Just in case you sponsored Joanna Page on yesterday’s 5k Race For Life like I suggested, the results are in: 32 minutes. Not bad, hey?
Full report, with downloadable video interview and pictures you can buy are over at This is South Wales.
Yes, she’s big in Swansea. Why do you ask?
PS Turns out the subs at the Evening Post have The Ting Tings on all the time at their gym, too.
Happy Birthday, The Medium is Not Enough. Yes, three years ago (sort of, subject to blog migration, blog splitting, blog reunions, etc), this blog emerged into the light of the Internet with its first two posts: previews of the still-popular Prison Break, the not-unpopular Supernatural and the still-unseen Global Frequency; and tedious cruft about The Omega Factor (which I’m still just about to write a review of, amazingly enough).
Yes, I’m going to use the same opening paragraph for the birthday entry every year. I really am that lazy. Besides, it’s something of a tradition now.
What we’ve learned this year
In our third year, it turned out the following discoveries were still as true as they were the year before
But we’ve also learned some new things.
Changes
Over the last year, there have also been a few changes. We’ve
I’d like to say a great big thank you again to Anna, Lisa, Marie, Matt, Rosby, Scott, Stu_N, Stu, other Scott, Stuart, Iko, Poly, espedair, kaballa, Electric Dragon, Linda, cindylover1969, Fraser, Kev, Craig, Lesley, Jonathan, Cackle Jr, Murray, Mark, Toby and Phoenix for continuing to hang around and contribute with always entertaining comments.
I’d also like to thank Persephone, Jane, TemplarJ, Vin and Andrea for joining in with the fun this year and the RSS lurkers for massaging my viewing stats – come on out and play, guys: you know you want to.
Apologies to very infrequent commenters and anyone I left out but my brain hurts – you know what I’m like with names. But you’ve all been absolutely wonderful to be here, join in and interact with my baffling ramblings.
Fingers crossed, the fun’s just going to keep on rolling on for another year. Hope you continue to enjoy your stay! And if you have any suggestions for what else you might like to see on the blog, please let me know below.
Have a nice weekend,
Rob
Today’s Joanna Page is Gideon’s Daughter, a film Stephen Poliakoff made for the BBC in 2005/6.
Despite the fact he somehow manages to assemble fantastic “to die for” casts for his projects and in many ways he’s a very good writer, Poliakoff and I have never got along. To me – how shall I put this? – he’s a bit too Islington.
Either he spends all his time writing about things that might be of major concern at dinner parties in that particular London Borough but aren’t anywhere else. Or he’s writing dire political tracts with sub-texts so obvious they’re basically the text – which they’d need to be since the texts aren’t actually about anything.
Close My Eyes was my first stab at getting into Poliakoff. Clive Owen and Saskia Reeves shag a lot. Only problem: they’re brother and sister. See it’s all a metaphor for how in the time of AIDS people might turn to a safe option, like a sibling. Erm, okay. So they shag a lot more, while Reeves’ husband (Alan Rickman) ums and aahs, suspecting something’s up. And then they stop because they realise it’s a bad idea. And that’s that.
It’s all about nothing.
It’s been downhill since then. He’s done entire series and films that could and should have been précised down to one line: apparently the Victorians had more sex than we thought (Century, if I recall correctly); he did an entire series (whose name I can’t remember but which was in The 50 Greatest TV Dramas) that was deliberately about nothing “to undermine convention”; and with Gideon’s Daughter, we have the staggering revelation that PR and spin-doctoring is all about the surface when really it’s substance that matters.
Close my eyes – and ears – Stephen.
Today’s proper Today’s Joanna Page is Russell T Davies’s Mine All Mine. Stick around Who-ers and Torchwood-ers, this might be about a girl but there’s something in it for you as well.
Just kidding. I am awful, aren’t I?
Now Russell T Davies has been mentioned rather a lot on this blog and it’s not always been positive – which is a little unfair. So I thought I’d first take a moment to give some well deserved praise and thanks to the great RTD.
Most of all though, thank you RTD for your “stealth Welsh” initiative.
The Welsh on television pre-RTD
It’s hard to remember what television was like before Russell T Davies. For years, Welsh actors and characters either didn’t get a look in or were there for comedy value. Back in the 70s, it was Pobol Y Cwm on BBC1, just before kids television started and that was about it. No, Ivor the Engine doesn’t count.
Come the 80s, S4C started up and took Pobol Y Cwm with it. That left mainstream TV with Ruth Madoc in Hi-De-Hi, and the hysterical John Sparkes as Siadwell in Naked Video and in Absolutely. Catherine Zeta Jones’s turn in The Darling Buds of May before her move to Hollywood helped up the Welsh profile a bit, but she never played any roles with her own accent – something that’s been true for the vast majority of Welsh actors and actresses since. As for shows set and filmed in Wales, they were pretty few and far between – can you think of any?
Then along came Russell T Davies (joined by Julie Gardner later on) with his “stealth Welsh” initiative – his plan to “normalise” the Welsh accent as a feature of British TV shows, get Welsh people represented on-screen and to create a viable TV industry in Wales.
And he’s doing it, too. There’s Torchwood and Doctor Who filmed in Wales, with Welsh actors and Welsh characters; Gavin & Stacey does likewise, coming in those programmes’ “Cool Cymru” wake. They’re all some of the most popular programmes on their respective networks (BBC2, BBC1, BBC3).
There’s a long way to go still and the scaling back of DW and Torchwood from 13 episodes plus specials to four and five episodes next year respectively, coupled with the impending end of Gavin & Stacey altogether, suggest it could all fall apart again. A certain Joanna Page, for example, has even remarked that’s she’s been to auditions, asked to do the role in her own accent, and been told “It’s fine for you to have any regional accent apart from Welsh”. But look how much he’s achieved.
No wonder Cardiff is thinking of erecting a statue of the man.
But the first real strike in his “stealth Welsh” plan wasn’t with the BBC – it was for ITV. Set in his home town of Swansea, Mine All Mine was a comedy drama starring Griff Rhys Jones as Max Vivaldi, a man who claimed to own the whole city, and a mostly Welsh cast able to use their own accents for once.
Now I really wanted to like this. Just about every possible checkbox was ticked for my liking it: Russell T Davies – check; Swansea – check; Joanna Page – check; Siwan Morris from Caerdydd – check; Griff Rhys Jones – check; Ruth Madoc – check; lots of Welsh people – check; etc.
Yet, even though rewatching it I liked it more than when I watched it the first time, it still wasn’t what you could describe as “great”, unfortunately.
Okay, I’ve already reviewed this. I know. But my wife wanted to see it, and she was gutted when we couldn’t use the free tickets Fat Pig‘s PR guy offered us – two hours before the performance was due to start, mind – so I thought I’d treat her to dinner and the theatre yesterday. Cos I’m nice.
The thing about both movies and TV shows, though, is that they’re always the same. Once recorded, they’re immutable. But theatre changes every night. The actors can improve or vary their performance, be tired one night and turn in a dodgy performance, get bored, or ad lib, for example. Mistakes can be fixed – or new ones can turn up.
So two weeks on, is Fat Pig better or worse?
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