#the swedish film adaptations are films but they were also aired in parts as a miniseries I think

[adaptations-polls]

Which version of this do you prefer?

[rebeccalouisaferguson]

"I always just rode the waves,” Rebecca Ferguson says with a shrug. The comment hangs in the air, as if the Anglo-Swedish 37-year-old is only now processing that a combination of currents and tides has led her not just to an acting career but to the brink of big-screen stardom.

“I’ve never been ambitious,” she says. “I’ve always thought that that was a bad thing.” She’s seen others in the industry consumed by constant striving and asked herself why she hasn’t hungered for fame since childhood, slept in cars outside castings, barged into directors’ offices or thrown herself in the path of a producer. “But should I not be burning for this? Out meeting people and networking for the next job?” says Ferguson, who has chosen the sort of quiet, private life outside the big city that so many actors claim to crave. “My life just took another turn. But I’ve always thought: Am I where I should be?”

At the moment, on this late July day, Ferguson is slumped in the backseat of a Mercedes-Benz sedan, crawling through rush-hour traffic on the M4 out of London. She is capping off a hectic week during a particularly busy period. Most immediately, she’s coming from a table read for Wool, the Apple TV+ adaptation of Hugh Howey’s bestselling postapocalyptic trilogy. Ferguson is both the star and, for the first time, an executive producer. “I’m sitting in all the different rooms, listening and learning like the students,” she says. She’s filming Mission: Impossible 7, her third tour of duty in the long-running series that first brought her widespread recognition. She’s also promoting the film Reminiscence, the sci-fi noir written and directed by Westworld co-creator Lisa Joy in which Ferguson stars opposite Hugh Jackman. And now she is starting a press push and festival prep for her role as Lady Jessica ahead of the much-delayed release of Dune (in theaters October 22), director Denis Villeneuve’s reimagining of Frank Herbert’s novel. “After this film, I think everyone will see what I see in her,” the filmmaker says. “She has a beautiful, regal, aristocratic presence, elegance. But that was not the main thing: The most important thing for me was that depth.”

After tracing a long, meandering path, Ferguson has landed in a rare and rarified position: ascendant in her late 30s (still an anomaly for women in the film industry) and sought after by some of the biggest names in the business. “When you meet Rebecca, you just see it. She’s very open, candid, collaborative, hardworking, funny—and not pretentious,” says Tom Cruise, who handpicked Ferguson to star opposite him in the Mission: Impossiblefilms, which are known for their demanding shoots. “She just rose to the occasion every single time.”

In February 2020, when the pandemic began, Ferguson left Venice, where she’d been shooting Mission: Impossible 7, and hunkered down with her husband, their 3-year-old daughter and Ferguson’s 14-year-old son from a previous relationship at their farm in Sweden. After four months, Ferguson returned to the M:I set and basically hasn’t stopped working since.

Dune has sat idle for far longer. By the time the movie premieres, more than two years will have passed since it wrapped. Ferguson recently asked to screen the film again: “I miss it,” she says. She ended up bringing along her Mission: Impossible co-star Simon Pegg. After the credits rolled, Pegg broke into a smile and wrapped her in a congratulatory bear hug. “That’s all I needed,” she says.

Despite being a sci-fi epic based on a novel from 1965, Dune feels “very timely,” Ferguson says, pointing to its handling of environmental issues, religious zealotry, colonialism and Indigenous rights. The plot of the film, which cost an estimated $165 million, centers on occupying powers battling for the right to exploit a people and their planet, named Arrakis, for melange (or spice)—the most valuable commodity in Herbert’s fictional universe, a substance that provides transcendental thought, extends life and enables instantaneous interstellar travel. “Spice,” Ferguson says, “is equally about the poppy and oil fields.”

Ferguson’s Lady Jessica is a member of the Bene Gesserit, a powerful secretive sisterhood with superhuman mental abilities. She defies her order by giving birth to a son, Paul (played by Timothée Chalamet), who may be a messianic figure. “She basically just f—s up the entire universe by having a son out of love,” says Ferguson. In her hands, Jessica is equal parts caring parent, protector and pedagogue. Among the skills she wields and teaches Paul is “the Voice”—a modulated tone that allows the speaker to control others.

The movie was shot in Norway, Hungary, Jordan and Abu Dhabi, whose desert landscape stood in for Arrakis. Filming there was particularly arduous, as temperatures exceeded 120 degrees Fahrenheit, limiting the shoot window to only an hour and a half each day at 5 a.m. and again at dusk. “We were running across the sand in our steel suits being chased by nonexistent but humongous worms,” Ferguson recalls, referring to the sand-beasts later rendered in CGI. “To be honest, it was one of the best moments ever. It was the most beautiful location I’ve ever seen.”

Back in London, Ferguson is approaching home. She leaves the following day for a small town on the coast of England, where she plans to spend her first vacation in two years and to do some surfing. “Let’s hope it’s good weather,” she says. “If not, I’ll surf in the rain.” Not that she’s the sort to paddle out into storm swells. “I think I’ve managed to stand on a board once in my entire life,” she says. “But it was quite a high. Complete surrender to the waves and total control all at once.”

Born Rebecca Louisa Ferguson Sundström to an English mother and Swedish father, Ferguson grew up bilingual in Stockholm. She immersed herself in dance from a young age, enjoying ballet, jazz, street funk and tango. Despite being shy and prone to blushing and breaking out when forced to speak publicly, Ferguson found she was at ease in front of the camera. She dabbled in modeling and then, at 15, attended a TV casting call at her mother’s urging. Ferguson ended up getting the lead role in Nya Tider (New Times), a soap opera that became wildly popular, splashing Ferguson’s face into Swedish homes five times a week.

When her role ended about two years later, Ferguson was adrift. She had no formal acting training to fall back on, no clear sense of how to steer a career and no major connections to the industry. She had a short run on another soap and appeared in a slasher flick and a couple of independent shorts, then…nothing. “I was famous in Sweden, but I didn’t really have an income anymore,” she says. “So I went and I worked in whatever job I could get.” That meant stints at a daycare center and as a nanny, in a jewelry shop and a shoe store, as well as teaching tango, cleaning hotel rooms and waitressing at a Korean restaurant. She eventually landed in a small coastal town named Simrishamn, where she lived with her then-partner and their toddler son, content to be a where-are-they-now celebrity.

When fame again came calling, Ferguson ran away. She was at the flea market when she recognized the acclaimed Swedish director Richard Hobert, and he saw her. As he shouted her name, Ferguson grabbed her son, who lost his shoes and sausage, and fled. “I panicked,” she says. “I don’t know why.” When Hobert eventually caught up to her, Ferguson tried to act nonchalant as he proceeded to tell her he’d admired her work and pitched her on the lead role in his next movie: “I’ve written this role, and I think I have written it for you. Do you want to read the script?”

Her work in Hobert’s A One-Way Trip to Antibes earned her a Rising Star nomination at the Stockholm International Film Festival. She quickly got an agent in Scandinavia, then one in Britain. On her first trip to take meetings in London, she read for the lead in The White Queen, the BBC adaptation of Philippa Gregory’s historical novels about the women behind the Wars of the Roses. Ferguson got the part, and her portrayal of Elizabeth Woodville, queen consort of England, earned her a Golden Globe nomination and the admiration of at least one Hollywood heavyweight.

Ferguson was in the Moroccan desert filming the Lifetime biblical miniseries The Red Tentwhen the assistant director whisked her off her camel. “We’re going to have to pause shooting,” he said as he asked her to dismount. “Tom Cruise wants to meet you for Mission: Impossible. We’re going to fly you off today.”

Cruise had seen Ferguson’s work in The White Queen and her audition tape and couldn’t believe she wasn’t already a major star. “What? Where has this woman been?” Cruise recalls exclaiming to his new Mission: Impossible director Christopher McQuarrie. “She’s incredibly skilled,” Cruise says, “very charismatic, very expressive. As you can tell, the camera loves her.” Ferguson landed a multi-picture deal to star opposite Cruise in the multibillion-dollar franchise. He and McQuarrie built out the role of Ilsa Faust for Ferguson, creating the anti-Bond girl, an equal to Cruise’s Ethan Hunt. “We could just see the impact she could have,” he says. “She’s a dancer. She has great control of her body, of her movements. She has the same ability to move through emotions effortlessly.”

Ferguson threw herself into the films and quickly found a shorthand with the cast and crew. “There was a dynamic that worked very well with all of us,” she says. “One of the things I absolutely love is doing all the stunts.” That physicality has given her a reputation as an action-minded actor. “It doesn’t matter that I’ve done 20 other films where I don’t kick ass,” Ferguson says. “Mission comes with such an enormous following. That was what made my career.”

Ferguson’s M: I movies bracket a number of films in which she played opposite marquee names: Florence Foster Jenkins, with Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant; The Girl on the Train, with Emily Blunt; The Greatest Showman, with Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams; Life, with Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds; Men in Black: International, with Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson; The Snowman, with Michael Fassbender; Doctor Sleep, with Ewan McGregor. And now Dune, opposite Oscar Isaac, Javier Bardem, Zendaya and Chalamet, whom she calls “one of the best actors, if not the best actor of his generation—of this time.” She was similarly impressed by Zendaya, who plays the native Fremen warrior Chani. “She’s quite raw and naughty and fun,” says Ferguson. “She has an enormous f— off attitude.”

When Ferguson first spoke to Villeneuve about appearing in the movie, “he started telling me about this woman who was a protector, and a mother, and a lover, and a concubine,” she recalls. “I was like, ‘I’m sorry. You want me to play a queen and a bodyguard? And you want me to kick ass and walk regally?’ I was like, ‘Denis, why would I want to do that? That’s the last thing I want to do.’ ”

After the call, Ferguson says, “I went downstairs to my hubby and said, Oh, my God, he’s amazing, but I’m not going to get the job. I just criticized the character.” Ferguson worried she was being cast as a stereotypical “strong female character,” where “it’s constantly, ‘She looks good, and she can kick.’ That is not what I want to portray.”

Ferguson hasn’t always been able to work with collaborators who’ve given her the space to question or opine. “I’ve been bashed down. I’ve been bullied,” she says, though she opts not to say by whom. That was never a concern with Villeneuve, who welcomed her critique. He and his co-writers had already decided from the start to make women the focus of their screenplay adaptation, and he promptly offered her the part.

“I want Lady Jessica to be at the center, the forefront. For me, she’s the architect of the story,” Villeneuve says. “I needed someone who will convey the mystery and the dark side of the film in a very elegant and profound way. Rebecca was everything I was hoping for. She’s so precise. She brought a beautiful, controlled vulnerability—it becomes very visceral on-screen.”

Ferguson vaguely recalls trying to watch the 1984 version of Dune, directed by David Lynch, in her youth, but she fell asleep. And she had never opened Herbert’s novel until being offered the part in the new adaptation. As she dug into the book, she says, she learned that her character was subservient and far more like a concubine, forced to eat alone in her bedroom, not spoken to and not allowed to speak. Ferguson ended up relying primarily on Villeneuve for her research and prep—his notes and comments, his references and the pages in the book he suggested she focus on. “I would feel ignorant not to have read Frank’s book at all,” Ferguson says, though she admits there are parts of the sprawling novel (which Villeneuve is splitting into two films) she’s only skimmed. “I have to finish it.” That will not happen on her upcoming vacation, however. “Absolutely not,” she says “I am surfing.”

By the way, if you saw, I am snaking on the ground, snaking around my room to get good Wi-Fi—it’s not some dance or yoga thing,” Ferguson says. “You have to do that in this old house.” It’s a week and a half after our first meeting, and Ferguson is at her new home, a more than 500-year-old property southwest of London that has, over the years, been home to numerous English Royals. It’s more spartan than stately now. “Empty except for a rock star,” she says, turning her phone’s camera to reveal a framed duotone poster of Mick Jagger that’s leaning against the wall. “We haven’t even started renovating.

Ferguson has returned from her holiday fortified and with renewed confidence, thanks in part to her success on the surfboard. “I went up nearly every time,” she says cheerfully, “but the waves weren’t very high.” She shrugs. “I was proud. I was up. I rode them, not the other way around.”

After years of going with the flow, Ferguson is eager to replicate that sense of control in her career. She values her role as an executive producer on Wool, she says, “because I am, for the first time, a part of it from the beginning.” She relishes weighing in on every aspect, from casting (the show recently added Tim Robbins) to cinematography to her character—which has not always been easy for her. “Why do I feel it’s difficult to speak up? I still battle with these things,” she says. Alluding to those times she was pushed around in the past, Ferguson says, “I was angry, but it was more me getting off at ‘How can I let that happen? Why am I letting myself react this way?’ And I take it with me to the next thing where I go, ‘OK, how do I stop that from happening?’ ”

She is learning that she can ride on top of waves without giving up her agency or maybe just let them break against her. “I want to feel I can go home and think, That was a hard day or that pissed me off—and that’s OK,” Ferguson says, with a nod and tight smile. “Because I still stood there as Rebecca. I didn’t shift.”

[invisibleicewands]

Staged's Anna Lundberg and Georgia Tennant: 'Scenes with all four of us usually involved alcohol'

Not many primetime TV hits are filmed by the show’s stars inside their own homes. However, 2020 wasn’t your average year. During the pandemic, productions were shut down and workarounds had to be found – otherwise the terrestrial schedules would have begun to look worryingly empty. Staged was the surprise comedy hit of the summer.

This playfully meta short-form sitcom, airing in snack-sized 15-minute episodes, found A-list actors Michael Sheen and David Tennant playing an exaggerated version of themselves, bickering and bantering as they tried to perfect a performance of Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author over Zoom.

Having bonded while co-starring in Good Omens, Amazon’s TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s novel, Sheen, 51, and Tennant, 49, became best buddies in real life. In Staged, though, they’re comedically reframed as frenemies – warm, matey and collaborative, but with a cut-throat competitiveness lurking just below the surface. As they grew ever more hirsute and slobbish in lockdown, their virtual relationship became increasingly fraught.

It was soapily addictive and hilariously thespy, while giving a voyeuristic glimpse of their interior decor and domestic lives – with all the action viewed through their webcams.

Yet it was the supporting cast who lifted Staged to greatness,Their director Simon Evans, forced to dance around the pair’s fragile egos and piggy-in-the-middle of their feuds. Steely producer Jo, played by Nina Sosanya, forever breaking off from calls to bellow at her poor, put-upon PA. And especially the leading men’s long-suffering partners, both actors in real life, Georgia Tennant and Anna Lundberg.

Georgia Tennant comes from showbiz stock, as the child of Peter Davison and Sandra Dickinson. At 36 she is an experienced actor and producer, who made her TV debut in Peak Practice aged 15. She met David on Doctor Who 2008, when she played the Timelord’s cloned daughter Jenny. Meanwhile, the Swedish Lundberg, 26, is at the start of her career. She left drama school in New York two years ago and Staged is her first big on-screen role.

Married for nine years, the Tennants have five children and live in west London. The Lundberg-Sheens have been together two years, have a baby daughter, Lyra, and live outside Port Talbot in south Wales. On screen and in real life, the women have become firm friends and frequent scene-stealers.

Staged proved so successful that it’s now back for a second series. We set up a video call with Tennant and Lundberg to discuss lockdown life, wine consumption, home schooling (those two may be related) and the blurry line between fact and fiction…

Was doing Staged a big decision, because it’s so personal and set in your homes? Georgia Tennant: We’d always been a very private couple. Staged was everything we’d never normally say yes to. Suddenly, our entire house is on TV and so is a version of the relationship we’d always kept private. But that’s the way to do it, I guess. Go to the other extreme. Just rip off the Band-Aid.

Anna Lundberg: Michael decided pretty quickly that we weren’t going to move around the house at all. All you see is the fireplace in our kitchen.

GT: We have five children, so it was just about which room was available.

AL: But it’s not the real us. It’s not a documentary.

GT: Although some people think it is.

Which fictional parts of the show do people mistake for reality? GT: People think I’m really a novelist because “Georgia” writes a novel in Staged. They’ve asked where they can buy my book. I should probably just write one now because I’ve done the marketing already.

AL: People worry about our elderly neighbour, who gets hospitalised in the show. She doesn’t actually exist in real life but people have approached Michael in Tesco’s, asking if she’s OK.

Michael and David squabble about who’s billed first in Staged. Does that reflect real life? AL: With Good Omens, Michael’s name was first for the US market and David’s was first for the British market. So those scenes riffed on that.

Should we call you Georgia and Anna, or Anna and Georgia? GT: Either. We’re super-laidback about these things.

AL: Unlike certain people.

How well did you know each other before Staged? GT: We barely knew each other. We’ve now forged a friendship by working on the show together.

AL: We’d met once, for about 20 minutes. We were both pregnant at the time – we had babies a month apart – so that was pretty much all we talked about.

Did you tidy up before filming? AL: We just had to keep one corner relatively tidy.

GT: I’m quite a tidy person, but I didn’t want to be one of those annoying Instagram people with perfect lives. So strangely, I had to add a bit of mess… dot a few toys around in the background. I didn’t want to be one of those insufferable people – even though, inherently, I am one of those people.

Was there much photobombing by children or pets? AL: In the first series, Lyra was still at an age where we could put her in a baby bouncer. Now that’s not working at all. She’s just everywhere. Me and Michael don’t have many scenes together in series two, because one of us is usually Lyra-wrangling.

GT: Our children aren’t remotely interested. They’re so unimpressed by us. There’s one scene where Doris, our five-year-old, comes in to fetch her iPad. She doesn’t even bother to glance at what we’re doing.

How was lockdown for you both? AL: I feel bad saying it, but it was actually good for us. We were lucky enough to be in a big house with a garden. For the first time since we met, we were in one place. We could just focus on Lyra . To see her grow over six months was incredible. She helped us keep a steady routine, too.

GT: Ours was similar. We never spend huge chunks of time together, so it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. At least until David’s career goes to shit and he’s just sat at home. The flipside was the bleakness. Being in London, there were harrowing days when everything was silent but you’d just hear sirens going past, as a reminder that something awful was going on. So I veered between “This is wonderful” and “This is the worst thing that ever happened.”

And then there was home schooling… GT: Which was genuinely the worst thing that ever happened.

You’ve spent a lot of time on video calls, clearly. What are your top Zooming tips? GT: Raise your camera to eye level by balancing your laptop on a stack of books. And invest in a ring light.

AL: That’s why you look so much better. We just have our sad kitchen light overhead, which makes us look like one massive shiny forehead.

GT: Also, always have a good mug on the go [raises her cuppa to the camera and it’s a Michael Sheen mug]. Someone pranked David on the job he’s shooting at the moment by putting a Michael Sheen mug in his trailer. He brought it home and now I use it every morning. I’m magically drawn to drinking out of Michael.

There’s a running gag in series one about the copious empties in Michael’s recycling. Did you lean into lockdown boozing in real life? AL: Not really. We eased off when I was pregnant and after Lyra was born. We’d just have a glass of wine with dinner.

GT: Yes, definitely. I often reach for a glass of red in the show, which was basically just an excuse to continue drinking while we were filming: “I think my character would have wine and cake in this scene.” The time we started drinking would creep slightly earlier. “We’ve finished home schooling, it’s only 4pm, but hey…” We’ve scaled it back to just weekends now.

How did you go about creating your characters with the writer Simon Evans? AL: He based the dynamic between David and Michael on a podcast they did together. Our characters evolved as we went along.

GT: I was really kind and understanding in the first draft. I was like “I don’t want to play this, it’s no fun.” From the first few tweaks I made, Simon caught onto the vibe, took that and ran with it.

Did you struggle to keep a straight face at times? AL: Yes, especially the scenes with all four of us, when David and Michael start improvising.

GT: I was just drunk, so I have no recollection.

AL: Scenes with all four of us were normally filmed in the evening, because that’s when we could be child-free. Usually there was alcohol involved, which is a lot more fun.

GT: There’s a long scene in series two where we’re having a drink. During each take, we had to finish the glass. By the end, we were all properly gone. I was rewatching it yesterday and I was so pissed.

What else can you tell us about series two? GT: Everyone’s in limbo. Just as we think things are getting back to normal, we have to take three steps back again. Everyone’s dealing with that differently, shall we say.

AL: In series one, we were all in the same situation. By series two, we’re at different stages and in different emotional places.

GT: Hollywood comes calling, but things are never as simple as they seem.

There were some surprise big-name cameos in series one, with Samuel L Jackson and Dame Judi Dench suddenly Zooming in. Who can we expect this time around? AL: We can’t name names, but they’re very exciting.

GT: Because series one did so well, and there’s such goodwill towards the show, we’ve managed to get some extraordinary people involved. This show came from playing around just to pass the time in lockdown. It felt like a GCSE end-of-term project. So suddenly, when someone says: “Samuel L Jackson’s in”, it’s like: “What the fuck’s just happened?”

AL: It took things to the next level, which was a bit scary.

GT: It suddenly felt like: “Some people might actually watch this.”

How are David and Michael’s hair and beard situations this time? AL: We were in a toyshop the other day and Lyra walked up to these Harry Potter figurines, pointed at Hagrid and said: “Daddy!” So that explains where we’re at. After eight months of lockdown, it was quite full-on.

GT: David had a bob at one point. Turns out he’s got annoyingly excellent hair. Quite jealous. He’s also grown a slightly unpleasant moustache.

Is David still wearing his stinky hoodie? GT: I bought him that as a gift. It’s actually Paul Smith loungewear. In lockdown, he was living in it. It’s pretty classy, but he does manage to make it look quite shit.

[papermoonloveslucy]

LUCY SHUNS AUDITIONS

July 21, 1950

[In the below article, reprinted verbatim, Johnson writes using a lot of imagery and insider jargon.  This sort of article was common in trade papers like Variety, but seems odd in a daily newspaper.]

Hollywood—(NEA) Lucille Ball slipped me the lowdown on her failure to pin to the canvas the dumb chick role in “Born Yesterday” and make it holler uncle. (1)

She’s got a touch of Francis the mule in her when it comes to auditions. (2)

Instead of scrimmaging for the role with Evelyn Keyes, Judy Holliday, Marie Wilson, Shelly Winters and Jan Sterling, (3) Lucille went bolting the other way. 

The “let’s-see-if-you’re-it” boys pleaded and cajoled. 

But Miss Anti-Auditions wasn’t having any of the competition, thank you. 

“I figure if they want you, they want you,” Lucille plainspoke it. If you’ve got to read and test for it, to heck with it.’

She isn’t chronicled in Hollywood history, but once, badgered by her RKO bosses, Lucille went tripping over to David O. Selznick’s office for a whack at the Scarlett O’Hara role in “Gone With the Wind.” 

That’s what curdled her in the first place. 

“It was awful,’’ Lucille shudders. I was shaking all over when I hit Selznick’s office. My knees gave way. I did the whole audition in scrubwoman position. Selznick laughs and says thanks a lot. (4)

Judy Holliday landed the junkman’s doll role and Lucille grabbed a railroad ticket for a personal appearance tour with hubby Desi Arnaz. She strutted to Latin rhythms, swung a glittering purse in a manner dear to runaway girls and wisecracked for the customers. (5)

MIMICS OSCAR WINNER 

At the last moment she nixed a dancing and singing routine. The star with the forest-fire hair shrugged: 

“I decided it would be silly to compete with Grable.” (6)

A lot of movie queens laid in fresh supplies of smelling salts, ice beanies and copies of “Release From Nervous Tension” when word got around that Lucille was about to whoop it up on the six-a-day circuit. (7)

She’s a blister-raiser from way back and the air was shrill with ouches about a year ago when she whipped up an impression of an Academy Award winner. 

But the girls can go back to worrying about other things—like shrinking from larger-than-life to television screen size. 

Lucille didn’t let any “furriners” see the routine. 

“It's for Hollywood only," she said. “I should take radio-active material on the road?” 

Her Oscar-grabber routine is strictly for unreal anyhow, she says. and no blood relation to Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Ingrid Bergman or any other Screen Duse. (8) She insisted:

“She's any movie star, even me. This character has to go up on that stage and act surprised. She’s only been rehearsing what she's going say flor eight weeks. So she says, ‘Ye gads, me?  But I’m so unprepared. Really, I didn’t dream...” Lucille is generally is as unflinching about the movie queen business as Pearl White was about onrushing trains. (9)

But her knees executed some wobbles that aren’t in Arthur Murray’s rhumba dance book when she checked into her first vaudeville dressing room. (10)

“Those stages—they’re so big.” she gasped. “Hey, I’d hate to get caught in the middle of one of those stages without bread and water.” 

Lucille didn’t take any chances with out-of-town press interviews, either. “I once did a personal appearance tour with Maureen O'Hara and had to show up at a press party,” she grinned. (11)

My sinus - I just die from it - was acting up. The reporter next to me didn’t understand my puffed eyes and cold sores. He called Maureen a lady in his story. But he referred to me as a whisky tenor with red-runny eyes.” 

Lucille’s brain cells work on direct current and she’s not one to make with the figure eights when a straight glide to home base would get her there quicker. 

They still laugh about her exit line to Louis B. Mayer. (12) Mayer always referred to her as a thoroughbred and sometimes compared her to his famous horses. "Yes, and like your other nags, I'm leaving your stable," Lucille said when she decided to bow out of her contract. 

She has high hopes for her new picture “The Fuller Brush Man.” Not that she enjoyed it: (13)

“Honey, this ones that I don t enjoy turn out be the best ones.  This one put me in the hospital. My feet are still bandaged up. I’m a mess. No more physical-type pictures for me.”

#   #   #    FOOTNOTES FROM THE FUTURE

(1) The 1946 Broadway hit comedy Born Yesterday by Garsin Kanin was bought by Columbia Pictures. Things got complicated when its stage star, Judy Holliday, swore she would not do the film version. Columbia used this as fuel for publicity about who would win the role.  Naturally, Lucille Ball was considered a top contender.  As the article states, she was not eager, however, to prove her worth to the ‘let’s-see-if-you’re-it’ boys (aka producers).  There was talk of Lucille performing the play in London, or summer stock, but her film contracts would not allow her time off for a stage run. 

(2) Mules are supposedly notoriously stubborn animals - just like Lucy. Francis the Talking Mule was the star of seven popular Universal-International film comedies. The character originated in the 1946 novel Francis by David Stern III, adapting his own script for the first entry, simply titled Francis.  On “I Love Lucy” Fred Mertz sometimes called Ethel “Francis” to indicate she was being stubborn about something. 

(3) These were some of the Hollywood stars looking to play the part of Billie Dawn in the film Born Yesterday. Evelyn Keyes (1916 – 2008) was best known for playing Sue Ellen, Scarlett O’Hara’s kid sister, in Gone With The Wind (1939).  Judy Holliday (1921-65), changed her mind about playing the role she originated on Broadway, but by then the casting net was cast, and she was just another performer on the short list. She eventually got the role, which defined her career. Marie Wilson (1916-72) was a zany comedic actress in the style of Gracie Burns. She was widely known as the star of radio and TV’s “My Friend Irma”. Shelley Winters (1920-2006) would be nominated for an Oscar the year after this article. She was adept at playing drama and comedy, and had a long-lasting career in Hollywood.  She appeared on “Here’s Lucy” in 1968; Critics raved about her Jan Sterling’s portrayal of Billie Dawn in the Chicago touring company of Born Yesterday and Columbia brought her out to the West Coast to test for the film. At one point, she was actually announced to play the part but the role ultimately went to Holliday.

(4) Lucille Ball did indeed read (not screen test) for the role of Scarlet O’Hara, just like nearly all of the women in Hollywood in 1938. Ball told the story several times on television, each time with varying details, but probably most completely on “Bob Hope’s Unrehearsed Antics of The Stars” (1984).

(5) This is a vivid description of the “Cuban Pete / Sally Sweet” portion of Lucy and Desi’s nightclub act to convince sponsors to buy them as a couple. 

(6) Betty Grable (1916-73) was considered one of the most famous pin-up girls in history. In addition to her million dollar gams (legs), she could sing, dance, and act, too. She guest starred with her then-husband Harry James on “Lucy Wins A Racehorse”, an installment of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” aired on February 3, 1958.

(7) “Release from Nervous Tension” was an actual best-selling book by Dr. David Harold Fink, published in 1950. Vaudeville and Burlesque shows were often known as the ‘six-a-day circuit’ because sometimes there would be as many as six performances of the same act in a day.  Naturally, this did not apply to Lucy and Desi, who were big film and radio stars at the time. 

(8)  These were some of Hollywood’s top-line dramatic actors. Bette Davis (1908-89) had won two Oscars, and was nominated for several others during her long career. She was supposed to guest-star on “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” in “The Celebrity Next Door” in 1957 but dropped out after a horse-riding accident, leaving the role to Tallulah Bankhead; Olivia de Havilland (1916-2020) had also won two Oscars, the second the year this article was published. She was best remembered for playing Melanie Wilkes in Gone With The Wind (1939); Ingrid Bergman (1915-82) was a Swedish-born actress, who, by career’s end, had scored three Academy Awards.  When Johnson talks about “any other screen Duse” he is referring to Eleonor Duse (1858-1924), an Italian-born stage actress known for her grand, dramatic style.  

(9) Pearl White (1889-1938) was best known as the silent film actress who was tied to the railroad tracks in “The Perils of Pauline” (1914).  

(10) Arthur Murray (1895-1991) was a ballroom dancer and businessman best known for the chain of dancing schools that bear his name. Murray was often a punchline on “I Love Lucy,” especially when the subject of dancing came up. The Rhumba was a Latin dance that took America by storm in the late 1940s and 1950. Desi Arnaz often called his orchestra a ‘rhumba band.’ 

(11) Maureen O’Hara (1920-2015) and Lucille Ball had starred in Dance, Girl, Dance in 1940. As a result, the two went on a promotional tour that took them to several US cities, including the nation’s capitol. 

(12) Louis B. Meyer (1884-1957), along with Samuel Goldwyn and Marcus Loew of Metro Pictures, had formed a new motion picture company called Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 1918. Over the next 25 years, MGM was "the Tiffany of the studios," producing more films and movie stars than any other studio in the world. Mayer became the highest-paid man in America, and one of the country's most successful horse breeders. Both he and MGM reached their peaks at the end of World War II, and Mayer was forced out in 1951, just a year after this article was written. 

(13) Erskine Johnson gets the title wrong. Lucille had madeThe Fuller Brush Girl, a sequel to The Fuller Brush Man (1948).  The film was released in mid-September 1950. 

[jimhenson-themuppetmaster]

Michael Caine and the Muppets The Muppets Christmas Carol

[yobaba30]

trump’s reality TV gig

Expedition: Robinson,” a Swedish reality-television program, premièred in the summer of 1997, with a tantalizing premise: sixteen strangers are deposited on a small island off the coast of Malaysia and forced to fend for themselves. To survive, they must coöperate, but they are also competing: each week, a member of the ensemble is voted off the island, and the final contestant wins a grand prize. The show’s title alluded to both “Robinson Crusoe” and “The Swiss Family Robinson,” but a more apt literary reference might have been “Lord of the Flies.” The first contestant who was kicked off was a young man named Sinisa Savija. Upon returning to Sweden, he was morose, complaining to his wife that the show’s editors would “cut away the good things I did and make me look like a fool.” Nine weeks before the show aired, he stepped in front of a speeding train.

The producers dealt with this tragedy by suggesting that Savija’s turmoil was unrelated to the series—and by editing him virtually out of the show. Even so, there was a backlash, with one critic asserting that a program based on such merciless competition was “fascist television.” But everyone watched the show anyway, and Savija was soon forgotten. “We had never seen anything like it,” Svante Stockselius, the chief of the network that produced the program, told the Los Angeles Times, in 2000. “Expedition: Robinson” offered a potent cocktail of repulsion and attraction. You felt embarrassed watching it, Stockselius said, but “you couldn’t stop.”

In 1998, a thirty-eight-year-old former British paratrooper named Mark Burnett was living in Los Angeles, producing television. “Lord of the Flies” was one of his favorite books, and after he heard about “Expedition: Robinson” he secured the rights to make an American version. Burnett had previously worked in sales and had a knack for branding. He renamed the show “Survivor.”

The first season was set in Borneo, and from the moment it aired, on CBS, in 2000, “Survivor” was a ratings juggernaut: according to the network, a hundred and twenty-five million Americans—more than a third of the population—tuned in for some portion of the season finale. The catchphrase delivered by the host, Jeff Probst, at the end of each elimination ceremony, “The tribe has spoken,” entered the lexicon. Burnett had been a marginal figure in Hollywood, but after this triumph he, too, was rebranded, as an oracle of spectacle. Les Moonves, then the chairman of CBS, arranged for the delivery of a token of thanks—a champagne-colored Mercedes. To Burnett, the meaning of this gesture was unmistakable: “I had arrived.” The only question was what he might do next.

A few years later, Burnett was in Brazil, filming “Survivor: The Amazon.” His second marriage was falling apart, and he was staying in a corporate apartment with a girlfriend. One day, they were watching TV and happened across a BBC documentary series called “Trouble at the Top,” about the corporate rat race. The girlfriend found the show boring and suggested changing the station, but Burnett was transfixed. He called his business partner in L.A. and said, “I’ve got a new idea.” Burnett would not discuss the concept over the phone—one of his rules for success was to always pitch in person—but he was certain that the premise had the contours of a hit: “Survivor” in the city. Contestants competing for a corporate job. The urban jungle!

He needed someone to play the role of heavyweight tycoon. Burnett, who tends to narrate stories from his own life in the bravura language of a Hollywood pitch, once said of the show, “It’s got to have a hook to it, right? They’ve got to be working for someone big and special and important. Cut to: I’ve rented this skating rink.”

In 2002, Burnett rented Wollman Rink, in Central Park, for a live broadcast of the Season 4 finale of “Survivor.” The property was controlled by Donald Trump, who had obtained the lease to operate the rink in 1986, and had plastered his name on it. Before the segment started, Burnett addressed fifteen hundred spectators who had been corralled for the occasion, and noticed Trump sitting with Melania Knauss, then his girlfriend, in the front row. Burnett prides himself on his ability to “read the room”: to size up the personalities in his audience, suss out what they want, and then give it to them.

“I need to show respect to Mr. Trump,” Burnett recounted, in a 2013 speech in Vancouver. “I said, ‘Welcome, everybody, to Trump Wollman skating rink. The Trump Wollman skating rink is a fine facility, built by Mr. Donald Trump. Thank you, Mr. Trump. Because the Trump Wollman skating rink is the place we are tonight and we love being at the Trump Wollman skating rink, Mr. Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.” As Burnett told the story, he had scarcely got offstage before Trump was shaking his hand, proclaiming, “You’re a genius!”

Cut to: June, 2015. After starring in fourteen seasons of “The Apprentice,” all executive-produced by Burnett, Trump appeared in the gilded atrium of Trump Tower, on Fifth Avenue, to announce that he was running for President. Only someone “really rich,” Trump declared, could “take the brand of the United States and make it great again.” He also made racist remarks about Mexicans, prompting NBC, which had broadcast “The Apprentice,” to fire him. Burnett, however, did not sever his relationship with his star. He and Trump had been equal partners in “The Apprentice,” and the show had made each of them hundreds of millions of dollars. They were also close friends: Burnett liked to tell people that when Trump married Knauss, in 2005, Burnett’s son Cameron was the ring bearer. 

Trump had been a celebrity since the eighties, his persona shaped by the best-selling book “The Art of the Deal.” But his business had foundered, and by 2003 he had become a garish figure of local interest—a punch line on Page Six. “The Apprentice” mythologized him anew, and on a much bigger scale, turning him into an icon of American success. Jay Bienstock, a longtime collaborator of Burnett’s, and the showrunner on “The Apprentice,” told me, “Mark always likes to compare his shows to great films or novels. All of Mark’s shows feel bigger than life, and this is by design.” Burnett has made many programs since “The Apprentice,” among them “Shark Tank,” a startup competition based on a Japanese show, and “The Voice,” a singing contest adapted from a Dutch program. In June, he became the chairman of M-G-M Television. But his chief legacy is to have cast a serially bankrupt carnival barker in the role of a man who might plausibly become the leader of the free world. “I don’t think any of us could have known what this would become,” Katherine Walker, a producer on the first five seasons of “The Apprentice,” told me. “But Donald would not be President had it not been for that show.”

Tony Schwartz, who wrote “The Art of the Deal,” which falsely presented Trump as its primary author, told me that he feels some responsibility for facilitating Trump’s imposture. But, he said, “Mark Burnett’s influence was vastly greater,” adding, “ ‘The Apprentice’ was the single biggest factor in putting Trump in the national spotlight.” Schwartz has publicly condemned Trump, describing him as “the monster I helped to create.” Burnett, by contrast, has refused to speak publicly about his relationship with the President or about his curious, but decisive, role in American history.

Burnett is lean and lanky, with the ageless, perpetually smiling face of Peter Pan and eyes that, in the words of one ex-wife, have “a Photoshop twinkle.” He has a high forehead and the fixed, gravity-defying hair of a nineteen-fifties film star. People often mistake Burnett for an Australian, because he has a deep tan and an outdoorsy disposition, and because his accent has been mongrelized by years of international travel. But he grew up in Dagenham, on the eastern outskirts of London, a milieu that he has recalled as “gray and grimy.” His father, Archie, was a tattooed Glaswegian who worked the night shift at a Ford automobile plant. His mother, Jean, worked there as well, pouring acid into batteries, but in Mark’s recollection she always dressed immaculately, “never letting her station in life interfere with how she presented herself.” Mark, an only child, grew up watching American television shows such as “Starsky & Hutch” and “The Rockford Files.”

At seventeen, he volunteered for the British Army’s Parachute Regiment; according to a friend who enlisted with him, he joined for “the glitz.” The Paras were an élite unit, and a soldier from his platoon, Paul Read, told me that Burnett was a particularly formidable special operator, both physically commanding and a natural leader: “He was always super keen. He always wanted to be the best, even among the best.” (Another soldier recalled that Burnett was nicknamed the Male Model, because he was reluctant to “get any dirt under his fingernails.”) Burnett served in Northern Ireland, and then in the Falklands, where he took part in the 1982 advance on Port Stanley. The experience, he later said, was “horrific, but on the other hand—in a sick way—exciting.”

When Burnett left the Army, after five years, his plan was to find work in Central America as a “weapons and tactics adviser”—not as a mercenary, he later insisted, though it is difficult to parse the distinction. Before he left, his mother told him that she’d had a premonition and implored him not to take another job that involved carrying a gun. Like Trump, Burnett trusts his impulses. “Your gut instinct is rarely wrong,” he likes to say. During a layover in Los Angeles, he decided to heed his mother’s admonition, and walked out of the airport. He later described himself as the quintessential immigrant: “I had no money, no green card, no nothing.” But the California sun was shining, and he was eager to try his luck.

Burnett is an avid raconteur, and his anecdotes about his life tend to have a three-act structure. In Act I, he is a fish out of water, guileless and naïve, with nothing but the shirt on his back and an outsized dream. Act II is the rude awakening: the world bets against him. It’s impossible! You’ll lose everything! No such thing has ever been tried! In Act III, Burnett always prevails. Not long after arriving in California, he landed his first job—as a nanny. Eyebrows were raised: a commando turned nanny? Yet Burnett thrived, working for a family in Beverly Hills, then one in Malibu. As he later observed, the experience taught him “how nice the life styles of wealthy people are.” Young, handsome, and solicitous, he discovered that successful people are often happy to talk about their path to success.

Burnett married a California woman, Kym Gold, who came from an affluent family. “Mark has always been very, very hungry,” Gold told me recently. “He’s always had a lot of drive.” For a time, he worked for Gold’s stepfather, who owned a casting agency, and for Gold, who owned an apparel business. She would buy slightly imperfect T-shirts wholesale, at two dollars apiece, and Burnett would resell them, on the Venice boardwalk, for eighteen. That was where he learned “the art of selling,” he has said. The marriage lasted only a year, by which point Burnett had obtained a green card. (Gold, who had also learned a thing or two about selling, went on to co-found the denim company True Religion, which was eventually sold for eight hundred million dollars.)

One day in the early nineties, Burnett read an article about a new kind of athletic event: a long-distance endurance race, known as the Raid Gauloises, in which teams of athletes competed in a multiday trek over harsh terrain. In 1992, Burnett organized a team and participated in a race in Oman. Noticing that he and his teammates were “walking, climbing advertisements” for gear, he signed up sponsors. He also realized that if you filmed such a race it would make for exotic and gripping viewing. Burnett launched his own race, the Eco-Challenge, which was set in such scenic locations as Utah and British Columbia, and was televised on various outlets, including the Discovery Channel. Bienstock, who first met Burnett when he worked on the “Eco-Challenge” show, in 1996, told me that Burnett was less interested in the ravishing backdrops or in the competition than he was in the intense emotional experiences of the racers: “Mark saw the drama in real people being the driving force in an unscripted show.”

By this time, Burnett had met an aspiring actress from Long Island named Dianne Minerva and married her. They became consumed with making the show a success. “When we went to bed at night, we talked about it, when we woke up in the morning, we talked about it,” Dianne Burnett told me recently. In the small world of adventure racing, Mark developed a reputation as a slick and ambitious operator. “He’s like a rattlesnake,” one of his business competitors told the New York Times in 2000. “If you’re close enough long enough, you’re going to get bit.” Mark and Dianne were doing far better than Mark’s parents ever had, but he was restless. One day, they attended a seminar by the motivational speaker Tony Robbins called “Unleash the Power Within.” A good technique for realizing your goals, Robbins counselled, was to write down what you wanted most on index cards, then deposit them around your house, as constant reminders. In a 2012 memoir, “The Road to Reality,” Dianne Burnett recalls that she wrote the word “FAMILY” on her index cards. Mark wrote “MORE MONEY.”

As a young man, Burnett occasionally found himself on a flight for business, looking at the other passengers and daydreaming: If this plane were to crash on a desert island, where would I fit into our new society? Who would lead and who would follow? “Nature strips away the veneer we show one another every day, at which point people become who they really are,” Burnett once wrote. He has long espoused a Hobbesian world view, and when he launched “Survivor” a zero-sum ethos was integral to the show. “It’s quite a mean game, just like life is kind of a mean game,” Burnett told CNN, in 2001. “Everyone’s out for themselves.”

On “Survivor,” the competitors were split into teams, or “tribes.” In this raw arena, Burnett suggested, viewers could glimpse the cruel essence of human nature. It was undeniably compelling to watch contestants of different ages, body types, and dispositions negotiate the primordial challenges of making fire, securing shelter, and foraging for food. At the same time, the scenario was extravagantly contrived: the castaways were shadowed by camera crews, and helicopters thundered around the island, gathering aerial shots.

Moreover, the contestants had been selected for their charisma and their combustibility. “It’s all about casting,” Burnett once observed. “As a producer, my job is to make the choices in who to work with and put on camera.” He was always searching for someone with the sort of personality that could “break through the clutter.” In casting sessions, Burnett sometimes goaded people, to see how they responded to conflict. Katherine Walker, the “Apprentice” producer, told me about an audition in which Burnett taunted a prospective cast member by insinuating that he was secretly gay. (The man, riled, threw the accusation back at Burnett, and was not cast that season.)

Richard Levak, a clinical psychologist who consulted for Burnett on “Survivor” and “The Apprentice” and worked on other reality-TV shows, told me that producers have often liked people he was uncomfortable with for psychological reasons. Emotional volatility makes for compelling television. But recruiting individuals for their instability and then subjecting them to the stress of a televised competition can be perilous. When Burnett was once asked about Sinisa Savija’s suicide, he contended that Savija had “previous psychological problems.” No “Survivor” or “Apprentice” contestants are known to have killed themselves, but in the past two decades several dozen reality-TV participants have. Levak eventually stopped consulting on such programs, in part because he feared that a contestant might harm himself. “I would think, Geez, if this should unravel, they’re going to look at the personality profile and there may have been a red flag,” he recalled.

Burnett excelled at the casting equation to the point where, on Season 2 of “Survivor,” which was shot in the Australian outback, his castaways spent so much time gossiping about the characters from the previous season that Burnett warned them, “The more time you spend talking about the first ‘Survivor,’ the less time you will have on television.” But Burnett’s real genius was in marketing. When he made the rounds in L.A. to pitch “Survivor,” he vowed that it would become a cultural phenomenon, and he presented executives with a mock issue of Newsweek featuring the show on the cover. (Later, “Survivor” did make the cover of the magazine.) Burnett devised a dizzying array of lucrative product-integration deals. In the first season, one of the teams won a care package that was attached to a parachute bearing the red-and-white logo of Target.

“I looked on ‘Survivor’ as much as a marketing vehicle as a television show,” Burnett once explained. He was creating an immersive, cinematic entertainment—and he was known for lush production values, and for paying handsomely to retain top producers and editors—but he was anything but precious about his art. Long before he met Trump, Burnett had developed a Panglossian confidence in the power of branding. “I believe we’re going to see something like the Microsoft Grand Canyon National Park,” he told the New York Times in 2001. “The government won’t take care of all that—companies will.”

Seven weeks before the 2016 election, Burnett, in a smart tux with a shawl collar, arrived with his third wife, the actress and producer Roma Downey, at the Microsoft Theatre, in Los Angeles, for the Emmy Awards. Both “Shark Tank” and “The Voice” won awards that night. But his triumphant evening was marred when the master of ceremonies, Jimmy Kimmel, took an unexpected turn during his opening monologue. “Television brings people together, but television can also tear us apart,” Kimmel mused. “I mean, if it wasn’t for television, would Donald Trump be running for President?” In the crowd, there was laughter. “Many have asked, ‘Who is to blame for Donald Trump?’ ” Kimmel continued. “I’ll tell you who, because he’s sitting right there. That guy.” Kimmel pointed into the audience, and the live feed cut to a closeup of Burnett, whose expression resolved itself into a rigid grin. “Thanks to Mark Burnett, we don’t have to watch reality shows anymore, because we’re living in one,” Kimmel said. Burnett was still smiling, but Kimmel wasn’t. He went on, “I’m going on the record right now. He’s responsible. If Donald Trump gets elected and he builds that wall, the first person we’re throwing over it is Mark Burnett. The tribe has spoken.”

Around this time, Burnett stopped giving interviews about Trump or “The Apprentice.” He continues to speak to the press to promote his shows, but he declined an interview with me. Before Trump’s Presidential run, however, Burnett told and retold the story of how the show originated. When he met Trump at Wollman Rink, Burnett told him an anecdote about how, as a young man selling T-shirts on the boardwalk on Venice Beach, he had been handed a copy of “The Art of the Deal,” by a passing rollerblader. Burnett said that he had read it, and that it had changed his life; he thought, What a legend this guy Trump is!

Anyone else hearing this tale might have found it a bit calculated, if not implausible. Kym Gold, Burnett’s first wife, told me that she has no recollection of him reading Trump’s book in this period. “He liked mystery books,” she said. But when Trump heard the story he was flattered.

Burnett has never liked the phrase “reality television.” For a time, he valiantly campaigned to rebrand his genre “dramality”—“a mixture of drama and reality.” The term never caught on, but it reflected Burnett’s forthright acknowledgment that what he creates is a highly structured, selective, and manipulated rendition of reality. Burnett has often boasted that, for each televised hour of “The Apprentice,” his crews shot as many as three hundred hours of footage. The real alchemy of reality television is the editing—sifting through a compost heap of clips and piecing together an absorbing story. Jonathon Braun, an editor who started working with Burnett on “Survivor” and then worked on the first six seasons of “The Apprentice,” told me, “You don’t make anything up. But you accentuate things that you see as themes.” He readily conceded how distorting this process can be. Much of reality TV consists of reaction shots: one participant says something outrageous, and the camera cuts away to another participant rolling her eyes. Often, Braun said, editors lift an eye roll from an entirely different part of the conversation.

“The Apprentice” was built around a weekly series of business challenges. At the end of each episode, Trump determined which competitor should be “fired.” But, as Braun explained, Trump was frequently unprepared for these sessions, with little grasp of who had performed well. Sometimes a candidate distinguished herself during the contest only to get fired, on a whim, by Trump. When this happened, Braun said, the editors were often obliged to “reverse engineer” the episode, scouring hundreds of hours of footage to emphasize the few moments when the exemplary candidate might have slipped up, in an attempt to assemble an artificial version of history in which Trump’s shoot-from-the-hip decision made sense. During the making of “The Apprentice,” Burnett conceded that the stories were constructed in this way, saying, “We know each week who has been fired, and, therefore, you’re editing in reverse.” Braun noted that President Trump’s staff seems to have been similarly forced to learn the art of retroactive narrative construction, adding, “I find it strangely validating to hear that they’re doing the same thing in the White House.”

Such sleight of hand is the industry standard in reality television. But the entire premise of “The Apprentice” was also something of a con. When Trump and Burnett told the story of their partnership, both suggested that Trump was initially wary of committing to a TV show, because he was so busy running his flourishing real-estate empire. During a 2004 panel at the Museum of Television and Radio, in Los Angeles, Trump claimed that “every network” had tried to get him to do a reality show, but he wasn’t interested: “I don’t want to have cameras all over my office, dealing with contractors, politicians, mobsters, and everyone else I have to deal with in my business. You know, mobsters don’t like, as they’re talking to me, having cameras all over the room. It would play well on television, but it doesn’t play well with them.”

“The Apprentice” portrayed Trump not as a skeezy hustler who huddles with local mobsters but as a plutocrat with impeccable business instincts and unparalleled wealth—a titan who always seemed to be climbing out of helicopters or into limousines. “Most of us knew he was a fake,” Braun told me. “He had just gone through I don’t know how many bankruptcies. But we made him out to be the most important person in the world. It was like making the court jester the king.” Bill Pruitt, another producer, recalled, “We walked through the offices and saw chipped furniture. We saw a crumbling empire at every turn. Our job was to make it seem otherwise.”

Trump maximized his profits from the start. When producers were searching for office space in which to stage the show, he vetoed every suggestion, then mentioned that he had an empty floor available in Trump Tower, which he could lease at a reasonable price. (After becoming President, he offered a similar arrangement to the Secret Service.) When the production staff tried to furnish the space, they found that local venders, stiffed by Trump in the past, refused to do business with them.

More than two hundred thousand people applied for one of the sixteen spots on Season 1, and throughout the show’s early years the candidates were conspicuously credentialled and impressive. Officially, the grand prize was what the show described as “the dream job of a lifetime”—the unfathomable privilege of being mentored by Donald Trump while working as a junior executive at the Trump Organization. All the candidates paid lip service to the notion that Trump was a peerless businessman, but not all of them believed it. A standout contestant in Season 1 was Kwame Jackson, a young African-American man with an M.B.A. from Harvard, who had worked at Goldman Sachs. Jackson told me that he did the show not out of any desire for Trump’s tutelage but because he regarded the prospect of a nationally televised business competition as “a great platform” for career advancement. “At Goldman, I was in private-wealth management, so Trump was not, by any stretch, the most financially successful person I’d ever met or managed,” Jackson told me. He was quietly amused when other contestants swooned over Trump’s deal-making prowess or his elevated tastes—when they exclaimed, on tours of tacky Trump properties, “Oh, my God, this is so rich—this is, like, really rich!” Fran Lebowitz once remarked that Trump is “a poor person’s idea of a rich person,” and Jackson was struck, when the show aired, by the extent to which Americans fell for the ruse. “Main Street America saw all those glittery things, the helicopter and the gold-plated sinks, and saw the most successful person in the universe,” he recalled. “The people I knew in the world of high finance understood that it was all a joke.”

This is an oddly common refrain among people who were involved in “The Apprentice”: that the show was camp, and that the image of Trump as an avatar of prosperity was delivered with a wink. Somehow, this interpretation eluded the audience. Jonathon Braun marvelled, “People started taking it seriously!”

When I watched several dozen episodes of the show recently, I saw no hint of deliberate irony. Admittedly, it is laughable to hear the candidates, at a fancy meal, talk about watching Trump for cues on which utensil they should use for each course, as if he were Emily Post. But the show’s reverence for its pugnacious host, however credulous it might seem now, comes across as sincere.

Did Burnett believe what he was selling? Or was Trump another two-dollar T-shirt that he pawned off for eighteen? It’s difficult to say. One person who has collaborated with Burnett likened him to Harold Hill, the travelling fraudster in “The Music Man,” saying, “There’s always an angle with Mark. He’s all about selling.” Burnett is fluent in the jargon of self-help, and he has published two memoirs, both written with Bill O’Reilly’s ghostwriter, which double as manuals on how to get rich. One of them, titled “Jump In!: Even if You Don’t Know How to Swim,” now reads like an inadvertent metaphor for the Trump Presidency. “Don’t waste time on overpreparation,” the book advises.

At the 2004 panel, Burnett made it clear that, with “The Apprentice,” he was selling an archetype. “Donald is the real current-day version of a tycoon,” he said. “Donald will say whatever Donald wants to say. He takes no prisoners. If you’re Donald’s friend, he’ll defend you all day long. If you’re not, he’s going to kill you. And that’s very American. It’s like the guys who built the West.” Like Trump, Burnett seemed to have both a jaundiced impression of the gullible essence of the American people and a brazen enthusiasm for how to exploit it. “The Apprentice” was about “what makes America great,” Burnett said. “Everybody wants one of a few things in this country. They’re willing to pay to lose weight. They’re willing to pay to grow hair. They’re willing to pay to have sex. And they’re willing to pay to learn how to get rich.”

At the start of “The Apprentice,” Burnett’s intention may have been to tell a more honest story, one that acknowledged Trump’s many stumbles. Burnett surely recognized that Trump was at a low point, but, according to Walker, “Mark sensed Trump’s potential for a comeback.” Indeed, in a voice-over introduction in the show’s pilot, Trump conceded a degree of weakness that feels shockingly self-aware when you listen to it today: “I was seriously in trouble. I was billions of dollars in debt. But I fought back, and I won, big league.”

The show was an instant hit, and Trump’s public image, and the man himself, began to change. Not long after the première, Trump suggested in an Esquire article that people now liked him, “whereas before, they viewed me as a bit of an ogre.” Jim Dowd, Trump’s former publicist, told Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher, the authors of the 2016 book “Trump Revealed,” that after “The Apprentice” began airing “people on the street embraced him.” Dowd noted, “All of a sudden, there was none of the old mocking,” adding, “He was a hero.” Dowd, who died in 2016, pinpointed the public’s embrace of “The Apprentice” as “the bridge” to Trump’s Presidential run.

The show’s camera operators often shot Trump from low angles, as you would a basketball pro, or Mt. Rushmore. Trump loomed over the viewer, his face in a jowly glower, his hair darker than it is now, the metallic auburn of a new penny. (“Apprentice” employees were instructed not to fiddle with Trump’s hair, which he dyed and styled himself.) Trump’s entrances were choreographed for maximum impact, and often set to a moody accompaniment of synthesized drums and cymbals. The “boardroom”—a stage set where Trump determined which candidate should be fired—had the menacing gloom of a “Godfather” movie. In one scene, Trump ushered contestants through his rococo Trump Tower aerie, and said, “I show this apartment to very few people. Presidents. Kings.” In the tabloid ecosystem in which he had long languished, Trump was always Donald, or the Donald. On “The Apprentice,” he finally became Mr. Trump.

“We have to subscribe to our own myths,” the “Apprentice” producer Bill Pruitt told me. “Mark Burnett is a great mythmaker. He blew up that balloon and he believed in it.” Burnett, preferring to spend time pitching new ideas for shows, delegated most of the daily decisions about “The Apprentice” to his team, many of them veterans of “Survivor” and “Eco-Challenge.” But he furiously promoted the show, often with Trump at his side. According to many of Burnett’s collaborators, one of his greatest skills is his handling of talent—understanding their desires and anxieties, making them feel protected and secure. On interview tours with Trump, Burnett exhibited the studied instincts of a veteran producer: anytime the spotlight strayed in his direction, he subtly redirected it at Trump.

Burnett, who was forty-three when Season 1 aired, described the fifty-seven-year-old Trump as his “soul mate.” He expressed astonishment at Trump’s “laser-like focus and retention.” He delivered flattery in the ostentatiously obsequious register that Trump prefers. Burnett said he hoped that he might someday rise to Trump’s “level” of prestige and success, adding, “I don’t know if I’ll ever make it. But you know something? If you’re not shooting for the stars, you’re not shooting!” On one occasion, Trump invited Burnett to dinner at his Trump Tower apartment; Burnett had anticipated an elegant meal, and, according to an associate, concealed his surprise when Trump handed him a burger from McDonald’s.

Trump liked to suggest that he and Burnett had come up with the show “together”; Burnett never corrected him. When Carolyn Kepcher, a Trump Organization executive who appeared alongside Trump in early seasons of “The Apprentice,” seemed to be courting her own celebrity, Trump fired her and gave on-air roles to three of his children, Ivanka, Donald, Jr., and Eric. Burnett grasped that the best way to keep Trump satisfied was to insure that he never felt upstaged. “It’s Batman and Robin, and I’m clearly Robin,” he said.

Burnett sometimes went so far as to imply that Trump’s involvement in “The Apprentice” was a form of altruism. “This is Donald Trump giving back,” he told the Times in 2003, then offered a vague invocation of post-9/11 civic duty: “What makes the world a safe place right now? I think it’s American dollars, which come from taxes, which come because of Donald Trump.” Trump himself had been candid about his reasons for doing the show. “My jet’s going to be in every episode,” he told Jim Dowd, adding that the production would be “great for my brand.”

It was. Season 1 of “The Apprentice” flogged one Trump property after another. The contestants stayed at Trump Tower, did events at Trump National Golf Club, sold Trump Ice bottled water. “I’ve always felt that the Trump Taj Mahal should do even better,” Trump announced before sending the contestants off on a challenge to lure gamblers to his Atlantic City casino, which soon went bankrupt. The prize for the winning team was an opportunity to stay and gamble at the Taj, trailed by cameras.

“The Apprentice” was so successful that, by the time the second season launched, Trump’s lacklustre tie-in products were being edged out by blue-chip companies willing to pay handsomely to have their wares featured onscreen. In 2004, Kevin Harris, a producer who helped Burnett secure product-integration deals, sent an e-mail describing a teaser reel of Trump endorsements that would be used to attract clients: “Fast cutting of Donald—‘Crest is the biggest’ ‘I have worn Levis since I was 2’ ‘I love M&Ms’ ‘Unilever is the biggest company in the world’ all with the MONEY MONEY MONEY song over the top.”

Burnett and Trump negotiated with NBC to retain the rights to income derived from product integration, and split the fees. On set, Trump often gloated about this easy money. One producer remembered, “You’d say, ‘Hey, Donald, today we have Pepsi, and they’re paying three million to be in the show,’ and he’d say, ‘That’s great, I just made a million five!’ ”

Originally, Burnett had planned to cast a different mogul in the role of host each season. But Trump took to his part more nimbly than anyone might have predicted. He wouldn’t read a script—he stumbled over the words and got the enunciation all wrong. But off the cuff he delivered the kind of zesty banter that is the lifeblood of reality television. He barked at one contestant, “Sam, you’re sort of a disaster. Don’t take offense, but everyone hates you.” Katherine Walker told me that producers often struggled to make Trump seem coherent, editing out garbled syntax and malapropisms. “We cleaned it up so that he was his best self,” she said, adding, “I’m sure Donald thinks that he was never edited.” However, she acknowledged, he was a natural for the medium: whereas reality-TV producers generally must amp up personalities and events, to accentuate conflict and conjure intrigue, “we didn’t have to change him—he gave us stuff to work with.” Trump improvised the tagline for which “The Apprentice” became famous: “You’re fired.”

NBC executives were so enamored of their new star that they instructed Burnett and his producers to give Trump more screen time. This is when Trump’s obsession with television ratings took hold. “I didn’t know what demographics was four weeks ago,” he told Larry King. “All of a sudden, I heard we were No. 3 in demographics. Last night, we were No. 1 in demographics. And that’s the important rating.” The ratings kept rising, and the first season’s finale was the No. 1 show of the week. For Burnett, Trump’s rehabilitation was a satisfying confirmation of a populist aesthetic. “I like it when critics slam a movie and it does massive box office,” he once said. “I love it.” Whereas others had seen in Trump only a tattered celebrity of the eighties, Burnett had glimpsed a feral charisma.

On June 26, 2018, the day the Supreme Court upheld President Trump’s travel ban targeting people from several predominantly Muslim countries, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sent out invitations to an event called a Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom. If Pompeo registered any dissonance between such lofty rhetoric and Administration policies targeting certain religions, he didn’t mention it.

The event took place the next month, at the State Department, in Washington, D.C., and one of the featured speakers was Mark Burnett. In 2004, he had been getting his hair cut at a salon in Malibu when he noticed an attractive woman getting a pedicure. It was Roma Downey, the star of “Touched by an Angel,” a long-running inspirational drama on CBS. They fell in love, and married in 2007; together, they helped rear Burnett’s two sons from his second marriage and Downey’s daughter. Downey, who grew up in a Catholic family in Northern Ireland, is deeply religious, and eventually Burnett, too, reoriented his life around Christianity. “Faith is a major part of our marriage,” Downey said, in 2013, adding, “We pray together.”

For people who had long known Burnett, it was an unexpected turn. This was a man who had ended his second marriage during a live interview with Howard Stern. To promote “Survivor” in 2002, Burnett called in to Stern’s radio show, and Stern asked casually if he was married. When Burnett hesitated, Stern pounced. “You didn’t survive marriage?” he asked. “You don’t want your girlfriend to know you’re married?” As Burnett dissembled, Stern kept prying, and the exchange became excruciating. Finally, Stern asked if Burnett was “a single guy,” and Burnett replied, “You know? Yeah.” This was news to Dianne, Burnett’s wife of a decade. As she subsequently wrote in her memoir, “The 18-to-34 radio demographic knew where my marriage was headed before I did.”

In 2008, Burnett’s longtime business partner, a lawyer named Conrad Riggs, filed a lawsuit alleging that Burnett had stiffed him to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. According to the lawsuit, the two men had made an agreement before “Survivor” and “The Apprentice” that Riggs would own ten per cent of Burnett’s company. When Riggs got married, someone who attended the ceremony told me, Burnett was his best man, and gave a speech saying that his success would have been impossible without Riggs. Several years later, when Burnett’s company was worth half a billion dollars, he denied having made any agreement. The suit settled out of court. (Riggs declined to comment.)

Article from January 7, 2019 By Patrick Radden Keefe

Yobaba - New Yorker mag articles are LONG; I posted this mostly for my own reference so I will have a record of it; that said, I strongly urge everyone to read this. it explains a lot.

[bbclesmis]

King Of The Castle: At Home With Dominic West

As the star of HBO's The Wire and The Affair, Dominic West made his name playing conflicted Americans battling their demons and struggling to find their places in the world. And cheating on their women. In real life, he's a self-deprecating father of four from outside Sheffield, and among his chief preoccupations is how to preserve the 800-year-old Irish castle inherited by his wife.

"Excuse me," says Dominic West, "I’m just going to wipe this so you can sit down and you won’t be infected with disease." About seven crumbs on his otherwise clean kitchen table disappear with the swipe of a tea towel, and he gets back to the business of making lunch. We’re in the kitchen of his house in Wiltshire, where he lives with his wife Catherine and their four children.

His head turns from cupboard to cupboard, like he’s watching a tennis match. “Where has the rice gone? Would you like rice?”

Yes please, if that’s what you’re having.

“I am, if I can fucking find it.”

He fucking finds it and a pan of rice goes on the hob next to the pan of leftover beef stew. “So I’m on the cover?” he says, looking out of the window. “But doesn’t that mean you’ve got to try and make it interesting?”

In 2000, Dominic West joined an Argentinian circus. This was the year before he auditioned for and won his breakthrough role of Detective Jimmy McNulty on The Wire and the year after he had a single line (“The boy’s here to see Padmé”) as a guard of one of those science-fiction sliding doors in Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace. He was 30, five years out of drama school and father to a one-year-old daughter.

The circus, De La Guarda, had a show, also called De La Guarda, at the Roundhouse in Camden. It was the hottest ticket in London that year. The audience entered the round to ambient music under a low paper ceiling. Performers would burst through the paper, on ropes, and eventually a pounding live soundtrack accompanied a dozen or more roped performers as they ran around the walls of the circular venue. Water rained down. Some audience members would be lifted into the air; others, perhaps more fortunate, would be pressed into urgent dancing with attractive, adrenalised Argentinians unclipped from their shackles. Or indeed, West himself.

‘What’s amazing,’ says Keira Knightley, ‘is that Dominic can play characters who should be total dickheads, yet he manages to give them a point of view and his own incredible charm. It is a great skill’

“Why did I do it?” says West, somewhat incredulously. “You saw it! Wouldn’t you want to run away and join that circus? It was such a sexy show. I saw it in London and New York, then heard they were auditioning in London and I had to do it. I did a lot of shows in five months with those amazing men and women, then they went to Vegas. It was a disaster there. The water. People dressed up for a Vegas show — of course they didn’t want to get wet.”

West didn’t want to go to Vegas. But he would end up spending a lot more time in America, filming five seasons of The Wire and four seasons of The Affair, with a fifth and final one due to start filming a couple of days after we make lunch.

“The toughest part of making these big episodic American television shows is missing my family and the boredom,” he says, gearing himself up for the process to begin again. “Sitting around waiting and not being bored is hard. There was a time when I had a play in the West End [Butley, 2011] and was learning Iago [for Othello] and I had more on than usual. That was hard work, but the harder that aspect of the work gets, the more enjoyable it is. Actual graft is what’s great about acting. That’s something I relish, because most of the time, it’s about coping with tedium.”

To stop himself being bored on set, West likes to have fun. “You can’t not have fun with him,” says Keira Knightley, soon to be seen alongside West in the film Colette. “I think fun is something that Dominic brings to everything. He very much likes a night out, is always up for a laugh and is, in the best way, wicked. And he is a phenomenally good actor, he really is. So effortless.”

“For a lot of us,” Knightley says, “who do actually need to concentrate when we’re working, it’s, ‘How are you that good when you're chatting and joking until the very last second?’ Even I had to tell him to shut up so I could concentrate. Which I had to do quite a lot.”

West is not about to shut up. And he’s not the only one. “I just did a thing with Olivia Colman [a BBC mini-series adaptation of Les Misérables] and: fuck me! Ha ha ha! The whole thing is like playing top-level sports with her. How frivolous can you be up to ‘Action!’ and then be amazing. She doesn’t do that consciously, she is just really fucking good. She is way, way, way better than me. I had to stop listening to her because she is so funny.”

Then a more serious thought occurs. “Malcolm Gladwell’s thing about 10,000 hours [the writer’s theory, from his book Outliers, that to be expert in any field requires that exact amount of practice time]? I worked it out and I’ve had at least 20,000 hours. I’ve acted so much now I can turn it on and off, and that’s maybe where the humour thing comes in. I have had an awful lot of practice at this.”

Dominic West first got the taste for drama when he was nine years old. His mother, Moya, gave him a part in her amateur production of The Winslow Boy, at Sheffield University’s drama studio. His father, George, had a factory in Wakefield that made vandal-proof bus shelters. George’s father, Harold, a managing director of a steelworks in Barnsley, fought in WWI and was wounded at the Battle of Vimy Ridge. “After, he wrote a note to go with his medals,” says West, “that said, ‘Here are a few mementos from a deeply happy part of my life’.” West has found documentaries commemorating the centenary of the Armistice “deeply moving.”

He is the sixth of seven children, with five sisters and an elder brother. They grew up in a large house on the edge of the Peak District, about 10 miles southwest of Sheffield. He boarded at Eton and hated it to begin with. “I was very homesick, had no reference to it, didn’t know anyone who had gone and I felt I was in the wrong place.” Inspiring teachers and school plays gave him something to be excited about and set him on his path.

“It’s pretentious to say, really, but my acting education was defined by doing Hamlet at Eton, reading Ulysses when I was doing my English degree at Trinity College in Dublin, then War and Peace, which we put on at Guildhall [School of Music & Drama in London]. That’s it, really. All I learned anywhere.”

Legend has it that in the audience watching his Prince of Denmark was Damian Lewis, a couple of years behind West at school, and later the star of Band of Brothers, Homeland and Billions. So taken was the younger lad by what he saw that he decided to become an actor.

“Categorically: no,” Lewis tells me, over the phone from Los Angeles. “I had always acted at school and always enjoyed it. Me thinking it was something I could do more seriously didn’t happen until I was 16 years old, after seeing Dom do Hamlet. He was very charismatic. A big, booming sonorous voice, especially for a 17-year-old. I was very taken with him, he was very captivating up on stage.”

Since graduating from Guildhall, West has worked solidly. He is not a huge movie star but is highly successful and versatile. There aren’t many men who could convincingly play both Fred West and Richard Burton, as West has done. He won a Bafta for his Fred West. He’s most memorable as Jimmy McNulty, not least because he and The Wire are so good, but also because constant reminders of those two facts have become standard reference points in the increasingly vast conversation about the New Golden Age of TV.

He has, in his own words, played “a long line of philandering cads”, from McNulty on to Hector Madden, the Fifties news anchor in two seasons of The Hour for the BBC, to Noah in The Affair and Willy in Colette. “What’s amazing,” says Keira Knightley, “is that he can play characters that should be total dickheads, yet he manages to give them a point of view and his own incredible charm, so you sort of forgive them for how terrible they might be. It is a great skill.”

But he is far from typecast. His five film roles previous to Willy in Colette are: Lara Croft’s dad, a sort of country-gent Indiana Jones, in Tomb Raider; a quietly pompous pyjamas-wearing modern artist in the Swedish film The Square, which won the Palme D’Or at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival; Rudder, a comic-relief Cockney sea lion in Pixar’s Finding Dory; a Teflon swine of a CEO opposite George Clooney and Julia Roberts in Money Monster; and, in Genius, Ernest Hemingway.

There have been stage successes, including star turns in the West End. Following up the blockbuster and critically lauded play Jerusalem, the writer Jez Butterworth and director Ian Rickson could have done any play with anyone on any stage. They chose Dominic West to star in The River, a short, intense play with one man and two women in the 90-seater upstairs room at the Royal Court Theatre in London, for which West won universal praise.

‘It is a bad thing to be self-deprecating. It’s quite an English thing, which you become very aware of in America. People don’t understand: why do yourself down? I sort of agree with it, now’

“Dominic is able to unleash his unconscious in a really ‘present’ way,” says Ian Rickson. “It allows him to fuse into the darkness of Fred West, for example, or the troubled soul of McNulty. In terms of archetypes, he has a trickster quality hiding a warrior/lover inside. That’s exciting. There’s very little ego and a lot of generosity of spirit. He actually has a refreshingly comic sense of himself, so he does really value the opportunities he has, and doesn’t take them too seriously.”

West feels he does and he doesn’t. “I suppose deep down there’s a feeling that what I do isn’t desperately serious. It might have been Mark Boxer, the cartoonist, who said he went to some lunch for cartoonists, an awards maybe, and he was having a piss and the guy next to him said, ‘Cartoonist. It’s not a real job, is it?’ And he said, ‘No, it’s not. Isn’t that great!’ He took great comfort from that and I feel the same about acting. But there is something in me which feels, partly because I have been doing it all my life and did as a hobby before I did it professionally, that this is not a serious job for adults.”

Perhaps this is why he’s so self-deprecating. Twice during our conversations, he says that he’s not a “real actor”, bringing up Daniel Day-Lewis’s commitment to doing an accent the entire time he makes a film, on and off set, and his own inability to match that; and pointing out Robert De Niro’s weight gain for Raging Bull. For Colette, West wore a fat suit.

And yet, during our conversations, he trots out seven perfect accents and imitations: Mick Jagger, the German film director Werner Herzog, Northern Irish, Irish, Australian, New York and a deep, thespian-type voice to convey mock indignance. He’s not showing off. Some of the voices were to make anecdotes funnier and others were just as anyone might do an accent subconsciously when you think of someone with an accent. You know, for fun.

But he can be serious. “It is a bad thing, to be self-deprecating,” he says, a little bit disappointed with himself. “Maybe it’s an educational thing. It’s quite an English thing, which you become very aware of in America. People just don’t understand why on earth you would do that. There are enough people who would do you down, why do yourself down? I sort of agree with it, now. It is tiresome.”

Clarke Peters, who played Lester Freamon in The Wire, and Othello to West’s Iago on stage in 2011, has a different view of his friend’s dilemma. “As good an actor as he is, his self- deprecating comments are his truth. He would prefer to be playing than talking about himself; exploring a character, discovering nuances, dissecting a character’s arc, is where he’s comfortable. Presenting all that unseen work is nerve-wracking. And actors are never the best judges of their own work. So, to be safe from criticism and microscopic scrutiny, self-deprecation is the best defence."

The fat suit in Colette was no cop-out. “I was then about to play Jean Valjean,” West says, more forgiving of himself now, “a man who has been in prison for 19 years, so there was a clash of waistline imperatives.” He plays the lead in a song-free, six-part Les Misérables — the project in which Olivia Colman out-joked him — the BBC’s first big drama of 2019, with the opening episode broadcast on New Year’s Day.

According to Keira Knightley, the extra padding, and a walrus moustache, did not mute West’s physical attractiveness. “Nobody looks good in that,” she says, “but he somehow manages to be dangerously sexy through it. It was a main conversation between the rest of us on set: how he managed to ooze sexuality while he was farting in two fat suits. Quite extraordinary. I can’t think of another actor who might be able to do that.”

Sarah Treem, the showrunner of The Affair, could not conceive of anyone else but West as her leading man, Noah Solloway. “He didn’t audition. I wrote it with him in mind,” she says. “I was a huge fan of The Wire and I just loved how complicated he could be — both likeable and unlikeable at the same time.”

The Affair begins with Noah, a married father of four, embarking on a fling with a waitress, Alison, played by Ruth Wilson, and then follows the fall-out for the two of them, their spouses and extended families. West, Wilson and the wider cast are terrific, as is the show’s central conceit of telling the story from the point-of-view of different characters, usually two in each hour-long episode.

“Dominic is so good at playing all different facets of Noah,” Treem continues. “His intelligence, his lust, his insecurity, the pain of his childhood, his love for his children. He lets Noah be a very complicated, sometimes deeply generous, sometimes horribly selfish, man.”

West concurs, with a caveat. “I have had difficulty wondering why someone who I can identify with — he’s my age and has a bunch of kids — would do the things he does. Sarah, a very brilliant woman younger than I am, looked at me with a raised eyebrow when I said, ‘Men my age just don’t do that. Why leave your wife and kids for a waitress and start another family?’ She told me the stories of several real people who had. Not that I want my characters to be sympathetic, but I want to give them the benefit of the doubt and I have struggled with Noah in that regard.”

West has five children: a daughter, 20, with former girlfriend Polly Astor, and two sons and two daughters aged 12, 10, nine and five, with his wife, the landscape designer Catherine FitzGerald. It is Catherine’s beef stew we have been eating for lunch, their children’s clothes drying on the Aga behind us. On a smaller table in a nook in the corner of the kitchen, next to some half-completed maths homework, is a pile of dad’s hardbacks: The Flame by Leonard Cohen, William Dalrymple’s retelling of the Indian mutiny of 1857, The Last Mughal, and Changing Stages, Richard Eyre and Nicholas Wright’s history of 20th-century theatre.

Out in the driveway, a small child’s BMX has been discarded in front of mum’s Audi A3, in perfect position to be crunched into the gravel next time the car sets off. At lunch, West didn’t know where the rice was because he and his family have only lived in this house, a former brewery in a Wiltshire hamlet, for a few weeks. They used to live in Shepherd’s Bush, in a house that once belonged to another actor from Sheffield, Brian Glover.

“I have led my family out of London slightly against their will,” West admits, “and quite legitimately want my children to be around plants and animals more than they perhaps might be in London. My wife said I’m trying to create my childhood home here and I said, [now, the thespian accent] ‘No I’m not! Preposterous! What do you mean? It’s nothing like that!’”

His wife’s childhood home is Glin Castle in County Limerick, Ireland, a true country pile (15 ensuite bedrooms, 380 acres, secret bookcase doors) that, in various versions, has been in her family for nearly 800 years. (It’s the house you can see in the background of the photographs on these pages.) She and West want to hold on to it. To do so, the house needs to become a going concern as an events and private hire venue to cover its annual £130,000 running costs.

“I do like history and I do like old buildings,” West says. “I’m also conscious of my wife’s father and his and her legacies. He worked in conservation in Ireland, to try and preserve these old buildings, which were out of favour for many years. It’s up to us to try and keep that going, because when they’re bought by hotels and the like, they’re often destroyed.”

This Christmas and New Year, he says, “we have a super-A-list celebrity taking it. Who, I can’t possibly divulge. Actually, can you do us a big favour and put the website, please, at the end of the piece? ‘Glin dash castle dot com.’ It would make my life easier.”

It’s time to do the school pick-up. “We can keep talking in the car,” he says, and leads the way to a silver Chrysler Grand Voyager. “It has,” West says, buckling up, “the biggest capacity of any people carrier.”

Precisely something a turning-50-next-year dad-of-five should say. “I have no problem getting older,” he says. “For male actors of my age there is less emphasis, and I have already started to play the dad of the lover instead of the lover. The pressure is off. Some swami said that the key to happiness is ‘I don’t mind what happens.’ You mind less about things, let go of them. Turning 50 is great. My daughter is also turning 21, so we should have quite a party.”

He has regrets. “I suppose I wish I had played more Shakespearean roles.”

What about the old-man ones? “Only Lear is as good as the young ones.”

What about not being James Bond? “Fuck no! I’m delighted now that I didn’t get it.”

Auditioning for Bond, in 2005, West turned up in a T-shirt and tatty jeans. “I remember the director, Martin Campbell, saying, ‘Thank Christ you haven’t turned up in a tux like everybody else’. It was for Casino Royale. At the time, I really wanted to get it. I love Bond, and I was the right age for it. They asked me, ‘What do you think should happen with Bond?’ And I said something deeply uninspired like, ‘I think he should go back to being more like Sean Connery’. I thought then that it was the best job you can do. Now, I’m not so sure. You have a year-and-a-half of hell doing publicity.”

West pulls up opposite the school. “Wait here. Enjoy the smell. Kids’ banana skins,” he says, opening the driver’s door. Puzzled, I sniff the air. There is no unpleasant aroma. The interior of Dominic West’s car smells perfectly fine. But, of course, he claims otherwise. He’s a terrific actor and a thoroughly likeable chap, but that self-deprecation still needs some work.

Colette is in cinemas on 11 January; glin-castle.com (https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/a25557268/dominic-west-interview/)

[tetcny]

A quick overview /tribute.

November 1934; 83 years ago,

HAMMER FILMS began .

In November 1934 comedian William Hinds, founded Hammer Productions Ltd. at Imperial House, Regent Street, London. The company name came from Hinds‘ stage name, Will Hammer, which he had taken from the area of London in which he lived, Hammersmith.

Their first film was THE PUBLIC LIFE OF HENRY THE NINTH (released in 1935). The title references the hugely popular Alexander Korda film THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII (1934).  Sadly this 60 minute quota quickie ,is a lost film .

In May ,1935 Enrique Carreras and Hinds co founded Exclusive Films Distributors , moving offices to Wardour Street. This would allow them to handle distribution of their own films and that of others.

                                                           Enrique Carreras

Hammer then took it’s first step into the genre that it would be best known for.

  THE MYSTERY OF THE MARY CELESTE (aka PHANTOM SHIP in the U.S.) starred Bela Lugosi .Inspired by an actual mystery from 1872, Lugosi plays a character who goes mad (naturally). The American print is 18 minutes shorter , but is thought to be the only version still extant .

Hammer also made SONG OF FREEDOM (1936), starring the great Paul Robeson , but these two films, with which Hammer hoped to enter the lucrative U.S. market ,were more expensive ,and so the studio  went back to program quickies like the caper film THE BANK MESSENGER MYSTERY (1936) and the musical comedy SPORTING LOVE (1937,based upon a 1934 stage show of the same name that ran 300 performances in 1934).

  In late 1937, Hammer Films  declared bankruptcy ,but Exclusive continued distribution of other filmmakers’ product .

After WWII, Hammer resumed production again with more second features  like DEATH IN HIGH HEELS, 1947.

They licensed popular radio dramas and turned them into popular features ,such as The Adventures of PC 49 and Dick Barton.

  In 1951, they made a deal with American distributor Lippert, who distributed the films in the U.S. ,while supplying an American star . This was both an inexpensive way for Lippert to get product, while giving the British studio exposure in the U.S. and a star name to differentiate their product from other British B films.

In 1955, they made a deal to adapt the  hugely popular television serial THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT ( first aired in 1953). To emphasis the “x” rating , Hammer dropped the “e” ,releasing the film as THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT. 

The film was a huge hit, and led Hammer to start making more films in the science fiction/horror genre . The studio had no love for the market, and indeed ,had they discovered they could make successful musicals, they would have produced them.

                               ROOM TO LET (1950)- not a musical.

Realizing that Frankenstein was in the public domain , they hired popular tv actor Peter Cushing, plus a tall relatively unknown jobbing actor named Christopher Lee (when popular Bernard Bresslaw asked for too much money) ,and lighting struck, bringing to life the monster we now know as Hammer Films to an international market with their signature film, THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN ( 1957).

Their place in cinema history was sealed the following year when they paired the Cushing with Lee ,giving the latter the title role in DRACULA /HORROR OF DRACULA(1958).

                 .

Throughout the 1960s, Hammer was the studio for horror.  Though making films in other genres ,including mysteries and swashbucklers, the staple was supplying new thrills to audiences .

In the 1970s, tastes began to change , and Hammer tried to keep up, while still trying to produce the type of film that had made them popular.  It was a near impossible task, but Hammer had some successes ,and indeed , produced some of their finest films during this period.

With British film production going through one of it’s periodic dry periods, as well as losing their American distribution deals, Hammer had a harder time producing films. They turned to television once again ,producing comedies that turned out to be some of the biggest hits in the U.K. that the studio had ever  produced. However, they didn’t travel well to overseas markets.

The studio tried co productions with The Shaw Brothers, who were producing the very popular martial arts films of the period.  What the British filmmakers discovered was was how primitive the conditions were for their style of film making ( it was difficult to record live sound,due to studios with tin roofs!) ,and after two films , the very disappointing SHATTER  as well as the interesting LEGEND OF THE SEVEN GOLDEN VAMPIRES ,they once again looked to other sources of finance (both filmed in 1974 , but given very spotty releases).

  Hammer made another big budget film thanks to German investors and EMI ,adapting Dennis Wheatley‘s TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER (1976) . Once again ,bringing in a major Hollywood actor(Richard Widmark,who was not happy with the production), it is an ugly looking production , the most notable exception being it  introducing the world to Nastassja Kinski (who had , though ,already a career in modeling as well as appearing prior in Wm Wenders’ THE WRONG MOVE ,1975). The  ending  of this film  leaves most people confused and /or angry.

  A lot of other productions were announced but never made ( Kali: The Devil Bride of Dracula ; Nessie ),until the 1979 remake of the 1938 Hitchcock film, THE LADY VANISHES.

  Once again, some major Hollywood stars were brought in (Elliot Gould,Cybil Shepherd) as well as Angela Lansbury and Herbert Lom .  The film , a costly £2.5 million ( raised thanks to a deal with Rank ) , the film was given mixed reviews, but did decently at the box office. However, it was not enough to save the studio . and it ceased theatrical film production ,being taken over by Roy  Skeggs & Brian Lawrence.

Hammer ‘s name still had viability, and ,in conjunction with ITC (as well as Skeggs/Lawrence‘s own Cinema Arts),  HAMMER’S HOUSE OF HORRORS produced 13  53 minute episodes for television in 1980.  This was not Hammer‘s first attempt at television, having produced a failed tv pilot for Columbia in 1958, TALES OF FRANKENSTEIN , as well as the 1968 17 episodes series JOURNEY TO THE UNKNOWN .

The follow up , HAMMER HOUSE OF MYSTERY & SUSPENSE in 1984   ,were longer (70 minutes ) but only 13 episodes were made, and time slots shifted so audiences who would have enjoyed them had a hard time finding it, and so it was considered a failure.  

It seemed Hammer only existed now in licensing productions for television airings, as well as leasing to the growing cable television market as well as home video.

Over the next few decades, rumors kept surfacing that Hammer was returning in some form or another, to produce direct to video product or medium budget theatrical or

cable films.

Finally , Big Brother creator John De Mol acquired the assets of Hammer, including the name ,and re-launched the studio under CEO Simon Oakes in 2007.

Their initial production got a lot of press , as it premiered as a multi part series on Myspace .  Called BEYOND THE RAVE (oddly referencing rival  Amicus ‘ studios final anthology horror film, FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE, 1973), this 2008 production was released in twenty four minute installments. The production ,however, was trashed by many fans of the studio, who found the characters poorly written ,with many only introduced just to be killed off by the vampires of the tale.

BEYOND THE RAVE was released to DVD ,with extras including an excised scene featuring Ingrid Pitt (who had starred in Hammer‘s VAMPIRE LOVERS (1970) and COUNTESS DRACULA (1971).

  In 2008 ,  Hammer took part in a Swedish -Irish-UK co-production called

WAKE WOOD. The film is a gruesome and dark supernatural thriller that often recalls THE WICKER MAN(1973) . Indeed , it would have been a worthier sequel to that classic than the very disappointing THE WICKER TREE (2011).

Sadly,  WAKE WOOD  sat for three years ,getting only a token release in four theatres before being dumped onto DVD.   It is a superlative horror film that deserves to be better known.

                    In 2009 ,Hammer tried a return to the psychological thrillers that they had made in the 1960s, filming THE RESIDENT in New York City and New Mexico. Starring Hillary Swank, it also was Christopher Lee‘s first Hammer film since TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER 36 years earlier.  The film was a slick production, but sat on a shelf for two years, again getting a token theatrical release before it’s DVD release.

Hammer’s next film, however, showed that the studio was back on track . “Låt den rätte komma in “ by John Ajvide Linqvist was a very dark but original vampire novel about  12 year old Oskar meets a centuries old vampire Eli,who looks like a child . Set in the early 1980s, the novel explores loneliness,pedophilia,mutilation, divorce ,all while dealing with some really nasty murders.  Translated into several languages, the book was first adapted into a Swedish film in 2008,directed with great economy and skill by  Tomas Alfredson (who later directed the 2011 British film TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY).

Hammer based their screenplay more along the Swedish film adaptation, calling it LET ME IN . They had acquired the English language rights before the Swedish film had even seen release ,and even offered it’s director the chance to do the English language  version. When he declined, Hammer signed on writer director Matt Reeves (CLOVERFIELD,2008). 

The setting was moved to New Mexico , and a few more changes were made to the adaptation ( I will let you debate which version is better). Filmed in late 2009, the final budget was $20 million (the shrieks from the grave you may be hearing is probably Sir Michael Carreras,  who produced most of his films for relatively low budgets).

Released in 2010 to praise (though some did complain it either followed the Swedish film either too much or too little!),it earned $12 million in the U.S. and Canada alone, accruing $24 million world wide. (Oddly,

It was listed as one of the ten biggest bombs of 2010!). Blu Ray ,DVD, and cable sales in 2011 pushed the film into a modest profit.

Finally, in 2012, Hammer had a well deserved hit in their 2012 adaptation of Susan Hill’s classic ghost story , THE WOMAN IN BLACK.  The 1983 novel was adapted into a stage play in 1987, and is the second longest running West End Play in history (right after THE MOUSETRAP).

Nigel Kneale did a superlative adaptation  for  ITV television in 1989 ,and there have been at least two radio adaptations.

Screenwriter Jane Goldman did a superior adaptation of the story ,with star Daniel Radcliffe supported by a top notch team both in front of and off camera, making this one of the most satisfying cinematic ghost stories in quite some time. Wisely, they made the film in the U.K.,the true home of Hammer.

                 .

Originally conceived as a 3-D film, this idea was wisely scrapped (the dark cinematography would have made this a difficult problem), it was shot in 2010 on a modest budget of $15 million.

During it’s opening weekend in the US. , it earned $20 million ,making it the highest U.S. grossing opening in Hammer‘s history(released in the U.S. by CBS Films).  The film, which garnered exceptionally positive reviews, eventually earned $127 Million world wide. DVD & Blu Ray sales later that year added to the coffers.

Ghosts seemed good for their coffers, so Hammer two years later produced THE QUIET ONES.  Produced on a low budget ,again in the U.K., the film got mixed reviews but made $8 million in the U.S. ,with a world wide gross of $17 million for distributor Lionsgate.

THE WOMEN IN BLACK II: ANGEL OF DEATH (2015) was a major disappointment when it was released .While costing about the same amount ( $15 million) ,it took in  a third of the box office that the original had made ,perhaps due to  it being  only a pale ghost to the original film.

This time, the story is set in 1941(35 years after events of the first film), and uses the actual historical event of evacuating children from London into the farther reaches of the country to avoid German bombings. Unfortunately, the village and in particular the home this first group of children are housed is the home haunted by the title character.

Whereas the scares built naturally and suspensefully in the 2012 film, the remake seems to just drag out the references from the first films (toys springing to activity in the presence of the spirit) but without any attempt at making it emotionally involving.  Indeed, they should have studied THE INNOCENTS (1961) or the studio’s own  LET ME IN  to see how to work children and loss into an horror film.  Several jump scares seemed to have been added later to try and make it more frightening, but they seem at odds with the film itself.

  In the meantime,

  Hammer has expanded to include  live  stage productions, starting  in 2012 with a well reviewed production of Henry James‘ TURN OF THE SCREW as well as  Hallowe’en events like Hammer House of Horror Live : The Soulless Ones  in 2017 .

Hammer is still a viable production company with hopefully many more frights to come.

I end this quick overview ,though , with a mystery, that perhaps P.C. 49 might be able to solve

In 2012 Hammer Films /Exclusive Media, acquired the rights to make a film about the Winchester Mystery House.  ImaginationDesign Works & Nine/8 Entertainment were co- producers. The film got a big boost when Helen Mirren signed on to appear as Sarah Winchester. Sarah Winchester believed that she was haunted by the spirits of those that died from the firearms manufactured by her family firm ,and so ,from 1884 until she died in 1922, work continued  on the strange house built for spirits.

Originally announced to be shot in the U.S., the majority of the film was filmed in Australia . The directors ,the Spierig Brothers,makers of the cult 2003 Australian horror film UNDEAD , had been attached to the project since 2014. https://variety.com/2014/film/news/winchester-mystery-house-movie-attracts-spierig-brothers-1201268393/

However, when the $3.5 million dollar film WINCHESTER  was finally released in 2018 to reviews that were mostly bad, Hammer‘s name is no where on the publicity material.  Did it vanish like a ghost or did the studio simply step away? The film still managed to scare up over 11 times its production cost, so you would think they would want their name on it.

                  Mysteries still  come from the House of Hammer.

Hopefully, the next film that goes into production with the Hammer Banner wears it proudly and is embraced by fans and the general public alike .

-Kevin G Shinnick

                                            ”  How’s that grab ya ? “

HAMMER FILMS is 83 A quick overview /tribute. November 1934; 83 years ago, HAMMER FILMS began . In November 1934 comedian…

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New British TV Series for 2021: BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky Dramas, Britbox & More

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Among the detective dramas and high-stakes thrillers due to arrive on British television in the next year or so, there are a clutch of sci-fi, supernatural and horror shows also coming our way. April saw the release of Sky One original Intergalactic – the story of a wrongly imprisoned galactic pilot who breaks out of space jail with a gang of other high-security female prisoners – and Netflix has ordered fantasy novel adaptations Half Bad, Cuckoo Song, Lockwood & Co. and The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle – respectively, tales of witches, supernatural pacts, ghost-hunters, and a woman who jumps between bodies in her quest to solve a murder mystery. Coming to terrestrial TV, there’s Life After Life and The Three, stories about living multiple versions of the same life, and the miraculous child survivors of a mysterious plane crash.

On top of that, there’s plenty of true crime, thrillers, a new Sally Rooney adaptation for fans of Normal People, the screenwriting debuts of Candice Carty-Williams and Cash Carraway, plus Shane Meadows’ first period drama. Find out what’s coming from the UK in 2021 and beyond below.

We’ll keep this list updated with new commissions and as casting details and release dates are confirmed.

Anansi Boys (2022)

Following on the heels of Good Omens‘ surprise second series renewal by Amazon Prime Video came the announcement that the same team were to adapt Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys novel into a television series. It’s the story of Fat Charlie Nancy and his slippery brother Spider, sons of Mr Nancy, the folkloric spider god and trickster famed in West African and Caribbean mythology. Casting for the six-part series has yet to be announced.

Around the World in 80 Days (tbc)

Filming began in South Africa on this new eight-part adaptation of Jules Verne’s classic novel in February 2020, and was halted in March by Covid-19 with an episode and a half in the can, before resuming in early July, then finally wrapping in March 2021. The European-funded series will air on BBC One and stars David Tennant as Verne’s famous explorer Phileas Fogg. To satisfy a foolhardy wager, Fogg and his valet set off on a globe-circling journey, this time in the company of journalist Abigail Fix, played by The Crown’s Leonie Benesch. It’s been adapted by a team led by Life On Mars’ Ashley Pharoah.

Anne (tbc)

World Productions, the makers of some of the best British drama around (Line Of Duty, Save Me, Jed Mercurio drama Bodyguard) are behind this four-part drama for ITV. Written by novelist Kevin Sampson, who was present at Hillsborough Stadium on the tragic day that ninety-six football fans died, it tells the real-life story of Anne Williams’ decades-long fight for justice for her teenage son and all the victims of the 1989 disaster. Maxine Peake stars in the lead role and Bruce Goodison directs. Peake was spotted filming the series in Liverpool back in late 2018 but there’s no sign yet of a release date.

Before We Die (May)

Adapted from the Swedish crime thriller of the same name (pictured above), Before We Die is the six-part story of a detective who discovers that her son is acting as an undercover informant in a brutal murder investigation. This English-language version is set in Bristol and stars Lesley Sharp, Vincent Regan and Patrick Gibson. The series aired on Channel 4 in May to lukewarm reviews.

Behind Her Eyes (Feb)

This six-part psychological thriller arrived in February, went straight into Netflix’s Top 10 and had an ending that left a real impression on viewers (spoilers in our discussion of it.) Adapted by Hannibal and The Punisher’s Steve Lightfoot from Sarah Pinborough’s 2017 novel, it’s the story of a woman who becomes involved in an unconventional love triangle that develops into a dark, twist-filled web of secrets. Tom Bateman (Vanity Fair, Beecham House) and The Luminaries’ Eve Hewson star.

Best Interests (tbc)

Jack Thorne (pictured), the busiest screenwriter in the UK is returning to BBC One fresh from His Dark Materials series two with a new original four-part drama partly inspired by the real-life Charlie Gard case. It’s about a young child with a life-threatening condition whose medical team judge it in her best interests that she be allowed to die, a decision her family can’t support and fight every step of the way. The commission was announced in July 2019 and filming was due to begin in 2020 before the pandemic took hold. As of June 2021, there were no recent updates about progress on this one.

Bloodlands (Feb)

Series two has already been ordered of new BBC One Belfast-set crime drama Bloodlands, which stars The Missing and Cold Feet‘s James Nesbitt. The thriller, from new writer Chris Brandon, revolved around a cold case that held personal significance for Nesbitt’s detective and dug up buried secrets for him and the people of Belfast. Susan Lynch, Michael Smiley, Ian McElhinney and Lisa Dwan were among the cast for series one.

But When We Dance  (tbc)

Directed by Johnny Campbell (of In The Flesh and Dracula fame) and written by Esio Trot’s Paul Mayhew Archer, this one-off comedy-drama about two people with Parkinson’s disease was announced in late 2019 and will be coming to BBC One. Described as a touching and hilarious love story, it’s the story of Tony and Emma, a couple who first meet at a dance class for people with Parkinson’s. It promises to be a witty, heart-felt 90 minutes throwing a light on a much-diagnosed condition in the UK.

Call My Agent (tbc)

An English-language adaptation of the hit French comedy-drama following a Parisian talent agency is coming to the UK, and from the best possible choice of writer – WIA and Twenty Twelve writer John Morton. Filming took place in summer 2021 on the series, which is set to welcome a host of star cameos including Helena Bonham Carter, Kelly Macdonald and Jim Broadbent, all playing satirical versions of themselves. Jack Davenport leads the regular cast.

Cash Carraway w/t (2022)

Inspired by writer Cash Carraway’s recent memoir Skint Estate, this new BBC drama will star This Country’s Daisy May Cooper as a working class single mum skewering stereotypes and exploring the brutal realities of austerity Britain. Creator Carraway assures viewers that it won’t be “a woeful tale of poverty porn,” but a love story between a mother who refuses to give in, and her 10-year-old daughter.

Champion (2022)

From Candice Carty-Williams (pictured above), writer of 2019 hit novel Queenie, comes a series celebrating contemporary Black British Music. Champion is the story of a highly personal rap battle between a South London brother and sister, former rap sensation and ex-con Bosco, and his former PA and younger sister Vita. Which of the Champion siblings will prosper?

Chloe (tbc)

From Alice Seabright, director of Netflix’s Sex Education comes six-part BBC One psychological thriller Chloe. It’s the story of Becky, who becomes so obsessed with the death of an estranged friend that she takes on a false identity to find out the true story. The cast (pictured above) was announced in April 2021 and includes Poldark‘s Jack Farthing, The Crown‘s Erin Doherty, The Serpent‘s Billy Howle and Gangs of London‘s Pippa Bennett-Warner.

Come Again (2022)

Robert Webb’s debut novel Come Again, which was published in April 2020, is being adapted for television. It was announced in May 2020 that Firebird Pictures Ltd is working on the screen version of the story by the writer-actor. Come Again is the first novel by Webb (Peep Show, Back, That Mitchell And Webb Look). It tells the story of Kate, a karate expert, computer genius widow mired in grief who gets an out-of-this-world chance to go back into her past and change the future. It’s part love story, part coming-of-age story, part spy thriller packed with action and 90s nostalgia.

Conversations with Friends (2022)

Following the enormous success of Normal People – the story of young Irish couple Marianne and Connor navigating love, sex, university, class, friendship and mental health – the BBC and Hulu are collaborating on an adaptation of author Sally Rooney’s debut novel, Conversations with Friends. This one’s on a similar bent, as the story of a pair of young Irish students who get involved with an glamorous older, married couple. The cast looks excellent too, with Joe Alwyn and Jemima Kirke playing Nick and Melissa, newcomer Alison Oliver playing the lead Frances, and Utopia (US) and Loki‘s Sasha Lane as Frances’ friend Bobbi.

Crime (tbc)

Filming began in April 2021 on Irvine Welsh crime thriller adaptation Crime, a Britbox exclusive due to arrive late this year. Welsh is adapting his novel for the screen in collaboration with Dean Cavanagh. Set in Edinburgh, it’s the story of Detective Inspector Lennox (played by Dougray Scott) and his investigation into the disappearance of a schoolgirl. Angela Griffin, Joanna Vanderham and Ken Stott also star. Broadchurch and Vigil (see below) director James Strong describes it as “a dark, visceral, shocking ride.”

Cuckoo Song (2022)

Based on the acclaimed young adult novel by author Frances Hardinge (The Lie Tree, Fly By Night), this six-part fantasy series is coming to Netflix. Among the writers are Doctor Who’s Sarah Dollard, Elizabeth is Missing’s Andrea Gibb and The Innocents’ Corinna Faith. It’s the story of two sisters – one human and one a monster – at war with each other, who have to reunite to reverse a supernatural pact gone wrong.

Danny Boy (May)

New BBC Two feature-length drama Danny Boy aired in May and told the story of real-life soldier Brian Wood, accused of war crimes in Iraq by human rights lawyer Phil Shiner. Ordeal by Innocence’s Anthony Boyle plays Wood, with the magnificent Toby Jones as Shiner, from a screenplay written by Murder and Party Animals’ Robert Jones. It’s currently available to watch on BBC iPlayer.

Death Comes as the End (tbc)

With Agatha Christie adaptation The Pale Horse having completed Sarah Phelps’ quintet of adaptations for the BBC in 2020, it’s the turn of a different voice on a very different kind of Christie novel. That voice? Vanity Fair and Five Days screenwriter Gwyneth Hughes. And that novel? Death Comes As The End, a murder mystery set not in the early 20th century, but in ancient Egypt. The arrival of a new concubine sends ripples through an Egyptian priest’s family. The cast and air date have yet to be announced.

Devils (February)

Italian-French-UK co-production Devils came to Sky Atlantic in February, a high-finance thriller based on Guido Maria Brera’s novel of the same name. It’s a story of a top investment firm, multi-million dollar deals, a mysterious death and a public scandal. Alessandro Borghi stars.

Domina (May)

From Simon Burke, the creator of Sky weird-thriller Fortitude, eight-part historical family saga Domina is set in ancient Rome, beginning in the wake of Julius Caesar’s assassination. Based on real historical characters, it follows the ascendancy of Livia Drusilla through the Roman political ranks, as she strategizes her way to the top, driven by revenge.

Englistan (tbc)

Actor, rapper and screenwriter Riz Ahmed (pictured) was announced in 2018 as developing this ambitious nine-part series with BBC Two, but no updates have been released since. It was set to be a drama about three generations of a British Pakistani family set over the course of four decades. As soon as there’s any news on this one, we’ll include it here.

Everything I Know About Love (2022)

Novelist and journalist Dolly Alderton has turned screenwriter to adapt her own memoir Everything I Know About Love for the BBC. Described as “a generous, funny, warm-hearted and uplifting Sex & the City for Millennials, it’s the story of two young women Maggie and Birdy, who move to London and have to navigate relationships, flat-shares, heartache and friendship.

Extinction (2022)

This one needs to be on your radar: Giri/Haji creator Joe Barton has written an eight-part action thriller starring I May Destroy You and Gangs of London‘s Paapa Essiedu. It’s the story of a man recruited into an organisation formed to stop global catastrophes, who ends up reliving the same day again and again. Strike‘s Tom Burke, The Bodyguard‘s Anjli Mohindra and Jonathan Creek‘s Caroline Quentin co-star.

Finding Alice (January)

Keeley Hawes stars as a woman who discovers a host of unsettling secrets when her partner Harry unexpectedly dies when they finally move into their newly built dream house. A black comedy that aired on ITV in early 2021, Finding Alice also stars Joanna Lumley and Nigel Havers, and was written by The Durrells’ Simon Nye.

Four Lives (tbc)

Previously titled The Barking Murders, Four Lives is a three-part BBC drama based on real-life killer Stephen Port, and the aftermath of the four murders he committed. Port raped and murdered four men between 2014 and 2015, using Grindr to attract his victims. Jeff Pope, who previously penned The Moorside and Little Boy Blue, is the writer, with Neil McKay directing. Sheridan Smith and Jamie Winstone will star alongside Stephen Merchant as Port. In this Entertainment Focus interview from April 2020, actor Michael Jibson confirmed the drama was currently postponed due to the ongoing real-life criminal case.

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Ginger Snaps (2022)

It’s 20 years since the release of Ginger Snaps, the first in a trilogy of now-cult horror films, and, according to Sid Gentle Films, high time for a live-action TV adaptation. The darkly comic feminist werewolf movie will be adapted for a TV co-production by Anna Ssemuyaba, who has previous written for Sky’s Guerilla, Channel 4’s Adult Material and ITV’s Unsaid Stories, and from by the co-producers of Killing Eve and Orphan Black.

Grace (March)

From Endeavour creator Russell Lewis come two feature-length adaptations of Peter James’ crime novel series about a Brighton-based Detective Superintendent. Life on Mars’ John Simm plays unorthodox investigator Roy Grace, who’s haunted by the disappearance of his wife, in two-hour versions of Dead Simple and Looking Good Dead. The first film, which aired in May, revolves around a cold case and a groom who goes mysteriously missing just days before his wedding, and the second film will air later in 2021. Reviews were good so catch up on ITV Hub if you missed it.

Half Bad (tbc)

Based on Sally Green’s celebrated book trilogy of the same name, Half Bad will be an eight-part one-hour Netflix fantasy drama. It’s about a 16-year-old boy who has spent his life surveilled for signs that he may follow in the footsteps of his father – the world’s most feared witch. Giri/Haji creator Joe Barton is writing the series, with Andy Serkis among the producers. We. Can’t. Wait.

Harlan Coben’s Stay Close (tbc)

Thriller writer Harlan Coban is currently part of the way into a five-year deal with Netflix to adapt 14 of his novels, and Stay Close is the latest adaptation from writer Danny Brocklehurst and RED Productions, the team that brought us The Stranger. Like The Stranger, Stay Close will star Richard Armitage and move the book setting from the US to the UK. It’s the story of three characters whose dark secrets threaten to destroy their lives. James Nesbitt and Cush Jumbo also star.

Hollington Drive (tbc)

If you’ve seen writer Sophie Petzal’s Irish thriller Blood starring Adrian Dunbar, you’ll want to tune in for this. Coming to ITV, it’s a four-part thriller about two grown-up sisters who become entangled in a tense mystery when their children are involved in the disappearance of a 10-year-old local boy. Expect twists, turns, and sharp writing. The cast looks great too, led by Rachel Stirling and Anna Maxwell-Martin (pictured above).

Inside Man (tbc)

The latest BBC One drama from former Doctor Who and Sherlock showrunner Steven Moffat is a four-part crime thriller entitled Inside Man. The twisting story is about a death row inmate in the US and a woman who’s trapped in a cellar under an English vicarage, whose lives interlink “in the most unexpected way”. The cast (pictured above) looks excellent and includes plenty of Moffat’s past collaborators in David Tennant, Dracula‘s Dolly Wells and Lydia West, and Mr Stanley Tucci.

Intergalactic (April)

Sky One’s Intergalactic is an original, British space-set drama about a galactic pilot who’s falsely imprisoned, then breaks free with a gang of other high-security female prisoners. It stars The Tunnel‘s Savannah Steyn in the lead role, with Parminder Nagra, Eleanor Tomlinson, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Natasha O’Keeffe, Thomas Turgoose and Craig Parkinson, so lots of great British talent in the cast. The first series aired in Spring 2021 and is available to stream on NOW.

It’s a Sin (January)

This 1980s-set drama (previously titled The Boys) comes from acclaimed screenwriter Russell T. Davies (A Very English Scandal, Doctor Who) and tackles the impact of AIDS on the lives of three young men across a period of ten years. It’s the story of “the epidemic, the pain of rejection and the prejudices that gay men faced throughout the decade.” It was one of the dramas of the year, with a fantastic cast including Olly Alexander, Lydia West, Omari Douglas, Neil Patrick Harris, Keeley Hawes, Stephen Fry, Tracy Ann Oberman and Shaun Dooley.

Karen Pirie (tbc)

A new detective is on her way to ITV in the form of Karen Pirie, the creation of novelist Val McDermid who’s also the literary source of ITV’s popular Wire in the Blood forensic pathology series. The new crime drama comes adapted from the first in McDermid’s five-book series The Distant Echo by Harlots and Save Me Too’s Emer Kenny. It’s about a young Scottish detective working in St. Andrews who is tasked with reopening cold cases. The first involves the 25-year-old death of a teenager whose unsolved murder has become the subject of a true crime podcast. It’s being made by Bodyguard and Line of Duty‘s World Productions. 

Landscapers (tbc)

A four-part true crime series about ‘Mansfield Murderers’ Susan and Christopher Edwards is on its way to Sky Atlantic and HBO. Alexander Payne (Sideways) was set to direct, but departed the project in October 2020 following what’s being reported as a scheduling conflict after Covid-19 pushed production back. The Edwards killed Susan’s parents and buried them in their garden, then spent over a decade draining their bank accounts before being discovered in 2014. Olivia Colman will star as Susan Edwards, from a script written by Colman’s producer husband Ed Sinclair. Giri/Haji and Flowers’ Will Sharpe replaces Payne as the director.

Life After Life (tbc)

Kate Atkinson’s 2013 novel Life After Life is a masterpiece of imaginative fiction, so it’s no surprise that BBC One is currently preparing a TV adaptation. It’s the story of Ursula, a woman with the extraordinary power to keep being continually reborn into new and alternative versions of her life after she dies. Seemingly insignificant changes to people and circumstances set her on new courses every time – can she alter the course of history? Playwright Bash Doran (Traitors) has adapted the novel and filming began in April 2021 with a cast including Sian Clifford, James McArdle and lead Thomasin McKenzie.

Lockwood & Co (tbc)

Attack the Block’s Joe Cornish is writing and directing this Netflix adaptation of Jonathan Stroud’s supernatural adventure series about a ghost-hunting detective agency run by two teenage boys and a psychic girl. It’s set in London and was only announced in December 2020, so don’t expect to see it arrive on the streaming service for a little while yet.

Magpie Murders (2022)

One of a slate of original drama commissions for UK streamer Britbox, Anthony Horowitz will adapt for screen his own murder mystery novel Magpie Murders, the first of his Susan Ryeland series. Lesley Manville will play literary editor Ryeland (Manville), with Spall playing her client’s fictional 1950s detective Atticus Pünd. A dream cast for this six-part thriller.

Marlow (2022)

Another Britbox commission that shows the UK streamer is serious about making a splash in quality original drama, Marlow will be an eight-part thriller from Southcliffe and Red Riding’s Tony Grisoni, starring The Crown’s Claire Foy. It’s a modern-day crime fable based around two warring families “amid the unsettling and indelible landscape of the Thames Estuary,” or as Foy’s revenge-seeking character Evie Wyatt calls it, the Edgelands.

Marriage (2022)

From Stefan Golaszewski, the creator of excellent comedy-drama Mum (pictured above) and comedy Him & Her, comes four-part drama Marriage. Not much is known about the show yet, but we can expect it to examine “in intimate detail the fears, frustrations and salvation of marriage and the comfort that can only be found in togetherness.”

My Name is Leon (tbc)

Filming began in March 2021 on a feature-length adaptation of Kit de Waal’s novel My Name is Leon, the 1980s-set story of a nine-year-old biracial boy forced to cope with his mother’s breakdown. Writer-director Shola Amoo is adapting the screenplay, with Kibwe Tavares directing, and Malachi Kirby and Monica Dolan among the cast.

My Name is Lizzie (tbc)

This four-part Channel 4 drama, based on real events, will star The Virtues and Raised by Wolves’ Niamh Algar as an undercover police officer used in a honeytrap search for a killer in the 1990s. Written by The Tunnel’s Emilia di Girolamo, it promises to take viewers behind the scenes on one of the UK’s most controversial police investigations. It was only announced in late 2020, so don’t expect it for a little while.

No Return (tbc)

Filming is due to begin in summer 2021 on ITV’s No Return, a Manchester-based four-part drama from Danny Brocklehurst (The Stranger, Shameless). It stars Sheridan Smith (pictured above) as the mother of a 16-year-old boy accused of a serious crime while on a family holiday in Turkey. Secrets unfurl as the family fights an alien legal system to free their son and get to the truth.

Ragdoll (tbc)

Attn: crime fans. Alibi has commissioned darkly witty six-part thriller Ragdoll, to be adapted from the novel of the same name by Daniel Cole. It’s a Jo Nesbo-ish crime drama about a grotesque murder in which six victims have been sewn into the shape of a single body. Detectives Rose, Baxter and Edmunds are on the case, charged with protecting the killer’s next set of advertised victims. The Irregulars’ Henry Lloyd Hughes, Lucy Hale and Thalissa Teixeira will star.

Ralph and Katie (tbc)

This six-part half hour is a spin-off from BBC One’s hit family drama The A Word, following the married lives of the titular characters, both of whom have Down’s Syndrome. The original series creator Peter Bowker is writing the show, which stars Leon Harrop and Sarah Gordy, alongside new and emerging disabled talent.

Red Rose (tbc)

A contemporary teen horror series is on its way to BBC Three and Netflix, written by Michael and Paul Clarkson (The Haunting Of Hill House, pictured). Red Rose will be an eight-part series about the relationship between teenagers and their online lives. It’s the story of Rochelle, a Bolton teen who downloads a mysterious app that sets in motion a series of terrifying events. Ultimately, say the Clarksons, “it’s the story of friendship told through the prism of a classic horror-thriller.” 

Riches (tbc)

From Empire to Succession, the complicated family lives of the super-wealthy are a continued source of fascination on screen. ITV has ordered drama Riches from writer Abby Ajayi to mine that seam. The six-part drama revolves around successful businessman Stephen Richards, a specialist in cosmetics for black women, who’s on a winning streak until a dramatic event forces his grown-up children from two marriages to gather together and decide what happens next.

Ridley Road (tbc)

Four-part BBC One thriller Ridley Road is adapted from Jo Bloom’s 2014 novel of the same name by screenwriter-actor Sarah Solemani (Him & Her, No Offence). It’s the story of the fight against fascism in 1960s London. According to Solemani, the novel reveals “a darker side of Sixties London and the staggering contribution the Jewish community made in the battle against racism.” Newcomer Aggi O’Casey is joined by Eddie Marsan, Rory Kinnear, Samantha Spiro and more.

Ripley (tbc)

Sherlock and Fleabag’s Andrew Scott will play Tom Ripley in a new TV adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith five-strong novel series for Showtime and Sky Atlantic. The first season will restage events as depicted in Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr Ripley, when a young grifter in 1960s New York is hired by a wealthy man to convince his wayward, hedonist son – played by Emma and Beast’s Johnny Flynn – to return home from Italy. Steven Zaillian (The Night Of, Schindler’s List) will write and direct.

Rogue Heroes (tbc)

A major new drama is on its way to BBC One, from Steven Knight, creator of Peaky Blinders and Taboo. The six-part drama is based on Ben Macintyre’s SAS: Rogue Heroes book, which charts the creation of the famed Special Forces unit. Knight has written the adaptation, which will tell a tale “celebrating the glory, action and camaraderie at the heart of this story” while delving into the psychology of the officers and men who formed the SAS in WWII. With real-life events given Knight’s visionary treatment, this one promises to be a spectacle with real depth. Jack O’Connell and Alfie Allen are among the cast (pictured above.)

Screw (tbc)

Inspired by his real-life experience as a civilian prison worker, writer Rob Williams (Killing Eve) is bringing a six-part prison drama to Channel 4. Screw promises to show “the uncensored, terrifying and often darkly funny reality of life as a prison officer in an all-male prison in 21st century Britain.” The story focuses on veteran officer Leigh, who’s trying to keep her past buried, and mouthy new recruit Rose. The cast includes Nina Sosanya, Jamie-Lee O’Donnell and Stephen Wight.

Sherwood (tbc)

A new six-part crime drama is coming to BBC One from acclaimed playwright James Graham, the writer behind Quiz and Brexit: The Uncivil War. Set in post-industrial Nottinghamshire, where the drama was filmed, Sherwood is fictional but inspired in part by real events and tells the story of two murders that lead to one of the largest manhunts in British history. Two police officers have to set aside their differences to find the killer, against a socio-political backdrop of community divisions riven during the 1980s Miners’ Strikes. Lesley Manville, David Morrissey and Joanne Froggatt star.

Showtrial (tbc)

The Tunnel’s writer Ben Richards has teamed up with World Productions (the folks behind Bodyguard and Line of Duty) on six-part series Showtrial. Coming to BBC One, it’s a legal drama that questions the role class, money and power play in justice being done. The story treats the disappearance of a young working class student and the subsequent arrest and trial of the accused, “the arrogant daughter of a wealthy entrepreneur.” Filming began in April 2021, and you can read more about the cast here.

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Superhoe (tbc)

Nicôle Lecky’s one-woman Royal Court stage show is getting the Fleabag treatment and being turned into a six-part BBC Three series. It’s the musical story of a would-be singer and rapper thrown out of home who moves in with a young woman who inducts her into the life of social media influencing and sex work.

Sweetpea (tbc)

From Kirstie Swain, the screenwriter of Channel 4’s Pure comes a new eight-part series adapted from C.J. Skuse’s 2017 novel of the same name. It’s the story of a young woman who seems unremarkable on the surface and works as an editorial assistant in a British seaside town. Unfulfilled by her job, she turns to darker pursuits outside of work, because who would ever suspect her? The comedy-drama is coming to Sky Atlantic and no casting has yet been announced. Read our interview with Kirstie Swain about Pure, mental illness in TV drama and more.

Tenacity (tbc)

If you saw His Dark Materials on BBC One, then you know Welsh-based Bad Wolf Productions are capable of great things on a grand scale. In 2019, ITV commissioned them to make six-part thriller Tenacity, from a screenplay by Flightplan’s Peter A. Dowling, based on the J.S. Law novel of the same name. It’s about a body discovered on a British nuclear submarine, investigated by military detective Danielle Lewis. Think assassins, high-stakes action and a momentous threat to national security. The cast is tba.

The Amazing Mr Blunden (December)

Following on from Sky’s beautiful festive family film Roald & Beatrix: The Tail of the Curious Mouse with another, this time written and directed by Mark Gatiss. The Amazing Mr Blunden comes adapted from Antonia Barber’s novel ‘The Ghosts’ and its original 1972 film adaptation. The 90-minute feature will star Gatiss, Simon Callow and Tamsin Grieg, and tells the story of two London teenagers whose mum moves them to a haunted country house where they get involved with a thrilling story of strange visitors, time travel and wicked would-be murderers…

The Baby (tbc)

The Baby is a darkly comic horror on its way to Sky Atlantic. The eight-episode first season was co-created by screenwriter Siân Robins-Grace (Kaos, Sex Education) and Gangs of London production manager Lucy Gaymer. It’s being billed as a provocative, dark and funny story about a woman in her late thirties who’s unexpectedly landed with a baby that takes over her world. The cast includes The Duchess‘ Michelle de Swarte (pictured), who’ll star alongside Amira Ghazalla and Amber Grappy.

The Birth of Daniel F Harris (tbc)

With a similar premise to Sky One’s Two Weeks to Live, but a psychological drama instead of a knockabout comedy, this Channel 4 drama by Urban Myths‘ (pictured above) Pete Jackson is the story of a young man raised in isolation from society after his mother’s death, by a father who told him the outside world is filled with monsters. When the boy turns eighteen, he enters the world to find the person responsible for his mother’s death. Read more about it here.

The Confessions of Frannie Langton (tbc)

Adapted by Sara Collins from her own Costa Prize-winning novel of the same name, The Confessions of Frannie Langton is a four part murder mystery set in Georgian London. It follows the title character, born on a Jamaican slave plantation and transported as a ‘gift’ by the man who enslaved her to the home of a wealthy London couple who meet a grim fate. Was Frannie really responsible? Or is she being used?  

The Devil’s Hour (tbc)

Peter Capaldi and Jessica Raine lead the cast of a new six-part “mind-bending” Amazon Prime Video thriller from writer Tom Moran, produced by Steven Moffat. It’s the story of Lucy (Raine) who suffers from terrifying visions every night at precisely the same time (the titular devil’s hour), and who becomes entangled with a series of brutal murders. Capaldi, pictured above, plays “a reclusive nomad driven by a murderous obsession”, which all sounds rather fun.

The Elephant Man (tbc)

The story of Victorian Joseph Merrick was memorably brought to the screen by David Lynch in 1980, and has since been retold on stage (notably starring Bradley Cooper in the lead role). This two-part BBC drama stars Stranger Things’ Charlie Heaton (pictured) and is written by Moorside’s Neil McKay. The biopic will tell the story of Merrick’s life from the start to the end and promises to “explore the man behind the myth”. Filming was due to take place in Wales in late 2018, but there’s been no news about this one since so it’s a bit of a question mark.

The Following Events are Based on a Pack of Lies (tbc)

In this original six-part BBC One thriller, screenwriters Penelope and Ginny Skinner (pictured above) tell the story of two very different women, both of whom are being conned by the same man. Alice and Caroline have Rob in common, a celebrated ecopreneur who may well be trying to destroy them both. Inspired to fight against society’s glorification of the predator, The Following Events are Based on a Pack of Lies was commissioned in August 2020, so it’ll be a little while before we see it.

The Gallows Pole (2022)

You’re going to want to look out for this one. Director Shane Meadows (This is England, The Virtues), whose TV work usually airs on Channel 4, is making his BBC drama debut with an adaptation of Benjamin Myers’ acclaimed novel The Gallows Pole. It’s a true historical story about Yorkshire legend David Hartley and the Cragg Vale Coiners, who became the biggest fraudsters in British history. Meadows describes himself as buzzing about making his first period drama, produced by Element Pictures. The cast led by Michael Socha, with George McKay, Thomas Turgoose and Tom Burke, promises a real roster of the best young British talent.

The Girl Before (tbc)

This BBC-HBO Max co-production boasts a great cast in Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Loki, Black Mirror – pictured above – Belle) and David Oyelowo (Selma, Les Misérables), and a hit psychological thriller as its source material. It’s to be a four-part limited series created by JP Delaney (one of Tony Strong’s pseudonyms), adapted from his novel of the same name. It’s about a woman given the chance to move into a stunning home on the condition that she obeys an exacting set of rules, and presumably things get murder-y from then on in.

The Irregulars (March)

The modern version. The Robert Downey Jr version. The gnome version. The version where Watson is Lucy Liu. Just when you thought the world had no more Sherlock Holmes to give, along comes The Irregulars on Netflix. Written by My Mad Fat Diary‘s Tom Bidwell, this version focuses on the Baker Street gang of teens used as a resource by a sinister version of Dr John Watson, and a Sherlock Holmes whose best days are long behind him. It’s supernatural and horror-tinged, and unfortunately only lasted one season before being cancelled, but did manage to wrap up satisfactorily so don’t let the early ending put you off.

The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe (tbc)

Power, love, loyalty and politics all come to play in Dan Sefton’s (Trust Me) BBC adaptation of Keith Badman’s 2010 book The Final Years Of Marilyn Monroe. Narrowing the time-frame (as the working title suggests) Sefton’s drama will take in the final six months of Monroe’s life until her death in 1962 at the age of 36. We first heard about this one back in April 2019, but since then there’s been no news about casting or filming.

The Midwich Cuckoos (2022)

John Wyndham’s classic 1957 sci-fi is getting a modern TV adaptation courtesy of The Night Manager and Hanna writer David Farr. The eight part series will update the novel to the present day and set the action in a commuter town south of London, where the local women all mysteriously fall pregnant at the same time and give birth to a cohort of very unusual children. The most famous adaptation to date was 1965 cult favourite Village of the Damned (pictured above). Keeley Hawes and Max Beesley will star.

The North Water (September)

Film director Andrew Haigh (Weekend, 45 Years, Lean On Pete) has adapted and directed Ian Maguire’s novel The North Water into a four-part BBC Two drama with an excellent cast. Colin Farrell, Stephen Graham (pictured above), Tom Courtenay, Peter Mullan and Jack O’Connell are all on board – literally so as the series is set on a whaling ship in the Arctic in the 1850s. It’s the story of a disgraced ex-army surgeon who joins a whaling expedition and finds himself “on an ill-fated journey with a murderous psychopath” and in a struggle to survive. Filming took place on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard in late 2019.

The Offenders (tbc)

From co-creator of The Office and writer-director of fab wrestling film Fighting with my Family, Stephen Merchant (pictured above, and soon to be seen playing killer Stephen Port in ITV true crime drama Four Lives) and Mayans M.C.’s Elgin James is a six-part one-hour comedy The Offenders. A BBC One-Amazon Studios co-production, it follows seven strangers forced together to complete a Community Payback sentence in Bristol. Merchant is joined by Christopher Walken, Darren Boyd and Eleanor Tomlinson in the cast.

The Pembrokeshire Murders (January)

This three-part ITV true crime drama stars Luke Evans as Detective Superintendent Steve Wilkins, who, in 2006, reopened and solved a cold case from the 1980s using new forensic DNA evidence and, bizarrely, an episode of darts-based quiz show Bullseye. Keith Allen plays John Cooper, the man in Wilkins’ sights.

The Pursuit of Love (May)

Emily Mortimer wrote and directed this glorious BBC One adaptation of Nancy Mitford’s 1945 comic romance about an aristocratic family in the interwar period (loosely based on Mitford’s own family, which gained notoriety through her popular novels and her sisters’ scandalous connections to the British Union of Fascists and Adolf Hitler). Downton Abbey‘s Lily James plays lead Linda Radlett in the three-part series.

The Red Zone (tbc)

Sports writers Barney Ronay and Jonathan Liew are behind this six-part half-hour comedy “about football, but also not about football,” which is coming to Netflix in 2021. Director Sam Mendes is executive producing through his Neal Street Productions company. Only announced in late 2020, no casting has yet been confirmed for this one.

The Responder (tbc)

Filming begain in May 2021 on this BBC Two five-part series from new screenwriter and former police officer Tony Schumacher, who’s been mentored by Jimmy McGovern as part of a BBC Writers Room initiative. The Responder will star The Hobbit and Sherlock‘s Martin Freeman as officer Chris, who works a series of night shifts in Liverpool, alongside his rookie new partner Rachel (Adelayo Adedayo). The series is described as funny, tragic, and showing the realities of policing in Britain.

The Rig (tbc)

In November 2020, Amazon Prime Video green-lit this six-episode supernatural thriller from Line of Duty and Bodyguard director John Strickland, written by David Macpherson. It’s due to film in Scotland and is set onboard the Kishorn Bravo oil rig in the North Sea. The crew finds itself marooned on the rig by a mysterious fog that cuts off communication with the outside world. Line of Duty‘s Martin Compston, Owen Teale and Rochenda Sandall will star, alongside Iain Glen, Mark Bonnar and more (see above.) Filming has concluded so the wait shouldn’t be too long for this one.

The Serpent (January)

Ripper Street writer Richard Warlow scripted this eight-part BBC drama about serial killer Charles Sobhraj, Interpol’s most wanted man in the 1970s for the robbery and murder of multiple young Western travellers across South Asia. Tom Shankland (Les Miserables, The City & The City) directs, and A Prophet and The Looming Tower‘s Tahar Rahim played the lead role of Sobhraj, with Jenna Coleman as his girlfriend/accomplice Marie-Andree Leclerc. Read more about the true story that inspired the series here.

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (tbc)

Now this sounds like a bit of alright. Adapted from Stuart Turton’s novel of the same name, it’s a seven-part murder mystery coming to Netflix. The story’s a high-concept thriller about a woman trying to solve a murder who keeps waking up in somebody else’s body every time she gets close to the answer. Sophie Petzal (The Last Kingdom, Blood) is adapting it, and the announcement only arrived in late 2020, so don’t expect it for a little while yet. Casting is tba.

The Three (tbc)

Another BBC drama commission based on a book series, The Three, “an international thriller with a supernatural twist”, was announced in late 2017 but there’s been no news since then. The premise of Sarah Lotz’ trilogy sees four planes crash on the same day in four different countries, leaving three children as the miraculous survivors… Wolf Hall’s Peter Straughan was attached as adapting this eight-part drama but as yet, it’s still to appear on his IMDb credits. We’ll keep you posted if more arrives.

The Tourist (tbc)

Producer-writers Harry and Jack Williams (Fleabag, Baptiste, The Missing, Liar) are back with a six-part BBC-HBO Max drama set and filmed in South Australia. The Tourist is an outback noir about a British man pursued through the Australian outback by a tank truck. When the man awakens in a hospital with no memory of who he is or how he got there, his search for answers takes him to some unsettling places. Chris Sweeney (Back to Life) directs, with The Fall‘s Jamie Dornan leading the cast.

The Tower (tbc)

Three-part detective drama The Tower is coming to ITV, starring Game of Thrones‘ Gemma Whelan, Peaky Blinders‘ Emmett Scanlan and Kate & Koji‘s Jimmy Akingbola and The Haunting of Bly Manor‘s Tahirah Sharif. It’s adapted by Homeland‘s Patrick Harbinson from former Met Police officer Kate London’s novel Post-Mortem, and follows the investigation into two deaths and two disappearances from a London tower block.

The Undeclared War (2022)

Channel 4 has teamed up with Peacock to commission this six-part cyber thriller written by Wolf Hall’s Peter Kosminsky. It’s set in 2024, as a team of GCHQ cyber specialists secretly work to fend off a cyber attack on the UK electoral system. There’s an impressive cast, from Mark Rylance (pictured above in Bridge of Spies), to Adrian Lester, Alex Jennings, Simon Pegg, Maisie Richardson-Sellers and newcomer Hannah Khalique-Brown. The commission was only announced in April 2021, so we can expect to see this one next year.

Three Families (May)

This drama based on real-life abortion stories set in Northern Ireland – the only part of the UK where pregnancy termination remains illegal – aired on BBC One in May 2021. Written by Vanity Fair‘s Gwyneth Hughes, who travelled to Northern Ireland to meet the families who inspired the drama, Three Families was produced by the makers of hard-hitting Three Girls and explores the experience of families and loved ones whose lives have been affected by the law in Northern Ireland. It’s currently available to watch on BBC iPlayer.

Time (June)

Three-part prison drama Time is the latest from legendary British screenwriter Jimmy McGovern (Cracker, Accused, Broken), and stars Sean Bean and Stephen Graham. The four-part drama aired in June 2021 and followed the story of Bean’s character Mark, a former teacher in his 50s who finds himself in prison for the first time, and Graham’s character Eric, a prison officer targeted by a dangerously connected inmate. It’s currently available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

Tom Jones (tbc)

Praise for 2018’s Vanity Fair adaptation, scheduled opposite Bodyguard in 2018, was drowned out somewhat by the hit political thriller, but there was plenty of it, and deservingly so. Good news then, that ITV has brought screenwriter Gwyneth Hughes back to tackle another classic novel – Henry Fielding’s 1749 book Tom Jones. Following in the footsteps of the acclaimed Albert Finney-starring 1963 film, and the raucous 1997 version with Max Beasley, expect rollicking fun. The last update we had in November 2019 confirmed that Hughes was mid-writing, but news has been thin on the ground since then.

Too Close (April)

Emily Watson (Chernobyl, Apple Tree Yard, Breaking the Waves) stars in this meaty psychological three-part ITV thriller. Based on the novel of the same name written by Natalie Daniels (the pseudonym of actor-writer Clara Salaman, who’s also behind the screenplay), it’s about a forensic psychiatrist treating a patient who’s committed a heinous crime that she says she doesn’t remember. The two women become locked in a dark struggle of influence and manipulation. Watson stars opposite Denise Gough (pictured above).

Trigger Point (tbc)

Line of Duty‘s Vicky McClure plays bomb disposal expert Lana Washington in this new ITV thriller from the Jed Mercurio stable. Written by Daniel Brierley and executive produced by Mercurio, it’s the story of a front-line bomb disposal pro whose squad is pushed to the limits tackling a terrorist threat to London. Six episodes are on their way, and likely to arrive in early 2022.

Vigil (August)

With a working title of Vigil, a new six-part thriller filmed in Scotland is on its way from the makers of Bodyguard and Line of Duty. Created by Strike‘s Tom Edge, it’s the story of the mysterious disappearance of a Scottish fishing trawler and a death on board a Trident nuclear submarine that brings the police into conflict with the Navy and British security services. It stars Suranne Jones, Rose Leslie, Shaun Evans, Anjli Mohindra, Martin Compston, Paterson Joseph and more. 

Viewpoint (April)

This five-part ITV thriller from Rillington Place and Manhunt writer Ed Whitmore and Fleabag director Harry Bradbeer aired in April 2021 (well, most of it did. The final episode was pulled from the schedules and made available as streaming-only following a series of sexual harassment complaints made about its star, Noel Clarke). It was the story of a police surveillance investigation in Manchester following the disappearance of a primary school teacher in the vein of Rear Window and The Lives of Others.

Wahala (2022)

This BBC series, described as “Big Little Lies meets Girlfriends meets Peckham” is adapted from Nikki May’s as-yet-unpublished novel of the same name. It’s about Simi, Ronke and Boo, three 30-something Anglo-Nigerian women living in London whose friendship is shaken by the arrival of the beautiful, charismatic Isobel, with tragic consequences.

White Stork (2022)

Formerly known as Spadehead, White Stork is a 10-episode political drama coming to Netflix courtesy of Eleven, the British production compnay behind Sex Education. Tom Hiddleston (The Avengers, The Night Manager – pictured above) stars as James Cooper, whose secret past is unearthed when he’s vetted in preparation for a parliamentary election. It was creted by Jericho and Meadowlands‘ Christopher Dunlop, with Taboo‘s Kristoffer Nyholm directing.

Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? (tbc)

Hugh Laurie (pictured above in BBC political drama Roadkill) has adapted Agatha Christie’s 1934 novel as a Britbox original. It’s the story of a vicar’s son and socialite duo played by Will Poulter and Lucy Boynton, who become amateur detectives and set out to solve a crime when they discover a dying man asking the titular question. Production began in June 2021, with a very fine British comedy cast.

Wolfe (September)

From the creators of Shameless comes six-part crime drama Wolfe, which stars Guerilla‘s Babou Ceesay (pictured above) as an expert forensic pathologist and university professor described as “half genius, half liability”. With a complicated home life and a varied work team including a child prodigy, Wolfe uses his unusual expertise to solve a case of the week. Amanda Abbington, Natalia Tena, Naomi Yang, Adam Long and Shaniqua Okwok co-star.

You (tbc)

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We might expect the working title of this one to change to avoid confusion with the Netflix stalker story of the same name, but as it stands, You will be an eight-part thriller coming to Sky. Filming started in June 2021 in the UK and Morocco on this adaptation of the Zoran Drvenkar novel, which tells the story of Tara O’Rourke, a woman on the run across Europe after committing a deadly crime. She’s pursued by a dangerous gangster and a serial killer known only as ‘The Traveller’. The Capture (pictured above) writer-director Ben Chanan has written the adaptation.

The post New British TV Series for 2021: BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky Dramas, Britbox & More appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[rapturerecords]

Song: Jazz Interlude / Swing Doors

Composer: Billy Munn

Director: Billy Munn conducting Charles Brull’s Dance Orchestra

Record Label: Charles Brull - A Harmonic Private Recording CBL 37

Released: ca. 1950

Location: Galaxy News Radio

Here’s an unusual piece. We are about to embark upon a journey into the use of library music (also known as stock music or production music) used in the Fallout series.

We’ll start with this instrumental track heard on GNR. As with all of the instrumental pieces, Three Dog makes no formal introduction of this song on the radio. Some of you may recognize this as the opening music for “The Adventures of Herbert ‘Daring’ Dashwood”.

Unusually for library music, this song is listed right alongside the other more familiar vocal tunes in Fallout 3′s end credits. However instead of the plethora of copyright information, artist name, and record labels, all of that is replaced with “Courtesy of APM Music, Inc.”

APM Music is one of the well known providers of production music, combining various music libraries and underscoring countless cartoons, films, and TV shows, yet almost anonymously.

Curiously, of the music reprised from GNR in Fallout 3 into DCR in Fallout 4, the ones that didn’t make the jump all came from APM Music.

More on that later.

As is the case with library music, finding artist and recording information is extremely difficult as these songs were never meant to be sold to the public, instead being exclusively used for the film and TV industry. What follows is an attempt to extricate this information.

Note: Library music is typically identified by composer or emotion. Very little can be confirmed about the musicians who performed on the recording.

About the composer

Far left: Jack Hylton, Center: Pat O’Malley, Far right: Billy Munn

Born in Scotland in 1911, Billy Munn had a natural talent for jazz. By age 11, he improvised on the piano for Glasgow’s Black Cat Cinema during children’s programs.

He joined his first dance band at age 14 while his ambitions as a pianist led him to joining in 1926 Jack Hylton’s dance band, the preeminent British bandleader. This lead to numerous offers of freelance recording and broadcasting work and the start of his work scoring for film and television. 

Eventually he would lead his own ensemble at the Orchid Room in Mayfair along with launching the Jazz Club program on the BBC in 1947.

For further reading...

About the recording

First comes first: Why does the label say “Jazz Interlude” while Fallout identifies it as “Jazzy Interlude”?

While the original record label belonged to Charles Brull, it was eventually acquired by famed UK library label KPM, which is managed in the States by APM Music.

CBL 37 is an odd mixture of spinning at 78 rpm and being made of vinyl, meaning you’d need specialized equipment for playing it.

As far as I can tell, it was first reissued in 1999 as a CD, KPM 0398 Roads to War (1933-1945) Part 1. You may find that a total of 3 songs from Fallout 3 also appear in the track listing. Here, the song picked up a description as Track No. 45:

“English swing dance music”

And an incongruous extra “y” on the track title which presumably carried over into 2008.

So as to ascertaining the date of the recording. If the CD is to be believed, this track was recorded sometime between 1933 - 1945. I have found no evidence to confirm this.

The record label itself does not have a date of publication. However, an image of Bert Graves’ “Cool Cucumber”, CBL 53, a mere 16 away from 37, shows in a very small subtitle: “Recording First Published in 1957″.

Charles Brull seems to have also provided discs for broadcast on the BBC as test pattern or test card music. You may recognize the same three tracks appearing under 1954.

1954 might have been the end of it except for some entries from our friends in the Nordic countries.

The Danish Cultural Archive or the Dansk Kulturarv has digitized the radio set-lists of the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR). The archives indicate that Billy Munn’s “Jazz Interlude” was played over the air in 1958, 1959, 1961, and 1963.

Meanwhile, the Swedish Film Database records that Billy Munn’s “Jazz Interlude” was used in the soundtracks for the 1952 film Farlig kurva and the 1950 adaptation of The Scarlet Pimpernel or Pimpernel Svensson.

In the meantime, various recent films have licensed the song under its “new” name “Jazzy Interlude”. Of particular note is the TV series Manhattan. Naturally being about the Manhattan Project, there are a couple of references to the Fallout series, notably the use of several songs including “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire”, “Jingle, Jangle, Jingle”, “Fox Boogie”, and “Jazzy Interlude” in S1E6 “Acceptable Limits”. Here’s a short sound clip from the episode.

Listen to the flip side “Swing Doors” here.

[khorazir]

A cartographic plot

The first part of this was written for Spark. I went a bit over the wordcount while talking about the importance of places in my fanfics, and decided to post the entire thing here on tumblr. The bit published in Spark is above, the rest below the cut.

I started writing BBC Sherlock fanfiction in the back of my parents’ car after a week spent cycling in the French Alps. For years, my father had talked about tackling the Col du Galibier, a pass of Tour de France fame, by bicycle. In the summer of 2012, we finally did it. Ah, but Sherlock and cycling? Where’s the connection? When I began writing the story, scribbling on whatever scrap of paper was available in the car, at first the only connection was that I loved both Sherlock and cycling, and that my recent experiences in the mountains, spending hours in the saddle arduously ascending winding roads, had made a deep impression on me. I was desperate for an outlet for my pent up inspiration.

Eventually, what started out as a cracky premise for a Post-Reichenbach Sherlock story became Over Hill and Under Hill, a fanfic of 75k words and the first finished instalment of my Over/Under series. In the story, the extreme, beautiful landscape of Savoyen serves as a backdrop for the Baker Street boys to deal with the fallout of the Fall (written before Series 3 aired, my version of Sherlock’s reunion with John is different from canon) and their feelings for each other while basically doing what I had just done: climbing Alpine passes on their bicycles. At some point, a case creeps into the story, too, which Sherlock solves from abroad.

Apart from telling my version of the reunion, I wanted to write a story about grandiose nature, the hardship of ascending two thousand metres of altitude on a bicycle, the elation of standing on top of the pass glancing over the mountains, and the rush of adrenaline during the steep descents. I yearned to include some of the strange people we’d met on the way and who return as minor characters in the story, such as the chap cycling all the way in tight black swimming trunks and nothing else. How fortunate for the storyteller that the long ascents give John and Sherlock time to think and to talk, while the descents make their adrenaline junkies’ hearts soar. They have to share a room and a double bed at the hotel, of course, which leads to ... things. The plot itself is structured by the landscape, almost following the roads they cycle on bend for bend and landmark for landmark. Weather conditions such as hot, relentless sun and a sudden thunderstorm add a touch of drama. Stops along the way provide incentives for reflections, conversations and realisations, and for the boys getting to know each other again after their separation.

I was surprised by how well it worked to transfer these very urban characters so closely associated with London into this new setting and unfamiliar activity, keeping their essence (hopefully) while letting the landscape and its particular blend of beauty and danger work its magic, moulding the two men into the couple they hadn’t realised they’d been all along.

Looking back, the way Over Hill and Under Hill came about shouldn’t have surprised me. Of the books and stories I grew up with, and which have left a lasting impression on me, most have a very specific setting and precise sense of place. Be it the stories by Astrid Lindgren, mostly set in the Swedish region of Småland during the time of her childhood in the early 20th century, or Vasapark and the small islands around Stockholm of her adult life, or Otfried Preußler’s masterful descriptions of the Lausitz region in Eastern Germany where his captivating novel Krabat is set. Or be it JRR Tolkien, the master of making the fictional yet reality-grounded landscape of Middle-earth absolutely integral to the plot and structure of his writings. Even if many believe Middle-earth to be found in New Zealand, based on Peter Jackson’s film adaptations, the true inspiration for the Shire are Tolkien’s beloved West Midlands. The hemlock glade where Beren sees Lúthien dance for the first time in The Silmarillion is based on a similar glade near Great Haywood Tolkien watched his wife dance. And the gruesome Dead Marshes on the borders of Mordor Tolkien experienced himself on the war-torn battlefields of the Somme. I think it’s safe to claim that the landscapes that he encountered as a child and young man seeped into his writings, in many cases becoming not just interesting tableaux to add colour to the stories, but important tools to provide characterisation, suspense, and poignant reminders of the preciousness of the natural world.

For me, the spatial setting of a story and its detailed description have always been an important requirement for my enjoyment of a tale. The “willing suspension of disbelief”, to quote Tolkien, works best for me when the setting of a story is as detailed and well observed as possible, grounded in physical laws and restrictions as well as the distinctive laws of the story. Weather, vegetation, distances, languages and the effects they have on the characters have to be realistic – both when existing and imagined places are described –, otherwise I’m quickly pulled out of the narrative and lose interest (by the way, this is one of my major gripes with “The Final Problem”: the way it sets at naught many of the basic “laws” established in previous episodes of Sherlock). Hints at local customs and peculiarities add colour, depth and believability to a setting, providing the characters with material to rub against and to engage with, to test their limits and limitations.

For me as an author (and illustrator), researching locations for fanfics or art is part of the enjoyment of writing, especially when it can be linked with visits to said locations (my excuse for frequent trips to the UK – I’m based in Germany). I’m a stickler for detail born out of a profound interest in the natural world, in botany, eco-systems, geology and geography, but also in the way historic events shape and influence landscape and its inhabitants. All these aspects I need to see reflected in fiction, and rendered faithfully, or else I can’t take a setting seriously, not the characters and their motivations. Most of the fanfics I’ve enjoyed so far have a very strong sense of place, be it London, Edinburgh, New York, Continental Europe, the Near East or the English countryside. In my own stories, I try to emulate this, preferring to write about places I’ve come to know through repeated visits and extensive literary and online research, as well as correspondence with locals.

Researching my WW2/codebreaker AU Enigma constitutes a special challenge in this respect, because it not only requires me to gather information about existing locations like Bletchley Park, Kent or London, but also wartime Britain in general, removed not just by space but by more than seventy intervening years. Although the internet is a brilliant tool for research, while trying to find out more about the history of the Enigma locations, visits have brought the places to life for me, particularly Bletchley Park. The venue has been transformed into a commendable museum that seeks to recreate the atmosphere of it’s hay-day as a secret codebreaker base through reconstructed huts and historical installations, as well as information about important figures such as Alan Turing, and live demonstrations of his inventions. Interestingly, at the museum, I even found factual confirmation of what I had considered an invention for my story. When it came to locating Sherlock’s and John’s billet in Bletchley in 1941, Google Maps was of limited help: most of Bletchley was built after the war – it’s now part of Milton Keynes –, and from the map, it was almost impossible to tell which parts of it would have existed during the war and which were built afterwards. Old maps or arial photographs were scarce. So I used a bit of deductive reasoning and common sense, basically looking at the main roads leading in and out of town and assuming that they would have been built first. On a whim, I chose one of those thoroughfares, Buckingham Road, and placed the billet there. And lo and behold, during a subsequent visit to the Bletchley Park Museum, I found a photograph depicting billets of the park’s staff situated on the very road.

Lucky coincidences aside, nothing beats a visit to a location one wants to write about. However sometimes, due to constraints of time or money, visits aren’t possible and research from afar has to suffice. I worked like that when I started writing The Summer Boy. I’d been toying with the idea of a story partially set in Sherlock’s childhood for a long while. 1980s nostalgia played a part since I was a child during that decade as well, as did the desire to get to know the character better and to speculate what made him the man we encounter in the show, after glimpses of his past shown in Series 3.

However, a fitting setting for my story to unfold long eluded me. I was striving for an atmosphere similar to that of one of my all-time favourite films, “Stand By Me”, a bitter-sweet yet authentic depiction of childhood with a strong sense of spatial setting. I wanted the location to be a rural one, preferably close to London, with a distinctive landscape and somewhat fragile eco-system, the partial destruction of which would feature in the story to symbolise a place Sherlock could not really return to, but that offered him the chance of “growing up“ and finding an alternative retreat through his developing relationship with John.

Given the canonical links Sherlock Holmes has with Sussex, I began looking for potential locations along the Sussex coast and in the South Downs. I didn’t just want to invent a village or landmark, but wanted the story that was going to contain mythical and supernatural elements (based on how it’s interpreted, at least), to be set in a real place. The landscape and particular vegetation of the chalky downlands were going to play an important part in the story. And remember: stickler for detail. The plants, animals and historical sites Sherlock encounters had to be correct. So I researched the South Downs and their particular chalk-based vegetation, read up on South Down sheep, about Bronze and Iron Age settlements and their remains, and about the myths and legends of the area. I found striking similarities to Terry Pratchett’s masterful depiction of the Chalk in his Tiffany Aching series (The Wee Free Men and its four sequels), which is doubtlessly based on the chalky Wiltshire Downs he lived on. The link to Pratchett, his blend of real, meticulously observed, and fantastical elements based on myths and local culture (which are again inspired by the landscapes they originated in) seemed a good foil for my own story, which grew to contain lots of references to his works. I even partly modelled some of the characters on figures from his series of books.

Still, the dilemma remained to find a concrete place, preferably one featuring an ancient site or landmark such as a hill-fort or a barrow that would function as a focal place for young Sherlock to discover and to spend time at with the mysterious friend he encounters there, and who seems to be a personification of the South Downs, and of summer. By chance (and Google Image Search), I stumbled across a place called Chanctonbury Ring, a henge of trees planted in the 18th century on an Iron Age hill-fort. The South Downs Way leads past it, it commands a good view all around. Sheep graze there in summer, and on the grassy and partly wooded slopes surrounding it many rare plants grow. It’s in walking distance of a quaint village (Washington), which I could use as a base for Sherlock to be accommodated at with relatives. And what ultimately made Chanctonbury Ring the perfect location for my story was the fact that during the Great Storm of 1987, the trees of the henge were almost completely destroyed. I had wanted to set the story in that very year, because I imagine BBC Sherlock’s age to be around Benedict’s and my own (we are only seven months apart), which would make Sherlock around nine in the story, pre-pubescent. Perfect. His fake gravestone from TRF even says 1977, so that fit. And we all know what’s said about coincidences and lazy universes ...

So, perfect spatial and temporal setting found, I still faced the sad fact that I hadn’t actually visited Chanctonbury Ring, nor could see any chance of getting there soon. Nevertheless, the story demanded to be written. Consulting Google Maps as well as photographs helped to get an idea of the place. I looked at similar places in my home country across the Channel. Thus equipped, I started writing (the muse wouldn’t suffer any delay and kept pestering me until I relented), in the hope to actually be able to visit Chanctonbury Ring before I had come too far, enabling me to revise potential mistakes.

Eventually, when the story was already half written, and during the wrong season of the year (the story is set in the summer, I went in December), I visited Chanctonbury Ring. I was pleased to find that my descriptions of the landscape were surprisingly accurate based on what research I’d done, although the visit did add a feeling for the place that hopefully enabled me to make the latter chapters more poignant.

Arguably the most important location for writing Sherlock fanfic is London, a place I’ve become very familiar with in recent years due to frequent visits with long walks and a full timetable of museums, exhibitions, galleries and cultural events, lots of reading about the history of the city, a strong interest in current events, and constant curiosity that lets me explore places off the beaten tracks.

London was one of my favourite places even before I my obsession with BBC Sherlock happened. Actually, I’m convinced the way London is portrayed in the series is one of the main reasons Sherlock struck such a chord with me. Apart from the humour, the obvious chemistry of the protagonists, the cleverness of the dialogues and the overall aesthetics, it was the way modern London was depicted and made an integral character that fascinated me so much about the show. Despite large parts of Sherlock being filmed in Cardiff and elsewhere, they nevertheless feel like parts of the British capital just off the main tourist tracks. Sherlock’s London is both familiar and strange, ugly and beautiful, dark and bright, historic and modern. The character’s particular way of focussing on seemingly unimportant details is reflected in the cinematography. The choice of unusual settings and locations such as Speedy’s Café, Battersea Power Station, the streets of Soho, Leinster Garden, a disused Tube station and the banks of the Thames add atmosphere and colour, making London a living, breathing character in the show – as it was in the original Conan Doyle stories. Occasionally, a touch of Victoriana, ever present even in modern London, creeps into the series, linking it back to the stories it’s based on. Sherlock has definitely rekindled my love of London, or rather, has fanned the already existing embers into hot flames. In the sequels to Over Hill and Under Hill, and several of my other Sherlock fanfics, I’ve tried to honour this tradition by including curious locations in, and little-known minutiae about London to make it come to life as an integral part of the narration, and also to create credibility for the setting.

I have plans to dive even deeper into London past and present. For about a year and half I’ve been working on a Sherlock/London graphic novel in which the location becomes centre point. The story is simple: to alleviate boredom, on his birthday, Sherlock is sent on a “treasure hunt” through London, moving from riddle to riddle and clue to clue set, from one little known location to the next, discovering facts and anecdotes about what he visits in the process. The idea for the book was born out of my many walks through London, along the South Bank, through the City on Sunday mornings when it’s like a ghost town, deserted, along the Regent’s Canal to Camden and on to Hampstead Heath, through the East End and the West End, Chinatown, Soho, Bloomsbury, through Chelsea and Kensington, and further out to the Docklands and Greenwich. I’ve discovered real gems through these walks, some of which Sherlock is going to visit as well – as many as I can realistically squeeze into twenty-four hours without completely exhausting the poor man.

The project is going to occupy me for a good while yet. Also planned are two sequels to The Summer Boy. One is based on a painting I did for the Holmestice Exchange and which depicts John and Sherlock in a disused Tube station. There was some clamouring for a story based on the image, so I’m going to oblige. Since the Tube is such an integral part of London and I’ve long been fascinated with its history, I look forward to researching it.

The second sequel is going to be set in the Lake District. Some of the research for this new story has already been done, and another visit to the area has been booked for the autumn. I haven’t really thought of a plot for the story yet, some vague ideas aside, but I’m very sure that the landscape of Cumbria will provide it once I’m there. A cartographic plot, as usual.

[norton-addiction]

In reality, very few Russians are sinister mobsters who poison their foes with polonium or dangle them from skyscraper balconies. But western TV and cinema are very different from reality. In the 21st century, their on-screen representations rarely break out of that sinisterly psychotic stereotype. When are TV Russians going to be the good guys? Never is the Guide’s guess. There’s too much popular cultural investment in depicting them as evil mobsters, as the implacably butch Other to relatively mimsy westerners.

In the centenary year of the Russian revolution, the west is still bewitched by this threat – specifically the mob, which seems bent on exporting its criminal values over here. And the fact that Russia is currently led by an ex-KGB demagogue who burnishes his masculinity issues by hunting half-naked and, according to the news media, may or may not have had a role in hacking the US presidential election, doesn’t help either.

Arguably, Russians are the go-to stereotypes in popular culture right now because, in western nightmares, that stock character resonates with the image we have from the news of President Putin as an implacable hoodlum bent on subverting democratic values.

These kind of thoughts are preying on the minds of the makers of looming BBC drama series McMafia, starring James Norton, which is based on Misha Glenny’s book of the same name. In it, screenwriter Hossein Amini, along with writer-director James Watkins, has focused on a Russian criminal family whose new head is played by Norton.

Amini claims that what he has written avoids the otherwise ubiquitous Russian stereotypes. “The cliche is that they’re a bunch of goons in sharp suits,” Amini says. “What’s often missing from that is that they’re incredibly rich culturally; this is the land of Chekhov and Dostoevsky.”

And yet, as the Guide chats to Amini and Norton during a break in filming, the star of the show can’t quite resist telling me a story about how scary and tough Russians are. Recently, Norton underwent training in the Russian martial art of Systema for his new role. His trainer, David, explained the difference between English and Russian temperaments. Norton impersonates the Systema expert in his best sinister accent: “In England when you see fear you run. In Russia we see fear we shake him by the fucking hand.” Norton giggles amiably. But the point of the story is that even real-life Russians, sometimes, get a kick out of playing up to the hard-man image.

We’re enjoying the spring sunshine on the lawns of Munden House near Watford, which serves as a Russian mobster’s mansion for the eight-part drama series. Norton stars as Alex Godman, a young Russian-born British hedge-fund trader who’s sucked into the corrupting vortex of his family’s crime business. “It’s about someone who finds the Russian bear underneath the bowler hat,” explains James Watkins. What the director means is that beneath the genial suavity of British civilisation is the scary Russian psychopath, who’ll separate you from your windpipe if you look at him wrongly.

You’ll find Russian bears everywhere on TV and movies these days – and not just under the bowler hat. Many shows now seem to have a tough Russkie with mob connections, ideally played by a non-Russian actor, to up the narrative ante. In Orange Is the New Black, for instance, Galina “Red” Reznikov, played by Iowa-born Kate Mulgrew, rules her corner of Litchfield Penitentiary with an iron fist akin to Putin’s helmsmanship of the Kremlin. Plus, Mulgrew brings to the role the same gravitas she gave her character Kathryn Janeway in Star Trek: Voyager.

How did Red (named after her distinctively coloured hair) come to be in the slammer? She punched the wife of the local Russian mob boss in the chest, rupturing the latter’s breast implant. As a result, Red and her husband Dmitri were obliged to pay the repair costs through tasks including storing five corpses of mob victims in their freezer – corpses that led to Red’s conviction for murder. Moral? Punching mob boss’s wives in their breast implants is never a good idea.

What’s also striking is how well this stereotype plays with viewers and critics, at least non-Russian ones. When the mob comes to town to get vengeance in the recent fourth season of Ray Donovan, for instance, one critic wrote: “I love this show’s cold war-esque portrayal of Russian culture/mobsters. They’re all criminal drug addicts!” Liev Schreiber’s eponymous La-La Land enforcer is badass, but not as badass as what one US critic was pleased to call “Dmitri and his entourage of evil”. Having duffed up Ray’s Israeli muscle Avi and taken him hostage, Dmitri (New Yorker Raymond J Barry) phones Ray to demand the return of his relative. Or, as he puts it, terrifyingly: “Mr Donovan, bring me my niece or I kill your Jew.”

And that’s the problem: 21st-century Russians rarely break out of the psychotic stereotype on western TV or cinema. Even in Arrow, the adaptation of the DC comic about billionaire playboy Oliver Queen who is also a secret hooded vigilante, we learn that our hero’s backstory includes post-shipwreck years as a captain of the Russian mob. That’s why our hero can speak the language and why, in a flashback in season five, we see Queen go toe-to-toe with Dolph Lundgren’s Russian government strongman Konstantin Kovar, who resembles Putin with bigger pecs. Lundgren, significantly, has made a successful career from playing Russian hardmen. In 1985, at the height of the Reagan-era cold war, he played Soviet boxer Ivan Drago in Rocky IV, whom patriotic American Sylvester Stallone (in stars and stripes boxing shorts) was obliged to take down in a symbolic bout prefiguring by four years the fall of the Soviet Union. Then, Dolph was the symbolic patsy losing the old cold war for the Russians; in Arrow, more than three decades later, he’s the symbolic patsy losing the new one for them.

Dolph Lundgren, by the way, is not Russian, but Swedish.

Will McMafia buck or conform to the stereotypes? On the lawn of Munden House, James Norton tells the Guide that he hopes his performance will remind us that Russians are different to what is considered the norm on cinema and TV. He says that one reason he wanted to play Alex, the Anglo-Russian who’s both revolted and seduced by his family’s criminal past, was that he is so conflicted. While Alex is proud of his Russian roots (“He has a Dostoevsky book at his bedside and he goes to Systema classes a couple of times a week”) he also agonises over what being Russian means. Will Norton manage to bring such complexities to life, bucking the trend of stereotyping them as thugs? “I hope for Russians’ sakes it counters those cliches. There’s so much negative propaganda about Russia at the moment that we digest. Some of it’s true and some of it is certainly not.”

McMafia will air next year on BBC1

[troominmoll]

Moomin Adaptations

A post to appreciate the older, less known, or underappreciated Moomin series. Bolded titles contain links to playlists with the complete series, unless stated otherwise.

Die Muminfamilie (1959) A German black and white puppet show. The first season was based on Finn Family Moomintroll (which was originally aired live), and the second on Moominsummer Madness. It was the first time Moomins were adapted for television. All 12 episodes are available. (Note: While the episodes have not been translated in their entirety, a few fan subbed episodes are available here.)

Mumintrollet (1969) The first television series to have human actors in the roles of the characters. It was used an original story written by Tove and Lars Jansson, and was directed by Vivica Bandler. The series is best known for how the actors portraying the Moomins would remove the heads of their costumes. Some actors who had previously worked with Tove Jansson on her Moomin stage plays appeared in this show. All 13 episodes are available.

Mumin (1969) The first anime adaptation of the Moomins. It is known for being disliked by Tove Jansson for reasons including changes to character personalities and violence. However, it was well loved and helped make the Moomins popular in Japan.  (Note: it does not seem possible to find every episode online, but the linked playlist has the most complete list I could find. Some fan subbed episodes can be viewed here.)

Shin Mumin (1972) A sequel series to the 1969 anime. It was aimed at a younger audience, fewer episodes are based on original stories and they usually involve fantasy themes. All 52 episodes are available. (Note: some fan subbed episodes can be viewed here.)

Mumindalen (1973) A second show performed by live actors, also written by Tove and Lars Jansson. It was originally aired as an advent calendar program. Includes episodes based on Moominland Midwinter, Finn Family Moomintroll, and Tales of Moominvalley. All 24 episodes are available.

Opowiadania Muminków (1977) A Polish/German stop motion series often referred to as “fuzzy felt Moomins”. It is generally considered the most faithful adaptation of the original stories and was liked by Tove Jansson, who approved each script before production of the episodes. Some Polish episodes are available on Youtube. The complete FilmFair English version is also available, along with the movies Moomin and Midsummer Madness, Comet Chase, and Winter Wonderland, which are edited compilations by Filmkompaniet. (Note: The FilmFair version is a 1980 UK series narrated by Richard Murdoch, using heavily edited footage which split the original animation from 78 episodes into 100 shorter episodes. The movies are a recent restoration by Filmkompaniet, who have also created a new TV series with the original footage, and include a new soundtrack, narration, and voice acting.)

Mumi-troll (1978) A three part stop motion Russian animation. It is mainly based on Comet in Moominland, but also borrows from Finn Family Moomintroll in the first part. (Note: A subtitled version of the first part and a fan dub of the second and third parts are available.)

Filifjonkan som trodde på katastrofer (1978) A Swedish television film based on the short story of the same name. It features May Pihlgren in the titular role, as well as some set design by Tove Jansson.

Shlyapa Volshebnika (1980) A three part Russian animation based on Finn Family Moomintroll. Mainly uses cutout style animation, but also mixes in other styles including stop motion. It is most famous for its unusual character designs, such as the portrayal of Snufkin as a duck-like child.

Vem ska trösta Knyttet? (1980) A musical adaptation of the picture book “Who Will Comfort Toffle?”, with a soundtrack performed by Peter Lundblad and Torbjörn Eklund. It closely follows the art style in which the book was drawn. 

Hur gick det sen? (1993) An adaptation of “The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My”, also following the style of the original story. Both the original Swedish version, which was narrated by Tove Jansson, and a Finnish dub are available.

From the Life of Little Trolls (2008) An Armenian short film based on The Last Dragon on Earth. It was directed and animated by award-winning artist Naira Muradyan.    

Moomins on the Riviera (2014) A movie based on the stories and style of Tove Jansson’s Moomin comic strips. Supposedly caused some controversy for containing themes such as smoking and drinking, which were mostly not present in the 90s anime, and were seen by some as too “adult” for children’s movies. The link contains dubs in various languages. 

Missing from this list:

Mumindalen (1990) A Swedish series which used the character and Moominhouse models built by Tove Jansson and Tuulikki Pietilä. It was narrated by Margit Lindeman, who provided the original Swedish voice of Moominmamma in Tanoshii Moomin Ikka. (Note: You can watch the intro online, but it seems legal issues prevent copies of the episodes from being released.)  

Note: Please consider this post defunct, no longer maintaining it for safety purposes.

[jmsa1287]

Visually Stunning but a Slog, 'Altered Carbon' is a Sleeve of Great Sci-Fi (& the Future of Netflix)

i wrote about the new show “Altered Carbon” and how it’s the future of Netflix, whether you like it or not.

Earlier this month, Amazon made headlines when it announced that it canceled some of its small, quirky indie comedies, including out comedian Tig Notaro's "One Mississippi" and queer producer Jill Soloway's "I Love Dick." Before that, Netflix nixed the beloved "Lady Dynamite," a series from comedian Maria Bamford. And last summer, Hulu pulled the plug on Julie Klausner's "Difficult People," in which she starred alongside out comic Billy Eichner.

The cancelations come not long after Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced the company acquired the TV rights for the "Lord of the Rings" book series, a major play that signals Amazon wants the next "Game of Thrones." A recent piece from Vulture reporter Josef Adalian got to the bottom of this new trend of cancelations and Amazon's latest power play.

"They're starting to act more like traditional, mature programming services," an anonymous TV veteran exec said of the three major streaming services, Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu. "They're canceling shows which clearly weren't working for them."

Adalian adds: "[T]he recent wave of cancellations doesn't mean the days of risk-taking and niche shows are over at (most) streaming networks... But as streamers replace linear networks, they'll continue to refine their programming mixes, likely favoring shows with broader appeal as a more cost-effective way to keep subscribers happy."

Enter Netflix's new big blockbuster play: "Altered Carbon," a 10 episode series adapted from Richard K. Morgan's popular 2002 novel of the same name and debuting on the streaming service Feb. 2.

This glossy cyber-punk noir, starring Joel Kinnaman ("House of Cards," "Suicide Squad") is one part "Blade Runner," one part "Ghost in the Shell" and a dash of "Doctor Who." Set 300 years in the future, humans can digitally download their consciousness into disks called "stacks," allowing them to switch bodies, now called "sleeves," and avoid a natural biological death. The only way one can die is if their stack, located at the top of the spine, is physically destroyed.

Takeshi Kovacs (played by Will Yun Lee), the last of a special group of warriors with uncanny abilities. After being ambushed and "killed," he was put "on ice" - a kind of imprisonment where his stack was left in limbo for hundreds of years. He's finally awakened thanks to the nefarious and wealthy businessman Laurens Bancroft (James Purefoy), who enlists (and basically enslaves) Kovacs, now in a fancy new sleeve, played by Kinnaman, to help solve his own murder.

"Altered Carbon" is visually beautiful, with impressive graphics and lush set pieces. No expenses were spared here and the show's nods to "Blade Runner" and "Ghost in the Shell" are vibrant and visceral. It may be built around images we've seen before (rainy alleyways, holographic ads, sharp neon lights) - even recently with the reboots of "Blade Runner 2049" and the live-action "Ghost in the Shell" hitting theaters in 2017 - but the world-building gives the show a much-needed life and character.

"Altered Carbon" flounders nearly everywhere else, however. Like HBO's sci-fi thriller "Westworld" before it, "Altered Carbon" is slow as molasses as it asks what the show thinks are deeply thought-provoking and philosophical questions about mortality, technology, human nature, violence, identity and so on and so on. While some may find this hyper-violent, super-sexual and ultra-dark show a form of escapism, "Altered Carbon" is often too gratuitous to enjoy.

Above all else, "Altered Carbon," created for TV by screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis ("Shutter Island"), is a slog, bogged down by hours of exposition. This is partly due to the show's self-seriousness. There's hardly any levity here, and the only sense of "fun" the show offers is intense and gory fight scenes. There's no Han Solo-type character to act as an audience avatar to react to the absurdity of this futuristic hellhole and "Altered Carbon" believes it is a truly meaningful piece of work, mostly ignoring its opportunity to embrace its pulpiness.

Though Kinnaman has the makings of a great action star - he's handsome and very buff, not afraid to strip down to nearly nothing as he does in several episodes here - he's bland and dull. Kinnaman, who really plays the sleeve of Kovacs (who has been described as "of Japanese and Eastern-European descent" - Kinnaman, a Swedish-American actor, playing Kovacs is worthy of a conversation unto itself), is too good-looking to be the hard-boiled and scrappy detective. On top of that, he simply doesn't have the range to emote; everything is pure rage or flat reaction. This makes it hard for Kinnaman to sell the cerebral and philosophical package "Altered Carbon" is presenting. It's also not entirely Kinnaman's fault as the writing is full of that snappy pun-driven dialogue that's predictable and incredibly corny.

Over its exhaustive 10 episode run, "Altered Carbon," runs out of steam early on as the show burns through plot rather quickly. A smaller episode count (or maybe even a two-hour movie) would have likely worked better in telling this part of Kovacs' story. And there's likely more story to come as "Altered Carbon" is based on a series of books about Kovacs. Netflix, too, seems to be doubling-down on its bingable sci-fi cyberpunk content as director Duncan Cooper's new film "Mute" is set to debut on the streaming service later next month. (The two trailers look wildly similar.)

"Altered Carbon" is exactly what Netflix ordered, likely taking the space of three lo-fi indie comedies, and, with its broad appeal, will satisfy a good portion of the company's subscribers. Netflix isn't alone in doubling down on this kind of genre storytelling, as The Ringer's Alison Herman points out Peak TV is currently having a sci-fi boom. Whether this new era gives us any worthy series is still up-in-the-air and the very flawed "Altered Carbon" doesn't give fans hope. I never loved the queer sci-fi series "Sense8," which Netflix canceled last year before ordering a finale movie, but I respected it because it took chances and told stories that focused on themes rarely explored in the genre, like love, sex and unity. "Altered Carbon" is a sleeve of the influences it's leaning into.

[mrhotmaster]

The List Of April 2020 TV Series Of Hotstar, Netflix And Amazon Is Here: Check Now

The biggest TV title of March — The Mandalorian — was gifted over fortnight early because of the (botched) beta roll-out of Disney+ Hotstar, which now launches officially Friday. Star Wars fans haven't any doubt already watched it, so you will not find it below. April also saw the return of confounding sci-fi Westworld and Jason Bateman-led Ozark for his or her respective third seasons. the previous continues through March, as is that the case for the opposite HBO series, The Plot Against America, from the creator of The Wire. Joining them in April may be a jam-packed list of latest and returning TV, and that is despite us not having the ability to incorporate some (like Killing Eve) which don't air weekly on India.

Disney+ Hotstar has five new titles — from a previous couple of episodes of recent Family to new shows featuring Cate Blanchett and Phoebe-Waller Bridge — despite not having one new Disney+ original series. Netflix also has five. Money Heist is the most-talked-about title, but there's a promise within the hands of Mindy Kaling and Vir Das, who are drawing on their own lives in a method or another. And if it's local content you're after, Amazon has two of these on offer: the return of Four More Shots Please!, and another from the house of The Viral Fever (TVF).

Here's our April 2020 TV guide, which incorporates shows on Disney+ Hotstar, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Apple TV+.

Home Before Dark

When: April 3

Where: Apple TV+

The first of two Apple originals in April is predicated on the true story of young journalist Hilde Lysiak (Brooklynn Prince, from The Florida Project) who unearths a chilly case that everybody, including her father, is trying to bury during a small lakeside town. Created by Dana Fox (The Wedding Date) & Dara Resnik (I Love Dick), and directed by Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians). Three episodes on the release date, and therefore the remaining seven weekly thereafter. Already renewed for a second season.

Money Heist

When: April 3

Where: Netflix

“The war had begun.” That's how the hit Spanish heist series ended its third season. (“Part”, to be precise. The new “Part 4” is technically the last half of the second season.) When the fourth season begins, everything is in chaos: the Professor (Álvaro Morte) thinks Lisbon (Itziar Ituño) is dead, Nairobi (Alba Flores) is somehow hanging in there, and Tokyo (Úrsula Corberó) and Rio (Miguel Herrán) have invited the army's wrath. On top of all that, an insider plans to defect.

Panchayat

When: April 3

Where: Amazon Prime Video

Jitendra Kumar (Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan) plays an engineering graduate with dim job prospects during this The Viral Fever (TVF) series, which finds him eventually picking the village council — hence panchayat — during a tiny Uttar Pradesh village. There, he struggles to handle the responsibilities and chart a far better path for his future. Neena Gupta (Badhaai Ho), Raghubir Yadav (Peepli Live!) also star.

Tales from the Loop

When: April 3

Where: Amazon Prime Video

Swedish painter Simon Stålenhag's futuristic art book of an equivalent name is that the foundation for this new sci-fi series, which tells the story of a rural Swedish town where people live above “The Loop”, a machine that has unlocked the mysteries of the universe and delivered to live things that were confined to sci-fi. Rebecca Hall (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), Paul Schneider (Parks and Recreation), and Jonathan Pryce (The Two Popes) star. Nathaniel Halpern (Legion) is the creator.

Modern Family

When: April 9

Where: Disney+ Hotstar

We don't usually usher in ongoing series in our TV guide, but a series finale for a long-running popular show deserves a mention. After 11 seasons and 248 episodes — the two-part hour-long finale will make that a good 250 — the once-brilliant mockumentary about the extended Pritchett clan is prepared to wrap things up. If you've never seen the show, you will need a full five days — that's 124 hours — to catch up. Sleep is for the weak (or dead?).

Run

When: April 13

Where: Disney+ Hotstar

Fleabag's Emmy-winning creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge is an executive producer and recurring star on this comedy thriller that comes from the mind of Waller-Bridge's frequent collaborator, Vicky Jones. In it, a lady (Merritt Wever, from Unbelievable) with an uneventful suburban life drops everything for a pact she made together with her college boyfriend (Domhnall Gleeson, from About Time).

Mrs. America

When: April 16

Where: Disney+ Hotstar

Cate Blanchett leads the power-packed cast — Sarah Paulson, Elizabeth Banks, Uzo Aduba, Rose Byrne, Margo Martindale, and John Slattery the others — in her American TV debut with this miniseries that tackles the story of Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative activist who opposed the Equal Rights Amendment within the 1970s. Three episodes on the release date, with the remaining six weekly thereafter.

What We neutralize the Shadows

When: April 16

Where: Disney+ Hotstar

Based on Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement's 2014 mockumentary horror comedy film, the story of 4 vampire housemates who are cohabitation for many years on New York's Staten Island continues within the second season, which can feature the likes of Mark Hamill (Star Wars) and Haley Joel Osment (Future Man) as guest stars. Two episodes on the release date, and one weekly thereafter.

Fauda

When: April 16

Where: Netflix

After airing over the New Year period in Israel on local TV, the third season of the political thriller — first announced back in December 2017 before the second season released, confirming the series' uber popularity — reaches global audiences. In it, Doron lays a trap for a determined young boxer when a months-long covert mission puts him and his team on the trail of a Hamas leader high on Shin Bet's — the Israeli equivalent of the FBI — wanted list.

Four More Shots Please!

When: April 17

Where: Amazon Prime Video

The all-women quartet — Sayani Gupta, Kirti Kulhari, Bani J, and Maanvi Gagroo — is back for more meaningless sex and rocky relationships within the second season of this romantic comedy-drama, which finds them jetting off to Istanbul and Udaipur when they are not busy living it up within the posh upscale neighborhood of south Mumbai. It stays all women behind the scenes too, with Nupur Asthana (Bewakoofiyaan) the new director, and Ishita Nandy joining her sister Rangita as co-showrunner.

The ghost within the Shell: SAC_2045

When: April 23

Where: Netflix

The Japanese cyberpunk franchise — which received a horrible Scarlett Johansson-starrer live-action adaptation three years ago — further expands with a replacement anime set within the titular year 2045, during a period of a replacement global financial crisis and a time when the planet is engulfed in an AI-driven “sustainable war.” Amidst all that, counter-cyberterrorist force Section 9 has new threats to affect.

Defending Jacob

When: April 24

Where: Apple TV+

Chris Evans (Captain America), Michelle Dockery (Downton Abbey), and Jaeden Martell (It) lead the cast of this thriller miniseries, directed by Morten Tyldum (The Imitation Game), that's supported William Landay's 2012 novel of an equivalent name. In it, Evans' character may be a lawyer whose teenage son (Martell) is accused of murder. Three episodes on the release date, with the opposite five weekly thereafter.

Never Have I Ever

When: April 27

Where: Netflix

Mindy Kaling delivers her own childhood experiences as an Indian-American during this coming-of-age tale, which is about in the present day and follows Devi Vishwakumar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), who wants not-a-nerd boyfriend, less hair, and an invitation to a celebration, where she is going to politely decline the alcohol and hard drugs she is going to naturally be offered. Tennis legend John McEnroe drops in as narrator because he's the idol of Devi's dead father.

Penny Dreadful: City of Angels

When: April 27

Where: Disney+ Hotstar

Natalie Dormer (Game of Thrones' Margaery Tyrell) and Daniel Zovatto (Fear the Walking Dead) lead the cast of this dime novel spin-off set 40 years after the events of the first in late 1930s l. a. , during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Dormer plays a shapeshifting supernatural demon and Zovatto is l. a. Police Department's first Mexican-American detective. And since this is often the late 1930s, Third Reich features a role to play also.

Hasmukh

When: April TBA

Where: Netflix

Vir Das may be a co-creator, co-writer, creative producer, and star of the sole Indian original series on Netflix in April, which follows a timid, aspiring, small-town comic (Das) who discovers that he must kill off-stage to kill on-stage. “Kill” naturally implies two very different meanings here. Das has said that the show has elements of crime mystery Dexter and comedy anthology Fargo. Ranvir Shorey (Khosla Ka Ghosla!), Manoj Pahwa (Article 15) star alongside.

Beyond April

We'll have an in-depth round-up of upcoming TV shows monthly, but we do know a good bit about the longer-term already.

Hollywood: Limited Series / May 1, Netflix

Trying: Season 1 / May 1, Apple TV+

Upload: Season 1 / May 1, Amazon Prime Video

Betty: Season 1 / May 2, Disney+ Hotstar

Billions: Season 5 / May 4, Disney+ Hotstar

The Eddy: Limited Series / May 8, Netflix

The Third Day: Limited Series / May 12, Disney+ Hotstar

Central Park: Season 1 / May 29, Apple TV+

[ysc002-blog]

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