COVID 19 Friday Five: Even More ISO TV

I would watch Keeley Hawes in anything; so would Richard Madden in Bodyguard

As we have continued our strange year, I have been watching TV series in groups; trying to mix up the comedy, tragedy, period drama and police procedural. This is a snapshot of some of that.

5 TV Shows Recently Watched:

1. Bodyguard (7plus) - I think Keeley Hawes is excellent and will happily watch her in anything from Life on Mars or Line of Duty to The Missing or The Durrells, so when I saw she had a starring role in a British police political thriller, I wasn't going to miss it. The Jed Mercurio-written drama has garnered rave reviews and high ratings from critics and viewers alike. Hawes is Julia Montague, the Home Secretary battling corrupt politicians, international terrorism and secret schemes to overthrow the government. Richard Madden is David Budd, the special protection officer who is charged with keeping her safe, but he has issues of his own, including PTSD from Afghanistan, burning resentment and a tendency towards anger. Nothing is as apparent as it seems, and story arcs are not always concluded in conventional ways - sometimes irritatingly so - but it is both bright and dark, and ultimately binge-worthy.
2. Dracula (BBC One and Netflix) - sexy and hysterical; the three-part series is as if three different script-writers and directors had a go at bringing together a story. In truth, the drama-horror series was developed and written by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, but there is indeed a different director for each installment (Jonny Campbell; Damon Thomas; Paul McGuigan). We follow Dracula (Claes Bang) from his origins in Eastern Europe to his battles with Van Helsing (Dolly Wells) and her descendants. It's all slick and sensual, but the middle episode, confined to a boat with a claustrophobic sense of impending doom and psychological terror, is my clear favourite.
3. Sex Education (Netflix) - We binged two whole seasons of this show one wet weekend, and I'm still trying to work out why I was so invested in watching a series about teenagers and their hormones. Forays into adulthood are fraught with angst and we all remember our own with less than fondness, so to watch others deal with feelings, emotions and sexual expectations is probably better than having to relive our own experiences. Asa Butterfield stars as an insecure young lad at a highly progressive high school doling out advice he has gleaned from his sex therapist mother, Gillian Anderson, who has her own unresolved relationship conflicts. Although it is a British series (created by Laurie Nunn; a variety of British accents; filmed in Wales), the aesthetic is highly mixed with an American-style high school and education system, but beautiful British scenery and sensitivity. The time period in which it is set is also deliberately disorientating with many modern references, but fashion, decor and bicycles from the 80s. It's an intriguing and generous mash-up; sort of like The Breakfast Club meets Gregory's Girl. Strangely recommended.



Michael Sheen and David Tennant in the lockdown drama for our times



4. Staged (ABC iview) - And now, for our times, this is a lock-down comedy about actors who desperately want to act, but the theatres are closed, so they take out their frustrations and their theatrical rivalries over Zoom meetings. David Tennant and Michael Sheen play hyper-real versions of themselves which are equally irritating and fabulous. The six episodes are only fifteen minutes long (the perfect length for a Zoom call) and prove that you can pack a lot in if you know what you are doing. The pair were due to star in a production of Six Characters in Search of an Author on the West End but the pandemic has put paid to that. Not wanting to let this opportunity slip through his fingers, their director Simon Evans (who also wrote the script) attempts to get them to rehearse over the internet, if only they can overcome their distractions, boredom and egos to read the first scene. There are some brilliant cameo appearances from Samuel L. Jackson, Nina Sosanya, Adrian Lester and Dame Judi Dench, and evidence-based research (Him Outdoors and me) proves this is entertaining fare for theatre and non-theatre types alike.
5.  Vanity Fair (BBC First) - I love the novel; I love the character of Becky Sharp; and I love this adaptation by writer Gwyneth Hughes. Olivia Cooke is bold and beguiling (unlike many insipid heroines of period drama) and all her relationships, with Amelia (Claudia Jessie), Jos (David Fynn), George (Charlie Rowe), Rawdon (Tom Bateman), Martha (Sian Clifford), Sir Pitt (Martin Clunes), and Aunt Matilda (Frances de la Tour) are honest and brilliantly played. It's colourful and gaudy and breathtakingly bedazzling. The fact that each episode is opened by a top-hatted Michael Palin orchestrating the carousel at the titular carnival can't do any harm either.

Olivia Cooke is brilliant as Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair

Friday Five: Women in Books

Recently I read How to Be a Heroine, Or, What I've Learned from Reading Too Much by Samantha Ellis, in which the author revisits the books she read as a child and young woman to see if she still admired the same female characters who had a profound effect on her in her youth.

I will return to this book in a later post, but it made me think about my childhood literary heroines, and whether I still feel the same way about them. The answer is yes - does this mean I had great taste back then, or rather, that I've never grown up?

5 Literary Heroines from My Younger Years:

1. George from The Famous Five books by Enid Blyton: George firmly believes her gender shouldn't prevent her from doing what she wants; she tackles 'the great outdoors' with gusto and is unashamedly physical; she is greatly concerned about animal welfare; her personal integrity crosses class boundaries; she is intelligent without being intellectual; she is fiercely loyal towards her friends. Sure, she scowls a lot, but I still wanted to be her (way more than I ever wanted to be Pollyanna). And I wanted her rowing boat. And her island. 
2. Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray - I love the novel, and her cheeky, irreverent adaptability. She is a social outsider, who uses cunning and charm to claw her way to respectability, yet never achieves it. She is also radically non-maternal; one of the few female characters who doesn't go all pathetic and uninteresting once she's had a baby. And she had a thoroughly modern moniker, unlike Pamela, Clarissa or Hester.
3. Susan Pevensie in The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis: as the eldest sister, she is compassionate enough to care for her family and brave enough to fight for them and stand up for her beliefs. She has arrows that never miss their target (who wouldn't want those?) but she is the voice of reason and commonsense - often she prefers to take the easy route rather than plunging recklessly into battle - even as a child, I saw the virtue in that. At the end of the series, she doesn't enter Narnia with the others, because she is more interested in 'nylons and lipstick and invitations'. In other words, she discovers sex and and drugs and rock and roll (or real life, if you prefer), and gets to grow up.
4. Jane Eyre, from the eponymous novel by Charlotte Brontë: she's honest, forthright and powerful, acting with dignity and grace even when burning with shame and rejection. And she addresses the reader directly. She may be plain and unrefined, but she has nothing at all to hide
5. Anne Frank - this is sort of cheating because she was a real person, but I first read her diary as though she were a fictional character, and I related to all her family frictions and teenage pretentiousness, even if I (thankfully) have never had to deal with Nazis battering down the door. Her words and ways to live have a power she could never have expected. 

Friday Five: Bob Hoskins

Bob Hoskins, according to his Wikipedia entry (so it must be true), was an English actor known for playing cockneys and gangsters - sometimes both at the same time! His death last week, leads naturally to introspection about some of his great acting roles. 

All of the obituaries mention Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which was perhaps the film that made his name (voice, and gorgeously round face) globally recognisable. The combination of animation and live action in that film was remarkable and deserves acclaim. It also launched his career as a friendly uncle type and he went on to delight children's audiences with roles such as Badger in Wind in the Willows, Smee in Hook, and Geppetto in Pinocchio. 

At the time it was released in 1988, however, I was anti-Hollywood, cartoons and anything that stank of cheesy Americana, so it was never a favourite of mine. I appreciate that it was arty, ground-breaking and full of inside jokes, but I preferred (and still do) my films to be a little more subtle and thought-provoking.

5 Favourite Bob Hoskins Films (in chronological order):

1. Felicia's Journey (1999) - Before he became a cuddly Cockney, Bob Hoskins could be a creepy chappie, and never more so than in this psychological thriller. His turn as the sinister middle-aged caterer with chilling secrets reminds us that he used to play gangsters in the likes of The Long Good Friday and that he was a fantastic embodiment of Shakespeare's ultimate villain, Iago.
2. Last Orders (2001) - one of those rare occasions where the film adaptation is as good as the (very good/ Booker Prize-winning) novel. It's all about the characters, as the group of drinking buddies and the son of the recently deceased Jack take his ashes to scatter them in the sea at Margate. Tom Courtenay, David Hemmings, and Ray Winstone join Bob in this last journey, and flashbacks include the brilliance of Michael Caine and Helen Mirren (as Jack and his wife). It's poignant, funny and beautiful.
3. Vanity Fair (2004) - Bob Hoskins is frequently described as a character actor, and he does pop up in convincing cameos in everything from Dickens to Shakespeare. His turn as Sir Pitt Crawley in this frock romp is a generously understated example of why he is such a gift to directors and producers; making all the characters look even better.
4. Mrs Henderson Presents (2005) - Playing the antithesis of his creepy old man role in Felicia's Journey, Hoskins provides the perfect foil to Dame Judi's rapier in this sweet, sentimental period piece full of warmth and wit in potentially seedy circumstances, as the Windmill Theatre introduced (sanctioned) nudity to the British stage.
5. Made in Dagenham (2010) - I have a soft spot for this film because I saw it with a really good friend in a really good cinema. It's also about the struggle for equal wages for women, so of course I am going to appreciate the subject matter. It's full of working-class good will and solidarity, which makes you nostalgic for a time when people actually cared about each other, even though it probably never quite existed. Hoskins plays the union rep who is overwhelmed by the proximity of so many gobby women, but he remains the lovable cockney character we have come to recognise, posing the question, who will play these roles now? (Answer: Probably Ray Winston whose career seems to be following a similar path.)

Quick Dectet: Last Lines

Because it is the last day of October and hence the last of my quick quintets, I thought I would choose closing lines from novels for my subject. Opening lines get all the credit, when the credit should really come at the finish. Some of my favourite books don't have great last lines (and the last line of Jane Eyre is not 'And reader, I married him' - that's the first line of the last chapter for all you pedants out there - you know who you are!)

And because there are quite a few to choose from, and it is my blog and I can do whatever I want, I have decided to go for ten things rather than five (in chronolgical order):

Top Ten Last Lines in Literature: 

1. 'Come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out.' – William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair (1847–48)
2. ‘It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.’ – Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
3. 'So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.' – F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)
4. 'But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.' – A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner (1928)
5. 'The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which. – George Orwell, Animal Farm (1945)
6. 'He loved Big Brother' – George Orwell, 1984 (1948)
7. 'Oh God. You’ve done enough. You’ve robbed me of enough. I’m too tired and old to learn to love, leave me alone for ever.' – Graham Greene, The End of the the Affair  (1951)
8. 'Are there any questions?' – Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale (1986)
9. 'I thought they were supposed to be dead, but in real life they’re just going to go on singing.' – Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999)
10. 'Very few castaways can claim to have survived so long at sea as Mr. Patel, and none in the company of an adult Bengal tiger.' – Yann Martel, Life of Pi (2002)