Aren’t Choirs Even More Exciting!!

Posted by Small on Apr 28, 2009 in BBC, Features, Media/News, Stuff, TV | View Comments

Good day, fair readers, salutations to one and all.

In my last post about ‘All the Small Things’, I made a point about how familiar all the actors are -- a multitude of characters who’d been seen in various seasons of ‘Doctor Who’, Sarah Alexander of ‘Green Wing’ and ‘Coupling’ fame, and Richard Fleeshman who, correct me if I’m wrong, was in ‘Coronation Street’ and had/has a small music career. (check out the last post for pictures of people, I can’t be arsed to put them up again)

This post, however, is about how unfamiliar the characters are -- its very exciting when you get to see real actors who can play a variety of characters, and not just the Hugh Grants of this world who can play ‘Hugh Grant’.  For instance, Sarah Lancashire’s character in Doctor Who, Miss Foster, was basically outerspace supernanny -- she was ruthless in her regard for her fatbabies to the point of evil.  In ‘All the Small Things’ though, she’s mumsy and a bit roley poley, she shies away from competition because of it’s addictive quality, she’s a bit of a doormat, but she’s also falling in love, and strives to see the best in people.  Not quite polar opposites, she still puts her children before herself, but all the same very different characters.

Two actors that I’ve been very impressed with in ATST are Richard Fleeshman and Clive Rowe, because their characters have disabilities (autism, and a stutter) which are hard to act, but are parts that get great critical acclaim (see Bafta award-winning ‘Poppy Shakespeare‘, ‘Inside I’m Dancing‘ to name just two).  To me, that kind of performance marks the fluffers from the floppers, ooh, another good’un is Sigourney Weaver’s portrayal of a high-fucntioning autistic woman in ‘Snow Cake‘.  So yes, well done them.

Finally, Sarah Alexander, previously her parts have not been solely, but certainly centred around the idea of a pretty blonde airhead -- Green Wing and Coupling for example, but in this drama, she plays the part of a manipulative and clever blonde, playing the part of a pretty blonde airhead!  Her character even had lines that spelt it out .  Layla’s and Jake’s storylines are the big mystery of this end of the series -- in the last episode (episode 4, I believe) an argument between the two revealed that she has somehow come into a lot of money, she’s got a thing for people of authority within the church (first Father Daniel, now Michael the choirmaster), and something evil and sinister happened last time she ‘tried’ to start a family with this last man -- possibly explaining their abrupt and unheralded entrance to the sleepy parish church and its choir.

On a very final note (yay, musical joke for a musical post) my favourite part of the last episode was when Esther’s choir was rehearsing the line from the Blink182 song: ‘And thats about the time that bitch hung up on me’, over and over again, in a church, whilst the senior parish members and staples of the church choir looked on aghast, muhahahahaa, brilliant!

hooray its on youtube:

Expect more ululations of glee when we find out the rest of the story