Soundtrack

Every minute, 6.5 boxsets are uploaded onto Netflix (probably).  As soon as you think you’re on top of your consumption, there’ll be a new season of that thing you like, or an unseen weekly instalment of that other show that person at work said you should watch.  It’s easy to feel you’re falling behind with a lifetime ambition to complete the platform as if it were a video game, sacrificing your other civic duties of staying at home and ordering stuff online.  But don’t worry, this blog is here to support you in your boxset choice fatigue.  You don’t look at the BBC schedule and despair that you’ll never get round to sitting through everything.  So it should be the same for the online streamers – you only need to watch what you want.  And, to help, I have another hidden gem that might appeal to you.

It has been freely acknowledged that previous hidden gems (un)covered here may not be to everyone’s taste.  As an unregulated, practically unedited, weekly stream of my own opinions, all that matters here is what I think, but all healthy debate is invited.  I was one of the few who thought The Get Down was pretty much a masterpiece.  I would still recommend Friends From College to anyone with a sense of humour.  Everyone should watch Dark, as the wondrous complexity of its plots is only one of its many virtues.  I could go on.  This week, after a recommendation from a dear friend, I have been uncovering Soundtrack.

The trailer ticked a lot of my boxes, mostly because the presence of singing and dancing indicated that this was probably a musical.  Finally, something to come along and meet the unreasonable expectations that I had of Glee.  But this is the first point of difference to cover with Soundtrack.  The cast don’t actually sing the songs.  They lip-synch to the soundtrack.  This is best illustrated by one of the opening scenes.  Nellie, our female lead, is getting ditched by her self-centred boyfriend in a busy restaurant.  As the emotion hits home, the opening sirens and beats of Sia’s Elastic Heart are played to us, the audience.  But it also becomes clear that these aural indications of mood and theme are perceptible to Nellie.  She mouths the words.  She dances choreography.  The background artists, masquerading as waiters, join in as if her subconscious has expanded to include those around her.  You’ll either run a mile at this point or find it to be stirring stuff.

I was hooked.  Throughout the ten episodes, the soundtrack of, lol, Soundtrack, bleeds into the characters’ actions and stories, often culminating in a quite aggressive mash up in some episodes’ climaxes.  While today’s hit parade is often the source of these tunes, later instalments raid Broadway and beyond.  Gender, race and age of recording artist are irrelevant.  It’s all about the sentiment.  Some performances play out as dream sequences, others are more naturalistic, but the whole piece has an experimental feel.  And that’s why I laud Soundtrack: it’s trying something new.  We could easily dismiss this as a gimmick, and some clanging moments (blocking!) in the earlier episodes nearly saw me switch off, but its second strength comes from its story.

Set in LA, Soundtrack at first appears to be a generic love story, documenting the relationship of Sam and Nellie.  Paul James and Callie Hernandez prove so charismatic in these roles that you’re almost disappointed that Soundtrack turns out to be an ensemble piece, with most episodes structured around two other characters and their interplay, drawing focus to Sam and Nellie’s family members, friends and social workers.  That said, the episode Gigi/Jean is carried solely by Megan Ferguson as Nellie’s best friend, though with Nellie herself almost entirely absent, and I found it one of the most compelling instalments.  Sure, this is part La La Land, so everyone is trying to make it in art or music or dance, or has made it in acting.  This is also Netflix, therefore some elements do take their time in order to fill the ten hour-long instalments, but this also somehow doesn’t feel like the kind of fluff that this characteristically flippant write-up would otherwise have you believe.  It’s more affecting, though this might be down to my own (and all of our) emotional vulnerability in lockdown.

So why not watch something that hardly anybody else is?  Soundtrack is not as derivative as it first appears.  It has devastating drama alongside banging choreography that is filmed in a way that really lets you appreciate the movement.  Some of the cast are better at lip-synching than others, but this is part of its style.  It’s a great injustice that I don’t think we’re going to be treated to any more of it, but let that reassure you that this won’t become something that burdens your to-watch list with constant additional instalments.  Soundtrack is the most hiddenest of gems, but if you believe people should burst into spontaneous song and dance in real life then let this single item in your Netflix algorithm offer some diversion from reality.

Cruising With Jane McDonald

See how many of these words and expressions you can get through before you start smirking.  Sausage.  The biggest one.  Such a big organ.  Tugging away.  Now, if, like me, you’re already laughing out loud, then this means you are a fan of innuendo.  This blog has long proven a safe space for those that identify as loving silliness (see post on Miranda), but the time feels right to welcome on board each and every fan of innuendo out there because, this week, we’re going on us holidays.  We’re going Cruising With Jane McDonald.  If you didn’t enjoy any of the double-entendres, then get out.

Ever since Adele Roberts’ luxury item on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here was a framed photo of Jane herself, I’ve been meaning to return to this show.  I remember one Christmas visit to the parents some years back.  We differ on lots of things, from politics to food, but TV viewing behaviour is perhaps home to the biggest generational divide.  I therefore spent the festive period, as a guest, tolerating such nonsense as Countryfile, the BBC news, Antiques Roadshow and countless advert breaks filled with spots whose frequency was approaching a billion.  I wasn’t entertained but I mostly wasn’t listening.  Then, one evening, after a slice of Christmas cake and a peppermint tea, something came on about cruise holidays.  There was our Jane, she off of a 1998 BBC reality documentary called The Cruise (back when everyone in this sort of show was guaranteed a showbiz career), still going strong, still going on cruises, 20 years later.  Apart from a stint on Loose Women (Jane, not me), I hadn’t seen much of her outside of some Victoria Wood sketches (insert plug for dinnerladies).  Yet, this one programme was the highlight of my winter break.  My parents and I chuckled throughout, enjoying the entertainment, unified in Jane’s silly innuendos.  Channel 5 had previously only served one purpose in my life: hosting later series of Big Brother.  Now it was giving me something more.

But why now?  Well, as someone who’s lucky in lockdown (a job, a place to live, online shopping), one minor pain point has been the lack of going on holiday.  I expect no sympathy as the world has bigger problems just now, but don’t worry anyway as I have solved this myself through the format of travelogue television.  I can’t go abroad, but Jane can.  So when I’ve reached the end of my WFH day, I move from the home office to the sofa (same room), treat myself to a tonic water (as a pretend gin and tonic, to avoid the start of a slippery slope whose first step is drinking alone) with ice and lemon, and crack open an episode.

We always start with Jane enthusing about her love of cruising.  Her Yorkshire accent leads to a certain pronunciation of the R in cruise that I wish I had remembered enough of the linguistics in my degree to be able to transcribe phonetically here.  Imagine cruise, but said in a more fun way.  And that’s the joy of Jane – she’s happy to be there.  Whether she’s getting taken up the Danube, hitting the Caribbean islands or bobbing about the Inner Hebrides, Jane always bursts with excitement before she gets on any ship.  Her passion for cruising is palpable.  Sometimes, she has some hours to kill in her first port, but before long we’re following her deep into the bowels of the vessel as she tries (with mixed success) to locate her cabin.  With cruise companies wising up to the PR her trips give them, later series see her occupy the swishest accommodation, but Jane is mostly genuinely glad to have a bed and a clean toilet.  She’ll test the shower’s acoustics and always pull out a clothing line so she can make comments about people’s smalls.  And that’s what you really need when considering what cabin to book.

We’re then served a jazzy infographic, using a glitzy cutty-outty head of Jane to document her itinerary (always starting in Wakefield).  My favourite of these is for her Iceland trip, as she simply gives up pronouncing the place names properly after several false starts.  Then, for the best part of an hour, to quote Jane, we’re on us holidays!  At each port, she packs in all sorts, whether spurning the average tourists for a personal guided tour of something or other, or joining in with elderly British couples in anoraks who first got the cruising bug in 1972 and now won’t go anywhere unless it’s on a waterborne hotel with nine bars and six à la carte restaurants.  Jane is up for anything, and that’s one of the best parts.  She jumps off a building in New Zealand, takes a zipwire down Niagara Falls and asks any man below the age of 50 if he is married.  Her heart is on her sleeve, easily moved to tears by Budapest’s Holocaust memorial, Gracie Fields’ tomb on Capri or the sight of the Taj Mahal.  The only thing she doesn’t like is walking up steep hills, but she can normally balance out that inconvenience with some sort of cheeky drink, a whopping innuendo and a quick whizz round any gift shop.  Other highlights include interactions with her hair and make-up pal, Sue, and the bit where she explores the ship on her own, wielding a camera on a stick while she bothers holidaymakers who desperately try to act like they haven’t just overdone it at the buffet.

Now we must touch on how each show ends.  Middle series include a cheeky “What?” moment where we catch Jane up to no good – I can confirm I laughed out loud at each of these.  But, throughout, the singer in Jane comes into play and we are treated to a musical number.  I would love to have been in the production meeting where this part of the format was decided upon.  Song choices are linked to the location, with Jai Ho and Ray Of Light accompanying her up the Ganges, and the Evita soundtrack saved for Argentina, for example.  I delight in Jane because she never takes herself seriously, but for the musical number moments, her performance is more studied.  But what better end to the high camp of the high seas than a baffling bit of a singsong?

So, join me in agreeing with Bafta that this is an excellent show.  For now, Jane may have hung up her cruising smalls and the show is over (just like our EU membership, for now), but if you’re looking for a bit of comfort, whimsy and vacation-simulating entertainment in lockdown, all without the actual hell of being trapped on a ship with other British people, then this is the perfect bit of television, at least until we can go on us holidays again.

Community

Now that I spend almost all my time either working at home or pottering at home, the importance of the background show has grown.  I’m not sure if the background show is a concept that will be familiar to most readers, but it’s normally something under thirty minutes that you have on while doing other things.  In my case, this is probably while making breakfast in the mornings (convincing myself it’s a weekend by scrambling eggs and brewing freshly ground coffee before realising I was supposed to be on a work video call at 9.30am) and then throughout the day while eating all subsequent meals and (unnecessary) snacks.  For food prep in particular, the background show provides a bit of company while chopping onions and crushing garlic.  As such, it needs to be something that works with half an eye and half an ear on it.  This is how I got through hundreds of seasons of South Park and It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia.  It’s the purpose my re-watch of Friends is serving.  It’s something that didn’t work with Community.

Community demands your full attention.  At first sight, it seems simply to be a cute sitcom from the realm of Parks & Recreation or The Office US.  But while it shares charm DNA with these two beloved shows, Community routinely displays such lofty narrative ambition that I’m telling you now: it needs your full attention.  I’m sure your desperate to know how I made this happen.  In short, it became the show I watched in my weekly bath, laptop balanced on some boxes next to the tub while I soaked my exercise soreness away over two episodes.  If you’re experiencing a mental image, then, you’re welcome.

We’ve talked before about community college, something American readers won’t need explained, but for everyone else, please see previous posts on Last Chance U and Cheer.  For Brits, it’s a bit like Lidl: you don’t want to be there, but it’s a necessary evil.  Indeed, a great deal of the lampooning around which Community’s arcs are structured has roots in the fact that community colleges are known more for their perennial students than for their academic prowess.  Nevertheless, we focus on a certain study group, representing many walks of life, whom the plot contrives to come together in the pilot episode to forge bonds whose strength you never really buy, but which you accept so the following six seasons of instalments can actually happen.

If, like me, you’re a lifelong spod, you’ll experience only disgruntlement at how little learning the study group does.  Instead, multiple missions are undertaken, most with the aim of saving Greendale Community College.  Proceedings have a point-and-laugh approach to diversity: no matter who you are, you’re ridiculous.  Of note is Abed as his Middle Eastern heritage is one of the least interesting things about him.  Instead, we’re high-fiving over brain diversity, revelling in the character’s autistic-spectrum emotional unusualness, leading to the wonderful coping mechanism of seeing the world through the construct of TV shows (ring any bells…?).  This allows the study group, in all its encompassing of age, income, faith, gender and skin tone, to embark on adventures that become so meta that they even end up being meta about their meta-ness.  There was a brief risk though that, as the straightest and whitest, the will-they-won’t-they-I-don’t-care romance between Britta and Jeff would become a central focus, but luckily everyone realises this isn’t interesting.  For the first three seasons, this is joyful, but somewhere around the fourth, I was slipping away.  There’s a glut of themed episodes (video game, animation, puppets) whose creatively I laud, but it feels as though there should be more of a foundation to establish what’s normal before branching out in this way.  And tune out now if you don’t like paintball or pillow forts.

The later seasons suffer the absence of key cast.  Donald Glover is first to move on, and the only reasonable response is to mourn the galling loss of the pure happiness that Troy Barnes provides.  Of all the end stings, Troy And Abed In The Moooorning has the highest LOL success rate.  Let’s commission this now for a full run as they perfectly pastiche the inanity of breakfast TV.  By the sixth and final season, which seems to be some sort of Yahoo-funded death rattle, we’ve lost Chevy Chase and Yvette Nicole Brown as well.  This, compounded by increasing plot complexity, meant I had no idea what was going on.  Luckily, after snaffling all the best lines, Dean Pelton’s role is expanded to fill some of the void, but it’s still only relief that you can feel as the show finally bows out (with a surprisingly highly rated meta meta meta ultimate episode).  Overall, Community, I salute you, despite your (self-recognised) inconsistency.  Its intelligence, absurdity and charm are all summarised in this clip I now leave you with, holding my breath for that Troy and Abed Spanish rap album we’ve all been dreaming about: best end sting ever.

CORRECTION:  Thanks to @communiess and @ButtsCarlt0n on Twitter, I can now reveal that Chevy Chase actually left first, in season four.  Shows how much attention I was paying.  Just One More Episode will, however, remain poorly researched.

Money Heist (La Casa De Papel)

“O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao.”

These lyrics have been going around my head ever since I finished the latest available episode of Money Heist on Netflix last night (and immediately started the making of documentary).  Dear readers, abandon the sourdough yeast you’ve been nurturing and for god’s sake stop sharing your top 10 albums on Facebook, for I’m about to school you in the world of the planet’s most popular Netflix boxset.

It’s a damning yet fair indictment of English-speaking people’s intelligence (please see evidence: Trump and Johnson as leaders of nations) that the name of this programme in our mother tongue is the most basic example of labelling ever known to mankind.  Yes, this programme is about a heist, and yes, money is stolen in that heist.  It is a money heist.  For some reason, whoever translated the Spanish title only had thirty seconds spare to think of the new name.  It would be like taking a beloved comedy such as Friends and entitling it Relationship Sitcom or renaming Tiger King as Outrageous Large Cat Documentary.  As you would expect, the original Spanish moniker has more poetry and art to it: La Casa De Papel.  I spent most of the first series thinking this meant the house of the pope.  However, no crusty old white man telling millions how to live their lives appeared and I remembered that papel actually means paper, so we have the house of paper – a synonym for the Royal Mint where the first two seasons play out.

That’s the title covered, and a bit of its content, but what I’m sure you’re all dying to know is why did I start watching it?  I have a vague memory of, at some juncture before we got locked down, Netflix sharing data on their most watched programming.  Of course, as expected, Stranger Things and Sex Education appeared as worthy leaders of the pack.  But, top of the pops was Money Heist.  Something about Dalí masks and red boiler suits.  “Don’t worry,” everyone said, “that’s just a show that’s big in South America.”  For some reason, the accolade of being number one had to be dismissed.  But then I got far too into Elite and, on the advice of pals with more open-minded approaches to finding good TV, selected Money Heist as my next boxset.

As a touch of expectedly brutal honesty, I don’t mind admitting that I didn’t feel grabbed by the show straightaway.  Sure, the set up was sexy, the stylisation was classy and the Spanish language with subtitles a great way of keeping my focus (do not watch this with English-language dubbing – if eyesight problems preclude you from tolerating subtitles, we all know there’s a Durham castle you can drive to if you wish to assess your ophthalmological abilities), but for some reason I didn’t really care about the characters.  I felt another The Boys coming on.  But, by the seventh installment I had connected.  Since then, it has been a whirlwind of affection between me and the atracadores.

I’m struggling to put my finger on the exact reasons, but I’m not alone in my appreciation.  A modest feature in Spanish TV schedules, La Casa De Papel slipped into Netflix’s international back catalogue and nobody thought any more of it.  That is, until the actors’ social media accounts started to swell with thousands of new followers.  Word of mouth generated buzz that compounded itself over and over until Netflix greenlit further installments which themselves were hampered by huge numbers of fans crashing the shoots.

At its heart, we have la banda – the select group of diversely skilled ne’er-do-wells assembled by the enigmatic Profesor.  They do the dirty work that brings to life his masterminded plans, taking on a robbery of such far-fetched ambitions that your only option is to go with it: taking over the Spanish Royal Mint and printing their own stash of billions of euros.  The action plays out in multiple timebands, with scenes from the Profesor’s robbery boot camp foreshadowing events that transpire explosively in the mint itself.  You root for the robbers, but also for the hostages inside and the police outside trying to regain control of the situation.  Some things go to plan, while others require a fair bit of thinking on the spot.  But the tension almost never lets up.  Someone once asked if it’s like Prison Break, with a new hurdle to overcome in each episode, but it feels more sophisticated than that (and the subsequent series don’t get exponentially worse).

Let’s call it Stockholm Syndrome.  Suddenly, Denver’s staccato laugh goes from being annoying to something that fills you with joy each time you hear it.  Nairobi’s constant shouting stops irritating you and you come to love everything about her.  Even Helsinki goes from being a background bit of hired muscle to a key player.  Nevertheless, Arturito is a prick the whole time.  These beloved characters’ development is deftly woven through a plot that thinks of pretty much everything, resulting in a compelling piece of drama that, even with it’s gun gratuity, shootout porn and slap-you-in-the-face silliness, is everything people are looking for in a TV show.  The fact that this achievement is replicated across multiple heists is staggering.

And now it’s a social movement.  Like the Handmaid’s Tale outfit, Money Heist jumpsuits have characterised protests for equality and better prospects throughout the world.  The gang, even the morally dubious ones like Berlin and Palermo, are fighting the system, and the show plays on their exploitation of PR to bring the Spanish population on side.  Money Heist resonates, and without it, I am now bereft.  I’ll miss the soundtrack, I’ll miss the cast (even though a load of them are in Elite anyway), I’ll miss the sentiment.  I’ll gladly be held hostage by the wait for another series, but till then, those same lyrics (bizarrely in Italian, rather than Spanish) will be going around my head.

“O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao.”