Tag: TV Reviews

My 700th Post! What I Have Been Watching- The Gems Of Lockdown

On By philshanklinIn What I've Been Watching3 Comments

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With the prospect of going back to work looming on the horizon at the end of this month (I have been working from home) I thought for my 700th post I would look back on what I have been watching since lockdown started, picking up a few choice items which have kept me sane over these weeks.  One thing I  can say about this time right from the start is thank goodness for Netflix, who really have come up trumps during this period with new programmes and easy access to things I missed out on when they first appeared.  The main TV channels have become too coronavirus obsessed to give any lasting pleasure and although I have Amazon Prime I still struggle to find things I want to watch compared to Netflix (although they do have Season 3 of the excellent “This Is Us”).  Of my five choices four of them I have watched through Netflix in the UK, although I think I will start with one which I watched through my Sky box.

Gangs Of London (Sky Atlantic 2020)

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Looking back I’m fascinated as to how I responded to the lockdown situation.  Reading wise I wanted comforting stuff, nothing too challenging as I was finding it hard to concentrate initially and was generally choosing lighter fare or books I had read before. However, TV viewing told a different tale.  I wanted loud, violent more action-based choices than I would normally make.  In rapid succession I watched the Gerard Butler trilogy of films in the “Fallen” serious.  I watched movies with earthquakes and natural disasters (but not going as far as “Contagion” one of the big viewing hits of early lockdown which with its virus theme was too much too soon) and then from Sky Atlantic we got this.  I wanted brashness and violence and they didn’t come more brash and violent than this.  I never binge watch.  I have never before streamed programmes before their actual transmission but I just couldn’t wait for the weekly episodes of this and did all ten in less than a fortnight.  This was so good.  A tale of a London crime family whose lead member is killed and those that are left struggle to fill a vacuum of power, this was heightened, almost Shakespearean drama. A great central performance from Joe Cole as the grieving son this was also very much an ensemble piece of strong acting in strong action.  Occasionally, the violence became cartoonish but that actually give it a strength which made it watchable.  Once I had finished this series my taste for seeing the darker sides of human existence waned so thanks to Sky for getting me out of this phase of lockdown when I needed to see people responding to the harrowing and extraordinary.

Toyboy (Netflix 2019)

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This was my summer holiday.  13 hours spent in sunny Malaga in the company of the stunning Jesus Mosquera as male stripper Hugo who tried to prove his innocence of a murder he had already been incarcerated for.  This is a gloriously tacky series, dubbed from Spanish with subtitles which do not exactly match the dubbing almost giving two separate narratives for the price of one.  It was glossy, undemanding and yet totally involving and you’d know that at some point of the action the male dance troupe would at some point get together to gyrate and rip off their clothes.  I really missed this series when I got to the end.  I’m now watching another Spanish drama the earlier “Money Heist” (2017) which does have a couple of the same cast members, most notably the very watchable Maria Pedraza who goes from school girl here to love interest solicitor in “Toyboy” but its leisurely pace and incarceration theme isn’t cutting it nearly as much as this series did.

The Big Flower Fight (Netflix 2020)

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“Bake Off” has had to be temporarily abandoned and who knows when filming will resume but “Great British Sewing Bee” has given us a bit of non-threatening competition but it’s still just sewing isn’t it.  Atypical of much of Netflix’s fare is this really enjoyable format helmed by Vic Reeves and Natasia Demetriou where teams of two (supposedly worldwide pairings but that’s pushing it a little) flower- arrange gigantic outside structures with one pair getting knocked out each episode until one remains with the prize of the chance of building a floral structure for Kew Gardens.  The format was fine, the hosts good, a fascinating resident judge in the form of Kristen Griffith-Vanderyacht, some interesting choices as guest judges and people doing fairly extraordinary things in the big outdoors making it a perfect lockdown choice.  It had the healthy competition and camaraderie and good interaction with the hosts which is what we are missing with no “Bake Off” around and filled the bill spectacularly.

Schitt’s Creek (Netflix 2017-2020)

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People had been recommending this Canadian comedy series to me for quite a while now, but I think I was put off by the title but it is a little character-based gem of half hour shows (just over twenty mins on Netflix without any adverts) which is now in its sixth and final series.  I’m only on Series 2 so no plot spoilers please but this tale of a rich family fallen on hard times and having to live in a motel in a small town they bought as a joke because of its name and now having to survive among its residents is such a treat.  Great performances from the family members and it is really a family based thing through and through as father and son Eugene and Dan Levy (Dad Eugene best known for his turn as the beleaguered father in the “American Pie” movies) created the series and appear as father and son.  Dan Levy as pansexual David Rose is one of the best comedy creations I have seen for some time.  I hang on his every line.

The Lovebirds (Netflix 2020)

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A Netflix Original movie which probably would have opened in the cinemas if it were not for this pesky lockdown.  I would never have gone to see this at the cinema but I laughed throughout at this mash-up between crime movie and rom-com with a couple of sparkling performances from Kumail Nanjiani (best known for the movie “The Big Sick”) and the real revelation of Issa Rae.  It’s a combination of great chemistry, lots of laughs, a fairly outrageous implausible plot which makes this a home-viewing winner.  It starts a little abrasive and I thought I might not enjoy it but it really drew me in and it kept me with a smile on my face for at least a day afterwards which in this current climate is very good indeed.

A couple of special mentions for outstanding forthright teen comedy/drama “Sex Education” which I came to very late and which when first appearing on the Netflix platform gave viewing figures so high that the company shared them which it had been reluctant to do for any show up until that point.  (I think it was something like 40 million worldwide viewers in the first few weeks after its appearance).  It depicts a British school which is unlike any other I’ve seen depicted with such strong American high-school influences that it might unsettle some but it is full of heart with jaw-dropping scenes  from Asa Butterfield, Gillian Anderson and the break out star of the whole thing, the excellent Ncuti Gatwa (shortlisted for a Bafta) for his portrayal of black gay teen Eric.  I also wanted to mention BBC 2’s “Charlie Brooker’s Viral Screen Wipe” which was shown at just the right time which gave us the permission and chance to laugh at some of the unprecedented events that have been happening.  It seemed right to laugh at Charlie Brooker’s perspective as the virus had become this all encompassing thing that had largely stifled our ability to find anything even remotely amusing.  There’s also the reassuring (although not as regular) visits to “Coronation Street” where the pandemic has not even hit yet, “Gogglebox” (the non-celebrity version) which gave us a view out of our living rooms into some other now very familiar living rooms which felt very reassuring and almost like a night out so thanks Channel 4 for that (even if it did stir up social distancing concerns for some viewers) and the before and after straddling of “Rupaul’s Drag Race” which began as normal, although with a more political edge and a disqualified drag queen who they couldn’t quite edit out as much as they may have wanted and culminated in a lockdown finale which was the best use of the Zoom based format I have seen and which worked magnificently.

These are strange times and I just wanted to use my 700th post to just anchor some of those feelings through the television I have been using to escape.

Thanks  for all of you continuing to read my posts.  Another aspect of this lockdown is that it has given me (and no doubt many other bloggers) my highest amount of readers ever so those who are new to reviewsrevues.com and those who have been following me over the last 5+ years and everyone in-between I send my warmest wishes.

Catherine The Great (Sky Atlantic 2019) & Rupaul’s Drag Race UK (BBC3 2019) – A What I’ve Been Watching Review

On By philshanklinIn What I've Been Watching1 Comment

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Two series began this week which have attracted considerable pre-transmission publicity.  I watched them both and one was exactly what I was expecting and one certainly wasn’t.

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Sky seems to have been pushing Catherine The Great for ages.  With Dame Helen Mirren as its star and its executive producer this is no surprise.  This wasn’t quite enough to get me tuning in but add to that the presence of Gina McKee and Rory Kinnear in the cast and an interview with the Dame on Graham Norton’s TV show last week and I decided that this was probably going to be a must.  I admit to knowing very little about Catherine The Great, Mirren was keen to point out that most of what people have heard is false anyway, outrageous stories perpetrated by rivals.  These stories tended to have been based upon her reputed sexual voracity and tales of her being crushed to death whilst attempting to have sex with a horse!  I had prepared myself for a very different telling of her tale from Sky Atlantic – this was not “The Borgias” after all!

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Towards the end of the first episode I was aware that there was something not quite right with it but couldn’t exactly put me finger on what it was but I was surprisingly a little bored.  This means that I am probably not going to watch the other three episodes.  It is big budget but it doesn’t look it and that might be part of the problem.  Much of it seemed to be filmed in a kind of greasy half-light which created a kind of soft-focus on the main actors and, true, that type of lighting may have been authentic for a Russian palace, but as we’ve all been pressurised into purchasing TVs with high quality picture definition it all looked somewhat flat.  It was if that flatness rubbed off on other aspects of it.  It certainly did not give me the costume drama lift that I’m getting on a Sunday night with “Sanditon”.  It may be redressing the balance on stories about Catherine The Great but I fear I might not be sticking around to find out.

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There were also royal frocks in the much anticipated “Rupaul’s Drag Race UK” A multi Emmy award-winning institution in the US this show has not to date being served terribly well by UK mainstream TV.  The first series were tucked away on a channel I don’t even now remember.  Most of us have caught up to date binge-watching on Netflix (I don’t think there are as many past series on here as there were) and catching the All-Stars spin-off version when it snuck out here on Comedy Central.  It has a strong cult following over here who are very loyal to the show which has led to events like Season 6 winner Bianca Del Rio bringing her one-woman show over to Wembley and Australian drag queen runner Courtney Act from the same season winning “Celebrity Big Brother”.  Rupaul has been around to do publicity (including a stint on the sofa with Graham Norton alongside Dame Helen Mirren) and the show’s main judge Michelle Visage is currently wowing millions each week on “Strictly Come Dancing“.  So far, so good, but why is the show being aired on BBC3, the internet and I-Player platform probably depriving itself o the big mainstream audience it gets in the US?

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Michelle Visage and Rupaul

Drag has a very strong culture in the UK, but that culture is different from the US.  Over here we have had a tradition of drag acts who have become part of the mainstream- Lily Savage, Dame Edna, Hinge and Brackett for example, but these were primarily character-based.  Only with Danny La Rue did we have a household name where the image and dresses were more important than what the act did.  In the US there is a strong tradition of the Pageant Queen where the look is everything.  This has now evolved into boys on Instagram gaining big followings putting together various looks with the emphasis switching away from the character and comedy of drag which has existed since over here since Music Hall days and more loosely back to Shakespeare and further to creating looks and putting together costumes.

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Now in the US comedy will often win out with previous winners having a strong established act like Bianco Del Rio and Bob The Drag Queen and one of my favourites not to win, Ben De La Crème.  When Drag Race was announced for the UK I thought it would be a chance to provide a platform for those performing flat out nightly entertaining in bars and clubs across the country often working tirelessly for raising funds for charities to be given a nudge into the mainstream.  (Years ago Anne Robinson did helm a Weakest Link Drag Queen Special which did celebrate these) but that hasn’t really happened here with this selection of participants.

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Still, we’ve got weeks to get to know them (episodes are being dropped onto the I-Player weekly) and the format, as expected, works perfectly well with a UK twist.  The big prizes of the American version have gone (it is the BBC after all) and there’s still the hit and miss aspect of the challenges (being photographed on green screen as a beheaded queen – MISS, dressing up for the runway in looks inspired by our present actual Queen – HIT) and this show is likely to be a talking point throughout its run.  Much of the heart of the US version comes away from the contest, when we find out about the lives of the participants facing challenges from families, religion and the geographical location.  How this will translate to the British version remains to be seen but I suspect it will not be such a strong feature of the show.

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Such was the attention this premiere got that I found myself doing something I never do if I’m intending to write my own review and read a couple on the morning after transmission from The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian who awarded it 3 and 4 stars respectively.  The Telegraph felt it overly crude but The Guardian reviewer was certainly along for the ride and lapped it all up.  I’m going along with The Guardian, it’s not the five star review I gave to the opener of Rupaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 3 but I’m confident it will continue to win me over and bring a big blast of glam and glitter into this autumn/winter.

Ratings – Catherine The Great –   threestars

Rupaul’s Drag Race UK – 4*fourstars

Catherine The Great is on Sky Atlantic on Thursdays at 9pm.  The first episode can be found on Sky catch-up services.  Rupaul’s Drag Race UK can be found on the I-Player where new episodes will appear on Thursdays at 8pm.

Brassic (Sky 1 2019) – A What I’ve Been Watching Review

On By philshanklinIn What I've Been WatchingLeave a comment

 

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I rarely watch Sky 1. There was a point sometime this year when I realised I was never going to get round to watching the almost 30 episodes of the series-recorded now past-its-prime reboot of “Hawaii 5-0” that I had stacked up in my Sky Planner and deleted them. The only things that have tempted me over to Sky 1 in recent years (apart from the one episode of “Jamestown” I watched) has been comedy, specifically the early series of the supermarket set “Trollied” and the one series of under-rated football club comedy “Rovers”.

In the last half decade or so I feel that television and film comedy and me have moved further apart. I’m far more likely to laugh out loud at “Coronation Street”, “Gogglebox” (and strangely I’m finding Season 2 of “Dynasty” on Netflix funny and not just because of the ludicrous plot-lines but because of sharp script and assured performances) than at most productions designed specifically for laughs. I’ve tried quite a few series (and not fancied watching considerably more) which really haven’t done it for me. I struggle with the comedy of embarrassment, the self-deprecating bitter edge of comedies such as the critically acclaimed “Fleabag” leave me cold.

Maybe the tide is turning again. There was real warmth and genuine laughs in Channel 4’s “Derry Girls” and it could very well be that Sky 1 have come up trumps with “Brassic”.

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On first glance it looks like a programme for those who miss “Shameless” (like me), a sweary, raucous tale of scoundrels living on the edge and finding crime an alternative option to getting by but this time with Michelle Keegan in it. Written and executively produced by lead actor Joe Gilgun who those with long memories may recall as a child actor in “Coronation Street” when he played 10 year old Jamie Armstrong but adult credits include a stint as a Dingle on “Emmerdale”, “Misfits” and “This Is England”. Whilst working on the movie “Pride” (excellent) Gilgun would regale big name co-star Dominic West with tales of growing up in Lancashire and was told by West that if he ever wrote it and filmed it he would appear in it and West is as good as his word and appears here, relishing every moment of screen time as an indifferent doctor.

 

Joe Gilgun and with Dominic West

Gilgun plays Vinnie, who lives in a shack in the woods, is bipolar (like Gilgun himself) and finds himself dragged into situations with his hapless group of friends including Damien Moloney as cardsharp Dylan and Michelle Keegan as Dylan’s girlfriend Erin determined to make life better for her young son; sex dungeon entrepreneur Tommo (Ryan Sampson) and inept junk food obsessive Cardi (Tom Hanson) who is usually in the frame when grand schemes go wrong. And they do. Two episodes in and there’s been attempts to kidnap a Shetland pony and an incident in the sewers with a fatberg that have caused prolonged laughter in our house. Comedy needs more than situations to be memorable and these first two episodes have built up character to an extent that this should go the distance and is a real breath of fresh air in Sky’s schedules.

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Joe Gilgun, Michelle Keegan and Damien Moloney

But talking about schedules….I’m not a fan of this getting a series over as soon as possible. Isn’t anticipation a great aspect of television watching? Surely we can all recall what it feels like to to realise during a day that a show we love is on that evening. That anticipation for me is what makes a 5 star show -something I’m really looking forward to seeing. Sky 1’s approach was to start off with two hour long episodes back to back and dump the rest of the series onto On Demand as soon as the first two were aired. For me, and I know I’m out of step here with my views on how we all now watch TV, this is not treating this with the respect it deserves. Some people will have already watched the whole series whereas I see good TV as something to be savoured. However you watch it I think you probably should make the effort (perhaps not if swearing offends). It is going to be the making of Joe Gilgun, both for his character Vinnie, for his script work in conjunction with Danny Brocklehurst (“Shameless”, “Clocking Off”) and in putting together this new series as an obvious labour of love which has attracted such a vibrant and talented cast and which has high entertainment value and so much potential for the future.

fourstars (although I suspect after a few more episodes this score could go up)

Brassic is shown on Thursday nights at 10.00 on Sky 1. The whole series is available from Sky On-Demand.

Wild Bill (ITV1-2019) and Tales Of The City (Netflix -2019) – A What I’ve Been Watching Double Review

On By philshanklinIn What I've Been Watching2 Comments

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We never used to expect that much of shows launched in the summertime, knowing that TV channels would wait to launch their big guns later in the year.  With more of us watching television in different ways nowadays it probably matters less when programmes are released.  These two very different drama series were launched to considerable publicity recently. One is a new British ITV prime-time cop show, the other an American “limited series” revisit to what was a landmark television adaptation.  I was interested to see if both lived up to the hype or whether they were, and I hoped not, summertime season filler.

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Firstly “Wild Bill” which was apparently based on a projected appointment of an American Bill Bratton, nicknamed “Wild Bill”, to run the Metropolitan Police Force.  That didn’t pan out but it sowed the seeds for this six- parter where an American cop becomes the Chief Constable of East Lincolnshire Police. Created by Dudi Appleton, Jim Keeble and David Griffiths,  I’m sure the idea really sprang to life when Hollywood star Rob Lowe agreed to play the central character in this fish- out- of- water tale.  It’s exciting to have Rob Lowe on our screens on a weekly basis over the summer.  It got me thinking about what I’d seen Rob Lowe in before and frankly I drew a blank (apart from the 2015 British/American co-production “You, Me & The Apocalypse” where he stole the show as an off-the-wall Vatican priest).  I kept thinking of films from the 80’s but then realised it was Matt Dillon, Brad Pitt or a Baldwin who had starred in them.  Google to the rescue then to discover Rob Lowe made his name in films such as “The Outsiders” and “St Elmo’s Fire” (remember the theme song not the film) and had his mainstream Hollywood career scuppered by a sex tape scandal.  He has worked fairly consistently in film and especially TV since but this is his first British work.

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I do like the premise behind this, relocating a go-getting American cop to Boston, Lincolnshire with the idea that he will make serious budget cuts while in post, not exactly endearing him to his new colleagues.  My main concern was that it might be a little too “ITV cosy crime”, a mash-up between “Midsummer Murders” and Martin Clunes’ star vehicle “Doc Martin”, neither of which do it for me but the opening sequence of Episode 1 with Lowe engaged in a rural car-chase saying “Shit!” continually put my mind at rest and certainly language wise at-least it seems more out there than much prime-time ITV1 fodder.  I really enjoyed the first episode with its emphasis of the American attempting to adjust to a very different life, although plot-wise it probably did throw too much into the mix for a series opener.  I was less keen on the second episode where alarm bells which were tinkling away subtly to begin with started to resonate more fully. 

willdbill4Bronwyn James with Rob Lowe

My main stumbling block is that the characters just aren’t very nice to one another.  I can’t work out the hierarchy yet but no-one is giving Bill a chance and I totally understand the reasons why.  The antipathy and aggression towards work colleagues might have worked in a 70’s set show like “The Sweeney” or “Life On Mars” yet here in its contemporary Lincolnshire setting it just doesn’t ring true.  “Wild Bill” has not found its identity yet.  I’d like to see the Rob Lowe character getting a little more wild and the rest of the force beginning to toe the line a little more.  The Channel 4 series “No Offence” shows how good a mix of police procedural, character led plots, dark comedy and drama and a clear dollop of camaraderie at its centre can be but here the elements are not as convincing.  The character who is really shining at this point is DC Muriel Yeardsley played by Bronwyn James who is grappling with diligence and thoroughness in her career whilst being obligated to a dodgy Russian moneylender who has bought the debt on her parents’ farm.  This, after two episodes,  looks like where the unexpected heart of this series will be.

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The original TV adaptation of Armistead Maupin’s “Tales Of The City” really did light up our screens when shown on Channel 4 in 1993 and was significant because it put gay characters centrally into the plot-line with a delicious portrayal of Michael “Mouse” Tolliver, initially by Marcus D’Amico.  This was almost unique at the time, six years before the game-changing “Queer As Folk”.  It also had a big-star presence in Olympia Dukakis who was wonderful as Barbary Lane matriarch Mrs Madrigal and introduced most of us to Laura Linney.

talescity3The originals : Marcus D’Amico, Laura Linney and Chloe Webb – Mouse, Mary Ann & Mona

Set in mid-70’s San Francisco this was a heart-warming adaptation of Maupin’s early books and a love-letter to San Francisco itself which would have been added to many “must visit” lists on the strength of this showing.  Its depiction of a bohemian, carefree 70’s lifestyle proved too much for Middle America who showed “edited versions” and led to its cancellation with further instalments being produced in Montreal with a recasting of some of the major roles.

 

Laura Linney and Olympia Dukakis -then and now

Eighteen years on from the last visit cast originals Laura Linney and an 88 year old Olympia Dukakis are back in this present-day set revival. I’m having slight difficulties with the time-line here as how the characters fit in and also with how it all fits in with the books (which I’ve read over the years all apart from the most recent, the final instalment, “The Days Of Anna Madrigal”).  I wish that Netflix had made at least the first series available so that we could refresh ourselves with what had happened decades ago as a way into the new series, because I think if I had watched this without the background of the old shows and the books I wouldn’t really know what was going on.  This new re-boot is aiming to be very 21st Century with a range of characters from the LGBTQ+ spectrum very much fitting in with the heterosexual characters as before, which was always its great strength, but here it’s looking a little worthy and there’s something about this whole production and especially the dialogue (and I’m only two episodes in) that makes it all seem a little unreal.  We’ve had so much “realness” in the depiction of LGBTQ+ characters recently in excellent productions of Ryan Murphy’s “Pose” and Russell T. Davies’ “Years and Years” that this revival of a trend-setting brand is looking a little middle-aged and bloated.  I’m even a little nervous that I won’t stick with the ten episodes to see if it redeems itself and that it might fall into that familiar Netflix trap of “watch a couple of episodes and nothing more”.  I hope not because the source material for this has been part of my entire adult life and I really want to see it being taken on board in a big way by a new generation.

threestars(for both so far)

Wild Bill in shown on ITV 1 on Thursdays at 9pm with the first two episodes available on the ITV Hub.  The whole series of Tales Of The City is available on Netflix.

The South Bank Show- Jed Mercurio (Sky Arts 2019) A What I’ve Been Watching Review

On By philshanklinIn What I've Been Watching2 Comments

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With fortuitous timing, later on the same evening that BBC1 scored the largest television audience this year when 9.1 million tuned into the Series 5 “Line Of Duty” finale, Sky Arts opened its new series of “The South Bank Show” with a profile of writer Jed Mercurio in conversation with Melvyn Bragg.

I haven’t watched “The South Bank Show” for years, certainly not since it was revitalised on the Sky Arts Channel seven years ago.  Most of us will remember it from its original run from 1978 until it was axed by ITV in 2010.  I tuned in because I wanted to know more about this man who has had us on the edge of our seats with “Line Of Duty” and “Bodyguard“.  I was both heartened and a little depressed that the opening music taken from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Variations” was still intact, even if in a slightly different version from the one I remember and depressed because it brought me back to Sunday nights of my teenage years when it signified bed-time and the end of the weekend and back to school on Monday.

Even though I have been avidly glued to every episode of “Line Of Duty” and to “Bodyguard” I realised I did not know much about the man who has put pen to paper and given us these examples of very high standard writing for television.  I do have an unread copy of one of his novels “American Adultery” (2009), which I recently obtained, sat on my shelves but that was really about it.

southbankshowMelvyn Bragg and Jed Mercurio

We began with a montage of clips from the shows that have elevated him up to the highest category of TV writing and was told by Melvyn Bragg that Mercurio’s work is known for exploring the “dark side of institutions and the morally questionable characters that hold them up.”  This certainly holds true for his two most famous productions as well as two hospital dramas, his debut work for television “Cardiac Arrest” which I don’t remember and “Bodies” which began in 2004, which I do.  What Mercurio wishes to challenge is the “drama of reassurance” which is what most TV  police drama has traditionally been.  Cleverly, with “Line Of Duty” he has achieved this by focusing on the arm of the organisation which is exploring the corruption, if he had shown just the corruption he feels so strongly about there would have been outcry from the police and politicians.  By having AC-12 as the investigating body he certainly does not have to water down any message he wishes to get over about the state of our institutions.

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The hospital dramas which came first were written from an insider’s point of view.  Mercurio was brought up in the West Midlands, the youngest son of Italian immigrants and went into medicine after being inspired by a contestant on TV’s “Blockbusters”(!)  He went to medical school in Birmingham as well as joining the RAF and training as a pilot.   He experienced the difficulties of life in an NHS hospital, which all of us who have read Adam Kay’s “This Is Going To Hurt” will certainly know about and responded to an advert in the British Medical Journal from a TV production company looking for a different story from the one we were used to in hospital soaps (which is largely that “drama of reassurance” again).  The success and recommissioning of “Cardiac Arrest” led him to drop medicine and to come out of the Air Force to be a full time writer.

We were told this was not an easy move “The Grimleys” was a 1970’s West Midlands set comedy which lasted a couple of series and using the name John MacUre he penned the six part BBC science fiction series “Invasion Earth”.  He hit big again by returning to the hospital wards in an examination of negligent practises, “Cardiac Arrest”, which was a success and from what I remember a pretty difficult watch.  “Line Of Duty”, the series which has certainly kept his name to the forefront and generated so many column inches and workplace discussions began its run in 2012 and between this and “Bodyguard” there has been a TV hospital drama for Sky “Critical” which was a little too much for me and a  TV adaptation of “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”.

There were interviews with cast members (was I the only person not to know that Martin Compston who plays Steve Arnott speaks naturally in a Scottish accent? It took me completely by surprise as it did by how young he looked in the first series) who spoke highly of Mercurios’ total involvement in bringing his dramas to the screen, which he himself acknowledges many writers do not get the same opportunity for this level of on-set participation. It fell into place for him when he became Medical Advisor for “Cardiac Arrest” thus giving him a hands-on role which most writers who don’t know what has been done to their work until the production is finished can only dream of.

This was a very interesting hour in the company of Jed Mercurio and Melvyn Bragg shows why he has been at the top of his own personal game for decades by asking the questions that viewers want answered.  I certainly wouldn’t add “The South Bank Show” as a Series Record on the Sky Planner but I am very pleased that it is still going strong and if the subject matter appeals as much as this one did I will certainly watch.

fourstars

The South Bank Show: Jed Mercurio was first shown on Sky Arts on Sunday 5th May.  It is available to watch on Sky Catch-up services.

The To Be Watched List 2 – A What I Will Be Watching Review

On By philshanklinIn What I've Been Watching1 Comment

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Yesterday the Rugby Six Nations drew to a close with Wales victorious.  One of only two annual sporting fixtures I watch (the other being Wimbledon) this has dominated my viewing over the last few weekends meaning that the time on Saturday and Sunday I normally spend catching up with what I haven’t watched during the week has not happened and my Sky Box is beginning to groan under the weight of unwatched shows (well, it’s got up to 60% full and things start to get stressful when it creeps up more than that).  So either I’ve got to start deleting or settle down and get that percentage down.

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 So for today’s blog I thought I’d do something I did way back in  July 2017 and explore what I will be watching in order to reduce the Sky Box’s waistline rather than focus on something I have already watched.  As preparation I looked back to that previous post of nearly 20 months ago and was surprised to see that not much had changed.  The focus of that post was me falling asleep in the first episode of Series 7 of “Game Of Thrones” which I had planned to review and with Series 8 imminent here is the confession, I haven’t watched any more.  I have the whole series sitting in the Planner, including the episode which caused such a deep slumber because I will have to revisit this again right from the start to have any chance of knowing what is going on.  Hopefully, the escalation of publicity for Season 8 will prompt me to watch the previous seven episodes.

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Also, I note that I was working my way through two series I had on series link and here things haven’t improved.  I might have got through series 5 of the likeable enough Sherlock Holmes reboot “Elementary” starring Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu but I now have ten unwatched episodes of Season 6.   The situation regarding “Hawaii 5-0” shown on Sky on Sunday evenings is even worse.  It’s a show that’s not quite limping along but almost so I am now watching it in small doses, which is probably why eighteen episodes over two series have built up.  It’s still happily recording them each Sunday but perhaps at some point soon I will need to pull the plug on this.

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I’m a good one for watching first episodes as soon as they come out and then stalling with the rest of the series.  I haven’t yet made up my mind about W’s “Flack” a London set drama dealing with a PR company protecting the reputation of celebrities starring child Oscar winner and ex-Sookie Stackhouse from “True Blood”, Anna Paquin.  It’s one of those US/UK productions that end up seeming a little odd to viewers on both sides of the Atlantic, but I’m only a couple of episodes behind so I’ll stick with it.  I’m also not sure what to make about BBC 2’s “Motherfatherson”, surprisingly starring Richard Gere.  I’m really not sure where it is going and it wasn’t Gere who lit up the screen in the first episode  but Billy Howle as his tortured son.  The first episode ended up in a hospital scene with what looked like a brain tumour operation so I really can’t guess how the series is going to pan out.  It has the similar stylish feel of BBC1’s flawed “McMafia” but this is written by Tom Rob Smith, a British crime novelist of great repute who did excellent work penning “The Assassination of Gianni Versace” and the odd but fascinating “London Spy”, so I am certainly going to continue with this.

tomrobsmithTom Rob Smith

And then there’s “Finding Neverland: Michael Jackson And Me” which was spread out on subsequent nights into two parts by Channel 4.  I watched the first part and found it so disturbing and it gave me nightmares.  I know I should watch the second part but haven’t got round to it yet.  At this stage I really can’t put my impressions into words.  I can’t help but recall the cultural shift which happened in this country following the revelations about presenter and DJ Jimmy Savile which I struggled to sum up after reading the chilling exceptionally researched book about the man, “In Plain Sight” by  Dan Davies (2014) .  Here again, it feels like something we knew about and yet chose not to believe or ignore.  The impact of Michael Jackson on our popular culture is huge, the almost erasure of people like Savile, Gary Glitter and Rolf Harris from our cultural pasts was possible because they did not have celebrity to the magnitude of Jackson’s.  Sales of Michael Jackson’s records have grown in the UK since this programme was shown so this is a complex issue that I’m not going to be able to deal with in a paragraph, especially as I have only watched half of the television programme that has caused these developments.

 Hopefully, I will be less disturbed by two further music biographies.  “Mariah: The Diva, The Demons” was shown on Channel 5 on their Mariah Carey night before Christmas and promises to be a dramatised bio-pic focusing on 2000-20001 where Mariah bludgeoned her career to bits by performing in the movie “Glitter”, which I’ve seen and don’t think it’s as bad as it was made out to be.  It was gloriously tacky, and I’m hoping that this bio-pic will be too, but it’s also long which has put me off it up until now.

teddyTeddy Pendergrass

 I’ve been reading quite a bit about a documentary which had a limited cinema release a few week back which sounds right up my street, Teddy Pendergrass: If You Don’t Know Me” examines the life of the extraordinary vocalist from Harold Melvin and The Bluenotes and his subsequent solo career dogged by tragedy.  It was shown on Sky Arts last night.  I suspect here too there will be revelations I will find challenging.

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 And once I’ve exhausted the Sky Planner there’s always Netflix , where I am still working my way through “Dynasty” where I’m about to begin Series 2.  This is a show which has got better since my review of the first episodes probably because the character of Fallon Carrington is so sparklingly played by Elizabeth Gillies and has taken a more central role as the series has progressed and “Riverdale” which has lost any sense of fun it had and become increasingly dark, but still watchable.  Also Netflix is adding episodes weekly to the latest series of “Rupaul’s Drag Race”, which hasn’t yet had the magical spark of the last season of “All Stars” and I’m also one episode in to creepy stalker drama “You”, but I suspect here I might not last the distance.

Who says there’s nothing on television nowadays?

 

Barneys, Books And Bust-Ups (BBC4 2018) – A What I’ve Been Watching Review

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barneys

It has been Man Booker announcement week. After the last couple of years of reading the shortlist, beginning as soon as the long-listed titles were chosen so I got some chance of fitting them in time before the winner’s announcement, I decided this year not to read any of them.

There were a number of reasons for this. Firstly, last year’s winner “Lincoln In The Bardo” by George Saunders proved what a lottery the whole thing is (Julian Barnes has referred to the award as “Posh Bingo”). Secondly, despite reading a good chunk of eligible literary fiction during the year I hadn’t even read one title on the longlist and when the shortlist was announced I wasn’t motivated enough by the choices to put this right. I did think that after the last couple of last summer/autumns getting through the titles that it was going to become a bit of an obsessive feature in my reading year, but I haven’t missed it in the slightest this year.

That is in many ways a shame because it this Literary Prize’s 50th Anniversary and I don’t know whether the first writer from Northern Ireland to win the award, Anna Burns for “Milkman” was the most deserving winner. (I’d read one previous novel by Richard Powers but not his latest, all the rest of the authors were new to me). I didn’t even watch the announcement on TV.

I did, however, tune in to this BBC4 documentary which was shown to mark the Booker’s 50th and which concentrated more upon the Prize night and the intrigue and controversy which has dogged or (more probably) enriched its history. Apparently, “the Booker has always been a magnet for scandal “ and this hour long documentary was prepared to spill the beans.

It was a mildly diverting hour which saw such anecdotes as John Banville recalling how one short-listed year he had got so drunk that had he won the award he wouldn’t have been able to collect it (he didn’t win), Anne Enright not being able to visit the loo, judges falling out over their choices and Selina Scott floundering on a live TV presentation by not recognising the judges. More shocking than all of this was the amount of cigarette smoke wafting in the air in clips from award ceremonies of just a few years back and also the number of times we saw the same bits of footage (Yann Martel jumping to his feet in triumph on quite a few occasions, for example).

Despite it being one of the literary world’s most prestigious prizes it can be a bit of a rod for the winners’ backs. 2103 winner Eleanor Catton, the youngest recipient, confided it has taken her years to get back on track and Dotti Irving, PR for the prize, said; “Quite often writers are in the middle of their next book. They want peace and quiet for that, well, they’re not going to get peace and quiet in the wake of the Man Booker.”

Nevertheless, this is the one that everyone, whether they admit it or not, wants to win. Kingsley Amis famously claimed he didn’t until he did, then it was a different story. Some of the older clips illustrated how media-savvy the modern writer has to be compared to the intellectual ramblings of literary titans of the 70’s and 80’s a time when everything seemed very beige.

I really want the Man Booker to feel more relevant. You can find the odd gem on the shortlist but they do need to ensure that they are getting the balance between quality and readability right and I do think that the Costas, for one, are currently doing this better. However, I certainly would not turn down the opportunity to be a Man Booker judge. This year there was a different feel to the longlist with both a graphic novel and more commercial crime fiction (Belinda Bauer’s “Snap”), which could have shaken things up had it appeared on the shortlist. With Val McDermid on the judging panel I had high hopes but it was not to be.

barneys22018 judges with the shortlisted titles

Judging from the title BBC4 gave this there was an emphasis on the in-fighting in an attempt to make it all seem a little more sexy and watchable than it turned out to be. It did get me looking up how many Booker winners I have read from the last 50 years and I make it 15, which is probably more than the average reader. Will this year’s winner bring my total up to 16…..? You’ll have to watch this space…..

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Barneys, Books And Bust-Ups was shown at 9pm on BBC4 on Monday 15th October. It is currently available to view on the BBC I-Player.

Picnic At Hanging Rock (BBC 2 2018) – A What I’ve Been Watching Review

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picnic1

I’m still not totally sure what to make of this Australian six parter which began this week on BBC2. Based on the 1967 novel by Joan Lindsay “Picnic At Hanging Rock” found more fame in the UK via the 1971 film version directed by Peter Weir with its out-of-kilter slightly trippy feel which is considered a significant moment in the development of Australian cinema.

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Lindsay’s book has grown in reputation especially in her homeland where it has become pretty much a standard text in the school curriculum. On its publication the author was keen to fudge the lines between fiction and fact implying it was based upon a real-life incident. This has added to the reputation and mystique of the work. I saw the film many years ago on television, probably when I was about the age of the schoolgirls in the tale. I remember it being odder than I was expecting it to be and that I enjoyed it. I’ve never read the book and am not sure whether Lindsay herself incorporated this almost hallucinogenic feel into her writing (published in 1967 so possible as this would fit into the feel of the times, although the author herself was 71 by then so maybe not). The trippy feel is certainly incorporated into the TV adaptation.

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The reason I chose to watch this was for its lead, Natalie Dormer, who has excelled in the past in history-based series. I will always remember her as Anne Boleyn in the delightfully demented “The Tudors” but she was also very strong as Lady Worsley in the BBC one-off “The Scandalous Lady W” (2015). She made her mark world-wide in “Game Of Thrones” as Margaery Tyrell who had a memorably short-lived marriage to the noxious young King Joffrey and she’s also been very good in contemporary pieces such as “Elementary” and “Silks”. There’s always great strength in her characters who often do not suffer fools gladly and there’s sometimes an ambiguous darker edge so she is a perfect choice to play the enigmatic British headmistress Hester Appleyard.

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The plot hinges on an event on February 14th 1900 when a number of schoolgirls from Appleyard’s school disappear on a picnic at Mount Diogenes. School trip risk assessments did not exist in turn of the century Australia as evidenced by the choice of location for a day out amongst venomous snakes, poisonous ants and a brooding, precarious rock formation. On this opener we begin with Natalie Dormer’s character viewing the property she intends to convert into the school in a scene which clearly indicates she is not who she is attempting to convey. We move in time to the school which has been set up, in Hester’s words, in “the arse end of the world” and onto preparations for the picnic culminating in this episode with the disappearance. It actually all moved faster than I was expecting it to in this first episode. The oddness of the piece was perpetuated by some jerky filming, tilted angles and odd viewpoints which took a few seconds to right themselves. This gave it, at best a slightly feverish feel but there were occasions when it felt like an 80’s pop promo.

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What was effective was the soundtrack composed by Cezary Skubiszewski which was anachronistic for turn of the twentieth century but atmospheric particularly in a scene when Miss Appleyard is handed some evidence of her hidden past by one of the girls amidst a pulsing, tense rhythm track.

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There’s undoubtedly going to be a significant focus on the development of the girl’s sexuality. We saw this is in a scene where one of the girls (and the headmistress) got the better of a lusty young chap; a naïve girl unaware of the changes of puberty and a frenzied exchange of Valentine cards amongst the pupils and staff members which showed the school to be a hotbed of emotions on the morn of the picnic, a scene whose change of pace felt unusual amongst the distanced, cool feel of the piece which largely emanates from Natalie Dormer’s performance. Miss Appleyard tells one of the girls; “The dark gets in you. You can’t just say I’ve had enough now. It gets everywhere”. I think this darkness will continue to infiltrate over the next five episodes. She also said “Infection spreads” which might very well be a theme for the piece.

Produced by the Australian Fremantle company using a mainly female team led by director Larysa Kondracki it feels like a piece with high production values which certainly looks good but I’m not sure whether the source material will have enough to sustain me in this six hour treatment. I’m going to stick with it for the time being though.

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The Picnic At Hanging Rock is shown on Wednesday nights at 9.00pm on BBC2. The first episode is available on the BBC I-Player.

The 500th Post – What You’ve Been Reading

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5002It’s the big 500th Post!  This gives me a chance to sit back, eat cake and sip sparkling wine and to say thank you to all of you who have kept me posting by reading and commenting and suggesting.  On these big occasions I like to take a little look back and see just what it is you have been finding to read here on reviewsrevues.com.  According to my Stats page this is a total of 374,652 words.  Huge thanks if you have managed to read them all!!

I reset the clocks at the start of the year and so this is the Top 10 of those 500 posts which you have been  reading since January.

10. Collateral –  (BBC2 2018- posted in Feb 2018)

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Much anticipated four part Crime drama series by Sir David Hare had mixed reviews with some finding the writing at times a little clunky.  I did stick with it and there was a great performance from Carey Mulligan but it is unlikely to be the best police drama I will watch this year.

9. Top Of The Shop With Tom Kerridge (BBC2 2018- posted in April 2018)

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I liked this series as it brimmed with feel-good factor and feels to me like the BBC’s natural successor to the gap in the schedules caused by “Bake Off” moving to Channel 4.  It worked because of the passion of the contestants- people prepared to give up on their 9-5s to produce food, often during their evenings and weekends, often in places like their sheds or domestic kitchens, food which they really believein with a passion and wanting to spread the word.   I also loved the farm-shop setting in Malhamdale, Yorkshire.

8. The Real Full Monty (ITV 2017- posted in June 2017)

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This has received a surge in readers this year as ITV decided to do it all over again with two one-offs over consecutive nights, one with celebrity men and one with women.  My review was for the original 2017 one-off.  Even though I couldn’t really see it working a second time it actually did.  I know there was criticism in some quarters of the press about the amount of money actually raised for charity by these shows but it certainly raised awareness on prime-time television of testicular and breast cancer and that has got to be a good thing.

7. Let’s Groove – The Best Of Earth Wind and Fire (Columbia 1996- posted in October 2015)

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Continues to be the most read CD review I have ever posted, still leading the way two and a half years on.

6. Dynasty (Netflix 2017- posted in October 2017)

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I’m still working my way through the first series of this on reboot of a TV classic on  Netflix and I am enjoying it.  The writing of this review made me go all dewy-eyed with nostalgia for the days of John Forsythe, Linda Evans and of course, Dame Joan Collins and ended up with me buying the complete box set of the original series off Amazon.  Haven’t got round to watching any of it yet- it’s still in its plastic shrink wrap.  Maybe one day I’ll have 165 hours to spare!!

5. The Diary Of Two Nobodies – Giles Wood and Mary Killen (2017- posted in January 2018)

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Despite all the literary treasures I try to put your way the most read of my book reviews this year has been dear old Giles and Mary from “Gogglebox”.  It is actually very readable, laugh out loud funny and quite a long way from most tv cash-in publications.

4. Make! Craft Britain (BBC4- 2016) (Posted in June 2016)

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It seems like I have been urging the BBC for ages to make more of this idea as this one off programme has always attracted a lot of attention on here.  At last, this year BBC4 went with a three parter which explored a range of crafts and has sparked many people who watched it into different artistic directions.  (I have unearthed the knitting needles again after watching beginners produce a hat).  This review was for the original episode- I hope the BBC will make more of these surprisingly relaxing and inspirational hours.

3. The Level (ITV 2016- Posted in October 2016)

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This six part Brighton set series remains the most read review on the site, clearly dominating the statistics in 2016 and 2017.  Although it has slipped off the top spot in this first part of the year it seems people have far from forgotten about it and still want to know what it was all about.

2. Jamestown ( Sky 1 2017- Posted in May 2017)

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Here’s one I feel guilty about.  Sky has aired a second series which has meant good traffic on the site for this review and yet I only ever watched the first episode of the first series.  I gave up with it at this point.  It seems as if I was in a minority……………

The most read review on this site so far this year is…………… (drum roll needed or at least a showbizzy fanfare -there’s a clue….)

Last Laugh In Vegas (ITV 2018 – Posted in April 2018)

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A clear winner here stats-wise for this five part series which started off with car-crash tv potential but actually turned out to be a really quite charming tale of dogged determination in keeping your name up in lights.  Celebrities better known in the 60s and 70’s took on Las Vegas for a night and you ended up willing them to succeed.  Certainly not without its faults, I’m still questioning the motives behind the whole idea but it has obviously attracted attention worldwide.

Well that was post number 500!  Thanks for reading.  Thanks especially if you read something on April 25th 2018 as that was the day I received the highest number of visits ever which spurs me on thinking there’s still life in the old dog yet! Here’s to the next 500 posts!

 

 

 

 

 

Strike: Career Of Evil (BBC1 2018) – A What I’ve Been Watching Review

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strike1Having just got around to reading the novel, which I consider to be the best of the three JK Rowling- as- Robert Galbraith works I was looking forward to catching up with this two-parter shown over the last couple of Sunday nights.

I read “The Cuckoo’s Calling” a few months before the TV adaptation which was early enough to get my own visual impressions of one-legged man mountain Private Investigator Cormoran Strike and of his assistant Robin Ellacott and to initially feel that neither Tom Burke nor Holliday Grainger seemed right.  It took about 20 minutes to revise my opinion of Burke as Strike and admittedly a little longer to see Holliday as Robin but I’m there totally now with both portrayals.

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 “Career Of Evil” is pushing 500 pages in the hardback edition and I did wonder how this could be compressed into two hour long episodes and how some of the darker fare on offer in the novel would be translated onto the screen for Sunday evening viewing.  That job went to writer Tom Edge, who also had some considerable condensing to do when “The Silkworm” was adapted into two hours.  The first episode seemed to rattle along, and was good quality story-telling and television.  I did have reservations about the second part as  in the rush to get things to the conclusion it inevitably became confusing.  “So who did it then?” my partner (who had not read the book) asked as the end credits came up- not the best result for a crime drama.

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 In my review of the book I mentioned my difficulty in distinguishing between two of the suspects.  Here I felt that they were introduced with more distance between them so thought they would get around this but there wasn’t the time to devote to them so it became equally confusing.  There was some too obvious sign-posting of one of the main twists in the book and an implausible touch about identity towards the end which would not have been out of place in an episode of “Scooby Doo”.

 I quite like it when Rowling gets dark.  It’s like seeing Holly Willoughby swearing on “Celebrity Juice”, it feels so unexpected and naughtier.  Here the serial killer elements which darkened the novel considerably were very underplayed and the whole theme of Body Integrity Identity Disorder (a feeling that a limb does not belong by an otherwise healthy person and needs to be amputated) which was disturbingly explored in the novel was very much left on the shelf here with Cormoran’s appeal to the murdered girl being teen adulation rather than for his missing leg.  Strike was also made more of a suspect here when the plans to undermine his business came across more subtly in the book. Some characters had their parts bumped up (Matthew) and some reduced (Alyssa).  The Blue Oyster Cult, whose role I felt the author had overplayed in the book also moved more into the background.

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 Still, there were only two hours to play with and as much as for the crime most of us were tuning in to see the relationship and interplay between the two main characters, especially with Robin approaching her nuptials (no Royal Wedding element here as in the novel with its more specific time frame) and here we were certainly not disappointed.  I do like these adaptations but feel here an extra hour was required to bring out the richness there is in the novel, both in terms of plot-line and character.  The book is better than the TV adaptation but I still felt highly involved.

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Strike: Career Of Evil was shown in the UK on Sunday 25th Feb and 4th March 2018.  It is currently available on the BBC I Player .