A year's worth of telly watching
Last week I found myself in the rare situation of watching TV nearly every week night, I can't remember the last time that happened!
Tuesday was The Eichmann Show which was shown as part of the UK Holocaust commemoration activities in the week leading up to the the 70th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. You can never really 'enjoy' programmes about the Holocaust but I thought the acting was excellent and I learned a few things I didn't know previously. The narrative was a bit confusing, and be honest slightly heavy handed, at points but overall I thought it was very well done.
Wednesday was the much anticipated Wolf Hall which I thought was absolute cringe inducing shit. The spark from the novel had been completely sucked out of it and while Mark Rylance did his best with an awful script that couldn't disguise the fact it was an awful, stilted, script. Anne Boleyn was appalling but to be fair to the woman playing her Mantel's Boleyn is also an insipid caricature and a real weakness of the second novel. Am hugely disappointed as I was so looking forward to it but I don't think I'll even bother watching the rest.
On Thursday was the new drama from Russell T. Davies Cucumber followed by it's 'yoof orientated' companion show Banana. It's essentially, and it seems intentionally, a middle aged Queer As Folk. I thought Banana was the stronger piece but enjoyed both and will be tuning in again this week. I do think the fondling of vegetables and discussion of Ryan Reynold's possible masturbation habits could have been more evenly paced as by cramming it all into the first 15 minutes it was a bit 'oh matron look how naughty and rude we are!' but once they got that out of the way it was engaging and fun.
Tuesday was The Eichmann Show which was shown as part of the UK Holocaust commemoration activities in the week leading up to the the 70th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. You can never really 'enjoy' programmes about the Holocaust but I thought the acting was excellent and I learned a few things I didn't know previously. The narrative was a bit confusing, and be honest slightly heavy handed, at points but overall I thought it was very well done.
Wednesday was the much anticipated Wolf Hall which I thought was absolute cringe inducing shit. The spark from the novel had been completely sucked out of it and while Mark Rylance did his best with an awful script that couldn't disguise the fact it was an awful, stilted, script. Anne Boleyn was appalling but to be fair to the woman playing her Mantel's Boleyn is also an insipid caricature and a real weakness of the second novel. Am hugely disappointed as I was so looking forward to it but I don't think I'll even bother watching the rest.
On Thursday was the new drama from Russell T. Davies Cucumber followed by it's 'yoof orientated' companion show Banana. It's essentially, and it seems intentionally, a middle aged Queer As Folk. I thought Banana was the stronger piece but enjoyed both and will be tuning in again this week. I do think the fondling of vegetables and discussion of Ryan Reynold's possible masturbation habits could have been more evenly paced as by cramming it all into the first 15 minutes it was a bit 'oh matron look how naughty and rude we are!' but once they got that out of the way it was engaging and fun.