If you're a fan of Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock), Johnny Lee Miller, or Mary Shelley, you might want to run to catch this: http://www.cineplex.com/Events/NationalTheatre/Home.aspx
Only one more showing this week.
It's brilliant and proves just how powerful words can still be when used well.
FRANKENSTEIN AT THE NATIONAL
Spooks--Death of a Series (13 May 2002--23 October 2011)
Every once in a while, a TV series grabs me by the throat.
Mostly, I give in rather than resist. But I expect a lot in return. Fans of the
show know that the BBC's Spooks can boast of some of the finest writing,
acting, and directing on TV. For ten seasons, the story followed the
professional and private lives of a group of MI5 operatives, with one man,
Harry Pearce, the head of counter-terrorism, at its core. The show enjoyed a healthy
following at home and abroad.
For seven years, the series got better with each season.
Season eight remained strong, even while veering slightly off course to
concentrate on CIA involvement in the UK. (The show was re-branded as MI-5
for American audiences, who seem to prefer things a bit more literal and a lot
more obvious. I give you the disastrous Little Britain USA and the
American Queer As Folk, if you need further proof.)
I was glad when series eight ended, though, hoping one
lesser year would not turn into two, and praying the American flirtation would
soon be over. In fact, far worse lay just ahead. One of the series' trademarks
is the sudden and unexpected endings that befall some of its more popular
characters. This, we are to believe, is what actually happens to spies. While
it was maddening to see them go, the leavings were usually spectacular in
dramatic terms.
The challenge, of course, was to fill those roles in a way
that the previous agents would not be missed too much. For eight years, they
hit the bulls-eye every time. Tom became Adam became Lucas; Zoe became Fiona
became Ros. And you held your breath, because it just got better. With Peter
Firth as Harry Pearce, the one holdout year after year, the series had casting
magic.
Then disaster struck. Someone at Kudos, the show's
producers, must have decided the show needed sprucing up. They hired a writing
duo whose process is best described as schizophrenic. Asked to describe the
process, the writers revealed their preference for a tag-team approach. Each
takes turns writing five pages before passing the script along to the other.
Even more revealing, at least to me, was their idolization of Joss Whedon, the
new king of Hollywood blockbusters. From subtle and layered, the show suddenly became
little more than an action cartoon.
The new writers seemed to think it great fun to take
liberties with the characters in ways that appalled and dismayed anyone who had
enjoyed the careful building of each agent's psychological profile and
background. The adage seemed to be, when in need of tension turn one of your
best characters into a villain. Preferably one who has not been set up in any
way to show such traits previously. The inept desecration and dispatching of
Lucas North's character as a terrorist infiltrator in season nine was not the
first nail in the show's coffin, but it would prove its most unpopular with
many.
In the show's final two seasons, cheap tricks and shock
tactics abound: improbable plot turnarounds, an over-reliance on technology,
and action spat out at machine-gun speed. Tellingly, characters are relegated
to stating the obvious to one another to keep the story rolling: "Hey,
Tariq, better answer that phone. It might be the bad guy calling." Because
we might not be able to figure it out, otherwise, right?
Where previously plot resolutions came from character,
suddenly they were the result of "new" technology that sounds sketchy at best
and unbelievable at worst. Realistic threats are ditched in favour of dime
store hobgoblins, like fake bio-toxins and imaginary ethno-genetic bombs. Even
the erstwhile Peter Firth, as director Harry Pearce, the only actor to make it
through all ten seasons, looks unconvinced by much of what he has to say.
Never before has such a great series gone so thoroughly and
regrettably down in flames. It would be akin to putting the sequel to A
Streetcar Named Desire in the hands of Sacha Baron Cohen. Who would do such
a thing?
Kudos and BBC, you have a lot to answer for.
-----
Jeffrey Round is a writer of contemporary fiction, equally
at home in different genres. His first two books, A Cage of Bones and The P-town Murders, were
listed on AfterElton's Top 100 Gay Books. His most
recent Dundurn title is Lake
On The Mountain, a literary-thriller and first in the Dan Sharp
Mystery series. He is author of the Bradford Fairfax comic mystery series, whose
style he describes as "a cross between Oscar Wilde and Agatha Christie." He is
also a film/stage director, television producer, and songwriter. Jeffrey’s
Blog, A Writer's Half-Life, has been syndicated online. Visit his
website: www.jeffreyround.com.
High Tea and Anti-Launch
Thanks to all who attended my High Tea Garden Party and
Anti-Launch for Lake On The Mountain this weekend. I'm grateful for your
support and for making it such a fun afternoon. Loved all those gloves and
hats, ladies and gentlemen! Special thanks to Brenda Rantala-Sykes for coming all the way from
Sudbury just to cut the crusts off sandwiches ;) and of course to Master of
Ceremonies David Tronetti for his inimitable contribution. You rock!
COOL CANUCK CHICKS
It was my week to hang out with some very
Cool Canuck Chicks. First up was Luba Goy, one of our national icons, whose Luba
Simply Luba was on at the Berkeley Theatre. Her one-woman show gave us an
afternoon of laughs and joy, Luba-style, as La Goy traced her roots from a
German work camp, where she was born and where her parents had been
incarcerated, all the way across the waves to Canada. Touching and true. And it
didn't hurt to tipple a glass or five with Luba and friends afterwards at the Distillery
District.
Next I had the great pleasure to hang out
with Farzana Doctor, author of Six Meters
of Pavement, currently
short-listed for a Lambda Award. We got together mid-week at the 40th
anniversary party of Dundurn Books in the Arts and Letters Club. The Farz and I
yucked it up in front of the camera and, amid all the frippery, managed to
carry on some pretty feisty conversations about the Recently Single status
we've both acquired. If we both go on to gain a Bit Notorious status as well,
it won't bother us one bit.
Finally,
my week was complete with a long-awaited visit from Canada's reigning Queen of
Crime, Gail Bowen, on tour with hubby and long-time companion (44 years!), Ted,
while promoting Kaleidoscope, Gail's thirteenth Joanne
Kilbourn mystery from M&S. Always the gallant host, Ted stirred and shook a
bucketful of martinis, while Gail and I yacked on (and on) about the current
state of Canadian publishing, and then some. Not only is she one of the great
mystery authors, she's also a terrific gal to know and hang out with!
PUMPKIN EATER
This month I signed a contract with Dundurn
to publish Pumpkin Eater, the sequel to Lake On The Mountain, my
first Dan Sharp mystery. I love working with the folks at Dundurn. They're a
great group of dedicated professionals.
I'm also currently a quarter of the way
through a third book, The Jade Butterfly, which opens in Tiananmen
Square the night of the massacre. Jump forward 20 years, when Dan is challenged
to find a woman who disappeared in the fighting, landing him squarely on his
own gritty Toronto turf. If you think you know Toronto, follow Dan around for a
bit. You don't know Toronto! Even I'm a little shocked by some of the places he
ends up.
Although I've been longing to get back to
more traditional literary writing, I really enjoy writing in this breezy, jaded
voice. Judging from the readers' notes I'm getting, I can tell others like it
too. I think of these books as my "dark" mysteries, as opposed to the lighter
Bradford Fairfax mysteries where mostly all's well that ends well. There's more
to come in that series too, as I've got two more books just waiting to reach
the starting gate.
When that happens, you'll be the first to
hear about it. After me, of course.
BOOKENDS
Here is my Bookends interview with Justine
Lewkowic, taped last month at Sleuth of Baker Street, Toronto's crime specialty
bookstore. I felt right at home among the thousands of mystery titles and
Sherlock Holmes memorabilia.
Justine was fun, insightful and probing in
her questions, and the occasional curve ball she threw at me, as we discussed
my newest book, a literary thriller entitled Lake On The Mountain
(Dundurn Press), which takes place jointly in Toronto and Ontario's Prince
Edward County.
While it's not hard for me to talk about
the writing process, I don't often get asked about my personal life in relation
to where the work comes from. Like many writers, I tend to disappear behind my
writing and my characters, so readers often assume they are one and the same.
Not so. In this case, I welcomed the opportunity to be candid on topics that
other interviewers might shy away from.
Among other things, Justine and I discussed
sources of inspiration, anger management therapy, honesty, sex and sexuality,
and growing up gay in Sudbury (my hometown.)
Sherlock vs. Downton Abbey
While everyone else has been engrossed in Downton Abbey, a new version of Upstairs, Downstairs, I've been absorbed with the 21st century reinvention of Sherlock Holmes as Sherlock, easily one of the most fun, well-written series in a decade.
I watched season one of Downton Abbey because of Maggie Smith, always a joy, and cast here as the formidable Dowager Countess trying to ensure that her granddaughter marry a "suitable" husband. I loved Smith and enjoyed the series, but not enough to return.
My reluctance comes from a suspicion of soap operas, that strange hybrid that is neither drama nor opera. I want things to build, explode and resolve in one episode, rather than have to return week after week to discover what Annie, Fanny and Manny were up to since I last saw them. If I want long, drawn-out sagas, I simply ask my friends what's been going on in their love lives and drink tea while pretending to listen.
Sherlock was created by writer/producer Steven Moffat, and writer/actor Mark Gatiss, who plays Sherlock's troublesome brother, Mycroft. The pair worked together on the revised Doctor Who series. (Nothing like the old one. If you haven't seen the recent version with Matt Smith--a comic genius--don’t write it off.)
The BBC has long been known for pairing actors, especially in comedic roles. Think ofJennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley in Absolutely Fabulous, Aidan Gillen and Craig Kelly in Queer As Folk (before it got turned into a soap opera-with-an-agenda in the US version), David Walliams and Matt Lucas in Little Britain. And now here are Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as Sherlock and his sidekick John Watson. The pairing doesn't get much better, either as actors or characters.
While reinventing nearly everything wholesale, it's to the producers' credit that they've remained charmingly true to Conan Doyle's books, beginning with A Study In Pink, a sly retelling of Holmes's first case, A Study In Scarlet. The result is a delirious rewriting of the original stories, as when The Hound of the Baskervilles comes back as The Hounds of Baskerville, an experiment in genetic modification and then some.
For serious fun, this is as good as it gets. Here is Holmes in A Scandal in Belgravia, going off to Buckingham Palace draped in a bed sheet, as angry and imperious as a queen at being forced to do something he doesn't want to do. Elsewhere, he informs two young girls asking him to investigate their grandfather's disappearance that, contrary to what their parents may have said, "People don’t go to Heaven; they’re put in a special box and burned," while John Watson looks on, appalled by his friend's social ineptness.
Of course, it's the twenty-first century, so no one believes two men living together are not gay. And who is to say they’re not? The oddball pairing of Holmes with Watson in the 19th century may simply have been a case of arrested sexual development. Here, the gay subtext, which is more often ubertext, gets some of the best play in the series, as the two are constantly mistaken for a couple. In fact they are a couple, whatever may or may not go on after the lights go out. In any case, the love between the two men is palpable, if unspoken, from show one.
(Initially, A Study in Pink was shot as a one-off rather than a series pilot, but was later re-made. While it's been decried in some quarters as being low budget, it's still quite good. In fact, the original ending is far more moving than in the remake, with Watson standing pensively in the shadows after having rescued his new friend, Sherlock.)
As with the Hardys, Frank and Joe, and my Fairfax series, featuring Brad and his blue-haired amour Zachary, the series really is about the pairing of the two men. The crime and the criminals come second. But make no mistake, these crimes and their solutions are dead clever. They have to be, for that is the essence of Sherlock Holmes.
Still, it's the interplay of Holmes, all reason, and Watson, the long-suffering that makes everything work. The pairing propels us along with them, envious and yearning to share in their adventures for real, while wishing we had friends as true as these. That’s the secret of Sherlock.
Jeffrey Round is a Toronto writer and filmmaker. His most recent book is the mystery-thriller Lake On The Mountain, from Dundurn Books. Visit: www.jeffreyround.com.
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