Michael York’s excellent In Search of Shakespeare – it’s a repeat showing of the Animated Series on children’s television, or modern day adaptations such as Andrew Davies’ Othello in 2001 and the recent Shakespeare ReTold series, which placed four plays within a contemporary setting – mostly making nonsense of the stories.
It seems unbelievable that just at a time when the government are committing themselves to keeping Shakespeare on the curriculum, television companies aren’t still presenting quality productions on screen. Instead, the BBC often points to its radio output – broadcasting both classic and new plays meant for the theatre, often in its Drama on Radio 3 slot on a Sunday night – whenever it’s criticized for not supporting theatre.
Alas, almost all of the plays featured have been written directly for the medium, with their classic serials being adaptations of prose works.
The most likely appearance of classic theatre is the Bard again. During the Shakespeare Re-Told series, a number of works were run on Radio 3 and BBC7. As a supplement, it’s a perfectly fine idea, but as the substitute it’s essentially become, it does the business of theatre a disservice.
The problem with theatrical plays on the radio is they’re even further from the real experience and not simply because – well obviously – you can’t see the actors. While there is an intimacy between the performer and listener that would not be possible in a visual setting, I’ve yet to hear something adapted in this style that works to the benefit of the original play. Indeed, sometimes it can make a nonsense of what the writer was trying to accomplish.
In 2004, much was made of a broadcast on Radio3 of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. What’s often forgotten about Godot is that it’s a very visual play – mixed in with the textual games are many vaudeville influences with some sequences being very suggestive of Laurel and Hardy’s repartee. The presentation made good use of stereo to capture the sound of the two protagonists, Vladimir and Estragon, shifting about the area under the tree. But the director also employed a narrator, literally reading the stage directions out to explain the action that would have been occurring had the play appeared before an audience. There were movements that really could only really amuse visually. Literally, in this format, half the play was missing.
It would be easy to suggest the reason television has turned its back on theatre is because of the massive transformation of drama production into something more akin to cinema, with much shorter scenes, shot rates and higher quality production values. Except that in the world of soap operas, sitcoms and continuing dramas, not that much has altered. They’re still produced in the style of renowned plays of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. I think it’s actually a perception issue. I think that since “the theatre” denotes “culture” and “quality”, the expectation is that it needs the same budget as so-called “quality” drama, but that the anticipated audience can’t justify the expense.
In fact, recently there have been some excellent theatre adaptations, such as Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen with Daniel Craig and Stephen Rea, produced on a small budget. The trouble is, it was made for BBC4, a channel whose controller Janice Hadlow admitted recently, “We have to plead limited resources for homegrown drama – of course, we’d like to do more.” Essentially theatre, like so much else, has been shunted to a channel that can’t really afford to do it justice on the budget it has available.
That said, I’ve never been entirely happy with productions adapted into television drama. Watching comedy in particular can be a flat experience, and the performances – which are often more expressive because they were originated on stage – sometimes look ludicrous in close-up. An exception would be the docu-theatre productions such as BBC4′s broadcast of the Tricycle Theatre’s Justifying War: Scenes from the Hutton Enquiry, which was based on transcripts of the enquiry and had a much subtler emotional landscape than most. My preference is for recordings of theatre productions in-situ, which take into account the obvious issue of suspension of disbelief and – in the best recordings I’ve seen – make the audience as much as part of the entity as the play itself.
There was an electric moment in BBC4′s transmission of The Day in The Death of Joe Egg where Victoria Hamilton dropped out of character momentarily because Eddie Izzard was off improvising again and she wanted to good-naturedly complain about what she’d been putting up with for weeks. This is the kind of impromptu moment that would not have occurred in a studio-bound reproduction, and the audience’s reaction – no doubt replicated at home – brought the viewer not only into the world of the play, but the theatre space as well.
The really exciting discovery I made last year is that many theatre companies are sitting on a back catalogue of material that could be made available, providing rights issues and agreements with performers and directors are made. I was fortunate enough to visit the Theatre Museum in Covent Garden before it closed due to a funding crisis. Throughout the exhibition there were screens containing extracts from a staggering number of really important productions.
A scene from John Osbourne’s Look Back in Anger featuring David Tennant and Kelly Reilly was on a loop and it seems a shame that what looked like a kinetic performance from Tennant is stored but can’t be seen. It slowly became apparent that many theatrical productions are being recorded for posterity and educational use through the National Video Archive of Performance Recordings. Only students of theatre can view these presentations and only in person under their screening conditions.
Envisage the potential of that production being broadcast on national television just as it might have been in the ’60s. I would imagine there will a number of viewers who haven’t stepped into a theatre in years, and certainly wouldn’t go out of their way to see a groundbreaking example of 50s “angry young man” drama, who would tune in on the strength of appearances from Tennant and Reilly. A proportion of that audience who are intrigued enough by the experience might then seek out similar productions locally or at the very least lose some of the fear that they might have of stepping into an auditorium.
Unlike opera or ballet which are perennial fixtures on network television but still classed as minority pursuits, theatre has these in-built points of accessibility and they should be taken advantage of to help promote and reinvigorate the one art form that is forever under the radar in comparison to music, film and books. Outside London, you simply can never detect a buzz around some new production unless it’s one of the aforesaid comedy adaptations or musicals. If more people are interested in theatre and attending in greater numbers, the buzz will increase exponentially and – assuming this fantasy can become reality – this could be reflected back into audience figures, as theatre on television once again fulfills the potential it certainly has.
But, say other doubters, if these kinds of broadcasts become commonplace, ticket sales at the actual theatres will drop because punters could argue there’s no point paying for something you can get for free. The trouble with that opinion is theatre, by its nature, is ephemeral. Particularly in the West End, certain actors will only appear in some plays for a limited time. Like music, the theatre audience witness a production because they want to see how it’s done by that particular company as much as enjoy the narrative itself. No two interpretations are the same. Unless you were at the Theatre Royal in Bath between Monday 14 February and Saturday 19 February 2005, you won’t ever be able to see that version of Look Back in Anger again.
It seems strange that production companies, predominantly in the West End, aren’t following the lead of film companies and taking advantage of secondary revenue streams, selling the rights for a show to television and DVD release, particularly when there is an A-list celebrity appearing in the production. Profits – once residuals have been paid – could be ploughed back into the company and their favoured theatre, meaning they’re not as “in trouble” as so many of these establishments (not naming any names) seem to be. An excellent example for this model is Jerry Springer: The Opera, which, after a successful – if controversial – broadcast on BBC2, became a best selling DVD.
People will still attend the theatre in the same way they go to concerts and the cinema for the experience of being there. Television broadcasts and DVD releases would simply provide a way of reminding themselves of the moment, and allow others, like me, to catch up on what they’ve missed.
It would be good for the audience, because they would be given another dish on the menu of drama and comedy. And by extension, it would also be good for the television companies, particularly the BBC, who could be seen as enriching and highlighting the country’s cultural heritage in a much more substantive way than a phone-in poll.
As the shape of things stand at the moment, there are still glimmers of hope. In the week I write this, More4 are broadcasting an all-star studio-based production of Harold Pinter’s final play, Celebration. It’s another one-off but it does suggest television companies haven’t completely turned their back on broadcasting theatre. I just wish they would do it more often.
Celebrated.
TV Even with the odd sporadic bit of Shakespeare and the odd piece on BBC Arts and the iPlayer, theatre continues to be a no show on television even in adaptation. Back in 2007 (crumbs) I wrote this opinion piece arguing for more of it to coincide with a Pinter production on More4. This Pinter production:
Celebration
Monday, February 26, 2007 by Stuart Ian Burns
The speech given by the announcer heralding More4′s presentation of Harold Pinter’s play Celebration couldn’t have been more disheartening. Beforehand, in one of their conversational station idents, star Michael Gambon had described how he loved Pinter’s work because of the deep subtext. That he liked the fact the characters never said what they really meant. That there were “two miles of other thoughts” underneath.
Then the man from More4 delivered his warning: “And you can enjoy those layers of thought right now on More4 as Michael Gambon amongst many others delivers a very thought-provoking and at times challenging script. Expect strong language from the start and throughout for …” In other words, there’s some swearing and stuff. Has commercial broadcasting now reached the point that when something more substantial than the norm is dropped into primetime, it has to effectively warn the viewer that they’re going to need to use their intelligence?
The play took place in a single setting, a restaurant, and for much of its duration cut back and forth between the inhabitants of two tables. In the first Lambert (Michael Gambon) and Julie (Penelope Wilton) were celebrating their wedding anniversary with his brother Matt (James Bolam) and her sister Prue (Julia McKenzie) who were also married to each other. At the second table, Russell (Colin Firth) is discussing his future with his wife Suki (Janie Dee).
Periodically they were interrupted by the staff of the restaurant, the owner Richard (James Fox), his assistant (Sophie Okonedo) and a waiter (Stephen Rea) who appeared to be afflicted with a false memory syndrome which meant that depending upon their topic of conversation, be it TS Elliot or the Hollywood Studio system, he would describe to the patrons the various random famous people grandfather was apparently acquainted with.
The subtext highlighted by Gambon was evident throughout, as for all their airs and graces, the three couples lacked some fundamentals of civilization and used their words sharply as weapons to cut each other to shreds. Though Suki was obviously trying to boost her husband’s confidence, she still found time to tell him he lacked a clear personality. Meanwhile, just as Julie remembered how she and Lambert met on the top of deck of a bus, he undercut her reminiscence by describing a walk he took with a very pretty girl by a stream. Unctuous characters all – the old men were apparently gangsters and Russell was a banker who at one point describes himself as a psychopath.
But even though the dialogue was often very funny, it needed a genial cast to keep the audience interested – and that’s exactly what it got here. Presenting the work with such a stellar line-up gave it a real sense of occasion with Gambon and particularly Firth clearly enjoying the chance to speak lines a cut above the fare they will have become used to recently in film. Rea was touchingly humble, but the best turn was probably from Janie Dee who conveyed a life spent fighting to become something more than a secretary with just a few looks.
The entire production was a perfect demonstration of how well theatre plays can work on television. Filmed on location in the ravishing atmosphere of The Aster Bar & Grill in London, it still retained a certain theatricality in its staging but, possibly because this production originated for television, displayed a rare intimacy. It was somewhat like BBC3′s strange early reality TV experiment Diners, in which the viewer eavesdropped on the chat of the likes of Roland Rivron and Paul Ross while they were having their dinner; here the viewer could almost be sitting at each table possibly getting pissed on the wine.
One of the reasons sometimes given by commercial broadcasters when discussing the appearance of theatre on television is that it’s difficult to know were to put the ad-breaks. Shakespeare is fine because there are acts – but what of the likes of Pinter who generally, as with Celebration, sets everything in one space in a single scene? Potentially the biggest pleasure of this piece was that More4 decided to broadcast it without any interruption, allowing Pinter’s writing to breath. More please, 4.
Celebration is not available to watch on 4od. For some reason.
Celebration
Monday, February 26, 2007 by Stuart Ian Burns
The speech given by the announcer heralding More4′s presentation of Harold Pinter’s play Celebration couldn’t have been more disheartening. Beforehand, in one of their conversational station idents, star Michael Gambon had described how he loved Pinter’s work because of the deep subtext. That he liked the fact the characters never said what they really meant. That there were “two miles of other thoughts” underneath.
Then the man from More4 delivered his warning: “And you can enjoy those layers of thought right now on More4 as Michael Gambon amongst many others delivers a very thought-provoking and at times challenging script. Expect strong language from the start and throughout for …” In other words, there’s some swearing and stuff. Has commercial broadcasting now reached the point that when something more substantial than the norm is dropped into primetime, it has to effectively warn the viewer that they’re going to need to use their intelligence?
The play took place in a single setting, a restaurant, and for much of its duration cut back and forth between the inhabitants of two tables. In the first Lambert (Michael Gambon) and Julie (Penelope Wilton) were celebrating their wedding anniversary with his brother Matt (James Bolam) and her sister Prue (Julia McKenzie) who were also married to each other. At the second table, Russell (Colin Firth) is discussing his future with his wife Suki (Janie Dee).
Periodically they were interrupted by the staff of the restaurant, the owner Richard (James Fox), his assistant (Sophie Okonedo) and a waiter (Stephen Rea) who appeared to be afflicted with a false memory syndrome which meant that depending upon their topic of conversation, be it TS Elliot or the Hollywood Studio system, he would describe to the patrons the various random famous people grandfather was apparently acquainted with.
The subtext highlighted by Gambon was evident throughout, as for all their airs and graces, the three couples lacked some fundamentals of civilization and used their words sharply as weapons to cut each other to shreds. Though Suki was obviously trying to boost her husband’s confidence, she still found time to tell him he lacked a clear personality. Meanwhile, just as Julie remembered how she and Lambert met on the top of deck of a bus, he undercut her reminiscence by describing a walk he took with a very pretty girl by a stream. Unctuous characters all – the old men were apparently gangsters and Russell was a banker who at one point describes himself as a psychopath.
But even though the dialogue was often very funny, it needed a genial cast to keep the audience interested – and that’s exactly what it got here. Presenting the work with such a stellar line-up gave it a real sense of occasion with Gambon and particularly Firth clearly enjoying the chance to speak lines a cut above the fare they will have become used to recently in film. Rea was touchingly humble, but the best turn was probably from Janie Dee who conveyed a life spent fighting to become something more than a secretary with just a few looks.
The entire production was a perfect demonstration of how well theatre plays can work on television. Filmed on location in the ravishing atmosphere of The Aster Bar & Grill in London, it still retained a certain theatricality in its staging but, possibly because this production originated for television, displayed a rare intimacy. It was somewhat like BBC3′s strange early reality TV experiment Diners, in which the viewer eavesdropped on the chat of the likes of Roland Rivron and Paul Ross while they were having their dinner; here the viewer could almost be sitting at each table possibly getting pissed on the wine.
One of the reasons sometimes given by commercial broadcasters when discussing the appearance of theatre on television is that it’s difficult to know were to put the ad-breaks. Shakespeare is fine because there are acts – but what of the likes of Pinter who generally, as with Celebration, sets everything in one space in a single scene? Potentially the biggest pleasure of this piece was that More4 decided to broadcast it without any interruption, allowing Pinter’s writing to breath. More please, 4.
Celebration is not available to watch on 4od. For some reason.
“There is lots of nostalgia on the site”
TV Off The Telly was mentioned in The Guardian’s The Guide today: “Rallying against the BBC’s attempts to “sex up” Ski Sunday, bothered by the scheduling of Doctor Who and still angry over the axing of the Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club 30 years ago, this is for people who take unserious TV seriously.”
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