Quarter 3 Reviews- 001 Contemporary Comedy- New

011 Contemporary Comedy – New

Beta Female by Amna Saleem was excellent.  Amna (Kiran Sonia Sawar) is a modern Asian woman who has to reconcile her background with her day-to-day living, as when she brings her boyfriend Theo (Tom Stourton) to an Eid celebration.  She thinks she’s pulled the wool over the eyes of her mother and father (Sudha Bhurchar and Bhasker Patel), but neither is fooled—thinking they have to keep up the pretence to please the other, more conservative parent.  Her uncle and aunt (Anil Goutam and Nina Wadia), however, are dreadful.  Her brother Haris (Omar Raza) has rejected his British Asian status to be a regular old Scottish lad, whereas younger sister Sunnah (Amna Saleem) is much more orthodox.  It was very funny and taught me a lot about the day-to-day lives of Scottish-Asian Muslims.  I do hope we’ll hear more from these characters and this writer.  It was produced by Ed Morrish and was a Somethin’ Else production.

Quarter 1 Reviews- 011 Contemporary Comedy- New

011 Contemporary Comedy – New

Christmas Conversations from a Long Marriage was an amusing and absorbing two-hander about a couple (Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam) that has been married for more than 40 years, with no kids, celebrating Christmas.  They start it off by being snide about Christmas cards people have sent them.  They muse that some years ago they sent everyone e-cards and no one seemed to notice the year before that that they hadn’t sent them any cards at all.  They derided the “humorous” cards and the pretentious cards. They pondered whether their friends felt sorry for them because they had no kids and therefore invited them over for Christmas, which they always refused. They wondered about their neighbors and how their relationships were faring.  They anticipated their Christmas Day, which was a varied program involving eating, drinking champagne for breakfast, and romping around underneath the Christmas tree.  Instead, it ended up snowing, they were worried a friend was going to come over for Christmas, and there was a really amusing aside in which the husband told the wife, “remember that conversation when we said we weren’t going to buy each other any Christmas presents?” and led her on for a long time into thinking he had taken her seriously when in fact he had bought her earrings.  They weren’t real diamonds, but she still liked them, and was glad that he hadn’t taken her seriously.  It was an interesting way of looking at the modern British Christmas, neither sentimentalized nor too cynical. It was written by Jan Etherington and produced by Claire Jones. 

Quarter 3 Reviews- 011 Contemporary Comedy- New

011 Contemporary Comedy – New

The talented Sebastian Backieciewz contributed the imaginative comedy Seven Songs for Simon Dixelius, starring Arthur Darvill.  I never managed to get to see Darvill in Faust, but I did see him in Once, proving at that time not only could he sing and dance, he could play the guitar (which, as I’m learning to play the guitar, I can tell you is not as easy as it looks).  He uses the singing in this drama, though most of the time he seems to be playing a character who can’t sing, which is a shame.  I enjoyed it.  Simon Dixelius’ fiancée Chloe (Kerry Gooderson)—an American; are we going to get all the flak?—leaves him at the altar.  In addition to this emotionally unhinging occurrence, he starts hearing and seeing sparkly ladies singing him songs by Smokey Robinson, Soft Cell, Lou Reed, David Bowie, and others.  His friends Imogen and Larry start to fear for his sanity.  However, after awhile, Simon accepts what’s happened and is reconciled to it, helped along by his friendship with Kiyoko Jones, a photographer.  When Chloe calls and wants him back (in a sort of ménage-à-trois with her new item, Tex the flying instructor), Simon has sufficiently pulled himself together to say no.  Seven Songs for Simon Dixelius succeeded in being radiogenic with its intimate address, because in what other medium are the small sparkly singing ladies going to be acceptable?  I’m looking forward to hearing Arthur Darvill in more radio drama.  The play also starred Ryan Early and Hannah McPake and was directed by Helen Perry.

I quite enjoyed The Quanderhorn Xperimentations, a completely mad science fiction spoof series, set in a perpetual 1952 in which Britain’s Golden Age never has to end.  As such, it is completely politically incorrect.  It is also quite funny.  The performers, of course, are second-to-none, with James Fleet cast somewhat against type as the brilliant, callous, amoral Professor Quanderhorn (when his duplicate literally comes out of the closet in the final episode, that is more the kind of quibbling, self-effacing character Fleet usually plays).  This series has also made me love Kevin Eldon even more, as he is cast in the role of a lifetime as lisping, skeezy, cowardly alien Guuuurk.  Ryan Sampson is the hapless Brian Nylon, test pilot and . . . random guy.  Troy is the Professor’s half-insect son who takes the art of stupidity to a whole new level.  Dr Gemma Janesson (Cassie Layton) is a half-clockwork female scientist who seems to be the only brains in the operation (whose emotional side is head-over-heels for Brian, who feels the same).  And John Sessions is Jenkins the janitor (AND Winston Churchill!).  The sound design is beautiful and witty, reminiscent of The Goons and Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.  The best part, I thought, was the lift that randomly goes to the Moon and then a No. 43 bus stop.  The plot in which everyone kept telling you to go round to the post office and have a look at the glowing meteor was also funny.  I felt the device of each character’s journal/diary was a little bald-faced, as a way of getting the story moving from each character’s point of view without a huge amount of exposition, but I guess that can be forgiven. I will not be surprised if this goes to a second series. It was an Absolutely production directed by Andrew Marshall and written by Rob Grant and Andrew Marshall.