Category: tv

tv

Not a Book: Mad About the Boy

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Having seen two productions of Private Lives in 2023, I thought I’d start 2024’s NOt a Book selections by flagging a documentary I watched over Christmas about the play’s author, Noel Coward.

This is a ninety minute journey through Noel Coward’s life, mostly told in his own words. This is largely told in his own words – through clips from TV appearances and home movies, with extracts from his writings read by Rupert Everett and the whole thing narrated by Alan Cumming.

I’m a pretty big theatre-goer (as you probably know by now!) and so I’m fairly aware of the impact that Noel Coward had on the theatre – I’ve seen Private Lives live four times now (in three different productions), Blithe Spirit twice and Hay Fever as well. I probably should have seen more, but historically I went to musicals more than plays, and plays also used to be harder to get cheap tickets to (although that is now improving/changing). Even if you’ve never seen his work, you may have a distinct image of him in your head -smoking a cigarette and wearing a dressing gown and talking in a very clipped upper class British accent. And you’ll hear Coward referred to as “a witty raconteur” – which can often mean “humour may not translate”. But actually when I was watching this I found him genuinely funny and his life is actually fascinating – his childhood in poverty, building a theatre career, being gay in a time when it was illegal – but not exactly hiding it either, and then when his plays fell out of favour, reinventing himself on the cabaret circuit.

If you already know about Coward, I’m not sure that there’s going to be a lot here that you don’t already know, but for the rest of us – who don’t want to wade through three volumes of autobiography or try to figure out which is the right biography to go for this might do the trick – we certainly enjoyed it while we were watching it – and I spent more time paying attention to the screen than reading my book, which is not always the case!

If you’re in the UK, it’s being repeated in the early hours of the 11th, and you can watch it on iPlayer for the next 11 months.

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Not a Book: Home Renovation TV

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I’m slightly left field today, because this is part recommendation, part recommendation request! I really love home renovation and home improvement TV series. I think I always have – I watched Changing Rooms back in the day, and Justin and Colin’s Million Pound House Experiment or whatever it was called, and I’ve been watching Grand Designs for probably two decades at this point. But British home makeover programmes have limits – they’re called planning permission and brick houses. So the real joy for me these days are American home renovation shows.

I remember when I first watched Extreme Makeover: Home Edition back in the day and being perplexed at how quickly a house could be built – because I hadn’t properly absorbed that many American homes aren’t made of brick or stone like the houses that I grew up in, but are wood framed construction with cladding. And of course this means that you can do a lot of changes very quickly – and that flipping homes can be a a much quicker and more viable business than it is here in the UK. When I was living in the US five years ago (!) I discovered Fixer-Upper and Flip or Flop and thus it really started – and these days on any given week I’ve probably got episodes of two or three different shows on the TiVo box that I can watch while I’m doing the ironing (if I’m not watching Miss Marple or Inspector Alleyn or Doris Day). At the moment it’s the final series of Good Bones, the latest series of Home Town and Christina on the Coast. But basically if people are buying houses and ripping them apart – either to renovate for clients or to sell on, I will watch it. I find them tremendously relaxing. Yes there’s loads of money involved, but they feel quite low stakes compared to some of other reality TV options that are out there and I like watching houses be transformed. Whether I’d live in a haven of white and grey is another matter, but that’s not the point really is it?

But obviously renovating houses – even in America – takes time. So there aren’t a lot of programmes in a season which means you need to have your eyes open for quite a few different shows. At this point, I’ve done all the obvious things – as well as the shows I’ve mentioned I’ve done Flipping 101, Property Brothers (although I find them a bit wearing after a while so small doses), Christina in the Country, Fixer to Fabulous, Rock the Block and Hollywood Houselift on the renovation front and then Selling Sunset (the early series when there were actually houses) and Luxe Listings Sydney on the buying and selling houses front.

So if anyone has any recommendations for more stuff that I can add to the list – let me know! Have a great Sunday everyone.

not a book, tv

Book Adjacent: Wolf Hall

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As I wrote about Crazy for You the other Sunday, rather than Dr Semmelweiss, I thought I’d redress the balance this week and add a bit of Mark Rylance to the blog. As I said last week, I think he’s the best actor I’ve ever seen in person and I count Wolf Hall as the start of when he started to cross the path of non-theatre people.

Wolf Hall is the adaptation of the first two books of Hilary Mantel’s trilogy about Thomas Cromwell. Thomas Cromwell rose from obscurity to be Henry VIII’s chief minister and then fell from grace after the failure of Henry’s marriage to Anne of Cleves. The mini series opens as Cardinal Wolsey is about to fall from power because of his failure to get the King’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled and follows Cromwell’s rise to power up until the death of Anne Boleyn. You see his origins in flashback and how he exploits the rivalries and networks of the Tudor Court.

I studied this period at A-Level and I can tell you it is some acheivement to make Thomas Cromwell a sympathetic figure, and yet the combination of Mantel’s writing and Rylance’s acting does it. I still haven’t read the final book in the trilogy because I’m not sure I want to see it all fall apart – and I’m struggling so much with reading things that are not cheerful or that I don’t know end well at the moment (by which I basically mean the last three years). When Hilary Mantel died almost a year ago, Peter Kominsky who directed this said that the script for the final book was underway, but there’s still no news on whether it is happening, and given that it was meant to film this year and Rylance has been in the West End all summer you can’t help but feel that it may not year have happened. But after the way they did Anne Boleyn’s beheading, I’m not sure I can bear to to see how they would do Cromwell’s execution anyway. We rewatched the series recently and I had to look away for that section.

Anyway, that aside, it’s well worth watching if you like historical dramas – and probably easier to watch it than read the books – which are very long and although beautifully written (two Booker wins and nominated for the third too) are not light reading. And you can play spot the locations too – I’ve been to Montacute House, Lacock Abbey and Barrington Court which are among the National Trust Houses that feature in the progamme, and the photo below is the steps leading up to the Chapter House at Wells Cathedral which we visited in January.

If you’re in the UK you can watch Wolf Hall on the BBC iPlayer, if you’re elsewhere, it’ll likely be on whichever streaming service gets BBC or PBS programmes where you are.

not a book, tv

Not a book: Eurovision II (again!)

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So Eurovision is over for another year. And what a year this has been – having the contest here has been a real experience, even if the UK entry didn’t do very well. But hey, the host often doesn’t do that great. That’s what I’m telling myself anyway. It was quite a show though – Liverpool did us proud. I’ve put the winning performance at the bottom in case anyone hasn’t watched yet, but I wanted to highlight my favourite bit of the night: the interval act:

Obviously Liverpool has a great musical heritage, and I loved the way Eurovision paid tribute to that in the most Eurovision way ever. If you haven’t watched it, click play and I defy you to be unmoved by it. I loved all of it – and also that Dadi Freyr finally got to perform on the Eurovision stage having been the favourites to win the 2020 contest that was then cancelled because of Covid and then coming back in 2021 only to be unable to perform on the night because of a Covid case in the group. Honestly just wonderful. The best interval act since Mans and Petra did Love Love Peace Peace.

And the other thing that has come out of this week has been the world getting to see Hannah Waddingham do her thing and just loving her. I’m a big theatre nerd as you all know, and she’s been on my radar for years and years now, but it’s only since Game of Thrones (she’s the shame nun) and Ted Lasso that she’s really hit the big time beyond us theatre nerds. And I love it when a theatre person gets the notice they deserve – see Mark Rylance but in a different way for him of course. Anyway, if you watched Hannah this week and wondered what else she can do, have this video of her performing as part of the cast of Spamalot (along with Tim Curry!) at the Royal Variety performance back in the day.

Anyway, here is this year’s winner:

I don’t love Tattoo the way I loved Euphoria so I’m trying not to be bitter that my favourite didn’t win, but I can’t be too angry about being back in Sweden for the 50th anniversary of Waterloo. And what was my favourite I hear you ask? Well, for once my favourite did rather well – even though as usual it was one of the wilder and more “novelty” songs – no not Croatian Monty Python guys (who threatened to perform naked if they one) but Finland and Cha Cha Cha.

They won the popular vote, but the juries didn’t go for them so we’ll see you in Sweden next year Eurovision fans!

not a book, tv

Not a book: Eurovision

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It’s the start of Eurovision finals week again – except for my friends who are super fans, it’s two weeks this year because they’re already up in Liverpool because this year we have a home Eurovision – sort of. After Ukraine won last year, the UK is hosting the contest because of the war and Liverpool is going all out.

I’m not going to Merseyside, but I am looking forward to seeing all the pictures from the people who are. And my Eurovision season is already underway – the team I was on won a Eurovision quiz a few weeks back, which was very exciting even if I can’t claim that much credit (I only got one question that no one else on the team did!) but I’m not massively across all the songs yet – but that’s what the semi finals are for for me!

If you’re a fan enjoy this week – and let me know your favourite this year in the comments!

not a book, streaming, tv

Not a Book: Our Flag Means Death

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It’s Sunday again and time for me to talk about something that isn’t a book again, and today it’s Our Flag Means Death – which is a comedy series about pirates very loosely based on a real life pirate.

It’s the early Eighteenth Century, and Stede Bonnet is tired of his comfortable life as a husband and father on Barbados and buys a ship and runs off to be a pirate. Except that he’s a really, really bad pirate. Like terrible. He has no aptitude for killing and his ship is outfitted for luxury rather than anything else. When we meet him at the beginning of the series, his crew are so fed up of him that they’re considering mutiny, but decide that he’ll manage to get himself killed soon enough. Except he doesn’t and soon he and his crew come across the notorious pirate Blackbeard, and they make a deal – Blackbeard will help Stede become a better pirate and Stede will teach Blackbeard how to become an aristocrat. Except it’s not as simple as that. Oh and it’s a romantic comedy.

If you’re struggling to get your head around all this, and I’ll admit I’m not doing a very good job of explaining it (luckily the first series came out in the US a year ago, so I’m hoping some of you will already have watched this and have thoughts to share), but you’ve probably spotted Taika Waititi in the trailer, and he’s also an executive producer. So the easy way to describe this is to say think of the same sort of humour as What We Do in the Shadows, but with pirates in the 1700s (and not a mockumentary). The episodes are only 25 minutes long, they’re very easy to binge and if it works for you (and it really works for me!) it will leave you with a big smile on your face.

If you’re in the UK, the first series is available on the BBC iPlayer to watch now. If you’re elsewhere in the world, you’ll need to look for it on a streaming service – probably whatever HBO Max is called in your territory. Series two has finished filming but there’s no news yet on a release date for it.

Have a great Sunday everyone.

announcement, tv

Magpie Murders redux

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It’s Easter weekend everyone and if you’re looking for something to watch – and in the UK – the Magpie Murders is being shown on TV at last. The second episode is on this evening but the whole series is on the iPlayer already. I hadn’t realised this was happening until I saw a trailer for it before Match of the Day last weekend, so apologies for the slightly late notice. I wrote about the adaptation of Anthony Horowitz’s book last year when it was on BritBox – you can read that review here.

Have a great weekend everyone.

not a book, tv

Not a Book: We Need to Talk About Cosby

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This Sunday, we have another in my occasional series about documentaries.

We need to talk about Cosby is a four part documentary about the US comedian, sitcom star and actor who has faced significant allegations of sexual assault. Directed by the comedian and TV host W Kamau Bell, it looks at Bill Cosby’s career and the allegations made against him, featuring interviews with people who have worked with him, some of the women making allegations against him and also some expert voices. It went out in the US this time last year on Showtime, but has only recently been airing in the UK – hence why I’m talking about it now.

My day job is in news, so I’ve seen the allegations against Bill Cosby play out in the headlines over almost a decade. And before they were made, I had heard of the Cosby Show, although I don’t think I had ever seen an episode. But until I watched this, I wasn’t fully aware of how long and varied his career had been and huge his fame was. And this documentary does that – and made sense of why there were so many and varied reactions to the allegations when they started to emerge.

This is a heavy and serious subject, but Bell has made a very watchable and well put together documentary series. He describes himself as “a child of Bill Cosby” and leads you through the different phases of Cosby’s career, the allegations against him and what the reaction was. The interviews and interviewees are really good and it feels like a solid and well argued piece. Obviously Bill Cosby wasn’t interviewed for this, but the archive material of him that is available adds to the picture that is being built.

The last part of We Need to Talk About Cosby goes out on TV her in the UK tonight tonight – I only set the TiVo to record after the first part had gone out so we watched that on the iPlayer and then realised all four parts were available there and just watched it there. I would say we watched it all in one go – except that we didn’t, we did it over two nights because it was all a bit heavy for one evening (and also it was getting late). If you’re not in the UK, you can find it on streaming – it was on Showtime in the US.

not a book, tv

Not a Book: Wednesday

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Back at Halloween last year I wrote about the Addams Family films from the early 90s and now I’ve watched the new Netflix series about Wednesday and can report back!

So the premise of this, as you can probably tell is Wednesday Addams Goes to Boarding School – and it’s a boarding school for outcasts. Now given my fondness for boarding school stories I could very much get on board with this. And obviously because this is Wednesday we’re talking about – allergic to colour, incredibly morbid, not really into emotions – this is going to pose some challenges. On top of that, this is the school her parents attended and to say there is some history there is to understate the situation. And then there’s the fact that there appears to be a monster killing people and the pupils of the school, with their special powers/skills are the prime suspects. So a fish-out-of-water school story with a murder mystery/thriller twist, brought to you by Tim Burton. Sounds good right?

There is also good news for those of you who are as sentimentally attached to the Julia/Huston Gomez and Morticia as I am, that although the parents appear in the show, they are only in a couple of episodes. And though I have a few issues with Catherine Zeta Jones’ Morticia (not least the wandering accent), Luis Guzman’s Gomez is brilliant in a different way to Raul Julia and I really, really liked it. And as Wednesday, Jenna Ortega is fabulous, she’s got the creepy, disconnected affect down as well as the deadpan delivery. And the plot and script are really clever too. There are nods and winks to the various different incarnations of the family previously (not least Christina Ricci as Wednesday’s dorm mother) whilst still making it feel its own thing.

Wednesday has Thing with her at school – which shows how far CGI/Special effects have come in the last 30 years that it’s now super easy to have lots and lots of Thing, and Uncle Fester pops up too. But for most of the characters are new – Enid, Wednesday’s roommate, a crowd of popular kids including a siren and a pupil whose drawings come to life and a group of townies who have a very, very mixed relationship with the boarding school on their doorstep which adds another level of tension to everything. And then there is Wednesday’s special gift – which causes her even more issues. In short – plenty of plot strands to keep everything moving along and to keep you guessing about how it all might tie together.

We watched it across about four days – there are eight episodes – and were really sad when it was over. And clearly we’re not the only people who have made it to the end of the series (which seems to be the metric which Netflix bases stuff off) as they announced a second season last month. I’m interested to see where they take the show next, as the plot for this was self contained enough that it wouldn’t have left viewers mad if it didn’t get a second series but equally left you with a tease for what might happened next. And don’t worry, the teaser trailer below doesn’t give any spoilers away.

So if you need something to binge watch, and you haven’t already, I recommend this for your next duvet day on the sofa.

Happy Sunday everyone!

not a book, tv

Christmas bonus post: Festive TV

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It’s the final-final run towards the big day and the TV schedules are starting to look awfully festive, so today I’m back with some suggestions about what to watch out for this year.

Obviously the first thing and the programme that I’m most excited about is the return of Detectorists for a Christmas special. We’ve actually started another rewatch ahead of the feature length special on Boxing Day. If you haven’t ever watched the show, go read my post about it and then start at the beginning!

But before we get to Boxing Day there are a few other shows to mention – namely Ghosts. I don’t think I’ve mentioned Ghosts here before, but this is the BBC One comedy about a couple who inherit a dilapidated stately home complete with ghostly residents that only one of them can see. I love it. It’s funny but not mean and I find it so hard to pick who my favourite character is. There’s also a bunch of reruns of various of the Mischief Theatre Christmas offerings – if you’re in the UK and have missed them you can find them on iPlayer. And if Mischief are doing a show anywhere near you next year, do go and see it. I think that The Play That Goes Wrong is one of the funniest nights out you can have.

I’m also recording the repeat of the Sky adaptation of Going Postal, which although it is not as good as the book is still a pretty good go at it, and has Claire Foy (pre the crown) and Richard Coyle as Moist – who is about to read the new version of the audiobook, which I have preordered, even though I love the Steven Briggs version!

If you want more pre-Crown Claire Foy, BBC Four is repeating Wolf Hall at the moment – which is one of the best TV adaptations of a novel I’ve seen in ages. It’s in memory of Hilary Mantel who died earlier this year – and ahead of the first part they had an interview with the director, who revealed that the adaptation of The Mirror and the Light is in the works, although whether I’ll be able to bear watching it I don’t know. If you know your history, you’ve known from the start what is going to happen but that doesn’t make it easier. And they did such a powerful job of Anne Boleyn’s execution, I can’t imagine how they’ll do Cromwell. And Mark Rylance is possibly the best actor I have ever seen live. To the point where I would go and see him in anything.

I’m sure there were more new things I meant to write about, but I’ve got a bit carried away with the repeats! To be fair, the TiVo recording schedule hasn’t made this any easier. Maybe I’ll have to do a part two of the bits I forgot?!