A smile to start the week....

[selenak]

Monday is when most of us need some cheering up of sorts. So, here's something guaranteed to make you smile, whether or not you're aquainted with the two actors featured in the following clip. They are David Morrissey and David Tennant in my favourite scene from Blackpool, doing the tango, among other things. If you need context, Tennant plays a police inspector and Morrissey is his chief suspect (and also the leading man of the show), but really, I think it works on its own. And yes, the entire series - Blackpool, that is - is like that:

Secondly, here's a Heroes ensemble vid from futuresoon to make you grin, snort and sigh, and sometimes all three: Flagpole Sitta. It has clips from both seasons, but I think the s2 ones aren't spoilery if you don't know the context. Though if you want to be on the absolutely safe side of unspoiled and haven't watched s2 yet, you'll have to wait.

Comments

[estepheia.livejournal.com]

Blackpool? Never heard of it, but I just read up on it on Wikipedia. Sounds interesting. Thanks for posting the clip. It did, indeed, make me smile.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

It's a fun series, and I think you'd like it.

[estepheia.livejournal.com]

Yup, I think it's my kind of show.
That's what I like about LJ - you always find interesting stuff on your flist.

BTW, I keep forgetting to ask you if I ever told you about Writers Ink, a club I'm in.
http://www.writers-ink.de
If you follow the link you'll find our website. We promote creative writing in English (although not exactly fanfiction). We host a competition and open mics. This year's deadline is almost over now, but still, maybe you know someone who'd like to participate or become a member.
Most of our members come from our local university, but we also have members in Bremen where there's a very productive creative writing group.

Hope you don't mind my shameless pimp, but it would be nice to get people outside our little pond interested in this. As for the competition, that has had a widespread appeal, we've even had entries from Indonesia and many other countries.

Again, thanks for the Blackpoool clips. Very funny.

[skywaterblue.livejournal.com]

Is David Tennant in that show? Man. Maybe I have to rent it.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

He has an important supporting role, and is evidently having very much fun in it. David Morrissey is awesome as the lead (if you've watched Life on Mars, think Gene Hunt if he hadn't become a cop but had gone into the casino business instead), and the other actors rock as well.

[bimo.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for posting!

I'm currently brooding over some tax-related paperwork and Tango-dancing DT is just the right kind of temporary distraction :-)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Glad to oblige. Speaking of DT and distractions, we should get the tickets for the Tennant/Stewart Hamlet - would the 30th or 31st of July work for you?

[bimo.livejournal.com]

would the 30th or 31st of July work for you?

I'll have one hell of a busy summer ahead of me ,but the 30th or 31st might be just the right dates to fit into my schedule :-)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

They only appear to have standing places in the gallery left! I checked other dates, too, but this is the one iamsab named as the one she'll be there, and the standing places situation doesn't improve in autumm - so - up for standing through Hamlet for hours?

(I have admittedly practice from the London Globe...)

[bimo.livejournal.com]

up for standing through Hamlet for hours?

Well, I've stood through quite a number of open air concerts, so I think I'll manage to stand through Hamlet ;-)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Got the tickets (for both of us) - seating tickets after all, I just did it via phone instead of online, for July 31st. Yay!

Now for the hotel...

[bimo.livejournal.com]

Got the tickets (for both of us)

Hooray! And even seating tickets! Thank you so much for taking care of the booking!

As for the hotel: I've only been to Stratford once, in a rather nice but unfortunately now closed B&B. Is there any particular place you have in mind? (Provided we all want to be under one roof)

I'm pretty much up for everything as long as it does lie within a reasonable price range.

Oh, and for the next couple of days I'll be in Hamburg, and therefore not sure whether I'll manage to reply to any travel suggestions before Sunday evening.

[kernezelda]

The series premise - the dancing and singing, didn't always work for me, but it was a good story. But I've only kept the first episode, and only for that scene. DM has the most protrusive brows, doesn't he? It's just fascinating watching them, like two bulls locking horns.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I would have missed out this show altogether if wee_warrior hadn't recommended it to me, but once she did, I watched and loved; the musical aspects oddly worked better for me than some movies where the actors actually do their own singing. And yes, DM has. I noticed first when he was playing Gordon Brown to Michael Sheen's Tony Blair in The Deal.

[buffyannotater.livejournal.com]

You realize this means I have to watch this series, like right now? David Tennant in a musical detective series? Downloading has already begun. Thanks, hee!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

You're welcome, and it's a fun series you'll love, I promise!

[harmonyangel.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's... pretty awesome. At least 15 times as awesome as the American version they tried to make.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I bet. I've heard they tried an American version but kept a huge distance, because the original is such a blast to watch and I really don't see the point for a remake...

[harmonyangel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was... pretty bad. I think it lasted maybe 3 episodes? It was sad, because you could tell Hugh Jackman was SO EXCITED to be producing a musical TV show, but the actual show fell so flat. I mean, any show that can make Hugh Jackman singing the Rolling Stones while waggling his eyes seductively at a camera and dancing COMPLETELY UNSEXY is... pretty talented in its awfulness.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Verily. Here, have some more original Blackpool fun. This is the opening sequence for episode 5:

[honorh.livejournal.com]

That's awesome! It's, like, canon slashfic.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Also known as British tv. *g* (Insert appropriate Gilbert and Sullivan verse here about other nations and being English...)

[futuresoon.livejournal.com]

Oh my god stop giving me reasons to watch things! Admittedly, Blackpool was a little higher up on my list than The Godfather (despite being three times as long and requiring downloading), but it is still not fair. *grumbles* And thanks for the rec! :D

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Admittedly, Blackpool was a little higher up on my list than The Godfather (despite being three times as long and requiring downloading),

Now, now, we can't have that, can we?

[selenak.livejournal.com]

And because the main theme is justly famous and always worth listening to:

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

God, David Morrissey is hot. Re Blackpool, I've only seen the one-off sequel in which everyone is trying to steal the Football World Cup. But there he is, in a comic part, and he nearly breaks my heart. The man's got a glower you could bottle. In the absence of a David Morrissey icon, I fall back on Richard Armitage.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Oh, you'd love Blackpool. He really is this larger than life character there - think Gene Hunt if Gene had become a casino owner instead of a copper - and sells both the comedy and the horrible traumatic backstory which Ripley has (and which isn't made fun of, btw).

[mermaidrain.livejournal.com]

Bwahahahahaha! That's awesome! I must know more about this Blackpool!!!

[honorh.livejournal.com]

We must find it, yes?

[mermaidrain.livejournal.com]

LOL! Yes, I'm thinking we must. ;)

I doubt anyone is reading this who hasn't watched Blackpool, but major spoilers for final episode

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

I knew it was you who got me into Blackpool! Thanks for the introduction via Youtube. The show far exceeded my expectations—I started watching for Tennant but stayed for the ensemble.

There was one thing that stuck with me about the end; I don't know anyone else who's seen the series, so I'm curious as to your take on it. When Carlisle blackmailed Blythe into dropping the case, with the threat that Carlisle would bring a trumped-up report of having found that bag of illegal drugs in Blythe's locker, that struck me as unethical in ways that perhaps surpassed even what other characters had done during the course of the series. Tennant did a great job of establishing a character whose ethical lines become more and more blurred as he becomes more and more fixated on Natalie and putting Ripley in jail, but at the same time, it progressively alienated me from the relationship between Carlisle and Natalie. I still felt it from Natalie's side, and the fact that Carlisle took himself off the case after Blythe reminded Carlisle of his own words re: justice for the victim won some points with me, but it wasn't long before I fell out of sympathy with Carlisle again. It might be my inner Sam Vimes, but that last blatant abuse of his authority over Blythe left me unable to accept Carlisle's I'm-doing-it-for-love justification; I ended up wondering with Blythe, "And that makes it all right, then?" I'm not sure that Carlisle would tell Natalie about the blackmail either, even with the reunion over a plate of fries at the end. Which makes me doubt that happy ending for them, especially for Natalie. (A little like Danny and Ripley's final reconciliation followed by the reveal that Danny was the one who knocked Mike over the head and therefore killed Mike, except that Ripley finds out the truth from someone else and Natalie probably still doesn't know just what Carlisle did.)

While I don't think Carlisle's likely to abuse Natalie, one of the classic warning signs of a future "bad boyfriend" is demonstrated bad behavior toward others—because if someone's willing to mistreat or abuse people who aren't the significant other, chances are good that eventually he'll start bringing it into his relationship with his sexual partner, too. I know it's musical-comedy convention to have all ends tied up happily, but I can't help feeling trouble might lie ahead for the relationship despite their smiles. A source of unease I can't seem to resolve on my own!

Re: I doubt anyone is reading this who hasn't watched Blackpool, but major spoilers for final episod

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Well, for starters it says something about the shades of grey on this show that Carlisle is an ambiguous character - on most other shows/movies, he'd be either the villain, in which case of course the ending would be different, or he'd be the hero, in which case he wouldn't have blackmailed Blythe into dropping the case. As it is, Ripley is the hero of the story; Carlisle is what I'd call a trickster character, an agent of change who is in the process changed himself, but an adjunct to someone else's story. But leaving aside such Doylist perspectives - on a Watsonian level, I think it's clear he knows threatening Blythe is wrong, but regards it as the lesser evil when the alternative is Blythe arresting either Ripley or Danny. (As I think Carlisle has worked out by the end that if Ripley isn't the killer, and still behaves the way he did throughout the investigation, he has to cover for either of his kids or Natalie, and Danny is the one who was the scene of the crime.) This does not make it right(er), but it makes it something he can justify to himself doing.

As to what that bodes in regards to his future relationship with Natalie: well, on the one hand Natalie is someone who just spend twenty years married to Ripley, who did unethical stuff on a regular basis, and as her daughter points out in an argument, if she pretends not to know that, she's just kidding herself. Also, she's not seeing Peter as her knight in shining armor, given all the flaws he demonstrated during the time of this story. So I doubt that if she were to find out that he blackmailed Blythe, it would make her say "that's it, we're done". (IMO, she'd more likely to react with a practical "Oh. .... are you sure he didn't record that and will arrest you and Ripley both any time soon?"

Otoh, I also think she's anything but a masochist or weak, so if Peter Carlisle, or anyone else, for that matter, were to try and blackmail her emotionally or otherwise, she'd leave at once. So I didn't feel any unease re: their part of the ending; they might make it into staying together, or they might fall out of love, but either way, I'm not worried.

Footnote: Sarah Parish and David Tennant keep getting cast together; they played husband and wife win the superb Recovery which I can heartily recommend (though keep a kleenex ready, it's gut wrenching), and of course Sarah Parish played the Empress of the Raccnoss in The Runaway Bride. There is, I'm told a sequel to Blackpool but that one is without either Natalie or Peter, and focuses on Ripley and his daughter.

Re: I doubt anyone is reading this who hasn't watched Blackpool, but major spoilers for final episod

[ticketsonmyself.livejournal.com]

I think it's clear he knows threatening Blythe is wrong, but regards it as the lesser evil when the alternative is Blythe arresting either Ripley or Danny. (As I think Carlisle has worked out by the end that if Ripley isn't the killer, and still behaves the way he did throughout the investigation, he has to cover for either of his kids or Natalie, and Danny is the one who was the scene of the crime.) This does not make it right(er), but it makes it something he can justify to himself doing.

This is a good explanation!

Natalie is someone who just spend twenty years married to Ripley, who did unethical stuff on a regular basis, and as her daughter points out in an argument, if she pretends not to know that, she's just kidding herself. Also, she's not seeing Peter as her knight in shining armor, given all the flaws he demonstrated during the time of this story. So I doubt that if she were to find out that he blackmailed Blythe, it would make her say "that's it, we're done". (IMO, she'd more likely to react with a practical "Oh. .... are you sure he didn't record that and will arrest you and Ripley both any time soon?"

Otoh, I also think she's anything but a masochist or weak, so if Peter Carlisle, or anyone else, for that matter, were to try and blackmail her emotionally or otherwise, she'd leave at once. So I didn't feel any unease re: their part of the ending; they might make it into staying together, or they might fall out of love, but either way, I'm not worried.

Good points about Natalie. I am satisfied!

I heard about the Blackpool sequel, yes. And I'll be sure to look out for Recovery!