Flowers

From a weird reverie of dark revelation,

Mr Grubb woke up with a strange sensation.

Slipping out through the crack at the back of the lair,

Trudging out through the muck and the thick misted air,

Where the collywobbles cawed their sinister call

And the dingle-baggles scurried on jittery claws.

His ghostly breath mixing in with the fog;

He plonked himself down on a damp, mossy log.

But then in the sludge,

Just a few feet away,

Mr Grubb saw a plant that was quite out of place;

A single buttercup in a pile of faeces.

Mr Grubb tore it up into a pile of pieces.

This piece of verse is the prelude to Will Sharpe’s sitcom, Flowers. Fittingly, the poem is read as depressed lead character Maurice Flowers attempts to hang himself in the garden. However, his flight to death is grounded when the rope snaps, leading him to collapse into a cry of invective. He must live another Groundhog Day of suffocating misery.

Maurice is a celebrated children’s author, famous for his series of books titled ‘Grubbs.’ His characters and landscapes are as dark as his own internal world. Look again at the above dark rhyme and you’ll see that Grubb doesn’t preserve the buttercup of beauty but destroys it by dismembering it. At this stage in Maurice's life he can’t see the buttercup from the faeces: buried under a landslide of shit, he can source no salvation. All of this nihilism has a huge impact on his family.

Julian Barratt as lugubrious Maurice.

His wife Deborah, a music teacher, is a wreck of nerves, seeking the recognition that her husband’s condition denies. Fearful her sexuality is wilting under neglect, she flirts appallingly -in both senses of the word- with the local builders. The children Amy and Donald are also scarred from their parents marital strife, represented by their self-imposed isolation: Amy takes artistic residence in the upstairs bedroom, devising love songs and poems; whereas Donald turns the basement into a dragon’s den, engineering inventions that are more an exhibition of poor workmanship than entrepreneurship. The times the 25-year-old siblings do meet in the middle, in the living room, is disastrous with them fighting like squabbling toddlers. For a family whose jobs and pastimes involve creation, they seem totally hell-bent on destroying one another. In their quaint bucolic home, paradise has well and truly been lost. Can it be rediscovered? Does anyone even have the will to find it?

The ‘sitcom’ then is a sobering portrait of mental illness: what it can do to the victim and, just as important, what it can do to the family. With depression, no man is an island: when his city is taken, the whole country succumbs too. Julian Barratt imbues in Maurice the thousand-yard-stare of a man who has been fighting a war of the mind, and now wants to raise a white flag in surrender; but more powerful is the strained-eyed vivacity of Colman’s Deborah, whom is desperately trying to claw him from the precipice. 

Colman desperately trying to keep it together as Deborah.

For all my talk on the mental health issues explored in Flowers, it is worth highlighting the terrific humour on show. The black backdrop of depression looms heavily over the stage, but in front of it hilarious incidents play out. Shun, played by writer-director Will Sharpe, is the comic counterpoint to the sadness. Being from Japan, his easternness separates him from the uptight Brits.  Optimistic to a fault, he is a one-man rescue operation, attempting to weed out the malaise from the family tree. As Maurice’s new illustrator, he feels heavily indebted for this working opportunity; his subsequent willingness to attend to his master’s needs makes for a more touching Manuel-Mr Fawlty dynamic. However, Shun will develop into one of the show’s most fascinating characters, making him much more than a ‘let’s laugh at the funny man’s voice character.’

Other than the culture-clash comedy, the jokes are highly skilled. When Maurice is called into a meeting with his publishers, Carol and Carroll, over the protracted submission of his manuscript, he informs them that it won’t be long as “the words are flowing out like …”. The anticlimactic simile is Wildean in its wit, self-referencing Maurice’s writer’s block. Another lovely exchange arises from Deborah’s sister’s certainty that Maurice is having an affair with Shun. Deborah replies, “Maurice is a sensitive, colourful creative man. He’s not gay.’ Her sister’s deadpan response, “You’ve just described a gay man.” Although the show's tone is slumped shoulders, its words are straight-backed elegance.

As a caveat, I should say that initially the series might feel too eccentric for some. Inarguably, the characters are zany and a little cartoonish. But stick with it. Because over the course of miniseries, Sharpe disrobes their eccentricities, leaving them nakedly, majestically human. By the end I promise you will be won over, appreciating that in a pile of televisual faeces you have picked the solitary buttercup.

The whole of Flowers is available on Channel 4OD.

Better Call Saul

Breaking Bad plotted chemistry teacher Walter White’s rise through the drug trade and subsequent fall. In terms of pulsating drama there is no rival. Bryan Cranston’s towering performance of a man brought down-chronologically- by career, cancer and hubris gripped television audiences worldwide. The show’s popularity owed something to Netflix, the television subscription service that backed the novelistic drama in a way our own broadcasters are loathe to do. By the end of its run, Netflix had co-opted the show from the mainstream broadcasting channels and began drip-feeding it to its subscribers. This isn’t the usual way Netflix does things: one of the appealing features of the service is that you can consume a show all at once without having to wait for the weekly episode to be transmitted. Aware however that they had a golden calf, Netflix took control of the means of consumption, offering episodes weekly as opposed to all at once. They knew that such was the popularity of the show that people would pay the £6 a month solely to see how Walter White’s drug empire fell. With people talking about the show at work, in the pub and on social media there was no for the service to advertise, it was being done for them by us the consumer. In an ironic twist of fate, Netflix, a brand that prided itself on being new and current, had reverted to traditional broadcasting to gain more subscribers. If it weren’t for Netflix Breaking Bad would never have found its audience; likewise, if it weren’t for Breaking Bad an audience wouldn’t have found Netflix. The success of the two are intertwined.

It is no surprise then that the two sides have decided to renew their wedding vows by airing Better Call Saul, the spin-off to Breaking Bad, exclusively on Netflix. Just as Breaking Bad was the only Netflix show released on a weekly basis, Saul is too. Streaming services know that people want the convenience of watching shows when they want, but they also realise that the best way to retain subscribers is to take that convenience away and make people sign up for at least three months to see how their favourite show concludes. In terms of transmission Saul and Bad are the same, but in tone and plotting they’re far from similar.

Better Caul Saul takes place before Breaking Bad, telling the story of how Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) broke bad and became the slippery attorney of law, Saul Goodman. The story opens with a hirsute Saul working the dreary environs of Cinabon, a nationwide patisserie chain. Fans of Bad will smile at how this event has conspired. Events then flashback to the current day where Jimmy is now in a beaten up Suzuki Esteem - a long way away from the Cadillac DeVille that we know he will go on to drive. The car is a symbol of Jimmy's place at the arse end of the legal profession; fortunately, the only way is up. Unlike in Breaking Bad, he is yet to represent the rich and infamous, instead he is on the payroll of the poor and feckless. That gift of the gab that he’s known and loved for is still there, however he doesn’t have the power to dictate events in the way his character will go on to do. To supplement his legal aid work, he is 'forced' to run street scams with juveniles. In this juxtaposition you can already sense Saul Goodman, the ghost of Jimmy’s future: it is quite clear from his reactions to these escapades that he prefers the law of the jungle to the sanctity of the court. Essentially, Jimmy’s kicks don’t come from upholding the law but by circumventing it. Like a British cabbie, he is using his knowledge to find the best possible shortcuts.

I think that car was borrowed from The Inbetweeners.

 Jimmy’s weakness for deception is particularly compelling given his brother Chuck’s character. Chuck (Michael McKean) is academic, diligent and conservative in a way that Jimmy is not. As a named partner in top legal firm HHM, Jimmy respects his brother immensely. In earlier flashbacks, we see the painstaking hours Jimmy put in to obtaining his legal certificate to emulate his career. HHM’s refusal to give him a place at the top table is why he must now eat the crumbs of unglamorous state cases. On top of that, Chuck’s recent hypersensitive condition has left him housebound, meaning Jimmy must act as carer – in work and in life Jimmy is subservient to his brother. This family dynamic between the brothers is the most interesting part of the show with the relationship being more paternal than fraternal as Jimmy strains for his elder’s approval. The fact that Jimmy loves his brother unconditionally despite this neglect makes him virtuous in our eyes - irrespective of his plotting.

Jimmy and Chuck.

In terms of how it compares with Breaking Bad, its pace is much more glacial. Walt underwent the same crisis of identity that Jimmy undergoes, but the stakes are far lower in this show. Here, there isn’t that sense of jeopardy where we fear for the lives of the protagonists and their families, instead the concerns are a lot more everyday: How can the rule-breaker Jimmy square his relationship with the moral Kim? How long will Jimmy balance legitimate with illegitimate legal practice before his true nature runs out?  In many ways it is like Stevenson’s classic novel on the meditation of man’s twin nature: our propensity for good and bad – The Strange Case of Jimmy McGill, Esq and Mr Goodman, then, if you will.

The last episode of Season 2 is next Tuesday and with more series promised I’m excited to see how the transformation develops.

Do No Harm

A few months ago, I was watching BBC’s Artsnight, a culture show fronted each week by a different guest host. On this particular episode, brain surgeon Henry Marsh was interviewing confessional author Karl Ove Knausgaard on the themes found within his work - primarily guilt, fear and loss. Mimicking the theatre of the surgery room, Knausgaard lies flat, his head locked in place, and goes under the inquisitor’s knife. Over the course of this psychological examination the doctor-patient dynamic changes though, as by the end Knausgaard is as interested in Marsh as Marsh is him.

Knausgaard, a worldwide publishing sensation, is treated as a celebrity wherever he goes: his six-volume autobiography distils the cerebrum onto the page by revealing his innermost pains and fears. It is a literary form of a brain surgery, where the author opens himself up for public examination. No surprise then that Knausgaard views Marsh with awe: for Marsh doesn’t play at putting life under a microscope, he lives it.

Knausgaard and Marsh.

Wanting to know more about Henry Marsh, I bought His book, Do No Harm. In it, Marsh writes openly – and most importantly accessibly – about the challenges of being a brain surgeon. Each chapter is headed by a medical term that anticipates the anecdote to come (Pineocytoma, Aneurysm, Angor Animi); then, over the course of the chapter we’re told the story of how Marsh treated the patient with the related condition. Technical terms litter the page but never in a way that proves alienating; like Macdonald’s H is for Hawk I reviewed last year, the esoteric is made relatable by highlighting the raw, human impact of the most technical of endeavours.

Despite the exalted position brain surgeons find themselves in, Marsh doesn’t see himself as a genius or an artist, but as a craftsman and technician. Later in the book, he speaks favourably about one of his patients, a plumber, recognising in their jobs a shared dexterity. Unlike a plumber though, Marsh deals with the labyrinthine piping of the brain. If he makes a wrong move with his instruments, the leak could prove fatal; the damage irreparable. These mistakes are documented very bravely in the book. There’s the time he leaves a woman paralysed, following a decision to remove too much of her tumour backfires. Another time, a Ukrainian girl dies following complications during her operation. Marsh in not incompetent; he is one of the country’s finest; it’s just that the smallest of mistakes can be fatal in his industry. Reflecting on one mistake with a female patient he explains the guilt that goes with being a brain surgeon: 

'She would be added to the list of disasters – another headstone in that cemetery which the French surgeon Leriche once said all surgeons carry within themselves.’

It is a terrible weight that doctors carry when things go wrong, we’re lucky that their profound sense of vocation means they feel it’s worth enduring.'

Marsh’s story to becoming a surgeon is perhaps as remarkable as the surgery itself. Preferring the arts in school, he had no O Levels or A Levels in science. At university he studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics with the intention of going into the into the civil service. Heartbroken during his third year, he left his Oxbridge course and migrated north to mend his broken heart. Here, he worked as a hospital porter and an interest in medicine was born. Eventually, he retuned to uni and finished his degree. Aware his three years of study were no longer in line with his career aspirations, he sought enrolment on a medical course. Given his scientific naivety, no institution would have him. Fortunately, the admission’s officer was retiring from the Royal Free Hospital and, perhaps feeling unburdened by consequence, gave Marsh a place. A textbook lesson in how the best laid schemes of mice and men can go awry for good reasons.

Finding the career he always wanted, Marsh has sacrificed his life to the profession. Hearing how he takes calls from colleagues whilst at the check-out and the garden centre made me aware how there is no escaping his job. In a way, Marsh doesn’t want to escape his job though. He describes it as an addiction, how when you’re operated all your worries subside as you’re anaesthetised under the magic of surgery. His love for medicine has taken him back and forth to Ukraine, where he was initially invited many years ago to advise the country on how best to modernise their practice. The results of this can be found in the film The English Surgeon, which I would like to get my hands on. In Do No Harm, Marsh talks about the country’s health care system in stark terms: for all the bureaucracy of the NHS, other countries are mired in far worse predicaments.

In writing this book then, Marsh has not just bared the brain, but his soul too. It is a startling achievement and one I recommend.

Jane The Virgin

‘Channel 4 is like a flood of sewage that comes unbidden into your home, whereas E4 is like you’ve voluntarily constructed a sluice to let it in.’

(Stewart Lee)

It has now been over a year since I first started this blog. My first blog received over 40 views; the most recent one just 12. I guess what this proves is only the diehard fans - and my mother - are left. With that in mind, ‘cheerleaders,’ (this is the collective noun for people who read the blog) I think it is time I’m open with you. I mean, you’ve invested hours in me; it’s only right I be truthful and honest with you. After much thought, I’ve decided to come clean about my less than savoury behaviour. The thing is … and there’s no easy way of saying this … I’m a television snob.  I think I have been for a long time; I’ve just never admitted to it. It all began when I read my first Radio Times. The Radio Times has been in our family for generations: my nan’s magazine rack was essentially an exhibition to the listings magazines with 70’s copies, fronted by convicted pedophiles, sitting alongside modern copies, fronted by yet-to-be convicted pedophiles. Every Christmas, each family member would ring the programmes they wanted to see, with any clashes resolved by a Medieval duel. It’s sad that my dad died in the ‘Battle of the Soaps,’ but what was he thinking in circling Emmerdale. At yuletide, we continue to lay a space in honour of him. I guess what I'm saying is, television is in my family's blood: if you're willing to pay £2.20 a week for a listings magazine, when all the times are available for free on-screen, then you must really care about TV.

Who controls the TV controls the world.

So although I don’t watch lots of television, I’m selective about it. I don’t play the spin the bottle with my viewing, flicking through the multitude of options in the hope that it lands on something appealing. Instead I make appointments with it. I look at the listings in the morning and set a reminder, effectively phoning ahead to make a reservation. In a recent trawl though the guide, I saw a show called Jane The Virgin on E4. The title makes it sound terrible, doesn't it? It sounds like it’s going to be a high-school comedy where a socially awkward teen is mocked mercilessly for being sexually inactive, until a popular guy takes pity on her, eventually wooing her much to the chagrin of her bitchy classmates. It sounds like a John Hughes vehicle. But in being on E4, it sounds like a John Hughes vehicle if it were stripped of all nuance and charm, only to then be fitted with tasteless alloys.

Two weeks ago, I was looking through Netflix and Jane was the highlighted show. Garlanded around the title, highlighted in red, were five stars. Now Netflix’s scoring system doesn’t always agree with mine: The Office has three stars. The Office! The sitcom where art and comedy coalesced to produce the most profound laughs on life's minutiae. 3 stars. Average. Like a Sunday night ITV drama. Like a cup of tea made by someone you haven't vetted. Like a meal at Wetherspoons. 3 stars. For all of that though, a five-star review on Netflix is a good indicator of quality – not enough to not make me Google it so I could get a second opinion from the Radio Times, but a good indicator nonetheless. 

3 stars.

Safe to say, I was wrong to be a snob about Jane The Virgin- just because it premiered in Britain on E4 doesn’t make it a bad thing. Yes, E4 is usually a landfill site for repeats and terrible panel shows, but along with Jane it has also produced My Mad Fat Diary, another of my favourite shows; therefore, proving that a stopped clock is right twice a day. 

Jane is an inspired piece of television that manages to be simultaneously mainstream and ambitious. It is inspired by the Mexican telenovela, Juana le Virgin, a show about a chaste girl that, as a consequence of accidental insemination, becomes pregnant with another man’s baby. The telenovela holds huge appeal in Hispanic communities with fans enjoying the format’s escapist quality and idiosyncratic way with melodrama. Jane The Virgin is both a parody and pastiche of this source material, celebrating its warm heart whilst laughing at its absurdity.

The first episode begins with a breathless voice-over from a heavily accented Latin American. We’re told the story of how a young Jane was turned onto chastity by her grandmother, the religious Alba. In the opening montage, Jane is directed by Alba to crush the flower in her hand; on breaking the petals she is then instructed to re-construct it; her inability to do so is a Catholic lesson in sexual restraint: ‘Once you lose your virginity, you’ll never get it back.’ Before you worry that the show has been crowd-funded by the religious-right, Jane’s mother, Xo, looks on horrified, urging her daughter to ignore her grandmother’s education. Over the course of the episode, Jane is impregnated, which leads to a difficult call: first to her boyfriend; then, in deciding to have a baby she did not plan for.

After the first episode the series becomes a family-drama/murder mystery/romantic-love triangle. You see the sperm Jane is carrying belongs to her hotel boss, Rafael, a flame that she formally held a torch for. He is married to Petra, who is having an affair with her husband’s best friend, Ramon Zazo. Zazo is killed at the hotel as part of a suspected drug ring. His murder is being investigated by Michael, Jane’s detective boyfriend. This brings Michael into daily contact with Rafael, the father of Jane’s child, who Jane may or may not have feelings for.

All of this happens within the first few episodes.

The fact that this pinball of multi-ball narrative is maintained so successfully is down to that holy trinity of all good programme making: writing, acting and directing. The writers, like I said earlier, play with the telenovela format quite beautifully, staying loyal to its multitudinous plot-lines whilst undercutting them with wry humour. In one of the episodes the voice-over is so long, owing to the farcical plot, that it stops mid-sentence with the line, ‘I’ll stop now, otherwise I’ll be doing a recap of the recap.’ Also, the fact that Jane and her family all sit down to watch their favourite telenovela, means they’re imbued with the fantasy of the genre, giving rise to hilarious dream sequences where they have morphed into their television heroes. What with the play within a play, ironic voice-over and the dream sequences, what you're essentially looking at is a commercial surrogate carrying the offspring of Arrested Development and Woody Allen's Play It Again, Sam.

Gina Rodriguez won a Golden Globe for her portrayal of the titular character, which is just deserts for the previous unknown. No matter how unbelievable the story gets in Jane, we continue to believe in her character’s actions and reactions. Unlike the voice-over, there is no emotional distance in her performance, no winks to camera to say, ‘isn’t this all silly?’ Instead she invests in Jane a huge deal of dignity and grace. As viewers, we can’t empathise with the overarching crisis Jane finds herself in (having an immaculate conception) but we can understand her struggle to choose between suitors, futures (being a writer or teacher) and desires (the flesh vs the Spirit). In a hurricane of storyline, Rodriguez keeps Jane upright and normal, because of this the show never once crashes to the ground.

Gina Rodriguez.

Ultimately, Jane The Virgin is a delight. I've got Series 2 circled in my Radio Times for Wednesday at 7.30. Though, you can catch the whole of the first series on Netflix.