TV: Cucumber i

And so Russell T Davies returns to 'mainstream' television. In the five years since leaving Doctor Who, Davies has overseen the fourth series of its spin-off Torchwood and developed CBBC show Wizards vs Aliens, also taking a period off to care for his partner. But as enjoyable as both of those projects were, it feels good to have him doing what he does best again, and just writing human drama.

Davies has taught me a lot. From him I've learnt that life is all about people, and all about love. These are undeniably the underlying themes that span all of his creative works; no matter how far-fetched or abstract the surface layer may seem, there's a resounding heart thumping beneath it. And in this case, it's Henry Best's heart. Best is a man who's content with life. Not overly pleased with the side-effects of ageing, perhaps, but content. And a big part of that sense of fulfilment is boyfriend of nine years Lance Sullivan. 

Love's a strange thing. Like many words and concepts, I think its true meaning has been lost thanks to the extremist culture (partly influenced by the media, no doubt) we find ourselves in. These days, anything not advertised as the 'best', the 'hottest', the 'nastiest' and so on is almost immediately dismissed as inconsequential. In this way, words like 'epic' and 'awesome' have become bywords for 'really good', their true meanings getting buried. Similarly, 'love' and 'hate' are now recognised as extremes of like and dislike. But in my opinion, love and hate are completely separate emotions to the 'like' spectrum, instead being feelings of immense adoration or intense detest. It's the former concept that Davies explores so expertly and his writing proclaims that love goes beyond words or actions. It's much deeper-seated.

Here we're treated to Davies' other speciality: chaos. It was prevalent in his Doctor Who writing, particularly in his penultimate episodes of each series. The madness seems to stem from a single question: "how bad can things get?" First the Daleks were reborn from the ashes, with a new invasion force ready to conquer the universe and the technology to convert humans; then the Cybermen invaded Earth before the Daleks turned up again; then the Master turned Earth into weapons factory to combat the galaxy, enslaving humanity using their descendants; then Davros rocked up and created a bomb to destroy the entirety of reality. You can probably see what I'm getting at now.

The question Davies poses here is "how badly wrong can a date go?" At the start of the evening, Best and Sullivan are a happy couple, settled, guilt-free and with flourishing careers. By the end of the evening, the couple are living apart (one squatting in a warehouse, the other in a police cell), three men are in the care of the law because of Best. I think the utter insanity is displayed best in the shower sequence, when emails are arriving, phone messages are being left, texts are arriving and Best belts out his favourite tune, completely unaware all the while. 

The very clever thing about the way this episode's written is that it makes the audience feel special, like watching this is a real pleasure. I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's an effortless quality to this programme than makes you feel honoured to view it. But I must extend my praises beyond Davies' keyboard. Murray Gold's medley of male choirs was very welcome here and I though the musical accompaniment throughout simply superb. I pray there's an original soundtrack release for Cucumber - I'd snap it up instantly. I haven't purchased an OST album since Gold's work for the 2007 series of Doctor Who, so this really would be saying something.

The cast are all perfect for their roles too. As fifty-something virgin Best, Vincent Franklin is unrivalled though. He gives a powerhouse performance through understanding his character intimately. I really hope he gets many, many nominations. Also exhibiting some fine acting prowess are Cyril Nri (Sullivan) and Fisayo Akinade (Best's colleague Dean). That said, none of the cast show signs of being anywhere south of excellent and only serve to add to the impressiveness of the show. Another member of the production team enhancing proceedings is director David Evans, whose CV makes for very encouraging reading. It seems he was the perfect choice to helm Cucumber's opening episode, immediately establishing an intriguing and engaging visual language for it that I hope will be carried through to future weeks. 

All in all, I think I've made my feelings on this quite clear. It's damn good, and another feather in 2015's cap. The three main creative forces behind it - Davies, Julie Gardner and Nicola Shindler - have all been responsible for some of my favourite programmes over the last decade, and are the very reason I'm writing this now. I hold them in extremely high esteem, and I don't think it's hard see why when their combined forces can produce something as good as this. This is pure, unadulterated glorious viewing from start to finish. It's not a gay drama, it's a (effing good) drama about a man who happens to be gay. Thinking of all the other programmes I've rated 10/10 this year, this blows them all out the water. For this reason, I award Cucumber our golden commendation, invented specifically for this. Expect to see Cucumber all over our site awards nominations and winners next year.

In a Nutshell: This is drama of the Davies variety, and there's simply nothing better.

TV: Broadchurch 2.4 (Newsom)

review by Tom Newsom (Twitter | Flickr | Blog)

Can you remember what happened back in 2013? Most TV takes the wise move of being relatively self-contained, not leaving things dangling at the end - or if so, reintroducing old plot strands that might be important. Broadchurch takes the brave move of assuming that most people can remember - even though the first series aired almost two years before this one. This episode in particular, where Alec goes back to Sandbrook and the residents in town give evidence at the murder trial, wastes little time in giving explanations. (It’s rare these days for series to be that interlinked - the only other that springs to mind is similar slow-paced investigation series The Fall on BBC Two.) In the age of boxsets, online catch-up and repeat runs on digital channels, perhaps the long breaks between series like this doesn’t mean as much.

It’s lucky then, that the first series was so memorable - you know that the surprise appearances and long held pay-offs are going to work well, as they do here. For starters there’s the long awaited appearance of Alec’s ex-wife, mentioned last time (and catching us off guard when she finally appears here - I didn’t imagine Lucy Cohu, though she’s an excellent choice). Then there are the residents of Broadchurch and their battles - themes that jump out for me this week are human behaviour in extraordinary circumstances, and the lies they tell in , both very much a part in last year’s crime investigation. In this episode all that’s kept to a minimum thanks to the other plot taking over this week: Sandbrook.

We’ve seen bits of it in the last three episodes (this week marks the halfway point in the series) but here we get a much better picture of the questions, even if there are still not many answers. The characters there - two houses, four ‘suspects’ so far, are becoming more shady as we get to know them, even the lovely Eve Myles. The situation and the case feel quite real but the plot remains contrived, not helped by its place in this episode: Alec and Ellie drive halfway up the country together (where was Sandbrook meant to be set again?), spend half the episode interviewing people, and then return. It was never going to be easy to connect the two investigations - and yes, they’ve smuggled in a new murder mystery right under our noses - but it doesn’t feel like the characters have got anywhere fast. By the end, they only increasing their suspicions that Alec might be wrong about the (unsolved) case, but then we could have guessed that already.

The cast is strong as ever, with the latest additions to this series standing out in - of course you wouldn’t cast Shaun Dooley as a grieving dad and keep him to just a flashback. And I was surprised to see (in the ‘previously’ at the start of the episode) that, of course, the mother in the Sandbrook case visited Beth in the first series, before we even saw anything about the murder. And they’ve kept the same actress playing her - quietly clever work, tying both series together and bridging that sometimes wobbly series gap. I hadn’t realised at all that she had appeared before.

Which shows how much of the first series I remember!

many thanks to

Tom Newsom (Twitter | Flickr | Blog)

TV: Cucumber/Banana/Tofu i

reviews by Tom Newsom (Twitter | Flickr | Blog)

 Russell T Davies is back!

I say ‘back’ - he’s been all over CBBC for the last eight years, not to mention taking Torchwood, his post-watershed baby, over to the US. And then there’s Doctor Who - the pivotal, ground-breaking, Saturday-night-defining continuation of the original show (and where thirteen year old me first encountered his work, for obvious reasons). Not to mention what he started off doing - ‘adult’ drama, a bit like this. And oh boy, you can tell it’s by Russell.

Not just the subject matter - Cucumber features the lives of gay men as his hit series Queer as Folk did (high up on my to-watch list, but sadly I haven’t seen it). You can tell because it’s pure, pleasing telly drama. He makes you laugh and cry in the same scene, sometimes at the same time. He writes gloriously human characters. He can be subversive, educating, but always entertaining. With Doctor Who (and the spinoffs too) he wanted children to be able to tell quality drama, forcing everybody else to raise their game. And the same works with drama for adults.

This is a show (three shows) about sex. That’s upfront, right in the titles and the striking opening sequence. Bold doesn’t quite cover it - even though there’s very little ‘sex’ in these, people discuss sex, their lives revolve around it, or not having it. It feels totally different to anything else and it shows there are still plenty of stories out there to tell.

Some people have reacted badly to this: what happened to this being a modern ‘gay drama’ that demolishes those sorts of stereotypes? Well, it still does that - but it’s not a ‘gay drama’ (though it is 'mainstream'), it’s really about one gay man, Henry. And he’s flawed, deliberately so. His relationship has cracks, he hates his friends, he looks at the young people with envy. He works in insurance. His life is about to fall apart. And all this is winningly played by Vincent Franklin, who embodies the part and makes it work. That’s where the story is here and it’s so promising for the rest of the series.

That and, naturally, the cruellest date ever, the best sound effects in a drama in some time, the best use of pop music, some absolutely perfect casting, the most outrageous jokes and scenes. Conceived and written over years, Russell T Davies is on top form. This first episode is all killer, and highly recommended.

It’s not alone - scheduled afterwards is a companion series (I watched on a different day - too much of a good thing) called Banana - think a fruitier, more diverse series of shorter stories. I like the concept, as it leaves Cucumber to be able to concentrate on just its main characters, whilst this series picks up the loose threads. The promise of more drama like this is exciting on its own - eight episodes that cover lesbian characters, bisexuals, transgender (how is this series featuring the first representation by a trans actor, in 2015?!) and more.

The first episode of Banana is deceptively lightweight - if you’ve seen the first episode of Cucumber, it’s not entirely surprising (and I’m not that sure from the first episode if it would work as a series on its own). This just takes one of the young supporting characters and fills in lots of blanks. 

Here, Dean (astonishingly natural newcomer Fisayo Akinade) is another character that’s really interesting to explore on screen, and like everyone, doesn’t fit into the standard narrative we first might think. 

There’s a few neat twists to it, a few outrageous (and modern) moments of sex. It’s Russell T Davies (writing both this week) continuing the mad, funny, human world he’s created.

And then there’s Tofu - an online documentary series cleverly linked to the other two by the titles, by interviewing the cast, sharing some of the same crew... and being all about sex. It’s rude but frank, definitely for adults, and often hilarious. The quite lengthy ten minute running time flew by - documentary maker Ben Cook makes it incredibly watchable. 

What I originally considered as something extra to the series is strong enough to stand next to the drama. After all, it’s all about the same subject. Tofu, then, is the series boiled down into its rawest, perhaps least sexy, form: honest, funny, and much stranger than fiction.

many thanks to

Tom Newsom (Twitter | Flickr | Blog)

TV: Wolf Hall - Three Card Trick

review by Tom Newsom (Twitter | Flickr | Blog)

Of course I haven’t read the massive, Booker prize winning novels that inspired this classy TV adaptation for BBC Two. But after this, I want to.

Perceived classiness, though this is very classy, is sometimes dubious: is it solely in the look or the cast? The subject matter, the script perhaps? Or in this case, everything. Not lavish, it’s more realistic than that so far. But this makes even small scenes in candlelit rooms with men in plain robes feel very grand and expensive.

Almost every scene has Mark Rylance in it. Almost every scene is electric. These two facts are linked. Even though the drama is pretty much about Thomas Cromwell, Rylance makes him blend into hidden depths more often than not. His character an everyman coming from nowhere and the cleverest person in the room. The whole episode, if not the rest of the series (and the original books), is one big character piece for Cromwell. It’s a dream role for an actor, and he delivers in spades.

Not that the rest of the cast aren’t top drawer: Jonathan Pryce has a major role in this as historically doomed Cardinal Wolsey, most of the others make less of an impact in this first episode but Damien Lewis is another piece of perfect casting as Henry VIII, and I think the amazing actress Claire Foy, here as Anne Boleyn, should be in more things.

It doesn’t stop there: the music is gorgeous, its main theme played on a full orchestra’s strings. The British scenery - and there are lots of scenes - looks impossibly preserved; so much so that I thought it might have been not British at all, given previous successful BBC filming in Belgium for example, but surprisingly it was filmed mainly around the south-west.

The bottom line to any continuing drama is surely this: as the end credits rolled, I realised I could watch this all day. Some might say it’s slow to get going, I’d say it definitely takes its time - this episode only really focuses on Cromwell and Wolsey, he hasn’t even got into the King’s court yet. But each scene feels vital in telling the story thanks to the compressed editing involved from adapting book to TV. Nothing feels like it’s done solely for effect. Classy, but not flashy.

If all this gives the impression of yet another costume drama, it’s not. Remarkably refreshing for telly at least, the dialogue is set to natural as well as just being generally brilliant. It’s a Tudor version of House of Cards - their politics is only slightly more down to earth than Westminster today. It’s a bold step to take fine actors, costumes, sets, lighting and to make the historical characters talk to each other in conversational terms about the world, and themselves, like two people down a pub. But it works. It’s going to be a classic.

Our knowledge of the history promises so much for the series going forward - we’ve still got the reformation, Henry and Anne, rises and falls in power, especially for our hero Cromwell. And we can be sure that the events we might (or might not) be familiar with will be shown in a surprising, intriguing, wholly entertaining way.

And then I can tackle the books...

many thanks to

Tom Newsom (Twitter | Flickr | Blog)

TV: Broadchurch 2.3 (Newsom)

review by Tom Newsom (Twitter | Flickr | Blog)

A second run of any drama series allows us a chance to see the characters in a new light, making new connections that didn’t get a showing last time around. One of the best things in this episode is Ellie and Beth Latimer clashing together - it feels like more scenes between them than last year, but then their relationship has changed. Local mums whose children are friends on its own is quite dull; when one of them loses their child then the imbalance becomes interesting; when one of them might have been complicit in that murder, it becomes really gripping. And all those layers are on show between Olivia Colman and Jodie Whittaker - not to mention the lovely moment between Colman and Charlotte Beaumont as the Latimer’s more open-minded daughter, saying out loud her mother’s hidden compassion. It’s very human and at the heart of this week’s episode, casting the characters in a new light this time, skewing our prejudices.

It’s not just characters but the show itself: the trial, especially the defence lawyers, allows the writer to almost be self referential when referring about past events - like Sherlock a few years ago, people’s speculation and comments is picked up here, whether deliberately or not. Here, the new characters comment on the murder investigation a bit like a casual viewer trying to catch up on an unrealistic TV series  - aren’t those two sleeping together? How well do you know what went on? Weren’t the police a bit over dramatic? Even with these questions about its plot-holes and unexplained back-story, the first series still seems solidly built, and yes, realistic - as it did when people reacted to it in 2013.

If the first series was the solid building then this series is the fancy extension - it’s similarly flashy, it’s important to the story, but it doesn’t quite feel necessary yet. The stakes are high (everything they worked for being overturned, our heroes’ lives falling apart, let alone the whole community, oh and another killer too) but they could be higher.

Olivia Colman is the star of the last scenes, her cross-examining is a real standout moment for her (though other characters have been joyous so far - David Tennant’s sarcasm earlier on, for instance). Keeping that performance but also in the acting category, Eve Myles is markedly different from what I’m used to seeing her as in the likes of Torchwood or Frankie - cheeky but with steel and bite behind it this time. For once, she might not be quite as loveable as normal - the show keeps one step ahead of us by pointing out what we’ve worked out in the days between the episodes. Maybe the Sandbrook case is a bit weirder than we imagined...

(And has anybody else noticed that out of the five or six new characters introduced, all but one of them are women - mostly professional women too? In a massive returning ITV drama - great stuff)

many thanks to

Tom Newsom (Twitter | Flickr | Blog)

TV: Broadchurch 2.2 (Newsom)

review by Tom Newsom (Twitter | Flickr | Blog)

It’s something you don’t realise that much until it stops. It’s there at every advert break in the first series, built into Broadchurch’s DNA: this show is built on reveals. The writer, Chris Chibnall, has said before that it wasn’t a ‘whodunnit’, but that that genre helped him portray a small community and explore its secrets.

In this episode, Jocelyn, the new prosecuting lawyer (Charlotte Rampling, on the side of the righteous so far), says that the community don’t have any secrets left to reveal. Everyone looks shifty at that point, but after the first series, it’s easy to agree with her. Is there more to know about the characters? And if not, then is it going to be surprising enough?

There were still a couple of enjoyably big moments in this episode, but only a couple. Compared with the first episode, this only made baby steps in the plot, but they were steps in the right directions. The burning question of the Sandbrook stalker was addressed, if not fully answered, and we got a good idea of how the trial will play out with the defence lawyer Sharon Bishop (Marianne Jean-Baptiste, playing a right cow at the moment) aggressively questioning the regular cast. The courtroom scenes played emotionally and pitched at an everyman level (“can she ask that?”) rather than pure standard legal drama, though hardly dumbing down. When the vital confession from the last series was thrown out (by Meera Syal, having a good time playing the Judge), everything from the first series feels like it’s fair game again.

But even these stand-out moments didn’t come out of the blue. Jocelyn warned earlier that the defence team might be going to use the odd police tactics exhibited at the end of last series against them (plea: but it made very good telly). The only left-field moment came at the end, when Sandbrook suspect Lee met his ex-wife Claire again - but to me, the piling up of drama for the cliffhanger (back to the house! an escape! the baby!) felt a bit too contrived.

All this shows that we’re in for the long haul - it is episode two in an eight episode series after all. I think your enthusiasm this week for Broadchurch might relate to your patience - and how watchable you think David Tennant is as Alec Hardy. He’s as prominent in this episode as ever, along with Olivia Colman as Ellie, only both have less to go on. And the dour tone still hangs over the whole thing, not helped by Alec’s surly mood and Ellie’s confusion with life, the humour toned black. It might not be as gripping as last week’s episode, but it hasn’t lost all of its mystery.

many thanks to

Tom Newsom (Twitter | Flickr | Blog)

TV: Broadchurch 2.1 (Newsom)

review by Tom Newsom (Twitter | Flickr | Blog)

It’s back! The every-award winning 2013 drama returns to ITV - under complete secrecy, as it happens. The channel decided to give as few details away as possible before the series started, instead wanting to keep the plot totally secret until viewers watched it for themselves - which in the days of countless trailers and RadioTimes.com is only to be applauded.

So I don’t want to spoil the amazing feeling of sitting down to watch something - a sequel! - and having no idea where it’s heading or how they’re continuing it. (If you haven’t watched it yet, then do so!) There was plenty of speculation at the time as to what the second series would be like. Surely not another murder? Well, no and yes, as it happens. When I heard that a lot of the same actors were appearing again, I was sceptical - would this be featuring yet another earth-shattering event to hit the town, cheapening the first? Well, again, yes and no.

I wouldn’t say it cheapens the first series, it extends it into a bigger story. Chris Chibnall confounds the critics by simply writing a direct sequel - what happens next in the realistic thriller, after the murderer’s been caught? They have to prove it. And some of the frankly stunning new cast names (Charlotte Rampling!) are playing lawyers, splendid. And then Broadchurch - and David Tennant’s character Alec Hardy - unearth their secrets yet again, revisiting old ground. As set-ups go, this one was unveiled perfectly, slowly drawing us back in over its running length - if somebody was to write a preview of it to entice viewers to watch it, they’d probably spoil the entire plot, so I’m glad they didn’t. And whilst there’s no murder in sight straight away (though I’d keep an eye on those bluebells), it’s absolutely the same show everybody flocked to back in 2013, even having the same director, writer, actors, location.

By keeping it exactly the same style of show, it feels even more natural a continuation - once the characters came back onto the screen, it seemed like they hadn’t been away. But it’s not just that - now series two is upon us, I’ve realised the two key ingredients to what makes Broadchurch the show it is, rather than the exceptional writing or the setting or, especially, a whodunit.

The first is that it’s edited like a music video at times, unlike almost any other mainstream drama. There’s barely any dialogue in some scenes. Instead there’s shots of people glowering at each other mysteriously, close-ups of details in the landscape, and music blaring at full volume. But what music! Olafur Arnalds’s moody soundtrack was praised in the last series, and shows up prominently again in this one. And really it makes the show and creates a lot of the atmosphere. It reaches a crescendo at every advert break every ten minutes, or sometimes after every scene. And why not? Other slow dramas have people boiling kettles or jogging in near silence, in a bid to make it seem more realistic. This one wants to make you feel.

And the second is, naturally, Olivia Colman - or rather, Olivia Colman’s character Ellie and her use of language. She swears. Her attitude in life involves swearing. When her and David Tennant’s characters are reunited in this episode, it becomes something else: funnier, for starters. Later, she tells him “your plan is shit” and “you’re a wanker”. And in a way she’s right, and we love her for it. And she’s so un-ITV. Ellie’s almost been our eyes and ears through the investigation of the first series, we’ve been through her journey too, which will make it all the more rewarding to see how she copes now.

The first series was all about seeing how one small town dealt with the murder investigation of one of its residents, with our suspicions lying on all of them at some point during it. The main focus was realism, something that is strongly in focus here. Gone is the grief, replaced in the parents by regret and anger and bitterness.

Not that you’ll regret watching this, I might add, it’s glorious. If the series keeps this up, it’ll be among the top dramas of the year - again. I was slightly surprised that, in showing the identity of the murderer again, this episode would literally spoil the whodunit of the first series. But then as the characters themselves say, everybody has heard of the story of the ‘boy on the beach’. Everybody saw the first series. And now everybody needs to see this.

many thanks to

Tom Newsom (Twitter | Flickr | Blog)