It's grim up north, apparently
This week, there is a series of one-off dramas on BBC1 every day (2.15-3pm). They were written by Jimmy McGovern (of Cracker fame), I believe, and each one tells a story of somebody moving on in some way, set in a roughly Liverpool-Manchester background.
So far we've had:
1) A widow falls in love with a Gurkha, agrees to marry him and moves him into her home - but her children resent her moving on and don't like him. Eventual happy ending involving a child going missing mid-episode.
2) Two schoolboys who live opposite each other fall out over a bullying problem, and their parents, who used to be friends, end up going to war about it and prolonging the agony (which otherwise would have been forgotten). Eventual happy ending involving a child going missing mid-episode.
Tomorrow we get Richard Armitage (I wonder whether he'll be doing his northern accent[1]), and on Friday we get Joanne Froggatt (I put two of everything in there, is that right?).
My problem with the dramas so far is that the plots aren't interesting, the happy endings are implausible, the cinematography is awfully drab and they're just not as good as the wonderful Afternoon Plays that the BBC did a year or two ago (the highlight of which featured a lad who couldn't read being taught to play Hamlet by Greta Scacchi - it was heartbreakingly wonderful). On the one hand, it's nice that they're set in the north-west - but in another, it's a shame that some of the characteristic marks of the north-west and north-westerners are oddly lacking.
In other news, today I can't tyope a sentence without making a typo. See? (That was actually genuine - I was going to put one in for comedy purposes and then found I didn't have to!)
[1] I do love him, but his 'northern' is actually Yorkshire (understandable as his father is from Leeds) - which is perhaps my only complaint about the north-west set 'North and South'.
So far we've had:
1) A widow falls in love with a Gurkha, agrees to marry him and moves him into her home - but her children resent her moving on and don't like him. Eventual happy ending involving a child going missing mid-episode.
2) Two schoolboys who live opposite each other fall out over a bullying problem, and their parents, who used to be friends, end up going to war about it and prolonging the agony (which otherwise would have been forgotten). Eventual happy ending involving a child going missing mid-episode.
Tomorrow we get Richard Armitage (I wonder whether he'll be doing his northern accent[1]), and on Friday we get Joanne Froggatt (I put two of everything in there, is that right?).
My problem with the dramas so far is that the plots aren't interesting, the happy endings are implausible, the cinematography is awfully drab and they're just not as good as the wonderful Afternoon Plays that the BBC did a year or two ago (the highlight of which featured a lad who couldn't read being taught to play Hamlet by Greta Scacchi - it was heartbreakingly wonderful). On the one hand, it's nice that they're set in the north-west - but in another, it's a shame that some of the characteristic marks of the north-west and north-westerners are oddly lacking.
In other news, today I can't tyope a sentence without making a typo. See? (That was actually genuine - I was going to put one in for comedy purposes and then found I didn't have to!)
[1] I do love him, but his 'northern' is actually Yorkshire (understandable as his father is from Leeds) - which is perhaps my only complaint about the north-west set 'North and South'.