THEGAYUK

Tag: Five Star TV Review

The latest Five Star TV Review from THEGAYUK.

  • TV REVIEW |“It’s A Sin” – Boys Go Home To Die “It’s A Sin”

    Rating: 5 out of 5.

    (No spoilers included in this review)

    Get your Sinitta and 5 Star albums of feel-good music at the ready because if you haven’t already binged watched Russell T Davies new Channel 4 drama, It’s A Sin, then brace yourselves for grim viewing. 

    Having seen the advert teasers and the first show on Friday 22nd January that doesn’t leave you in a good place after the show, then I can tell you that it only gets worse.

    The ’80s were not great times for the gay community and Russell manages to pick up the fear so well and quickly too. The accomplished writings of Russell are there from the start and the show bounces with an occasional break in the fourth wall with the view. 

    Thankfully these are very brief but important and hammer out almost a whole programs worth of what was going on in around 3 minutes as to some peoples perceptions of HIV and AIDS and what was to come played out. Our main character Ritchie Tozer (Olly Alexander) does I have to say grate on you in this part but then again this is 1981 and with some 40 passing years and hindsight it all becomes relative.

    There is no sugar coating what the AIDS crisis was from the start of the show and the experiences so many had in the real world in the ’80s, characters dropped like flies. In Friday’s episode, the lovable Henry (Neil Patrick Harris) who you instantly warmed too is killed off by the virus in the bleakest of ways. His boyfriend “goes home” and the crying starts. Russell is a dab hand at writing tear jerkers. I don’t think there are many out there who can say they didn’t cry watching Dr Who where the Dr and Rose were parted. Well, tissues at the ready because worse is to come.

    And it does. Admittedly there are some funny bits and if you pay attention to the finer details you’ll howl laughing at the disgust the Tozer gave when the infamous AIDS TV advert aired. Instead, they click it over to Michael Barrymore’s Strike It Lucky. “Oh I like him,” says Valerie (Keeley Hawes). And Keeley really does shine throughout to the point where you are screaming at her. The meek and mild mother of two suddenly becomes emboldened when she discovers the grim news. And then goes on to be a total bitch.

    But one mustn’t single out the actors because everyone plays a vital part in this gripping drama of six friends and their peripheral groups in dark times. But it is Jill (Lydia West) who has the hardest of times throughout the 5 episodes. The only female within the group and the one watching all of those around her fall to a virus or living in fear of it. 

    The last episode ends with all 6 friends together in a flashback of happier times. And it’s this ending that sets you off. It combines the feel-good with what was and might have been.    

    So grab your best friends, the ’80s feel-good CDs and a box of tissues. It’s hard viewing. Just don’t watch this on your own.

  • TV REVIEW | Against The Law

    As part of their Gay Britannia season, the BBC commissioned Against The Law, a docudrama of some of the events leading up the Wolfenden report, which paved the way to the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in the UK.

    TV REVIEW | Against The Law

    Against The Law is a docudrama by filmmaker Fergus O’Brien, based on the true story of Peter Wildeblood played by Daniel Mays, a writer and journalist for the Daily Mail, who was charged and imprisoned for homosexual acts in 1954, following an affair with a military man (Richard Gadd). At the time, gay men were being arrested in their droves, police raids were regular and the shaming of men for their lifestyle was rife.

    The punishment for those found guilty was prison time and gay cures offered, by professional medical staff, to those who wished to drive the gay out of them. The cures offered included electrical and chemical aversion therapies.

    The law made it almost impossible for gay men to lead honest, open relationships with each other as demonstrated in Wildeblood’s story. His personal love letters to his boyfriend were used against him in evidence of his so-called crimes.

    After his incarceration, he was the only openly gay man to testify in front of the Wolfenden committee, the committee that was, eventually, instrumental in the decriminalising of homosexuality in the UK.

    Interspersed with the drama were the true life stories from men caught up in the cruelty of the British legal system. They share their heartbreaking stories of fear, longing for acceptance and reclamation of their stolen lives.

    Utterly captivating and desperately sad, Against The Law, is a history lesson everybody in the LGBT+ community needs to learn.

     

  • TV | Red Dwarf XI Episode 4: Officer Rimmer

    TV | Red Dwarf XI Episode 4: Officer Rimmer

    One moment there is no Chris Barrie on our screens for years next thing you know more than a hundred come along at once …

    ★★★★★

    Red Dwarf XI / DAVE TV
    Red Dwarf XI / DAVE TV

    This week’s Red Dwarf sees a return to the classic Arnold Rimmer (Chris Barrie) has illusions of grandeur setting of old. Though this time it’s no illusion as Rimmer finally receives the promotion he has waited for all his life and death. Obviously the rest of the Dwarf Posse are less than happy with this.
    An attempt to reign in the power crazy Hologram only makes the situation worse as Rimmer decides on creating a few hundred clones of himself certain that they will obey him if no-one else will.
    Sure they will, Arn, sure they will …

    Red Dwarf XI / DAVE TV
    Red Dwarf XI / DAVE TV

    A very different but no less special episode if only for the treat of seeing Chris Barrie do what he does best: playing multiple characters at once. The fact that he manages to act as the same character in at-least twenty different ways is testament to his talent. He is an extremely talented man and it’s a shame he isn’t on our screens more often.
    Red Dwarf XI every Thursday at 9PM on Dave

  • TV REVIEW | London Spy

    Ben Whishaw in a gay spy thriller? What’s not to like?

    CREDIT: (C) WTTV Limited - Photographer: Joss Barratt

    CREDIT: (C) WTTV Limited – Photographer: Joss Barratt

    The cute and slightly broody looking Q from the Bond franchise in a new 5 part programme, in part inspired by the Gareth Williams case of the body in the bag, and in part by a 1960’s CIA handbook about covering up a murder by using an accident?

    Right up my street and no mistaking! We are less than 1/2 way into this programme, and am firmly gripped. I love programmes that throw up more questions than they initially answer, that keep you guessing, that offer false scents, false trails and you end up with no idea how it will all end – bit like life really. It starts with Danny, played by Whishaw, a 20-something in dead-end jobs who parties, flat shares and doesn’t have a steady boyfriend – a bit of an every-gay, nothing special, just living his life.

    A chance meeting early one morning with the enigmatic Joe/Alex/Alistair (Edward Holcroft) and suddenly love creeps into his life. Joe is secretive with no family, a job he doesn’t want to talk about and Danny laps it up – even when Joe fronts up and becomes Alex. Danny has a close friend in Scottie (Jim Broadbent playing an older gay in quite a respectable way) and confides in him about Alex and then after 8 months, the two finally meet. Fast forward to a possible romantic weekend away, and suddenly Alex disappears. Danny and Scottie have a heart to heart and Scottie’s past as a spy comes out, along with his suspicions about Alex and his area of work.

    Danny then receives a mysterious package at work, and so begins a game of cat and mouse.

    A key to Alex’s exclusive apartment complex leads Danny to discover a decaying body, a sex dungeon (but in the attic) and his boyfriend’s possible secret life. After questioning by the police and the assumption the body is that of his boyfriend, yet another identity comes out and Alex becomes Alistair, together with a whole other life and a family.

    Episode 2 introduces the iconic Charlotte Rampling in a role made for her – queen of her very own castle, a model of decorum and a woman of few words, but all packaged with a tinge of menace.

    Enter Alistair’s family. Where is this going? Who was Alex? Is he really dead? Why is Danny being watched, and by whom?

    The next 3 episodes promise more unanswered questions before the finale, but I intend to savour the acting skills of Ben, and the flashbacks to his handsome and taciturn boyfriend Joe/Alex/Alistair – along with Jim Broadbent’s superior character, who for me, reminds everyone that gay life doesn’t end at 40.

    If you like your spy thrillers with a realistic edge, watch this!

    London Spy is on Monday nights at 9PM on BBC 2

  • TV REVIEW | American Horror Story

    ★★★★★ | American Horror Story

    American Horror Story, or AHS as it is abbreviated to, is a four season (soon to be five) long delve into the creative mind of Ryan Murphy, the creator. In case anyone hasn’t watched AHS yet, please do.

    I mean genuinely it is such a deep and intense show you can not afford to miss it. I will be honest, since Season four “Freak Show” finished in January I have re-watched season 1, 2, and 3 all over again in less than a week. I am an addict, I will admit. Now with the premise of season 5, “Hotel” featuring, Lady Gaga, I am struggling to keep my panties dry.

    I will commence with a season by season commentary, I will warn you, there will be spoilers.

    Season 1: Murder House.
    The Harman family move from the East coast to the West, LA, to settle down and try and get their family together again after a ‘brutal’ abortion and a cheating husband. Mum Vivian, dad Ben and daughter Violet move into their 18th Century house which appears normal. Until they slowly discover all of the deaths in the house. Almost every occupant who has lived there has died in that house. Each of them are wanting something. It isn’t long until Ben gets his first patient (he is a psychiatrist) and we meet Tate Langdon (Evan Peters *Clenches butt*). Violet and Tate hit it off great and it’s even more dramatic when we find out he is dead, and why… It is so damned intense! Vivian gets pregnant with twins, unfortunately for her, one of the babies is Ben’s but the other is a masked man’s in a gimp suit who raped her. Turns out it was Tate. Fast forward a little and she looses Ben’s baby in childbirth and gives birth to the rape baby, but dies in labour. At this point we find out Violet died from an overdoseThe neighbour next door, Constance (who we find out is Tate’s mum and is played by Jessica Lange) takes the rape baby because it is her grandchild. Ben is left alone and the other spirits kill him, which leaves Ben, Vivian and Violet together as a family in the house. It’s oddly a nice ending. It ends with them warding off new buyers so the don’t have to go through what the Harman’s did.

    Season 2: Asylum. Featuring Adam Levine.
    Set in the 1960s, this corrupt church owned mental institution is governed by the sick minded Sister Jude (Jessica Lange). She wrongly commits Lana Winters (Sarah Paulson) into their care because she was snooping and wanting to write a story about an inmate, Kit Walker – Bloody Face, (played by Evan Peters), who was wrongly accused of skinning alive women. Move down the line and Lana thinks she finds her escape with a friendly doctor but turns out he is Bloody Face and he rapes her. She gets away and ends up back in the asylum. Finally, she gets out again and gets her story out and kills bloody face. In all of this time, Sister Jude has been forcefully committed to the asylum and her fellow Nun, Sister Mary Eunice who has been possessed by the devil was partially responsible. Queue a Nazi Doctor and you have an amazing story! Things progress, and Kit Walker gets free and later takes sister Jude with him. She dies and he gets abducted by aliens after he gets terminally ill (the aliens are explained in the plot). At the end, Lana is an old woman who is a very successful writer and ends up meeting her baby from Bloody Face’s rape she gave up for adoption. She shoots him in the dead and that’s it. End. Finito.

    Season 3: Coven.
    Set in New Orleans this school for witches sounds like a cheap and nasty Harry Potter magic school. It is far from it. It is set now. It is modern, sassy and darn right attention holding season. There is less explaining I can do here. A group of witch girls fight to become the new Supreme of the Coven and cause havoc on their way to it. People die, monsters die, zombies invade, slavery is witnessed and we see what hell is like. The majority of the soundtrack to this is Fleetwood Mac so if you like that you’ll like this because Stevie Nicks also makes an appearance as well. We end up getting to the point were there are two witches left and their new Supreme. The coven makes national news and they recruit a mass of new witches. This end well. Well worth a watch as this is my favourite.

    Season 4: Freakshow.
    You follow around Elsa Mars (Jessica Lange) a German woman of wonder who is the owner of a travelling Freak Show. They settle down in New Orleans but the welcome is not great. They are losing audiences fast. Throughout this, we visit were Elsa has been, through picking out the freaks to getting mutilated, to where she wanted to be. On TV. In the show there are new acts, new drama, back stabbing, kidnap and a new and gorgeous fancier of one of the women there. Betty and Dot (Sarah Paulson) the two-headed woman is right in the sights of Dandy (there are a few bare butt scenes which are a bonus). Things get so out of hand at the end that Dandy buys the show, massacres the majority of the freaks and then gets drowned by the remaining few. Elsa gets her TV show but ends up dying. This doesn’t end well for any of Jessica Lange’s characters.

    Season 5: Hotel
    This season is coming out in October 2015 and features the one and only Lady Gaga. The saddest part is Jessica Lange is not in it anymore (my ultimate woman crush). All we know is that it is set in a hotel. It looks promising with many returning characters and I just hope it is too the standard of Murphy’s other work.

    Not only is AHS beautifully written and cast, it has some real personality. The cinematography is a gem, the mise-en-scene is fabulous, the sounds are eerie and well thought out and the editing is just as you want it. You can tell that Ryan Murphy has put every last thought into it. A masterpiece. The only criticism is can you please you not bring Emma Roberts back. That is all.

  • W1A Series 2 Returns Roaring Its Timid BBC Head

    W1A roars back onto our screens with a laugh a minute. Okay, cool, yeah.

    Life it seems, goes on – at a snails pace sometimes at the BBC.

    BBC 2’s hit comedy, W1A triumphantly returned to our screens last night in a laugh a minute episode, which saw the ‘way ahead taskforce’ and a clueless PR, plan a visit, in the ‘Frankie Howard room’ from royalty.

    An episode in which not a lot happens, which seems to be the running joke. The BBC also needs to sex up its Wimbledon offering as the corporation is in danger of losing its contract. Siobhan Sharpe the PR genius, comes up with brand hash… Mixing brand BBC with brand Wimbledon.

    “Yes,”

    “Brilliant,”

    “Cool,”

    “Great…”

    “The fact is this, it needs to be better.”

    Brilliantly observed we assume and expertly delivered. I laughed at least 5 times in this 1-hour mud flinging, stinging satire on what exactly is wrong with our broadcast services in the UK

     

  • REVIEW | Transparent

    ★★★★★ | Transparent

    After Netflix’s phenomenal success creating original content for its streaming service with two Award winning television series, now Amazon has also stepped into the area which was once the sole territory of network and cable television with the launch of Transparent its very first own series. If you haven’t caught it yet (it’s free for AMAZON PRIME subscribers) then you’re missing out as it is one of the most innovative and enjoyable family dramas that has been seen on television for years.

    It’s the story of Mort Pfefferman who has indulged and spoilt his grown-up children for years and now that he has retired he wants to share with them something that is important to him. When he asks them to gather to hear his news, they all just assume that it’s going to be something very tragic, like having terminal cancer.

    What they are not prepared to learn is that Mort is going to become Maura. This is the female who has been trapped inside him since he was a kid, and now he wants to be true to him (or rather her) self.

    The news doesn’t go over too well as these three self-absorbed siblings are all wrapped in their own lives, none of which are going too well. Sarah the oldest one feels trapped in an unhappy marriage and when Tammy her old college roommate with who she had a serious fling with shows up again, she finds an escape route.

    Jay the middle one is a successful music producer and probably the most selfish of the three. He is used to dating girls young enough to be his daughters, although that goes a little sour when one of them double crosses him at the record company where he works. He finds salvation in religion. Well to be more precise, in dating the female Rabbi. His past will catch up with him in the end as is revealed in the final episode of this first series.

    Then there is Ali the directionless brainy one who is too bright to hold down a day job so still relies on her father for handouts that she euphemistically calls ‘loans’. Her love life is equally impossible to define and when she starts dating a trans man, her brother Josh jokes that there he is now no longer the only one in his family that still likes ‘pussy’. Except his mother, but the mere thought of even contemplating his aged mother’s sex life is rather stomach turning.

    She remarried soon after divorcing Mort years ago and her ancient new husband is now fading fast. A fact that Shelly is annoyed about as not only is looking after him as his sole career a great deal of hard work, but it interferes with her own life.

    Amazon has billed this as a ‘downbeat comedy’ but what it is, in fact, is a wonderfully warm and funny series about the extraordinary journey that Maura is taking with such spirit and determination and how her choices are playing out with her family. It’s an astonishing career-defining performance from veteran actor Jeffrey Tambor who imbues the character with empathy, dignity and resilience even through the transitioning process is not always easy or comfortable. Maura may not be the most natural or charming of women, but somehow Tambor compels us to be so completely drawn to her and so wanting her to succeed.

    Great supporting cast that includes Jay Duplass, Melora Hardin, Gaby Hoffman, Kathryn Hain and Amy Landecker. However, the only other scene-stealer in the piece (besides Tambor) is veteran actor Judith Light playing the classic Jewish mother/widow to the hilt.

    The series is created and directed by Jill Soloway (Producer ‘Six Feet Under’) whose father revealed his own transitioning to her just three years ago. Although she claims that this is not at all autobiographical, she does nevertheless handle this potentially controversial subject superbly showing both remarkable insight and understanding. They were a few mumblings when the idea was initially announced that they not going to cast a transgender actor in the lead but no-one could possibly have portrayed Maura as superbly as Tambor. (Soloway did, however, make this a trans-friendly production hiring 20 in the cast and crew, and more than 60 trans men and women were employed as extras.)

    Transparent is both bold and groundbreaking and is sophisticated quality programming that is usually the Hallmark of BBC or HBO, and I cannot wait for Series 2 to arrive.

  • TV REVIEW | Don’t Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves

    TV REVIEW | Don’t Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves

    ★★★★★  Don’t Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves | A man lies dying alone in a solitary hospital room. Two nurses, wearing protective clothing from head to foot are dressing his sores and wounds.

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  • TV REVIEW | American Horror Story

    Horror doesn’t get much more terrifying and much gayer than “American Horror Story”. Last year’s runaway success from FX is now available to buy on DVD and Blu-ray and is the perfect viewing for dark October nights.

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