#Denny Driscoll

[crowlixcx]

The Way, Episode 1 - 'The War'

[marchentraume]

Various shots of Michael from The Way ep3

[nar0art]

Michael Sheen sketch dump <3

[crusheswhimsandfancies]

The Way - episode 1: The War

[letterboxd-loggd]

Charley Moon (1956) Guy Hamilton

June 28th 2023

[billboard-hotties-tourney]

Okay, folks, the mini-tourney is inching closer to the finals, so I'm going to give a list of the competitors in the Miss Billboard Tourney in order to give everyone a chance to submit more propaganda. The nominees are:

Lale Andersen

Marian Anderson

Signe Toly Anderson

Julie Andrews

LaVerne Andrews

Maxene Andrews

Patty Andrews

Ann-Margret

Joan Armatrading

Dorothy Ashby

Joan Baez

Pearl Bailey

Belle Baker

Josephine Baker

LaVern Baker

Florence Ballard

Brigitte Bardot

Eileen Barton

Fontella Bass

Shirley Bassey

Maggie Bell

Lola Beltran

Ivy Benson

Gladys Bentley

Jane Birkin

Cilla Black

Ronee Blakley

Teresa Brewer

Anne Briggs

Ruth Brown

Joyce Bryant

Vashti Bunyan

Kate Bush

Montserrat Caballe

Maria Callas

Blanche Calloway

Wendy Carlos

Cathy Carr

Raffaella Carra

Diahann Carroll

Karen Carpenter

June Carter Cash

Charo

Cher

Meg Christian

Gigliola Cinquetti

Petula Clark

Merry Clayton

Patsy Cline

Rosemary Clooney

Natalie Cole

Judy Collins

Alice Coltrane

Betty Comden

Barbara Cook

Rita Coolidge

Gal Costa

Ida Cox

Karen Dalton

Marie-Louise Damien

Betty Davis

Jinx Dawson

Doris Day

Blossom Dearie

Kiki Dee

Lucienne Delyle

Sandy Denny

Jackie DeShannon

Gwen Dickey

Marlene Dietrich

Marie-France Dufour

Julie Driscoll

Yvonne Elliman

Cass Elliot

Maureen Evans

Agnetha Faeltskog

Marianne Faithfull

Mimi Farina

Max Feldman

Gracie Fields

Ella Fitzgerald

Roberta Flack

Lita Ford

Connie Francis

Aretha Franklin

France Gall

Judy Garland

Crystal Gayle

Gloria Gaynor

Bobbie Gentry

Astrud Gilberto

Donna Jean Godchaux

Lesley Gore

Eydie Gorme

Margo Guryan

Sheila Guyse

Nina Hagen

Francoise Hardy

Emmylou Harris

Debbie Harry

Annie Haslam

Billie Holiday

Mary Hopkin

Lena Horne

Helen Humes

Betty Hutton

Janis Ian

Mahalia Jackson

Wanda Jackson

Etta James

Joan Jett

Bessie Jones

Etta Jones

Gloria Jones

Grace Jones

Shirley Jones

Tamiko Jones

Janis Joplin

Barbara Keith

Carole King

Eartha Kitt

Chaka Khan

Hildegard Knef

Gladys Knight

Sonja Kristina

Patti Labelle

Cleo Laine

Nicolette Larson

Daliah Lavi

Vicky Leandros

Peggy Lee

Rita Lee

Alis Lesley

Barbara Lewis

Abbey Lincoln

Melba Liston

Julie London

Darlene Love

Lulu

Anni-Frid Lyngstad

Barbara Lynn

Loretta Lynn

Vera Lynn

Siw Malmkvist

Lata Mangeshkar

Linda McCartney

Kate McGarrigle

Christie McVie

Bette Midler

Jean Millington

June Millington

Liza Minnelli

Carmen Miranda

Joni Mitchell

Liz Mitchell

Marion Montgomery

Lee Morse

Nana Mouskouri

Anne Murray

Wenche Myhre

Holly Near

Olivia Newton-John

Stevie Nicks

Nico

Laura Nyro

Virginia O’Brien

Odetta

Yoko Ono

Shirley Owens

Patti Page

Dolly Parton

Freda Payne

Michelle Phillips

Edith Piaf

Ruth Pointer

Leontyne Price

Suzi Quatro

Gertrude Rainey

Bonnie Raitt

Carline Ray

Helen Reddy

Della Reese

Martha Reeves

June Richmond

Jeannie C. Riley

Minnie Riperton

Jean Ritchie

Chita Rivera

Clara Rockmore

Linda Ronstadt

Marianne Rosenberg

Diana Ross

Anna Russell

Melanie Safka

Buffy Sainte-Marie

Samantha Sang

Pattie Santos

Hazel Scott

Doreen Shaffer

Jackie Shane

Marlena Shaw

Sandie Shaw

Dinah Shore

Judee Sill

Carly Simon

Nina Simone

Nancy Sinatra

Siouxsie Sioux

Grace Slick

Bessie Smith

Mamie Smith

Patti Smith

Ethel Smyth

Mercedes Sosa

Ronnie Spector

Dusty Springfield

Mavis Staples

Candi Staton

Barbra Streisand

Poly Styrene

Maxine Sullivan

Donna Summer

Pat Suzuki

Norma Tanega

Tammi Terrell

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Big Mama Thornton

Mary Travers

Moe Tucker

Tina Turner

Twiggy

Bonnie Tyler

Sylvia Tyson

Sarah Vaughan

Sylvie Vartan

Mariska Veres

Akiko Wada

Claire Waldoff

Jennifer Warnes

Dee Dee Warwick

Dionne Warwick

Dinah Washington

Ethel Waters

Elisabeth Welch

Kitty Wells

Mary Wells

Juliane Werding

Tina Weymouth

Cris Williamson

Ann Wilson

Mary Wilson

Nancy Wilson

Anna Mae Winburn

Syreeta Wright

Tammy Wynette

Nan Wynn

Those in italics have five or more pieces of usable visual, written, or audio propaganda already. If you have any visuals like photos or videos, or if you have something to say in words, submit it to this blog before round one begins on June 25th!

If you don't see a name you submitted here, it's because most or all of their career was as a child/they were too young for the cutoff, their career was almost entirely after 1979, or music was something they only dabbled in and are hardly known for. There are quite a few ladies on the list whose primary career wasn't "recording artist" or "live musician," but released several albums or were in musical theater, so they've been accepted.

[beardedmrbean]

Zoomer Huey, I tend to see people saying why Gen z don’t have sex much.

Holy

Fucking

Shits

These journalists surprisedly have WORSE self awareness than there boomer relatives

Here a hint https://x.com/swannmarcus89/status/1762582001507323991?s=46

And gender dynamics are…nuked in the fields they are surveying. Women and girls are told that all men are predators and misandry is left unchecked

Also, why Hollywood act surprised about the sex abuse?

We all heard about the casting coach, and how suspiciously people from working class backgrounds like Micheal Jackson (yes his dad had his music connections. But essentially mj was a slave and was arguably was the first black child star unless I’m missing someone) and Walt Disney (though not as bad) are painted as monsters while the actual monsters are protected for decades

I mean look at Judy Garland, she was a sweet person and she did help the LBGT in Hollywood and supported the civil rights movement

But her “crazy” behavior makes more sense because she was sexually abused at a extremely young age

And she not the only one, Shirley Temple, the boy who played at the first LA Dennis the Manis

Oh and the Peter Pan actor (a lot of people leave out the part where ALL of Hollywood basically says he can choke and die because he was “too” Disney)

But sorry about the Gen stuff, but the false rape accusations, maybe if you guys didn’t view men (especially white ones) the same way Nazis viewed the Jews while saying all the working class men were Weinstein.

My Gen would have more sex

Entertainment industry has been like that since the beginning of forever, probably less so when women weren't allowed to participate but still a thing I'm sure.

As for Judy Garland it was nice to see people come out swinging in her defense when someone tried to start shit over well

She was not in control of her carer, saying no was not an option for her with this, but dumbasses that can only think in terms of today's standards never think about that.

Jay North (Dennis the Menace) did ok, so did Shirley Temple, plenty of others not so much, more recently we can look at Drew Barrymore and RDJ who both had fairly public meltdowns and problems.

Drew was ruined since her first film was ET and Spielberg takes care of the kids on set, going beyond the legal requirements.

Bobby Driscol was the Peter Pan VA top of his Wiki article.

Robert "Bobby" Cletus Driscoll (March 3, 1937 – c. March 30, 1968) was an American actor who performed on film and television from 1943 to 1960. He starred in some of the Walt Disney Studios' best-known live-action pictures of that period: Song of the South (1946), So Dear to My Heart (1949), and Treasure Island (1950), as well as RKO's The Window (1949). He served as the animation model and provided the voice for the title role in Peter Pan (1953). He received an Academy Juvenile Award for outstanding performances in So Dear to My Heart and The Window.

He just fell into the child actor pit, where he wasn't "cute" anymore couldn't get gigs and couldn't adjust to not being in the spotlight, the way he went and nobody knowing is awful to think about still.

Jackie Coogan, on the other hand was a different story.

His parents sucked and as a result there's a series of laws named after him California's Coogan Law all about protecting the earnings of child actors from their parents. % goes into a trust iirc.

He ended up OK in the end though

The false accusation thing, #me too hurt women because #believe women was taken advantage of to such a degree that even this coming out to light

has still probably not cleared up for the trooper, and men are opting to not mentor women because of not wanting to risk a false accusation, everyone screams about how rare they are, to which I say so what, why should they assume the risk even if it's minor

Former VP Mike Pence came out and said he won't be alone with a woman that's not his wife in order to ensure that there is no possibility of someone making a claim of impropriety.

And he got this response

Why is anyone going to put their neck on the line when something like what he said is going to get this kind of response.

Maybe instead of crying about how rare false accusations are they should focus on shaming the people making them and coming up with solutions to keep them from happening.

You know instead of blaming the victims of the false accusations.

All this and so much more going on that isn't in this ask goes to the I don't blame people for not having as much sex, it's actually kinda nice too, fewer std's this way.

I went on a couple tangents, hope that's ok

[pupsmailbox]

STARTING WITH D

MASCULINE︰ d'arcy. dacery. dacre. daiclen. dakota. dale. daley. dallas. dalton. daly. damian. damien. damion. damon. dan. dana. dane. dangelo. daniel. daniel.. dannie. danny. dante. darby. darcy. darden. darell. daren. darian. dariel. darien. darin. dario. darion. darius. darnell. darrell. darren. darrin. darryl. darwin. daryl. dash. dashie. dave. davey. david. davie. davin. davis. davy. dawson. dax. daxton. dayton. deacon. dean. declan. dederick. dee. deemer. deforest. deforrest. delano. delbert. dell. delmar. delroy. den. dene. denholm. denis. dennis. denny. denton. denver. denzel. denzil. deon. derby. derek. derick. derren. derrick. derryl. deryck. des. desi. desmond. devan. deven. devereux. devin. devon. devyn. dewayne. dewey. dex. dexter. dezi. diego. digby. diggory. dillan. dillon. dion. dior. dirk. dixon. dolph. dom. domenic. dominic. dominick. don. donald. donavon. donnie. donny. donovan. doran. dorian. doug. douglas. douglass. doyle. draiden. drake. dre. drew. driscoll. driskoll. drogo. drummond. duane. dudley. duke. duncan. dunstan. durward. dustin. dusty. dwain. dwayne. dwight. dylan. dyson.

FEMININE︰ d'arcy. daffodil. dahlia. daisy. dakota. dalary. dale. dalett. daley. daleyza. dalia. dalilah. dallas. daly. dana. danette. dani. dania. danica. daniela. daniella. danielle. danika. danita. danna. danni. dannie. daphne. darby. darcey. darcie. darcy. daria. darian. darla. darleen. darlene. darley. davena. davida. davina. davinia. dawn. dayana. dayla. daylin. dayna. deana. deanna. deanne. deb. debbi. debbie. debby. debi. deborah. debra. dee. deeann. deedee. deena. deidra. deidre. deirdre. deitra. delaney. delia. delice. delicia. delight. delilah. delina. delissa. dell. della. delma. delora. delores. deloris. delphia. delta. demelza. demetria. demi. dena. dene. denice. denise. denver. deonne. derby. desi. desirae. desiree. dessa. destinee. destiny. detta. devyn. dezi. deziree. di. diamond. diana. diane. diann. dianna. dianne. diantha. dillin. dina. dinah. dione. dionne. dior. dixie. docia. dodie. dollie. dolly. dolores. dominica. dona. donelle. donna. dora. dorean. doreen. doretta. doria. dorinda. doris. dorothea. dorothy. dorris. dortha. dorthy. dory. dot. dottie. dotty. dove. drea. dream. dreda. drew. drina. driona. duana. dulce. dulcibella. dulcie. dusty. dyan. dylan.

NEUTRAL︰ daelyn. daelynn. dailyn. daine. daisy. dakoda. dakota. dakotah. dale. dallas. damani. damian. damoni. dana. dance. dani. danni. danny. dany. dara. darby. darcy. dare. darkling. dash. date. davey. davi. dawn. dawson. dawsyn. dax. day. daybreak. daylight. daylin. dayton. deal. deck. declares. dee. deer. deklyn. delani. dell. delta. demon. dempsey. denali. deni. denial. denim. denis. denny. dent. denver. deputy. descendance. design. desire. destiny. devan. devil. devin. devon. devyn. dew. diamond. diary. diesel. dillan. dillon. dio. dion. dior. dire. distance. diva. divine. doll. dominic. dominique. domino. doom. dot. double. doubt. dove. dragon. drake. drama. dream. drew. drift. drip. driver. dru. dual. duel. duke. dune. duo. dusty. dutton. dylan. dynamite. dynasty.

[adultswim2021]

Check It Out! With Dr. Steve Brule #1: “Health” | June 7, 2010 - 12:30AM | S01E04

Tonight’s episode is about Health, the single most important subject to Dr. Steve Brule. In the first segment we find out if Steve is handsome or not with Cynthia Driscoll, or “Santhia Dringus” as Brule calls her. She’s played by the wonderful Maria Bamford. Of all the small number of clearly-scripted characters on the show she is quite possibly my favorite. Maria has played other versions of this character in the past, but that doesn't take away from how goddamned funny and talented she is. The punchline to the segment is that they give Steve a weird makeover. A TAD cartoony for my taste, but Maria shines so not all is lost. 

I can’t tell if saying stuff like “Maria shines so not all is lost” in regards to an old TV show that only drug perverts stayed up to watch makes me sound pretentious or gay or whatever. But I’m gonna keep doing it. I'm going to use this paragraph to mention that there is a bit about a screen door and a randy man courtesy of Carol Krabbit, one of the scariest women going (at the time [she has passed {I assume}]).

Now we get into the bulk of the show that is most recycled from the unaired pilot of Check It Out, which is available via the darkweb. The unaired pilot is not actually VHS-ified, so you actually get a sense of what the show looked like before Abso Lutely ran it through the ole Quasar. The interview with the football kid and Hippy Joel both appear in the pilot. There are extra bits here and there within the used footage, as well.

During Brule’s footrace we see a bald man walking out into the field to sorta check on Brule. This is the often-mentioned-but-not-seen Denny, the Vern to Brule’s Ernest P. Worrell. The pilot originally periodically cut to Denny, usually manning some piece of equipment, which I’m glad they dropped. We prefer Denny to be shrouded in mystery in my United States.

At the end of the footrace segment, Brule throws to Cynthia, describing a segment about keeping your body clean. In the finished episode, it just cuts back to her briefly looking concerned on the previous set before cutting back to Brule. In the pilot, this lead to a Maria Bamford solo segment where she discusses spraying her now-dead husband with DDT while he slept because she believed he was covered in bugs. The decision to drop segments without Brule probably comes from the decision to have Check It Out feel more like a fly-by-night operation that Brule and literally one other person (Denny) is producing without the knowledge of Channel 5.

Seen in the pilot but not this episode is a whole different intro and ending. This includes an opening segment where Brule gets a check-up at the doctor, and segment where Brule goes to a pretzel factory (both segments only survive by having brief segments shown in the opening sequence for the show proper). The Pretzel factory segment ends with Brule getting a call from his doctor, who tells him that his sodium levels are dangerously high and that he can no longer eat pretzels, which happen to be his favorite food. It’s fine, but it feels more contrived than most stuff on this show. 

The last bit to talk about in the actual episode is a memorable commercial for an Aerobics Workout tape starring Steve Brule. He chastises a hunk for not following directions, and at one point we learn he put him in time out. Funny stuff.

EPHEMERA CORNER:

Neighbors from Hell #1: “Snorfindesdrillsalgoho” (June 13, 2010 - 11:00PM)

Neighbors From Hell was a TBS original adult animated sitcom. The first episode aired on Adult Swim as a cross-promotion. I watched it. What I saw did not make me seek out episode two. 

The premise is that a demon from hell gets in trouble for liking Earth television. This also makes him an ideal candidate for going undercover on Earth in order to stop a big drill being made by an energy company from penetrating the center of the Earth, which is where Hell lives.

The hi-larious twist is that the hell family find Earthlings to be more hellish than they are. In particular, they have a talkative southern lady next door to them. I actually started watching this just to refresh my memory of what this show was really like. When it started, it was bad, but not as bad as I remembered. When that character was introduced, it became exactly as bad as I remembered.

That character… holy fuck. She just says stuff that’s basically the same as saying “I’m very annoying”. Midway through the show, she farts on her dog as some kind of punishment or something. I turned the show off in disgust at that part. It might be one of the most profoundly unfunny things I have ever seen.

Featuring a cast of people who have done better things and didn't deserve to be involved in this (yes, I'm including Patton Oswalt in this statement), and created by Pam Brady who is great, really, but this show certainly isn’t.

MAIL BAG:

It's a pretty fun meta joke for this blog that the Squidbillies wiki seems to be maintained predominantly by Dr. Steve Brule

Honestly, it's frightening how much this makes sense.

[alcalavicci]

Dean impressions from Dancing on the Edge:

When Russ met Dean on the set of The Boy with Green Hair, Dean was a high-energy kid who hated attention and was learning how to play the drums

Dean asked Russ if he could bring Wallace Berman and his wife to a party he was having. Thinking he meant the comedian Alice Berman, Russ said yes but was shocked by this weird mute guy who didn't say a word at his party.

One time, Russ was hanging out with four other former child actors (Dean, Billy Gray, Bobby Driscoll and Robert Blake). Talking about that day years later, Blake said they were a bunch of drowning puppies going down the rapids while hanging onto a lifeboat together. Says a lot, doesn't it?

Russ described Dean as intelligent, intuitive and practical- Jack Hirschman said as much too. Both said that Dean would help other people out as well. It's interesting that Russ says Dean was dedicated to his career and never dropped out unlike Russ, but that's not how Dean saw his career during this time, according to interviews. I think Russ was more significantly dropped out than Dean, however.

The Last Movie: Russ and Dean, along with Billy Gray, got to see Machu Picchu on their days off, but poor Billy got lost and missed the last scenes to be filmed.

Dean invited Russ to be in Another Day at the Races (which was apparently a spoof of the Marx Brothers classic A Day at the Races), but the title was changed to Win, Place or Steal. Apparently the movie was already kind of darkly lit in the original print too and got bad reviews at the time.

Jack, Russ and Dean all liked puns - that came from Wallace.

Russ' second wife, Elizabeth, had major problems with drinking and he eventually left her because she refused to get help for her problem. Dean was incredibly supportive to Russ during this time. Elizabeth ended up drinking herself to death five years after they got divorced. Must've been so heartbreaking to Russ to see Dean struggling like Elizabeth did near the end of his life.

Between Dennis, Dean and Russ, Russ could be trusted to come back with a full order of cocaine because he was allergic to it. So Dennis would ask him to pick up cocaine for him.

Russ says Dean was dating this woman in summer 1980. Interesting, Dean must've been just friends with Joy until the year or so before they got married. But this woman, Valerie Valente, is important because she invited Dean and Russ to her friend Bonnie's show, and Russ ended up married to Bonnie.

Russ does mention Dean meeting Joy and falling in love fast but I get the impression Russ didn't know about them keeping in touch for a few years. Russ said he needed to move out fast so Joy could move in after they got engaged (? my impression). I wonder if there was any overlap between Valerie and Joy...

Dean was the one who recommended Russ to the producers for his Quantum Leap episode- he didn't even have to audition!

The Wallace stories in this are also amazing so I'd definitely recommend reading this book for them as well.

[queen-mabs-revenge]

so this post by @ardentlake about the references to the drowned towns of wales in the way set all my neurons firing, because for real the way that the series takes these real and overwhelming violences on marginalized people (the drowned towns, industrial injury and death, systematic deprivation and alienation) and tells their story through surreal myth recounting is so fucking....

all i keep thinking about is how the way is in reality a work of gothic marxism? which margaret cohen describes as:

(1) the valorization of the realm of a culture’s ghosts and phantasms as a significant and rich field of social production rather than a mirage to be dispelled; (2) the valorization of a culture’s detritus and trivia as well as its strange and marginal practices; (3) a notion of critique moving beyond logical argument and the binary opposition of a phantasmagorical staging more closely resembling psychoanalytic therapy, privileging nonrational forms of ‘working through’ and regulated by overdetermination rather than dialectics; (4) a dehierarchization of the epistemological privilege accorded the visual in the direction of that integration of the senses dreamed of by Marx in The 1844 Manuscripts….and (5) a concomitant valorization of the sensuousness of the visual: the realm of of visual experience is opened to other possibilities that the accomplishment and/or figuration of rational demonstration.

like it's almost a textbook case?

(1) the ghost of denny driscoll as a literal ghost of himself but also a ghost of welsh working class struggle crushed by neoliberal capitalism exemplified by thatcherism. every time geoff sees denny's ghost or thinks about his death by suicide you see the past flashes of the miner's strike struggle being violently suppressed. but also their very first interaction is geoff clinging to 'rationality and sensibility' against denny's 'romance' and 'the fight' to try and maintain a fingernail grip on any remnants of bare survival in the miserable status-quo

owen seeing denny's ghost in the labyrinth of the drowned town in his dreams handing him the gift of united working class struggle against oppression - that if we're in conversation with our ghosts instead of dispelling them, we can learn key parts of our own present liberatory process - that we will then hand down as ghosts to the generations coming

(2) the valorisation of the "cultural detritus" - cohen talks about cultural detritus as the things that are seen as extraneous or superfluous to the capitalist ruling class - that can be anything from entire people as in the case of colonized and indigenous peoples at the sharp end of capitalist imperialism, down to the fragments of communal human existence that serve no capital gains - so like everything from our folk arts and narratives to the human experience of communal kindness and help.

you see this in the deep scars of alienation in the way from the drowned towns that were literally made into detritus by the English ruling class being the link between wakefulness and dreams and understanding, the red monk standing over the detritus of the walls of the original abbey smelting works, the pilot light of the factory as a bit of superstitious detritus cast away by the owning investment company even and especially in their attempt to 'better the factory and the town' (their profit margin).

how all of these things when embraced are can fuel the fight against emiseration and alienation

(3) the phantasmagorical staging of the dreaming, the withdrawal hallucinations, the ghosts, and the way those aren't discarded by the narrative. that they give insight into the waking moments of the escape, and even in the terror of the unknown ahead of them give them strength even as oppressive forces close in. how these moments of surrealism aren't removed from the characters' experiences but inform and hone their decisions.

(4) not discarding the sensory experiences of the characters that lie outside of the senses accepted as relevant to science and industry (how the characters start to become unalienated when they reclaim those sensory inputs). the ideas from marx's 1844 works cohen's referring to are that marx talks about alienation as an expression of how under a system of private property, the senses that confirm ownership are prioritised as not just all-important but the limitations of sensory experience. that in order to have a truly liberated human sensuality, we have to get rid of the system of private property.

you get nods to bridging that alienation in the way from how geoff can't shake the feelings churning in him from seeing a fellow worker's self-immolation, to the senses of comradery towards Anna that extend beyond the rigid bourgeois family unit even in the face of possibly being disappeared, to the feelings of wrongness and instinct that are leaned into by the entire group as they make their way through the dangers of the violent state surveillance hurdles of 'illegal' migration.

(5) but also embracing the senses that are seen as valid and rational but bringing them into their full expression by removing the false binary with the other possible senses of the phantasmagorical, psychological and dreaming, putting the characters as a direct opposition to the nostalgic rigid regurgitation of the repressive violence of the state. all of that as an antidote to the alienation that all of the characters feel as cast-offs of capitalism, imperialism, xenophobia. a way to make these broken characters take a step towards finding a measure of wholeness.

there's so much more there and i'm just vomiting out my immediate thoughts, but yeah imo the way is def a work that uses ideas of gothic marxism in its surreal speculative fictive narrative to tell the story of oppression from the point of view of the marginalised

[crowlixcx]

The Way, Episode 2 - 'The Walk'

[marchentraume]

Various shot of Michael from The Way ep2

[invisibleicewands]

Michael Sheen likens his TV directorial debut to getting into the ring with a heavyweight boxer. 

‘Mike Tyson says everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth, and I felt like I had a plan but was then punched in the mouth several times,’ laughs Michael, whose three-part drama The Way, about a family on the run in South Wales, comes to BBC1 this week.

‘Weirdly though, I also enjoyed it. It gave me the chance to be part of a story set and filmed in my home town of Port Talbot and it afforded me a power I don’t get as an actor. When people came up to me during filming with 100 questions, I had a wonderful feeling of importance.’

The Way is the gritty story of the dysfunctional Driscoll family – Geoff, Dee and grown-up children Owen and Thea – who have to put aside their differences and flee Port Talbot after getting caught in a civil uprising when the local steelworks is threatened with closure.

But it also has fantastical elements. Watch out for a medieval monk in a red robe and the ghost of miner Denny Driscoll. ‘There are supernatural elements because it’s about a family who are haunted by their troubled pasts,’ says Michael, who’s best known for movies such as Frost/Nixon and the TV hit Good Omens.

‘It does address some dark and serious issues but it’s also colourful, vivid and full of humour – some of the qualities I associate with the community I come from.’

It was access all areas when the drama was filmed in Port Talbot last year – except in one part of town. ‘Forge Street was off limits because there’s a mural of Michael on a wall there,’ says Steffan Rhodri (Geoff). ‘It’s a tribute to a town legend who’s adored.’

Michael jokes, ‘I tried my best to get the mural on film but I couldn’t manage it!’

[sleepy--anon]

Sleepy's Writing List

I will also write ler!reader, (there is a severe lack)

Mcyt

Dream

Sapnap

Georgenotfound

Badboyhalo

Skeppy

Dream XD

Sapnap 4K

George HD

Antfrost

Velvetiscakee

Captain Puffy

Awesamdude (Sam)

Larray

Sidemen

JJ Olatunji (KSI)

Simon Minter (MiniMinter)

Harry Lewis (W2S)

Ethan Payne (Behzinga)

Josh Bradley (Zerkaa)

Tobi Brown (Tobjizzle)

Vik Barn (Vikkstar123)

Heartstopper

Nick Nelson

Charlie Spring

Darcy Olsson

Tara Jones

Elle Argent

Tao Xu

Issac Henderson

Imogen Heaney

Sahar Zahid

Tori Spring

Otis Smith

Sai Verma

Christian McBride

9-1-1

Hen Wilson

Karen Wilson

Denny Wilson

Mara (Driscoll) Wilson

Maddie Buckley-Han

Chimney (Howie) Han

Athena Grant-Nash

Bobby Nash

May Grant

Harry Grant

Eddie Diaz

Christopher Diaz

Evan (Buck) Buckley

Tk Strand

Carlos Reyes

Ravi Pannikar

Tommy Kinard

Red, White, and Royal Blue

Alex Clermont-Diaz

Henry Hanover-Stuart-Fox

Beatrice (Bea) Hanover-Stuart-Fox

Nora Holleran

Percy (Pez) Okonjo

Smosh

Anthony Padilla

Ian Hecox

Shayne Topp

Damien Haas

Courtney Miller

Olivia Sui

Keith Leak Jr.

Tommy Bowe

Spencer Agnew

Amanda Lehan-Canto

Angela Giarratana

Trevor Evarts

Chance McCrary

Arasha Lalani

The Walking Dead

Rick Grimes

Michonne Grimes

Carl Grimes

Judith Grimes

RJ Grimes

Glenn Rhee

Maggie Rhee

Daryl Dixon

Carol Peletier

Rosita Espinosa

Paul (Jesus) Rovia

Enid

King Ezekiel

Aaron

Connie

Kelly

Juanita (Princess) Sanchez

Michael Mercer

Gabriel Stokes

Noah

Lydia

Jerry

Bridgerton

Anthony Bridgerton

Benedict Bridgerton

Colin Bridgerton

Daphne (Bridgerton) Bassett

Eloise Bridgerton

Francesca (Bridgerton) Sterling

Gregory Bridgerton

Hyacinth Bridgerton

Penelope (Featherington) Bridgerton

Kate (Sharma) Bridgerton

House of the Dragon

Simon Bassett

John Sterling

Rhaenyra Targaryen

Aegon II Targaryen

Daenerys Targaryen

Daemon Targaryen

Jacearys Velaryon

Lucearys Velaryon

Helena Targaryen

Baela Targaryen

Rhaena Targaryen

Aemond Targaryen

Alicent Hightower

Rhaenys Targaryen

[flannelandcurls]

Denny Driscoll, Slavkin O'Hara & Kenneth Williams