Category Archives: Drama

All Creatures Great and Small gently conquers America

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Tender-hearted show about travails of Yorkshire vet in 1930s seen by more than 10 million viewers in US

Rolling Stone magazine has called it “incredible balm”, and the New York Times extolled its “cheerful optimistic tone”. American viewers are enthralled by its bucolic setting, the small, everyday dramas and its old-fashioned sense of community. And, of course, the animals.

All Creatures Great and Small, the small-screen adaptation of a series of novels by James Herriot, the pen name of Yorkshire vet Alf Wight, has become a surprising hit in the home of fast-paced thrillers and warring dynasties.

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Girls5Eva review – Tina Fey’s gags are so good they should be revered

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There are shades of 30 Rock and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt in this hilarious show about a one-hit-wonder girl band reuniting after 30 years. No wonder, given it’s by Tina Fey and Robert Carlock

If you didn’t know beforehand, it would not be long before you realised that Girls5Eva (Sky, Now) came from the school of Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, who gave us those perennial delights, 30 Rock and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. The new show, about a manufactured 1990s girlband of the same name (“We’ve been best friends ever since we auditioned for a man in a New Jersey hotel room!”), is the brainchild of Kimmy writer and producer Meredith Scardino, in collaboration with Fey and Carlock. It provides a similar cocktail of laughs. There are parodies (this time mostly of music videos rather than TV shows or characters), “proper” jokes so densely packed you’re still unearthing more on third and fourth viewings, call backs, and throwaway gags so good they would be revered treasures anywhere else. The chemistry among its leads recalls – even if it doesn’t quite get there, because nothing can or will – the chemistry between Ellie Kemper and Titus Burgess in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. In short, it is a joy.

Under the aegis of their sleazy manager Larry, Girls5Eva had one hit (Famous 5Eva) three decades ago but fell into obscurity after their follow-up tanked. It was called Quit Flying Planes at My Heart and was released on 10 September 2001. Since then, one of the girls has died (Ashley – “The one who got us all through our breakups with Moby”) and the remaining four members have drifted apart. We first meet Dawn (Sara Bareilles) as she is listening to the radio while having a mammogram. She has the perfect breasts for it, her doctor says – “Already so smooshed!” The Fey spirit, unable to know of a physical female indignity without leaping to embrace it for comic effect, remains strong throughout. Dawn herself is the mother-figure of the group. Always the responsible one then, she is now married with one child, constantly stressed (“Fireworks or terrorism?” she shouts when woken by a strange noise at night), and works long hours at her idiot brother’s restaurant (Dean Winters, essentially reprising his 30 Rock Dennis Duffy role). Hearing Famous 5Eva sampled as part of hit rapper Li’l Stinker’s latest moneymaker, she goes to pick up her royalty cheque from Larry and is coaxed into delivering the rest to her former bandmates, too.

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The 50 best TV shows of 2021, No 2: The White Lotus

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An immaculate social satire featuring scabrous character studies, a murder-mystery and a shocking revenge scene

‘Wave like you mean it,” the hotel manager tells his staff as they line up on the beach waiting for the next boatful of guests to arrive at the luxurious White Lotus resort. With that line, Mike White’s immaculate six-part creation is set. On to the beach come the clientele, awed by the beauty of their surroundings but already taking the humans on the shoreline for granted – checking that their needs (wants) have been anticipated, extracting further efforts from those they are sure exist only to serve, and soon demanding (in what in Shane’s case will evolve into a series-long war of attrition with the manager, Armond) apologies and upgrades whenever minor mistakes are made.

The White Lotus had many superficial similarities with previous glossy hits such as Big Little Lies. It looked gorgeous, had an array of affluent white characters living what they considered ordinary and what most would consider easeful, glamorous lives, and a murder-mystery woven in.

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Need a warped, tortured or evil character for a Hollywood film? Cast a British actor

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UK stars Olivia Colman, Idris Elba and Benedict Cumberbatch are all in demand with US directors. We look at why

A sensitive, geeky youth, stuck on a lonely cattle ranch, might understandably yearn for a kindly uncle figure; someone to confide in, or be mentored by. But the companionship actor Benedict Cumberbatch offers his brother’s stepson, Peter, in the widely Oscar-tipped western Power of the Dog is a very long, precarious horse ride away from anything avuncular.

In fact, Cumberbatch’s portrayal of the emotionally thwarted Phil Burbank is a study in twisted misery. In one early scene, Burbank notices some fragile paper flowers the teenager has made to decorate a dinner table at his mother’s canteen. But, instead of praising them, “Uncle Phil” is driven to publicly sneer.

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Duchess of Argyll sex scandal retold in new BBC drama series

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Admirers of vilified aristocrat say they hope series will allow her to be ‘seen in a different light’

It took the judge more than three hours to read out his damning judgment at the end of one of the longest, most expensive and toxic divorce cases of the 20th century.

Margaret, the Duchess of Argyll, was, he declared with contempt, “a highly sexed woman” who was not “satisfied with normal relations and had started to indulge in disgusting sexual activities to gratify a debased sexual appetite”.

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Javier Bardem: ‘When I won the Oscar, I felt great, but it didn’t make any sense’

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Famed for portraying bad guys in Skyfall and No Country for Old Men, the Spaniard opens up about his marriage to Penélope Cruz, his formidable mum, and his hopes for his kids

The bad news is that, at the last minute, my interview with Javier Bardem is changed from being a face-to-face encounter to one conducted by the less risky means of video chat (damn you, Omicron!) But the good news is this means I get to snoop around Bardem’s home in Madrid, where he Zooms me from, and which he shares with his wife, the actor Penélope Cruz, and their two children, Leonardo, 10, and Luna, eight. OK, I don’t actually see the whole house, but he does give me a panoramic view of his study while his kids shout and play outside.

“You can see my little bookcase here,” Bardem says, picking up his laptop and giving me the grand tour. “And my map of the world. It’s very chaotic.”

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Succession creator Jesse Armstrong on its thunderous finale: ‘That might be as good as I’ve got’

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Season three of the hit show has made even more headlines than usual. We ask its British creator if he’s had enough yet, if actor Jeremy Strong is doing OK – and if his character Kendall is actually Jesus

• Warning: contains spoilers

Yesterday, like much of the rest of the world, I watched the finale of the third season of Succession. And, like much of the rest of the world, I found myself buffeted by one astonishing twist after another – and a gasp-inducing climax that outdid even those of series one and two. Unlike my fellow viewers, however, pretty much the first thing I see after the end credits roll is the face of Jesse Armstrong, the show’s creator, popping up over Zoom and politely attempting to dissuade me from discussing the episode.

Unlike other big TV showrunners – who will happily explain, and sometimes over-explain, every single second – Armstrong prefers to remain hands off. He tries not to read the acres of theorising that Succession inspires. Such post-match analyses, he says, can often feel like a tightrope walk. “There’s a bit of me that just wants to find out what the fuck everyone is saying about the show,” he says from his book-lined study in London. “But you can’t. It wouldn’t be good for me psychologically – and it wouldn’t be good for the creative process of doing the show.”

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Maggie Gyllenhaal: from ‘difficult’ roles to lauded Hollywood director

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With a string of plaudits for portraying complex characters, the actor is now focusing her ‘quiet fire’ behind the cameras with a stunning debut film

From her breakthrough role in Secretary, wearing stilettos, a pencil skirt and manacles and attempting to operate a stapler with her chin, to her directorial debut which digs into the messy truths about motherhood, Maggie Gyllenhaal has always been attracted to what she has described as “troubled women. The ones that are a real challenge. They really need me.”

It’s a quote that really gets to the heart of what distinguishes Gyllenhaal. An Oscar-nominated actor, and now– with her Elena Ferrante adaptation The Lost Daughter – an award-winning screenwriter and director, she is drawn to the kind of women whose stories don’t usually get told. She delves into the uncomfortable angles and sharp edges of her characters and found her niche by not quite fitting into the mould.

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Edie Falco: ‘Alcohol was the answer to all my problems – and the cause of them’

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One of TV’s most admired actors, she is now playing Hillary Clinton on screen. She discusses overcoming addiction, her adoration for Sopranos co-star James Gandolfini and the pure joy of adopting two children

Edie Falco has never been the type of actor to demand entourages and encores. Fanfares and fuss are just not her bag, and she has little time for pretentious thespiness. When other actors talk about their “Process,” as she puts it – with a capital P – she thinks, “What are you talking about?!” With her open, thoughtful face and wide smile, she looks as if she could be your friend from the local coffee shop, as opposed to one of the most accoladed American actors of this century, having accumulated two Golden Globes, four Emmys and five Screen Actors Guild awards, plus a jaw-dropping 47 nominations. This impression of straightforwardness and – oh dreaded word – relatability has made her subtle performances of self-deceiving characters even more powerful. As the mob wife, Carmela, in The Sopranos, she could tell Tony (James Gandolfini) what she thought of him staying out all night with his “goomahs”, or mistresses, but she couldn’t admit to herself that he does much worse to fund the life she loves. Similarly, as Nurse Jackie, in the eponymous TV series, her scrubbed clean face and sensible short hair belied her character’s drug addiction.

So it feels extremely right that, when we connect by video chat, Falco, 58, is sitting – not in a fancy hotel room, or a Hollywood mansion, but in the endearingly messy basement of her New York house, where she lives with her son, 16, and daughter, 13. Power tools hang off the wall behind her, and she is leaning on a table strewn with what she describes as “God knows, some stuff”.

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The world is watching: TV hits around the globe

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A Spanish trans woman’s memoirs, a Mumbai gangster drama, Israeli sisters in trouble… the Covid era is a rich moment for TV drama. Critics from Spain to South Korea tell us about the biggest shows in their countries

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‘I have an outsider’s perspective’: why Will Sharpe is the A-List’s new favourite director

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The actor-director won a Bafta for his performance in Giri/Haji. Hailed as a star in the making by Olivia Colman​ and others, he discusses the true stories that inspired his new projects behind the camera

Will Sharpe has only been surfing a couple of times, but he really loved it. “So I’m not a surfer, I’m not very good at it, I’ve been twice,” clarifies the 35-year-old English-Japanese actor, writer and director. “But there’s something about being in this huge, loud, ‘other’ force and I never feel calmer than when I’m underwater in the sea. I just really took to it.”

Sharpe sees parallels with his work, which has so far included the surreal, darkly funny sitcom Flowers starring Julian Barratt and Olivia Colman that he created for Channel 4, and a magnetic performance as sarcastic, self-destructive Rodney in the BBC drama Giri/Haji, which earned him a Bafta in 2020 for best supporting actor. “When I came back to writing, having been surfing, I found myself reflecting on how there are certain similarities: you have to get everything technically right, but you’re still at the mercy of this much greater power,” he says. “And how 95% of the time you are getting the shit kicked out of you, but the 5% of the time that it works, it’s so exhilarating you just want to do it again straight away.”

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David Chase: I was annoyed that fans wanted Tony Soprano dead

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Series showrunner tells podcast that ambiguous ending rankled with viewers who wanted to see the character ‘face-down in linguini’

David Chase, the creator of The Sopranos, has spoken about his irritation at viewers’ desire to see Tony Soprano die at the end of the hit series.

Speaking on the Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, the 76-year-old said he had been “bothered” by people’s obsession with the blackout ending of the 2007 finale, which stopped short of confirming the fate of its lead character.

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Hooked on Squid Game? Here are 10 of the best K-dramas to watch next

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From a shocking drama set in the cut-throat world of Korea’s elite universities to a thriller about a time-travelling walkie talkie, here’s what to binge

Reply 1988 begins in the year South Korea hosted the Olympics and follows the lives of five friends in the neighbourhood of Ssangmun-dong in northern Seoul: carefree Deok-sun, fellow trouble-maker Dong-ryong, model student Sun-woo, grumpy Jung-hwan and Choi Taek, a reserved Baduk (Go) player.

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Succession star Kieran Culkin: ‘Just be unlikable, it’s fun’

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The actor talks to his friend Edgar Wright about rooting for Roman, his ambition to move to London and why he’d like to have a crack at being Angela Lansbury

New York-born actor Kieran Culkin, 39, made his film debut at the age of eight, alongside his elder brother Macaulay in Home Alone. While still a child he also had roles in Father of the Bride, The Mighty and The Cider House Rules. He later appeared in Music of the Heart, Igby Goes Down and Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs the World. He now stars as Roman Roy in HBO drama Succession, which returned to Sky Atlantic last week, a role for which he’s been Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated.

One of the many reasons I love Succession is that I always think I’m watching “Evil Kieran”…
[Laughs] That’s good to know. Roman might be the most acerbic of the Roy siblings but I still root for him and am willing him to step up. That’s true for a lot of the characters. I really feel it with Tom [Wambsgans, played by Matthew Macfadyen]. I desperately want him to tell Shiv to go fuck herself and show the family his true self but Tom never does, he just rolls over. It’s so deliciously dissatisfying.

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‘It’s barely started and I’m already terrified’: my crash course in Succession

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Blackmail! Backstabbing! Boar on the Floor! I binged seasons one and two of the dazzling drama about a dysfunctional, super-rich family. Bring on season three!

My to-be-watched pile is worse than my to-be-read pile, but at least all the prestige shows I need to watch have ended. I will get to them, but there is no urgency. Not so with Succession, another award-laden entity, urged upon me by critics and friends. Two series have passed me by and now the third season of the epic tale of media baron Logan Roy and his clan is almost upon us. It is time to go in.

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‘His rage, his pain, his shame, they’re all mine’: Jeremy Strong on playing Succession’s Kendall Roy

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Strong’s role as the self-destructive media heir takes commitment – and the actor goes all in

• Plus: inside the Succession writers’ room

Earlier this year, Jeremy Strong left his apartment in Brooklyn, walked across the bridge to Manhattan and headed towards the far west side of the island, where he was filming the third season of the feverishly adored and heavily accoladed HBO series Succession. Strong plays Kendall, the alternately bullied and rebellious son of the vilified, Murdoch-esque media tycoon Logan Roy, played by Brian Cox, and Succession follows the jostling among the patriarch’s four children for his affection and respect, both of which he generally withholds. None of them is as visibly crushed by this as Kendall, who bears more than a slight resemblance to James Murdoch, even down to the dabblings in hip-hop. With every timid step Strong makes on screen, every apologetic dip of his chin when he starts to talk, he captures the pain of a son who knows he has failed to live up to his father’s expectations from the first time he cried. He won an Emmy last year for the role, beating, among others, Cox, in neatly Freudian style.

Strong likes to walk while learning his lines, so on that day in New York as he was walking he was also talking, reciting a speech he would soon be saying to Cox, in which Kendall tries to curry favour with his father, but also to be seen as his own man. “Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a ghost-grey Tesla rolling to a stop, so I looked in it, and there was James Murdoch,” Strong says when we meet in a London hotel. “He looked at me and I looked at him, and there was a flicker between us. Then he was gone. So we had a moment.”

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Guy Pearce: ‘There’s always someone you want to punch’

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Neighbours launched him, and since then the star of Memento and Zone 414 has seized his Hollywood roles with a unique intensity. He talks about death, drugs, being a dad and divorce

At the start of this century, Guy Pearce was sitting pretty. He had shaken off the frothy soap bubbles of Neighbours, where he was one of the show’s original batch of pin-ups, along with Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan, and was proving himself a versatile film actor – first as a sharp-clawed drag artist in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, then as a clench-jawed cop in LA Confidential.

Awaiting release was the existential thriller Memento, directed by a promising up-and-comer named Christopher Nolan. First, though, he heard whispers that Kenneth Turan, the film critic of the LA Times, had been singing his praises in a review of the military courtroom drama Rules of Engagement.

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Squid Game: the hellish horrorshow taking the whole world by storm

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In the gory thriller that has swiftly become a smash hit on Netflix, competitors play children’s games for huge cash prizes … and if they lose, they die. Can you stomach it?

What if winning playground games could make you rich? That’s the basis of Squid Game – the South Korean show currently at number one on Netflix around the world – where debt-ridden players sign up to compete in six games for a cash prize of 45.6 billion won (around £28m). The small print: if you lose, you get killed. In the first episode, a game of Grandma’s Footsteps (known as Red Light, Green Light in South Korea) leaves bodies piled high as the shell-shocked winners proceed to round two. It’s blood-splattered child’s play – a kind of Takeshi’s Castle with fatalities, or Saw with stylish shell suits.

If you can stomach the events of the first episode, what follows is a tightly written horror thriller that has captivated viewers. The nine-part series is the first Korean show to reach the top spot on the streaming platform in the US, and is currently number one in the UK. Its success won’t come as a surprise to a generation of viewers who got hooked on murderous dystopian series The Hunger Games and cult favourite Battle Royale. But Squid Game’s backdrop is South Korea’s present-day, very real wealth inequality.

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The Many Saints of Newark review – Sopranos prequel keeps it in the family

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Michael Gandolfini is goosebump-inducing as the young Tony Soprano, amid race riots and antagonism towards rival African American gangs

Maybe it was inevitable that the greatest TV show in history should spawn a feature-length prequel that is somehow disappointing: it is watchable but weirdly obtuse with a tricksy narrative reveal that doesn’t add much. The Many Saints of Newark, co-written by the Sopranos’ legendary creator David Chase and directed by Alan Taylor, gives us the childhood of a leader: the teenage Tony Soprano, growing up in New Jersey in the 1960s, specifically the time of the 1967 Newark riots, which caused the “white flight” racism that explains the older Tony having that palatial home way out there in the suburbs that he drives up to in the opening credits each episode.

Young Tony is portrayed with goosebump-inducing deja vu by Michael Gandolfini, son of the late James Gandolfini, who played the role on TV. Tony’s sleepy-eyed sensitivity, his melancholy, his glowering resentment and dangerous hurt feelings are there in embryo. His father, Johnny, is played by Jon Bernthal, and his terrifying mother Livia by Vera Farmiga who gives a superb rendering of Livia’s own haughty mannerisms. But you could spend this entire movie hanging on for the first sign of those all-important petit mal fainting fits that the TV show said originated in Tony’s dad. Is history being rewritten, or misrememberings corrected?

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‘I got the shotgun. You got the briefcase’ – how The Wire’s Omar changed TV

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He was the terrifying stick-up man who loved his gran, shopped in his pyjamas and tenderly kissed his boyfriend. We remember Omar’s great scenes – and pay tribute to Michael K Williams, the actor who brought him to life

Playing stick-up man Omar Little on The Wire, Michael K Williams was tough, frightening and brutal – his face scarred, his smile wide, toting a shotgun and wearing a long trenchcoat. So viewers of David Simon’s intricate TV portrait of Baltimore’s streets, docks, schools and politics felt the rug pulled from under them when they first saw him kiss his boyfriend in episode four of season one.

It was a moment that subverted audience expectations and signalled the complexity, ambition and depth that The Wire – which is often placed at or near the top of lists of the all-time greatest TV shows – was aiming to achieve. This is not a character you’ve seen before, the show seemed to be saying. These aren’t your usual stereotypes and cliches. A similar moment saw Idris Elba’s drug chief Stringer Bell attend a business studies class.

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