How BBC2 won Wednesday night
Jan. 22nd, 2015 06:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessWolf Hall Ep 1. Three Card Trick
I watched this, not having read the books on which it’s based (I’ve read a couple of earlier books by Mantel, but didn’t love them), and it certainly gripped me. Rylance is mesmerising as Thomas Cromwell, the low-born lawyer enmeshed in Tudor politics. I liked how the adaptation brought things to life – the freshness was perhaps in the choice of what the characters discussed, but the direction didn’t get in the way, with a nice sense of place, of how these people lived in places that we go to gawp at as visitors, mostly, in the composition, which also gave reactions or lack of them room, and a striking use of light. Rylance is supported by a quality cast and it brings (half-remembered) history to life. I did find the switch between time periods a bit confusing – at one point it seemed as if his daughters hadn’t aged, which couldn’t be right.
Up the Women 2.1
I would feel bad about being down on a sitcom with this title, except it’s the start of the second series, and the same problems remain as in the first one (I posted about it in May to June 2013). And one of them is quite basic for a sitcom: it’s not that funny. It feels a bit creaky (I used this word to describe it the first time around) – you can see most of the jokes coming a mile off. The main one in this episode was that our hapless suffragists decide to go on hunger strike in support of their fellow suffragists, and are really, really bad at it. The fantasising about buns and whatnot never got beyond amusing, though, and it left a sour taste (ahem) in my mouth that the only one who stuck to it was Thomas, the token man of the group.
The driving idea behind all this still seems to be that sexual frustration is driving these provincial suffaragettes – or main character Margaret, at least. The others are only supporting votes for women for their own reasons – it’s just a chance to socialise for most of them. I still think that more fun could be had out of the (broad-brush) characters’ interaction, except they nearly always went for the obvious gag or way of playing it. The show might have moved up in the TV world from BBC Four to BBC 2, but I don’t think I’ll be keeping up.
There's lots of other stuff I mean to catch up on.
I watched this, not having read the books on which it’s based (I’ve read a couple of earlier books by Mantel, but didn’t love them), and it certainly gripped me. Rylance is mesmerising as Thomas Cromwell, the low-born lawyer enmeshed in Tudor politics. I liked how the adaptation brought things to life – the freshness was perhaps in the choice of what the characters discussed, but the direction didn’t get in the way, with a nice sense of place, of how these people lived in places that we go to gawp at as visitors, mostly, in the composition, which also gave reactions or lack of them room, and a striking use of light. Rylance is supported by a quality cast and it brings (half-remembered) history to life. I did find the switch between time periods a bit confusing – at one point it seemed as if his daughters hadn’t aged, which couldn’t be right.
Up the Women 2.1
I would feel bad about being down on a sitcom with this title, except it’s the start of the second series, and the same problems remain as in the first one (I posted about it in May to June 2013). And one of them is quite basic for a sitcom: it’s not that funny. It feels a bit creaky (I used this word to describe it the first time around) – you can see most of the jokes coming a mile off. The main one in this episode was that our hapless suffragists decide to go on hunger strike in support of their fellow suffragists, and are really, really bad at it. The fantasising about buns and whatnot never got beyond amusing, though, and it left a sour taste (ahem) in my mouth that the only one who stuck to it was Thomas, the token man of the group.
The driving idea behind all this still seems to be that sexual frustration is driving these provincial suffaragettes – or main character Margaret, at least. The others are only supporting votes for women for their own reasons – it’s just a chance to socialise for most of them. I still think that more fun could be had out of the (broad-brush) characters’ interaction, except they nearly always went for the obvious gag or way of playing it. The show might have moved up in the TV world from BBC Four to BBC 2, but I don’t think I’ll be keeping up.
There's lots of other stuff I mean to catch up on.
