will be back for a third series later on in the year. Nathan, Simon, Kelly, Curtis and Alisha are rapidly on their way to becoming national institutions thanks to a mixture of super powers, sex, caustic one-liners, violence, mischief and general chaos. Each episode contains about as much fun as it is possible to cram into an hour and is backed up with a constantly expanding narrative that sees these fully three-dimensional characters breathlessly have to adapt to survive. If you’ve yet to sample the delights of this gleefully off-kilter show, make it your next box-set marathon and get acquainted with the Asbo-heroes in time for their return.
One of three major new drama commissions for ITV (alongside Injustice and Scott and Bailey ), The Jury looks the pick of the bunch. First shown in 2002, the series was created by BAFTA-winning writer Peter Morgan, who is at the heart of this return. The screenwriter of The Queen and Frost/Nixon has promised a dark, gripping and character-driven story focusing on the members of the public chosen to sit in judgement over the highly controversial retrial of a convicted triple murderer. One of a growing number of ‘stripped’ series (those whose episodes aired shown consecutively over five nights), Morgan's drama was a critical hit the first time round and this latest version should be much the same. Expect a complex, un-patronising and contemporary look at criminality and society in the 21st Century.
Todd Haynes – director of the sumptuous melodrama Far From Heaven , Velvet Goldmine and the recent I'm Not There – Is to move into television for this five-part adaptation of the classic James M. Cain novel. The 1945 film, which features an iconic performance from Joan Crawford as the titular divorcee striving for independence and success, is an acknowledged classic that has inspired films by Douglas Sirk and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Haynes is sure to make the small screen version worth watching. With Kate Winslet in the Crawford role, backed up by Guy Pearce, Evan Rachel Wood and Melissa Leo, Haynes’s HBO-produced project begins shooting in April and is due to be screened later in the year on Sky Atlantic.
Mystifyingly not picked up by a major channel in the UK, the multi-award winning Breaking Bad is still tucked away in the nether regions of our cable listings on the FX Channel. Bryan Cranston (the father in Malcolm in the Middle ) stars as high school Chemistry teacher Walter White who, after being diagnosed with advanced lung cancer, provides for his family’s future by producing and selling methamphetamine. Bad’s six Emmy Awards have included three consecutive victories for Cranston in the Lead Actor in a Drama Series category, and the show has attracted deserved acclaim for its cinematography and writing. This dark drama, shot through with black comedy, is heading towards its fourth season in the States. Here in the UK, FX has just begun to screen it from the beginning at 10 on Wednesday nights. (Meanwhile, Five USA is screening the second series, also on Wednesday nights, at 11.40,) Seek it out: it’s one of the finest US shows currently in production.
BBC4 comes to the rescue of those who loved librettist Richard Thomas’s work on Jerry Springer – The Opera but were unable to secure tickets for his collaboration with Olivier Award-winning composer Mark Anthony Turnage at the Royal Opera House. A prime example of the channel’s continued excellence in arts broadcasting, this is my idea of ‘event’ television.
Dead from an overdose of prescription drugs at just 39, Anna Nicole Smith is an ideal subject for opera, and Dutch soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek should wow audiences in the role. Smith, a former waitress, Playboy model, reality TV star and pensioner-marrying walking car crash, lived under the glare of the media’s eye and her story encapsulates our vacuous, celebrity-obsessed times. Expect an eye-opening, adult-orientated evening unlikely to be matched onstage this year. Look out for the broadcast date.
Source:
No comments:
Post a Comment