Articles by Rob Buckley

About Rob Buckley
I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.
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The Weekly Play

The Wednesday Play: Up The Junction (1965)

4 September 2013 Rob Buckley Post a comment

What would Wednesday be like without a little bit of cheery social realism from Ken Loach, hey? You don’t have to imagine, because today’s play is Up The Junction, a Wednesday Play from 1965. Based on the 1963 Nell Dunn novel of the same name, which in turn was based on conversations the authoress overheard in local pubs, the play depicts then-contemporary life in Battersea, showing everything from petty thieving and sexual encounters, to births and deaths. Unsurprisingly, it was watched by 10m viewers and attracted a record 400 complaints.

More importantly, Loach’s characteristic documentary-style depiction of back-street abortions was powerful enough that the public debate was swayed and abortion was legalised in 1967. Loach commented that the use of documentary elements reflected the programme’s scheduling: The Wednesday Play appeared immediately after the evening news. “We were very anxious for our plays not to be considered dramas but as continuations of the news,” he added.

Less importantly, it led to a movie the same year that starred Dennis Waterman and Maureen Lipman. Can’t be helped, that.

Wednesday’s “No more True Blood, Midsomer Murders goes to Denmark and NBC’s telenovelas” news

4 September 2013 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

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US TV show casting

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US TV

Trailer time: Elementary, from London, England

3 September 2013 Rob Buckley 11 Comments

Here’s a trailer for the new season of CBS’s Elementary. Sean Pertwee seems to be having fun as Lestrade and they seem to be going for a louche Rhys Ifans, rather than a more sophisticated Ifans, as Holmes’ brother Mycroft.

BTW, I always love the way American announcers have to specify “London, England”, just in case we thought it might be London, Ontario, they were talking about. Canadian announcers get a pass, obviously.

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Under The Skin sounds rubbish, looks terrifying

3 September 2013 Rob Buckley Post a comment

So Scarlett Johansson’s got a new film in-festival at the moment: Under The Skin. In it, she’s an alien who comes to Scotland and after reviving a corpse, has sex with lots of guys and kills them. It’s supposed to depict an alien’s view of life on Earth and have very little dialogue.

Sounds rubbish, doesn’t it? But here’s the teaser trailer:

Yikes. It’s directed by Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast, Birth) from a book by Michel Faber. It also apparently had an odd filming technique:

In many ways, it was shot like a sophisticated and extended episode of “Candid Camera.” Johansson would climb into a van equipped with an array of hidden video cameras, each about the size of a pack of cigarettes.

As she cruised around Glasgow, where the actress was rarely recognized, she would try to persuade strangers to climb in the passenger seat, just as if she were the character she was playing. If the men were willing, they would later be informed that they had unwittingly joined a movie and would be asked to sign a release.

Should be worth a watch, I reckon. Anyone read the book?

UPDATED (4/9/13): Broken video replaced with working video