December 18th, 2009 admin
Starring: Patrick McGoohan, Angelo Muscat, Peter Swanwick, Leo McKern
Created By: Patrick McGoohan & George Markstein
Network: ITV
Original Air Date: 09/29/1967 – 02/01/1968
Do you like Lost? If the answer is yes you might want to take a moment and write Patrick McGoohan a quick ‘Thank you.’ Because without the influence of this groundbreaking series telling of one man trapped in a seemingly idyllic yet sinister locale from which there appears to be no escape you might not have it. From the tranquil setting, the roaring, otherworldly security system, to the sprawling Machiavellian conspiracy to guard its secrets, the influence of The Prisoner on ABC’s flagship drama and shows like it is undeniable.
Modeled after McGoohan’s previous and successful spy drama Danger Man and co-created with former series script editor George Markstein, The Prisoner played like a trippy espionage thriller. Yet the self-contained format of a serialized episodic drama meant that it could diverge each week into some heady, cerebral territory, tackling themes of philosophy, metaphysics, and the nature of ideology. It’s a full on psychedelic Orwellian nightmare. Think 1984 on `shrooms and you’re in the ballpark.
Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
Posted in British Television, Reviews | 1 Comment »
November 20th, 2009 admin
Faulty Towers: The Complete Series
Starring: John Cleese, Connie Booth, Andrew Sachs, Brian Hall, Prunella Scales
Created By: John Cleese & Connie Booth
Original Air Date: 09/19/1975 – 10/25/1979
As quintessentially British a show as was ever devised the beloved Fawlty Towers, re-released here in its entirety to celebrate the series 30th anniversary, was in fact born out if simple truth rather than any strokes of comic genius. Co-creators John Cleese and his then wife Connie Booth conceived this fast paced, farce-based sitcom from their own experience. While filming Monty Python’s Flying Circus the troupe had the misfortune to stay in a rundown Torquay hotel managed by a puffed-up grouch named Donald Sinclair, and man Cleese described as being “Gratuitously rude.”
The basis for the now legendarily eccentric Basil Fawlty, the abrasive Sinclair was witnessed, amongst other things, flinging a timetable at one guest who enquired about a bus into town, rearranging the “clearly American” Terry Gilliam’s silverware in the middle his dinner, and hiding Eric Idle’s briefcase behind a wall at the far end of the swimming pool because he was concerned that it might be a bomb brought in by disgruntled staff.
Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
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November 3rd, 2009 admin
Though it has never managed to achieve anything beyond cult status in the US (a planned American remake never made it beyond a pilot) Red Dwarf has steadily evolved in its native Britain from a quirky sci-fi sitcom into a veritable cultural intuition as one of the most beloved comedy series of all time. Originally a short radio play titled Dave Hollins: Space Cadet, penned by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, Red Dwarf is a sci-fi slacker comedy about a lazy, drunken slob named Dave Lister (Craig Charles). Lister has no ambition, the personal hygiene of a homeless teenager, and subsists on a diet consisting entirely of curry and lager. He also happens to be the last human being in the universe.
Marooned in deep space aboard the mining ship Red Dwarf on which he served after three million years in hyper-sleep, Lister’s long, arguably fruitless journey back to Earth combined with his amiable nobility struck a chord with audiences and cemented the show’s popularity. Keeping our hero company are his companions Cat (Danny John Jules), a preening fashionista that evolved from his pet cat; Kryten (Robert Llewellyn), a neurotic sanitation mechanoid; and Rimmer (Chris Barrie), a hologram of his dead bunkmate who exhibits the ego and ambition of a Caesar but displays the ability of a particularly untalented cretin.
Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
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August 24th, 2009 admin
Starring: Julian Barratt, Noel Fielding, Michael Fielding, Rich Fulcher, Dave Brown
Created By: Julian Barratt & Noel Fielding
Network: Comedy Central
Original Air Date: 11/15/2007 – 12/20/2007
Transforming from cult favorite to international sensation, surrealist comedy troupe The Mighty Boosh offer up a third season, employing the familiar blend of anarchic fantasy and bizarre musical numbers to once more wreak their own singular brand of havoc on the unsuspecting laws of time, space, and good taste. Continuing to follow the adventures and mishaps of hapless duo Howard Moon (Barratt) and Vince Noir, still desperately trying to raise the profile of their shambolic musical act (the titular Mighty Boosh), season three ushers in yet another change of venue.
Still sponging off the swiftly evaporating goodwill of super-cool shaman Naboo the Enigma, and his ape familiar Bollo, Boosh v3.0 takes place predominantly in the newly opened “Nabootique,” a second hand thrift store in Dalston. The banter is still comically banal, the stories still silly, and the costumes and make-up of the loony characters utterly irresistible. Yet there is something oddly muted about season three, brought abut the the tight-fisted BBC clashing the budget on this third season. Where as previous seasons took in such trippy locales as the desert, the Arctic Tundra, and the Planet Xooberon, much of this season is contained within the confines of the store, which all too often begs to be blown open and for things to really cut loose.
Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
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August 5th, 2009 admin
Starring: Julian Barratt, Noel Fielding, Michael Fielding, Rich Fulcher, Dave Brown
Created By: Julian Barratt & Noel Fielding
Network: Comedy Central
Original Air Date: 07/25/2005 – 08/30/2005
A glowing testament to the phenomenal power of word of mouth The Mighty Boosh has over the last decade transformed from a makeshift stage troupe performing to small crowds into an international sensation boasting a catalogue of five live stage shows, a series of radio plays, a hit television show and an upcoming feature film. Formed over a decade ago by principle members Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding, The Boosh was born out of a desire to recreate the anarchic comedy of The Goodies, an iconic early seventies television series specializing in offbeat sketch comedy, bizarre musical numbers, and overt surrealism. But rather than a series of self-contained sketches The Mighty Boosh takes the idea much further, expanding the notion of boundless whimsy to the world at large.
This second season leaves behind the “Zooniverse” that was the setting for season one and relocates itself to a flat in Dalston, by way of forests, deserts, submarines, and the planet Xooberon. Still trying to gets their crappy band signed dorky Howard Moon (Barret) and narcissistic hipster Vince Noir (Fielding) share the flat with ultra laid-back freelance shaman Naboo Randolf Roberdy Poberdy The Enigma (Naboo for short), and his Ape familiar Bollo. The reckless misuse of Naboo’s magics, potions and trinkets often provides the catalyst for each episodes surrealist ramble.
Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
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July 27th, 2009 admin
Starring: Kenneth Branagh, Sarah Smart, Tom Hiddleston, David Warner, Jeany Spark, Sadie Shimin
Created By: Henning Mankell (Novels)
Network: BBC
Original Air Date: 11/30/2008 – 12/14/2009
The enigmatic protagonist of a series of dark Swedish detective novels penned by author Henning Mankell, the impressively named Kurt Wallander is something of a global phenomenon within the crime fiction genre. In Germany his adventures outsell those of Harry Potter and the series boats sales of over twenty-five million copies worldwide. Fine literary pedigree we can all agree, but this TV mini-series adaptation, the first of any kind for the English language sadly loses something in the translation.
In a bid for authenticity, something that is always admirable, the BBC set up shop in Ystad, Sweden to film the series; three self-contained episodes, ninety minutes a piece. But rather than casting locals who could speak English and then simply having Branagh adopt a Swedish accent (something he is surely capable of) they instead adopted for an all English cast. The result are stories where all the signs, newspapers, and billboards are in Swedish, all the names are Swedish, and yet everyone speaks with a non-regional English accent, the overall effect of which is to constantly remind you that you’re watching a very polished reproduction.
Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
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June 3rd, 2009 admin
Lovejoy – Season Five
Starring: Ian McShane, Chris Jury, Dudley Sutton, Phyllis Logan
Created By: John Grant
Original Air Date: 09/05/1993 – 11/28/1993
Long before Ian McShane gave US audiences a profanity laden acting masterclass as the magnificently layered saloon owner Al Swearengen in HBO’s Deadwood, he was giving aging housewives weekly groin twinges as charismatic antiques dealer Lovejoy. If you want to know why the BBC suddenly went nuts to recapture the youth audience with shows like Dr. Who, Torchwood and the revamped Top Gear, it’s because it realized it had driven them all away to rival network ITV with shows like Lovejoy, a piece of bourgeois-centric fluff so light it has to be weighted down to keep from floating away.
Based on a series of picturesque novels by the unfortunately named Jonathan Gash (a pen name he chose no less) the character of Lovejoy is depicted as a loveable rogue who navigates the high seas of regional antiques dealing by his wits! Lovejoy doesn’t have a first name – it’s part of his enigma you see. Set in rural East Anglia the series follows Lovejoy’s exploits, along with his cohorts: the stiff-upper-lipped and lovable Tinker, and the bungling Eric who serve as the comic relief while our hero attempts each week to essentially make a bit of cash.
Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
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May 20th, 2009 admin
The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin
Starring: Leonard Rossiter, Pauline Yates, Sue Nicholls, John Barron,
Created By: David Nobbs
Original Air Date: 09/08/1976 – 01/24/1979
Like much of the very best of classic British comedy, the likes of Steptoe and Son (remade for the US as Sanford and Son) and `Till Death Us Do Part (remade as All In The Family), The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin was a zeitgeist television program that effectively captured the idiosyncrasies of a cultural and political climate on the verve on a minor revolution.
Adapted by writer David Hobbs from his own series of darkly comic series of novels, the short, sharp shock of The Fall and Rise…comprised three series, and effectively a beginning, middle and end that encompassed one perfectly ordinary man’s complete mental breakdown brought about by the suffocating monotony of the everyday.
A comedy of manners that slighted both the middle class and the rise of consumerism, each episode began with the now iconic title sequence that showed our despairing hero shedding his clothes on the beach before swimming naked out to sea towards the vast, expansive horizon.
Click here to rerad the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
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September 19th, 2008 admin
Black Books – Season One
Created By: Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews
Starring: Dylan Moran, Bill Bailey, Tamsin Greig
Air Date: 09/29/2000-11/03/2000
Network: Chanel 4 UK
Another zany slice of eccentric pie from the creative force behind Father Ted, Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews, Black Books is named for a quaint little bookshop owned by the foul tempered and eternally drunk Bernard Black. Bernard has only two loves in this world, alcohol and books. Unfortunately, the only thing he is more passionate about is his unbridled hatred of everything and everyone else, especially customers. Bernard’s only company comes in the form of Fran, the hormonal, flighty owner of a decor shop next door. Fran, being so bored and disinterested in her own affairs, delights in meddling in Bernard’s. Enter Manny, a listless accountant who comes into Black Books employ after a shitfaced Bernard offers him a job. Once sober Bernard realizes what he has done and sets about ridding himself of Manny by any means necessary, lest Manny bond with customers, sell books and upset Bernard’s established order of things. Bernard looks on in horror, as Manny sells lots of books and gets on well with the customers, but that’s just not how things work in Black Books. A wonderfully surreal show, Black Books is an extremely sharp and lively comedic romp that proves that the sitcom is alive and well. All good comedy needs is a man eating scrambled eggs – with a comb out of a shoe.
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September 18th, 2008 admin
Jam – Complete Series
Starring: Amelia Bulmore, Kevin Elden, Julia Davis, Mark Heap, David Caan, Christopher Morris
Air Date: 03/23/2000-05/20/2000
Network: Channel 4 UK
Yet another brain child of the genius that is Christopher Morris, the man behind Brass Eye and The Day Today. The show was adapted from his popular but short-lived radio series Blue Jam and remains to this day one of the darkest and strangest ideas ever conceived for the screen or anywhere else. Jam is a stream of consciousness sketch show simply marauds through every taboo and touchy subject known to man, stepping right over the line of good taste, picking it up, sealing it in concrete and dumping it in the North Sea. This show is sardonic, surreal, spectacularly offensive and certainly an acquired taste. But if you like your comedy as black as soot, then dive right in.
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