Sunny D

A few months ago I wrote about the BBC’s latest batch of comedy pilots. I said how Home from Home wouldn’t be out of place on BBC1, and Motherland would be a perfect fit for BBC2. Since that review Home from Home and Motherland have been commissioned for a full series, begging the question: am I the most influential blog writer in the country? It’s a good job this blog’s raison d’etre is to exalt and champion; otherwise I fear my humble type could diminish and destroy.

Cross me and I'll write your obituary.

This week I’ve been watching Sunny D, a show that started off as an iPlayer pilot and is now about to conclude its first series on terrestrial. Written and created by Dane Baptise, an Edinburgh Best Newcomer nominee, the title is somewhat ironical: with Dane’s life clouded by work, family and relationships his disposition is a long way from sunny.

Different to many comedies, the show is populated by black characters. This is significant, since black voices have been ignored in sitcom for a long time. The Desmonds, a black sitcom, remains Channel 4’s longest running comedy, but that finished over 20 years ago. Can anyone remember a successful one since? This whitewashing of a much-loved genre is troubling, given how good television can communicate other experiences and stop prejudices from developing. Admittedly, bad sitcom can perpetuate stereotypes – see Mrs Brown’s Boys- but the point still stands. From the interviews I’ve heard with Baptiste you get the feeling that this responsibility weighs large; as a consequence, he wants to create something that does his culture justice. Many of his stand-up shows deal thoughtfully with issues of race and identity; fortunately his sitcom is no different.

The Desmonds.

The trust the producers have been put in Baptiste, allowing him to be the sole writer on the show, means the comedy feels completely idiosyncratic. Baptiste establishes what his comedy isn’t in the opening minutes, having his characters parody The Cosby Show’s cheesy credits. This then builds to the voice-over coda, “Sunny D is filmed in front of a live audience”, which Baptise undercuts with a forth wall sneer, “No, it’s not.” The moment is redolent of The Young Ones tearing a hole through The Good Life, an act of agitation designed to reject cardigan coziness for something more daring. We then segue into the next shot via J-Kwon’s Tipsy where a pissed Dane, backdropped by posters of Jay Z and Biggy, launches into a diss battle with his twin sister, Kadeen. The use of Hip Hop music juxtaposes Dane’s persona brilliantly; its brash energy serving as a blasting counterpoint to the character’s 9-5 drudgery.

The show is set within the four walls of Dane’s parents house – a place he has long outgrown. The fact that his sister still lives there only makes matters worse. If it wasn’t bad enough Kadeen took nutrients from him in the womb; now she sucks oxygen from his life too. Seeing two grown adults argue like children is hardly the stuff of comedy revolution, but here it’s a joy to behold. What’s funnier than a grown man belittling his twin sister’s baby plans with, “Who would want to fertilise you?” Only for the aforesaid to comeback, “Your breath stinks of fertiliser.” If these children weren’t cut from the same womb, they would resort to “your mum” jokes.

Sunny D

The head to head battles between Dane and his sister do offer fun, frothy laughs; but when Dane turns his head to the camera he has much to say about the issues that affect Generation Y. In one brilliant routine his character questions whether the domestic life is for him, updating Shakespeare’s Seven Ages of Man into a bitter reverie on household existence. Further, Baptiste’s former career of selling digital advertising makes him well-qualified to attack a capitalism system that puts a wall around your dreams. When his boss threatens him with human resources, he decries, “I’m not a resource. I’m a human being.” This Orwellian lament of being stuck in an environment that depersonalises, turning DNA into data, is something most can empathise with. In seeking to evade the responsibility of work and marriage, the sitcom asks the big question: is it running away if you don’t like what you’re running towards?

Sunny D is a special type of sitcom: it’s funny but it has something to say too. Only last year’s Master of None did as good a job at distilling ideology into entertainment. If Baptiste can follow up this series with another good one, then those  ‘Voice of a Generation’ articles might just hashtag him. Whatever happens, Baptiste is one to watch – in both senses of the word. 

On the rise.

Sunny D is available on iPlayer.

The Missing

There used to be a time when television was an event, where people would huddle around the office water-cooler (regardless of whether their workplace came with one or not) and discuss the previous night’s TV. A time when even living alone wouldn’t negate TV’s social power: you could simply discuss it the next day in work. Now in the age of Netflix, there is to cite Margaret Thatcher ‘no such thing as society.’ The programme that you watch might not even be the one the person sitting next to is watching. With our iMacs, iPhones and iPads we’ve become a nation of ‘I’s,’ slavishly following our own interests at the expense of shared experience.

It’s something that I feel people miss. It must be, otherwise Twitter wouldn’t be such a phenomenon. I mean, why do broadcasters footnote their shows with hashtags? Because they know that people want a forum to opine, to trade, to disagree. As choice segregates culture, we’re forced online to find strangers to share it with. Should it matter that as a nation the only time we sit down and watch television together is the Strictly final or an England defeat? Don’t we become more interesting by doing our own thing? After all, we’re tribal with our music tastes, why shouldn’t we be with our TV? My argument would be that some common ground is a good thing. Music has always has been the thing that’s made us different, but television’s been the thing that kept us the same. In an era of limited choice, 30 million people once sat down to watch Morecambe and Wise’s Christmas special. Isn’t it remarkable that a whole cross-section of society united in laughter? At a time of political divide there was still cultural togetherness. Now in today’s era of isolationism, we’re culturally separated too. So many of our opinions are becoming ghettoised online because there’s no one to collaborate with in the physical world – isn’t this a bit sad?

Laughing all the way to viewing figures.

The reason I’m banging on about this is because over the last eight weeks there’s been a television drama that has got people talking – and not just online. Yes, people have using their actual mouths to do something other than eat. Up and down the country millions have been watching something that isn’t reality television or sport; but a sharp, intelligent written drama. Perhaps only Broadchurch can say that it has captured the nation in the same way The Missing has (and that show went so far off the boil in Series 2 it’s debatable whether the hob was ever on). For The Missing to retain its viewers over eight episodes and create weekly talking points is such an impressive achievement. Yes, Victoria had better ratings this year, but no one around the country was theorising on its plot developments.

The Missing, if you’re uninitiated, is a drama that centres on child abduction and the investigation that follows. In the first series, the procedural oscillated between two frames, 2006 and 2014, to tell the story of a missing boy. From the start, the programme grabbed us by the throat and refused to relinquish its hold. Seeing a father’s realisation that his son was missing is agonising in the extreme. Witnessing then his hunt to find his child is an obsession that we the viewer comes to share. For all of that though, the last episode was a bitter disappointment with the denouement lacking conviction and commitment. Writers Jack and Harry Williams, inveterate Twitter users, admitted they had read the backlash and vowed to be more conclusive and emphatic in their second series.

The Williams brothers.

The second series of The Missing is more ambitious than the first, straddling four key time frames. Also, whilst the first series criss–crossed the channel taking in France and England; the second goes further taking on Bond-esque proportions by traversing multiple countries. Initially, this is a little bewildering and in lesser hands it could prove jarring; however the Williams brothers handle it with aplomb, negotiating the time shifts with excellent clutch control.   

This series centres on Alice Webster, a young British schoolgirl, who goes missing in a German army town. Eleven years later, she collapses back to her home city nursing abdominal pains. When she is reunited with her family they cannot believe their eyes. Sam, a Captain in the local base, is overcome with emotion; his blessed daughter has returned. Gemma, a teacher, is similarly overwhelmed: how incredible to have her baby back. In time though she becomes confused, doubting whether this girl is really her girl. When erudite detective Julien Baptiste appears to raise his suspicions, the incredulity she feels only deepens. Baptiste believes the girl is another missing person, Sophie Giroux, a girl who went missing in France. But why would she lie about being someone else? When questioned by Brigadier Adrian Stone, she seems prompted to give up the name of a local butcher as her abductee. Is Stone complicit in the lie? Why would a Gulf War veteran want to ‘fit’ another person with a crime? Alice Webster may have gone missing in a small German town but the origins of this disappearance tale dates back to Britain’s involvement in Iraq. Just like The Killing, the Danish crime drama that must have inspired the show, series two gets behind enemy lines and uncovers the secret tunnels of corrupt morality.

Stone and 'Webster.'

Touching on The Killing, I have to say one of the things I most enjoyed about the show was recognising its reference points. When ‘Alice’ first returns it’s redolent of French zombie-drama, The Returned: her icy demeanour similar to the undead that populated the show. With Baptiste on the receiving end of a tumour, he begins to resemble Breaking Bad’s Walter White, physically in appearance and mentally in desperation. Further, the idea that the Websters may have taken in a fraud may seem absurd, but if you watch The Imposter, as I’m sure the writers have, then you will see that it isn’t so far-fetched. As Oscar Wilde said, ‘Good writers, borrow; great writers, steal.’

Walter White/ Julien Baptiste

The Williams brothers in taking from the best have produced this year’s great art heist. Now let’s get off our laptops and start talking about it.

The Missing is now available on DVD.

Call Me Lucky

I’m not a victim. I was but I’m not anymore. But I’m a witness. I’m my life’s testimony. Not only what happens to kids but what you can go on to; what you can become; no matter what they do unless they kill you. And that was close in my case. It was real close. But I’m here; I made it. Thus, call me 'lucky.'

Barry Crimmins is a comedian that has led a life; a life he'd rather not have lead. How he comes to terms with the situations thrust upon him is what makes the documentary so inspiring.

Born in Skaneateles, New York on the 3^rd July 1954, Crimmins was very nearly a 4^th July 'firecracker'. It’s prescient that a man like Crimmins would be born so close to America's pivotal date; for even as a boy, Crimmins was interested in his nation and the mythology surrounding it. Friends allude to how he was the brightest kid in town, someone who could turn the chalkboard on the teacher and run intellectual rings around them. Crimmins attests that his thirst for knowledge might have come from the moribund culture that surrounded him: everyone in his town was a church-going patriot, believing steadfastly in its institutions. Today, Skaneateles has changed: every year they have a Dickens festival - something Crimmins notes as ironic, given how 'most of the people (he) grew up with would have rooted for Scrooge.'

Skaneateles.

From a young age Crimmins lost faith in the institutes of church and state. Every week Crimmins would go to church, only to be admonished every week by the same Catholic priest. Crimmins was just a boy helping the Father with the rituals of mass; he had done nothing to warrant such treatment. Seemingly, the cruelty stemmed from an earlier incident where the priest attempted to fondle Crimmins’ hair, to which the boy responded by parrying the hand away. Smarting from a child's rejection, the priest made it his mission to make the child pay. In the face of this barbarism, Crimmins somehow managed to keep the wolf at bay, turning down ‘lifts’ on a number of occasions.

Outside the church he attended as a child.

Free from this adult tyranny, Crimmins was to face more. Raised by loving parents, the home was always a safe place. His parents nurtured his talents with his mum and dad encouraging his comedic and intellectual pursuits; they could not, however, discourage evil from invading their door. On the occasions that they went out they hired a babysitter, a respected local girl. Unbeknownst to them, this girl would invite around her mother’s boyfriend to help. Crimmins knew that the man was no good. In attending Mass each week, he knew what the devil looked like. Unfortunately, his sixth sense proved true: the man on a regular basis would take him into the basement and subject the child to vile rape. In safe suburbia suffering had become a daily occupation.

Understandably, Crimmins was desperate to get out of his hometown, to run from the scene of the crime. Fortunately, comedy offered salvation. On arriving in Boston, he founded the Ding Ho comedy club, which was attached 'Hong Kong', a Chinese restaurant. Starting slowly the club would go on to attract some of the biggest names in American comedy. Comics loved performing there because they knew that they would be paid well and be supported by comedy-literate fans. As well as establishing the club Crimmins performed too: an intense counterpoint to the frivolity of other acts.

An inauspicious building yielded great results.

 Watching the footage of Crimmins is redolent of Bill Hicks. Only it shouldn’t because Crimmins worked the same time as him. A lot of people wrongly believe anger started and ended with Bill. Crimmins had just as much fire. Whilst Crimmins was attending demos against American foreign policy, Hicks stood on stage speaking about it. If you like the words of Bill Hicks, then look to Crimmins, for he made them flesh. Like Hicks, Crimmins would take no prisoners when it came to the audience’s intellect: he wouldn’t play to the dumbest person in the room but the smartest, hoping the rest would keep up. When people didn’t get a joke, he would give them a history lesson until they got it. He was a teacher who talked in punch-lines, and if you didn’t like the lesson then be prepared because a tongue-lashing was on its way. This period for Crimmins was one of rage where he could fly off the handle at any given minute- a man made of raw nerves, a friend describes. This volatility, of course, was a manifestation of Crimmins’ childhood trauma: yes, he was genuinely angry over the direction America was heading, but his short-fused psyche owed more to that. 

Ultimately, Crimmins had come to the end of the line: he knew that he had to speak the trauma tumour out of his body, only then could recovery begin.

So the film, Call Me Lucky, is about Crimmins’ soul journeying out of the underworld into life. Along the way, he undergoes the torture of realising that his escape isn’t everyone’s escape; that children get abused every day, sometimes so badly it proves fatal. In the mid 90’s Crimmins was made aware of AOL chatrooms being used as a conduit for padeophiles to share child pornography; when he informed AOL of this they ignored his calls. As far as they were concerned, the chatrooms meant people stayed online longer, meaning money for the company. Crimmins wouldn’t let AOL close their browser to criminal activity so assisted prosecutors in taking the company to Congress. Seeing an alt-comic put the corporation on trial is something you would expect from Hollywood everyman James Stewart, not bearded Castro-a-like Barry Crimmins.

Crimmins testifies against AOL.

For everything Crimmins has had to go through in order to become a successful activist, comic and person; the film proves that good can overcome; that talk can lift you out of the wreckage; that for all the hell there is, this remains a wonderful life.

Call Me Lucky is available on Netflix.

The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace

The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace is subtitled A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League and here begins the first of many juxtapositions. Newark, the largest city in New Jersey, is known as ‘Brick City’ due to the amount of brick high-rises that litter its landscape. Over time, this has taken on even worse associations to mean: a place where bricks of crack cocaine are bought and sold. For years, Newark has had problems with unemployment, crime and institutional corruption. The Ivy League on the other hand is the American equivalent of our Red Brick universities. One such university that belongs to this esteemed chain is Yale, of which Robert Peace attended. This then is a story of a boy who went from economical rags to educational riches, who exchanged life in Gomorrah for the ivory tower.

Newark.

I should mention that this social ascension is true; it is a story stranger than fiction. It is authored by Jeff Hobbs, Rob’s university roommate; an aspiring novelist at Yale, who never knew his greatest story slept next door. After Rob died, he set about interviewing friends and family to piece together this extraordinary life.

Robert Peace was a young man born in St Mary’s hospital, less than half a mile from his soon-to-be family home in Chapman Street. His father Skeet dealt in low-level drugs and high-level wisdom, making the boy both street-smart and book-smart. Jackie saw the academic potential in her son and was wary of his father’s influence. Consequently, she kept Skeet at arms length. Perhaps she was right to do so: Skeet was found guilty of murdering two women; a charge he vehemently denied. As a man with a history of non-violence and an alibi it seemed like he had a good hand; when his witness died before his trial the cards were stacked against him. He was put away for life.

Rob and his dad.

Untethered from his father and idol, Robert Peace was an astronaut lost in space. His mother knew that if she didn’t do something then his intelligence would be stomped on by the local school. So she scrimped, saved, trained and got promoted. She kept her nose to the grindstone to continue Rob’s private school education. This cost wouldn’t be astronomical for suburban couples ($400 dollars/£300 per month), but for a lady in low-paid work, who had a house to maintain, ailing parents to care for and regular prison visits to attend, it was a job to remain solvent.

For Jackie though it was all worth it. Her son prospered under the auspices of the school. His grades were sky high; his reputation with staff and peers equally so. Yet she still worried. Every day he walked home he had to cross the temptations that caught so many: the drugs; the machismo. Rob though assimilated with ease. He called it ‘Newark-proofing,’ the ability to change stance, gait and lexicon in order to dissolve and thrive in a tougher environment. Although he was the private school boy in a world of broken social housing, he didn’t experience much trouble – the reason? He never became ‘uppity.’ This word kept people in their place- for good or bad – in Newark. It stopped people from being condescending, kept them real to their neighbourhood; but stopped them from climbing out of their circumstances too; no one wanted to be a traitor to their people.

Rob continued to climb due to a combination of his mother’s sacrifice, his natural intelligence and the patronage of a benefactor. In many ways it is a story of Great Expectations where an impoverished boy is plucked out of poverty and sent to live as a gentleman. For Peace it wasn’t a convicted con of Dickens’ tome, but Charles Cawley, a philanthropist, who paid for Rob's transformation. Cawley, a former student of Rob's school, knew what a service the institution had done for him, and wanted to pay it back. On meeting Rob at a graduation evening, he was struck by the young man’s brilliance and charm. So mesmerised by the boy’s dazzling enterprise, Cawley offered to pay for him to go to Yale.  Finally, Jackie and Rob had achieved the American Dream. Together they had flown through the glass ceiling of colour, stopping only to land when they reached the manicured lawns of the Ivy League.

So how did Rob, who worked in a cancer and infection research unit whilst majoring in molecular biochemistry and biophysics, come to be killed aged thirty over dealing marijuana?

How did a boy who climbed out of the mire get sucked back in?

Read it; the answers aren’t simple.

Robert Peace was murdered in the basement of his friend's house.

The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace is available to buy from all good bookshops.