'Stuff Happens' by David Hare.

'page eight'... not terrible i guess. some nice acting. some pretty bad writing. lol'd at whole premise 'today there are no gentlemen' when we're taking about mi5. also: hipster surveillance operatives now?

effing instagram

effing israelis

both of the major plot things were spooks as written by a dimwitted guardian commenter: you don't get much lazier than 'they machine-gunned a man waving a white flag, effing israelis' or 'there is a new secret service and it operates out of downing street, run by effing hipsters'. but i liked that it was shot in my ends and felicity jones.

i flicked onto this thinking "this guff has to be stephen poliakoff" then flicked away.

although the 30 secs i watched looked p domestic posh drama.

got to hand it to hare tho, taking on tony blair almost a decade after iraq and 4 years after he left office, that takes some balls

haha. i saw michael gambon and bill nighy in quick succession which was another good reason to change the channel.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_0_ynVlwAg9U/Sq770jwupPI/AAAAAAAAG8I/sYmAZkqX4PY/s400/3.jpg

"i'll get you next time david hare!" - tony blair, about 40 minutes ago

lol

haha. i saw michael gambon and bill nighy in quick succession which was another good reason to change the channel.

― jed_, Sunday, August 28, 2011 11:16 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

ehhhh idk, i guess i like all the overhyped brit actors. dunno what else was on, of course.

"Young, Dumb and Living Off Mum" on bbc3

well usually

nighy = shit romantic comedy (space here for ilxors wishing to point out that's what this inadverntently was)
gambon = shit drama abt posh people coming together for birthday/anniversary/funeral, long-buried secrets burst forth (space here for etc etc)

should have been called 'young, dumb and shot by an effing israeli'

howard brenton, old hare collaborator, actually wrote on spooks iirc

i think at some point british dramatists and screenwriters weren't all bad, but now... struggling to think of counter-examples

(the writing here was still better than most british drama, as writing: even if it was dumb.)

but i do still like the actors, don't have a problem with nighy and gambon

I really wanted to like this but it was rotten, and not just because Nighy + hot, estranged daughter = memories of Poliakoff's wretched Gideon's Daughter. The politics were dated, the central torture cover-up not that different from the one in The Ghost. Weisz had nothing to do. Nighy was so deadpan that there was never any real sense of anxiety or threat - no drama at all in his showdowns with Judy Davis and her son, was bored stiff for the last half hour - and so spotless that he seemed much like a writer's fantasy - sexually irresistible Oxbridge grad with a love of jazz and art collecting. I'd say it was a blessing that Fiennes didn't do a Blair impression but his alternative was so blunt, thuggish and charmless that I couldn't buy him as a PM. If this had come out in 2006 it might have had a reason to exist beyond Hare's clout and the BBC's love of throwing money at past-their-best drama writers.

In its favour: (1) Michael Gambon. (2) Some good jokes from Nighy. (3) Felicity Jones's face.

I kind of enjoyed it while I was watching it in a brainless way but really it was bollocks. So heavy-handed politically, didn't really buy into any of the relationships.

Yeah, this was pretty meh. I didn't buy the ending [spoiler] that he could just fly out of the country[/spoiler]. As soon as he pitched up at emigration it'd be 'can you come with us sir'. Also the teal and orange was ridiculous, I normally give a pass to that kind of stuff, but was so heavy handed that it actively distracted from the story.

Especially tricky if he's walking through security with a Waitrose carrier bag containing £60,000. The whole thing was too hung up on its hero's cool. I prefer my TV spooks to be messier and more compromised.

oh, i was wondering where people were talking about this! hence posting in the 'teal & orange' thread about it. oops.

(the writing here was still better than most british drama, as writing: even if it was dumb.)

this, i think. there were a lot of clunky switches of register - nighy and gambon to each other were marvellous, and then someone else in the room would say something Meaningful and Thematic

talk of it being picked up as a series somewhere, which might have the potential to redeem it. it could be made siller, maybe: that might help.

ralph fiennes looks oooold.