Green Wing

This week, I’m returning to work after two weeks on holiday.  While being on vacation is moderately preferable to sitting in an office, I’m counting my blessings that I’m not going down some terrible coal mine or making thousands of flat whites as a barista.  Sitting and typing emails isn’t really that taxing, so I’ve no need to dread my return to corporate life.  But I’m sparing a thought for my friends that have trained in medicine.  I’ve heard many of their tales of junior doctor shifts, seen them uprooted across the country with each rotation and laughed and cried while reading Adam Kay’s This Is Going To Hurt.  Now the NHS is being smashed and grabbed over as befits the run-up to any British election.  On holiday in the US, my hotel TVs (in between impeachment proceedings) were filled with vile ads for various niche drugs and their side effects.  Which has all got me thinking about hospitals.  But, as we can’t take anything seriously here, we’re hitting up a fantastic comedy whose two seasons (starting back in 2004) have always made me smile: Green Wing.

I had planned to go through each of the main characters, but Wikipedia lists 13 of these, plus some key recurring roles, and I’m running out of time before Seven Worlds, One Planet.  So, instead, I’m going to pick out my favourites from the madcap population that staffs East Hampton Hospital.

Harriet Schulenberg

Played by Olivia Colman (who’s now sporting the crown in The, er, Crown) Harriet is a bastion of the HR department whose every day of attendance is a miracle in spite of her four kids and unhappy marriage, to say nothing of her actual performance when finally seated at her desk.  Colman perfectly captures the chaos that can ensue when lots of small, dirty children are involved: cardigans constantly slipping off, school projects being crafted while ferrying offspring around extra-curriculars.  I never cease to be impressed by the parents in my office who, after each day, raise little people in their homes while I just lie on the sofa, only to be kept up by these same precious mites when they have the sniffles or start vomiting.  Yet they often manage to come in the next day fully composed.  Harriet is so cleverly observed and amplified that she has a universal quality in reflecting the edge of madness where working parents exist.  It’s not all bad though: you can leave the office at any time just by saying you have to pick your kids up.  I often pop off, claiming to be fetching children from somewhere, and nobody is allowed to question me.  But, secretly, I don’t have any offspring.

Sue White

East Hampton’s staff liaison officer demonstrates demonic behaviour in every scene, whether alone in her office up to no good, or torturing the staff whose concerns she is meant to soothe.  This was another occasion when I fell in love with Michelle Gomez (last seen in Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina) who clearly enjoys the madcap glint in her eye she is able to maintain throughout.  Of note is her ability to prevent all protest at her treatment of others, relying on British politeness and surprise at ill-behaviour in a way that’s similar to my hero, Jill Tyrell, in Nighty Night.

Guy Secretan

Stephen Mangan now performs 99% of all TV advert voiceover work, but his performance of the supercilious anaesthesiologist, always second fiddle to the much cooler Mac, made him a household favourite.  Every workplace needs a gaffman, and Dr Guy Secretan’s belief in his own half-Swiss importance can outgaff the gaffiest of them.

Caroline Todd

The newcomer through whom we navigate the sketch-show-esque world of East Hampton, Caroline is our everyman at an asylum full of medical professionals.  While she’s as neurotic as the rest of us, her foibles pale in comparison to those around her.  You can’t help but love Tamsin Greig throughout, even when she is having a strong adverse reaction to Angela Hunter.  There’s a GIF of Caroline typing wildly that I still use in work presentations most weeks, so she’s a gift (a GIF-t – get it?) that keeps on giving.

Angela Hunter

Sarah Alexander again nearly flies under the radar here (a perennially underappreciated national treasure of comedy acting), but this character is always one of the most enjoyable.  Excessively cheery and seemingly perfect, her colleagues’ response to her is always reassuring, including Caroline Todd’s irrational dislike.

Joanna Clore

I could go through the whole of the HR department here, but my final mention is for its head, played by Pippa Haywood.  A woman of a certain age, she doesn’t care what others might make of her brusque attitude and major mood swings.  You can’t beat an angry senior woman at work.  Senior men rightly cower from them leaving everyone else the chance to get on with stuff.

There are too many more to mention.  Even the deliciously named Martin Dear hasn’t made my list (despite his name encapsulating everything about his character perfectly).  I’ll stop once to mention Alan Statham though.  I have to confess that he was my least favourite and I never looked forward to his scenes coming around.  He is just so snivelling and conniving that my skin crawls every time I even think of him.  But one out of 13 ain’t bad, especially as there’s a great deal else to love about this sketch show-cum-sitcom-cum-comedy drama-cum-hospital show.  And that’s a lot of cums in this genre-splicing format.  Green Wing will forever remain welcome in our homes – we just need a political party to pledge in their manifesto that they are committed to bringing it back (and not shafting the actual NHS).

Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina

Well, Halloween has been and gone and people are now trying to play Christmas songs in the office (which I have swiftly put a stop to), but this blog is only just getting round to covering Netflix’s big content play for All Hallows’ Eve 2018: Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina.  I wasn’t going to watch this at first, even though posters were everywhere.  A quick trip to see friends in Hamburg revealed that most of their rail network’s out-of-home display sites had been booked by this show, which, in German, actually has the same name.  But then I felt the need for something dark and gothic in my viewing life, and, before I knew it or could regain control of my actions, I was eyeballs deep in episode one.

Part of my resistance came from the fact I saw no need for Sabrina, The Teenage Witch to be overhauled.  That show lives on in Millennials’ memory for all the right reasons, dominating our viewing from 1996 to 2003 (coinciding exactly with the seven years I spent at secondary school).  But this new version was billed as darker, more relevant, and as closer to the original source material: some old Archie Comic thing we didn’t really have in the UK.  More than that, these Chilling Adventures also acknowledge one of the fundamental truths about witch folklore: these women were believed to sell their souls to the devil to obtain powers.  Therefore, one of the main points of divergence between the two imaginings of this teenage witch is the amount of devil.  The 1996 version had almost none.  The 2018 version is really rather devilish with an overload of devil.

Sabrina has been aged down, with perfect casting seeing Kiernan Shipka in the lead role.  As a child star known by me (and maybe you) for playing Don Draper’s bratty daughter in Mad Men, I keep expecting her to stamp her feet and throw a tantrum at Betty Draper’s bitchy comments, but her tantrums are instead directed at her aunts.  Aunt Hilda is our own beloved Lucy Davis, qualified for British national treasure status since appearing in The Office, while Miranda Otto brings luvvie steeliness to Aunt Zelda.  While the actresses are British and Australian respectively, Zelda seems to be an American to Hilda’s Englishwoman.  But then, cousin Ambrose, a sort of housebound, open robe-wearing smart-mouth, is very very English, whereas Sabrina is as American as apple pie.  This isn’t that interesting, but it’s one of many things that just seem a bit strange about the adventures.

Other things follow here.  Everything seems to be filmed through an Instagram filter.  The edges of the screen are all blurred and this is distracting for the first few episodes.  In addition, it’s hard to know when this is set.  The hair, the costumes, some of the lifestyle choices all smack of a bygone decade, maybe even the seventies.  You never see a smartphone or hear tell of the internet.  But this niggle ends up adding to the overall charm – what’s a bit of styling if it doesn’t add to the spooky atmosphere?  And spooky is just what Greendale is.  Dry ice roams the streets, while the school is staffed by all manner of paranormality.  And because witches aren’t enough, Sabrina’s friends all inevitably take on supernatural tendencies of their own, a bit like werewolves needing magical friends in Teen Wolf.  In fact, the likenesses with high school-based teen dramas featuring mythical creatures calls to mind that other great oeuvre in the genre, Buffy The Vampire Slayer.  Sadly, though, it’s only really Lucy Davis’s Aunt Hilda who has the witty lines, and she delivers each in a performance that makes you want her on screen the whole time.

Vamping things up, we also have Scottish actor Michelle Gomez, in a very sinister role as Miss Wardwell, a teacher possessed by Mrs Satan, bringing a lot of the darkness into the show.  I swear I can still see a twinkle in her eyes that betrays her madcap antics in Green Wing and The Book Group, but she remains, as ever, a joy to behold.

The ten episodes take us through pivotal times in Sabrina’s life as a school girl who is half mortal, half a witch.  Turning sixteen, she must decide between two destinies, and the initial tension comes from which she will choose: signing her name over to Satan, or remaining at normal school because there are boys there (and this time Harvey Kinkle isn’t played by someone who looks 35).  The pressure to pick overwhelms both Sabrina and us the viewers for the first few episodes, but once her initial decision is made, we move into a more episodic format, with different demons showing up for neat containment within the one-hour running time, and things feel a lot more fun because of it.  But the series’ climax builds back up to the initial struggle between humans and witches, culminating in a great set up for more seasons, and further potential to get even darker.

So, should you watch this?  It’s a yes from me if you love a teen melodrama, think real life is better with added supernatural powers or you simply want an antidote to the saccharine Christmas nonsense that starts to get wheeled out at this time of year.  Some elements of the Sabrina universe’s mythology are all over the place, as is the tone struck by the action, characters and dialogue, but the atmosphere almost makes up for this.  You’ll jump if you’re jumpy, but this is safe to watch in the dark and home alone.  Most of all, it’s a lot of fun and a welcome addition of difference to the Netflix canon.  I sadly can’t promise you an animatronic Salem jerking about, but Sabrina can promise you a good time while she has her chilling adventures.