The summer of 2021, when sport dominated the box again, and those who didn’t care about football or tennis were left looking for alternatives.
Which brings us to two of the most interesting streaming offerings of the year.
In the green corner, Tom Hiddleston’s Loki on Disney+, the long awaited TV saga featuring one of the MCU’s best loved anti heroes. This is the man who plucks an eyeball from a socket for his mission, and he lands his own series.
In the red corner, Jeremy Clarkson on Amazon Prime, not part of the MCU, but definitely an anti hero for many thanks to his outspoken views and almost childlike belief that more power is the answer to everything. Why use humble nut-crackers to crack a walnut when you can use dynamite? Okay, you destroy the nut, but it’s a Big Bang, right? Emphasis on BIG and BANG.
Photo: Disney Plus/Marvel Studios
Clarkson’s Farm sounds about as appealing as James May’s Dandruff or Richard Hammond’s Knitting Club, and yet somehow Jezza has only gone and made a show more engaging than Tom Hiddleston’s plodding intergalactic police procedural in which Loki (spoiler alert) hunts himself.
Had Loki tried to plough a field with a 21 year old genius (Kaleb), it would have made for more engaging TV. Yes, really. No powers, just Loki trying to do what thousands of farmers do everyday. Make a living. Feed the nation. That sort of thing. One is intergalactic yet dull. The other is down to Earth and magnificent.
Photo: Amazon Prime
I’m a few episodes into Clarkson’s Farm, and there’s little sign of it going off the boil, and two eps into Loki, which may improve. But when it comes to guessing which one is outstanding in his field, here’s a clue. It’s not Loki.
Sorry Marvel. Maybe you need an irascible 59 year old speed demon to join the team, even if you can’t call him POWER Man.
And it’s surely just a matter of time until Kaleb lands his own spin-off series, preferably in which he travels around the UK while reading books. Not his thing maybe, but it would make for fascinating entertainment nevertheless.
Director: John Clayton Doyle Starring Doug McCorkle, Regina McCorkle, Cesar Valentino Rating: TBC By @RogerCrow
I’m not sure what a ‘documentary-narrative hybrid’ is, but I do know the star of this one, Doug McCorkle, is my new hero. He’s a buttoned-up, mild-mannered corporate accountant whose life looks like something from The Office, the sublime American version.
After retiring at 60, Doug puts his marriage and life savings on the line to chase his wildest dream.
What opens with an in-your-face visual assault on the senses soon becomes a look at his everyday life. And while he may not have the most scintillating job, his passion for life and trying new things is infectious. Doug is one of the countless, balding sixtysomething guys who spends his life doing a good job, in this case for a company that values his worth with a bunch of folks who really like him.
Like so many guys of a certain age, they think he just conforms to a stereotype. Reliable, trustworthy Doug. And he’s all that, but under the surface is wild, daring, experimental Doug who wants to do crazy things rather than just crunch numbers. So he decides to record a song, and make a raunchy pop video, to the amazement of his fellow workers at his retirement party. The looks between one another say it all: Doug must have lost the plot.
But office life tends to suppress artistic expression from that first day until the gold watch, which is a shame. The grey, sober conservative world of number crunching, or data inputting, doesn’t have any room for people who think outside the box rather than count their days until they’re put in one.
So thank heavens for Doug for reminding his co-workers, and us, that life is for taking chances. For recording random songs in which he claims to be an electric lampshade. Spoiler: he’s not.
But the emotional thread running through the drama is Doug’s relationship with his wife. It’s incredibly touching. However, just when you think you have a handle on the movie, things take a sharp left-hand turn.
With all odds stacked against him, Doug leaves his baffled but supportive wife Gina behind to set off on an international journey, in pursuit of his impossible dream.
Doug, looking like some man-baby and open to anything, is reborn as he meets an eclectic cast of characters including drag queens, intimidating coaches, and ghosts of his past who challenge Doug to check his privilege and face his deepest fears.
It’s here that things become hyper stylised, and yes, there are moments of staged drama, but the whole thing is so well shot and edited that it proves absorbing.
Doug’s mission is complicated by problems at home, where Gina is fighting her own battle with mental illness in his absence.
Tormented by guilt, self-doubt and the ridicule of his former peers, Doug’s journey turns inward, taking the form of a surreal music video, culminating in a stunning live concert, filmed before thousands of punters in Mexico City.
Word of mouth should make this a huge hit on the film festival circuit, so do what you can to track it down. Easily one of the best documentaries of the year. Bravo Doug. Bravo.
The Osmonds frontman chats to @RogerCrow about his pending tour, Osmonds mania, and a life in showbusiness.
Hi Merrill. Tell us about the new UK tour.
Having been the lead singer (of The Osmonds) for however many years, which I’m humbled to say all of the fans that are coming to, they’re going to want to hear all of the hits which I’ll be doing.
It will depend on the reaction to the show itself and the audience whether we will take the time to answer some questions from the stage and be able to answer them.
I’m bringing a lot of new video that will be played with the songs. It will take people back to when they might have heard Love Me for a Reason, Let Me In, and whatever else those songs might be.
I’ll be doing some new stuff. If the audience is such that they’re going to be dancing and singing and whatever else, I’ll keep pumping music out. If they wanna listen to music, then I’ll slow it down a little bit and pace it a different way. Basically keep my eye on what they’re wanting. And then will adjust accordingly.
Osmonds fever in the UK during the early 1970s was insane. How did you cope?
We lived in a bubble. And that bubble wasn’t penetrated by anybody because security was so intense around us. We would stay in the hotel rooms, do whatever appearances we had to from a media standpoint, or show up at the concerts whether in a truck or a limo or a police paddywagon. So we were always being diverted with different ways of getting in or getting out (of an event), because the amount of reaction we were getting; we were concerned about people getting hurt.
It was a time when mania was introduced. Paul McCartney told us we were experiencing the same amount of fever that they (The Beatles) experienced when they got to America.
That really opened our eyes a little bit. We lived in a bubble all through the 1970s and it was hard to burst into that.
How did you keep your feet on the ground?
We had a great foundation laid to us by her parents. It was “all for one and one for all”. If there was ego it was stopped quickly. That carried on even to the Donny and Marie shows. We ended up stopping writing our stuff and got behind producing and directing and executive producing and syndication and all that stuff behind-the-scenes. It didn’t matter what was out there, we all stood behind each other all the way through it. That kept us really grounded.
Crazy Horses is one of my all-time favourite tracks. Was it liberating for you guys to play something more rocky, and an indication of how much more rocky The Osmonds actually were?
Yeah, in fact the record company when they released One Bad Apple, we didn’t know and they didn’t know that would be such a big record. They really wanted us to continue that style of music and they were a little bit concerned when we had written Crazy Horses because they said: “That’s not gonna be a standard hit,”. But they did release it because we told them to. From that point on they backed away from trying to direct our traffic.
And then came The Plan album, a different kind of genre as we got into Country, and whatever else. I’m so glad we did because we had within us, humbly speaking, the insight into variety itself. The Beatles had a sense of variety; they understood pacing; they wrote songs that took you from one end of the spectrum to the other musically. We admire them so much in our own way. We try to write music that would bridge a lot of different gaps.
Crazy Horses is one that took off and changed the direction of The Osmonds for a long time. We wrote it in about 25 minutes. I’m very humbled to see where that went around the world.
How surreal was it seeing yourself as a cartoon character in the animated TV series?
Very strange. The Jacksons had their cartoon and we had our cartoon. We did all the voices in the cartoons, but to see that animated on a weekly basis… My kids watched it and they couldn’t believe that their dad was doing that. Now the grandkids are watching it and they’re loving the cartoons. It was very surreal.
For me, TV in the 1970s was three channels on a black-and-white set, and it usually rained, so watching The Osmonds cartoon was a ray of sunshine.
Oh that’s cool! I don’t think any of The Osmonds had a clue. We got blasted by the press. Over here in the early days they thought we were “plastic, phoney” and whatever else, but it wasn’t really until McCartney came out and defended us and blasted the press. That made the front pages. He said: “You don’t understand where they’re coming from”. He really helped change the focus that the press put on us, and from that day on it’s been an amazing journey to see how people finally accepted that we were right as we were not just little teenyboppers, all manufactured. We are what we are and we are consistent.
Career wise where and when were you happiest and why?
It was the late 60s and 70s that I enjoyed the most because we were free to be able to express ourselves to the industry and to be taken seriously throughout the world. That was one of the greatest times of my life.
Is there anything you’d still like to do?
No, you know what my friend? I really think at 68 years old, I’m still writing. I’m enjoying that and some people ask me: “Why do you keep doing it after all this time?” My answer is because the intensity… If you told me 30 years ago the fanbase would still be a strong after all this time and I told you you were nuts but it’s still out there. And it’s worldwide.
I’m the only one left standing really. And having been the lead singer of all the hits The Osmonds had, I feel it’s sort of a stewardship, a responsibility to continue on as long as I can, or until I’m called to do something else.
Singer, actor and broadcaster Paul Jones talks to @RogerCrow about his pending tour with The Manfreds, and an extraordinary life in showbusiness.
Hi Paul. I’m really looking forward to your upcoming tour with The Manfreds and Georgie Fame.
Thank you. I know a really fascinating statistic about Georgie’s hits: only three of them got into the Top 10. And all three of those got all the way to number one!
The man is a legend, and The Manfreds obviously had a wealth of hits. What was the most memorable?
I suppose the one that has a lot of meaning for me is 5,4,3,2,1, because it was the first. It launched us, and if there hadn’t been that there might not have been any other hits.
Once you start having hits people want you to do their songs. Also The Manfreds, Mike Hugg and I, wrote it. And it was an extraordinary time when Ready, Steady, Go was on. It only ran for something like three years, so it was very short, but an immensely unforgettable time when youth culture sort of gatecrashed the party.
Was there a track that didn’t do so well but means as much as the smashes?
There’s one which didn’t even make the Top 10 called Oh No, Not My Baby. Years after I left The Manfreds, I was quite good friends with Tom Robinson; I played harmonica on a few tracks for him. They were having a remake of Sunday Night at the London Palladium. This was sort of after the glory days of that show. They said: “We want you to do one song,” and I couldn’t think what to do. As it was just one song I didn’t just want to do Do Wah Diddy. I really wanted to do I’ve Been a Bad, Bad Boy, or High Time; one of my hits. I rang Tom and he said: “If you’re doing one from the Manfreds’ repertoire, there’s only one that you ought to do… Oh No, Not My Baby”. That is absolutely my favourite of the hits.
It’s incredible that Do Wah Diddy Diddy, Pretty Flamingo, Mighty Quinn and all those hits seem as fresh now as they did decades ago.
Yes. We do sort of ring some changes from time to time on some of the hits. But if we play the track as it is, all two minutes 40 seconds, it’s wildly still alive; still alive and kicking.
Let’s talk about your acting career. What are your memories of making the cult film Privilege?
To be honest I’m not really impressed with my work on it (laughs). I really hadn’t a clue what acting was when I did that movie. To be equally honest, I think it shows.
My theatre work was probably much better because you spend a lot longer rehearsing, and the reason is because you’re going to do the whole thing all at once from beginning to end. On filming you don’t do any such thing. You don’t even do it in the right order (laughs). You need to be particularly practiced, and I hadn’t had much practice when I made Privilege.
The stuff I did in the theatre like Conduct Unbecoming, moving on to the National Theatre, the Beggars Opera, Guys and Dolls… I had more idea of what I should be doing.
When you worked on the concept album of Evita, did you have any idea how big that would be?
No. I suppose anyone should have, because they’d already had Jesus Christ Superstar, and there was never a time when there wasn’t a production of Joseph and his Technicolor Dreamcoat touring the country, as well as all the ones that were in repertory theatres and so on. So I’d think anything by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice would be reasonably successful.
I enjoyed working on that. I think at that point I had already done one tour of Joseph, and I was about to do another in a theatre in London. I also got some more work out of them because I played harmonica on Tell Me on a Sunday, and I also played on the title track of Starlight Express. So really Andrew Lloyd Webber, with or without Tim Rice, paid my mortgage for a long time.
And I guess the royalties from assorted adverts helped?
(Laughs). Oh yes. It’s been used on adverts several times. One of the car manufacturers used it, and certainly a chocolate biscuit with crispy bits inside… certainly that used it. The biscuit was even called 5,4,3,2,1. I’ve got a feeling that Tesco used it. So it’s been very good to us.
Actually we got very excited when the Spice Girls did it. It was the launch of Channel 5 and they recorded a song called 1,2,3,4,5. And they obviously changed all the words. And we thought: “Oh great, we’re gonna make a load of money for this”. But nothing happened. Well it was used on the launch and then never again.
Was it great working on Radio 2 for so many years?
Yes, it was, and for me it was a return to where I started. The Manfreds, when it first started, was a rhythm and blues band. That represented a compromise for some of the members. The two founding fathers, Mike Hugg and Manfred Mann, were both jazz musicians. In fact I don’t think the group would have happened had it not been for a spectacularly unsuccessful booking at a holiday park or centre. They said: “This is ridiculous. We just can’t make a living out of playing jazz. Let’s form a blues band.”
I had a phone call one day from a chap who said: “Do you know who Manfred Mann is?” And I said “Do you mean the guy who writes a column on music theory in Jazz News?” He said: “Yeah, that’s him. He’s forming a rhythm and blues band with his colleague Mike Hugg, and they need a ‘shouter’.” So this guy said: “Would you audition?”
I’d heard of myself more than I’d heard of them, but I didn’t mind auditioning (laughs). So I went along and there was no one else at the audition. So I got the job. And it lasted a long time as well. Well, three-and-a-half years was a long time in my book.
For me to go back onto Radio 2 and play blues music, other peoples’ usually, it was like a homecoming.
Where and when were you happiest in your career?
Now. There’s so much coming up. I’ve got an album in the process of coming together, which is a retrospective. It’s a collection of some of the blues that I’ve done in my life with The Manfreds; The Blues Band; as a solo artist and so on. And I’ve got this tour with The Manfreds coming up. Another album coming with The Blues Band, and I’ve just moved house… the house I’m probably going to spend the rest of my days in; absolutely lovely house. So it’s all very, very exciting.
Thanks for your time.
Thank you.
The Manfreds’ autumn 2021 UK tour launches at Sheffield City Hall on October 14, includes York Grand Opera House on November 11, and runs to December 3.
Starring Kyle Gallner, Emily Skeggs, Mary Lynn Rajskub
Directed by Adam Rehmeier
By @RogerCrow
In a dreary Midwestern suburb, aggro punk rocker Simon (Kyle Gallner) finds himself on the run again after a bout of arson and a close call with the police. A chance encounter with the spirited and socially awkward Patty (Emily Skeggs) provides him a place to lay low. As the two embark on a series of misadventures, they begin to realise they have a lot more in common than they first expected.
That’s the plot for one of the most Marmite films of the year.
For the first 20 minutes I hated everything about it. The wannabe Napoleon Dynamite vibe, the script and most of all the anti hero who was beyond obnoxious. Every fibre of his being was a toxic car crash. But I told myself to stick with it as more obnoxious characters were added to the mix, including horrid sporting jocks who insulted troubled pet shop worker Patty.
But as things unfolded, and I managed to cope with some horrible characters, and the odd unforgivable line of dialogue, not to mention the very questionable romance at the heart of the drama, Dinner in America started to grow on me.
Okay, mould grows on bread if you leave it long enough, but maybe it was the fact Kyle Gallner’s performance was so impressive. His Simon stuck two fingers up to almost everyone and everything, to the point where he was on the verge of self destructing.
Patty’s love for a band despite all of her setbacks in life was pure Muriel’s Wedding, albeit hardcore punk rather than the sublime Scandipop of ABBA.
And when a twist of sorts is revealed in the third act, and hey, guess what, Patty turns out to be a great singer/songwriter, the songs actually were pretty good.
Dinner in America will give many indigestion and it’s hard to swallow in that first act, but if you can cope with the bad taste it leaves for the first half, the bitter coating actually leads to quite a sweet centre.
I’m not sure it needed the 140 producers (rough guesstimate) who fill most of the closing credits, one of them being Ben Stiller, but the whole thing is well shot, edited and put together.
Simon’s hair is in the running for the worst haircut in the history of cinema, but if you can deal with that and some truly questionable dialogue, DIM actually burns brighter than the acronym suggests.
Heading to the theatre for the first time since early March 2020 is surreal. An actual play in a real theatre. Socially distanced and masked up obviously, but it’s like the audience is part of some weird vision of an alternate future.
I’ve spent a lot of lockdown watching Classic Coronation Street on ITV3, episodes from 1998, when the series was two thirds sitcom , one third drama, rather than lurching from one bad Line of Duty-style storyline to another.
It was also the era when Julie Hesmondhalgh arrived on our screens as Hayley, one of Weatherfield’s greatest ever characters. Every syllable was a joy, and her dynamic with David Neilson’s Roy (who continues to be one of THE best things about Corrie) was TV gold.
Of course in the real world, Julie has long since left the Street and gives stunning performance in everything she signs up for.
Broadchurch? Amazing, as well as assorted other dramas. Even The One Show, plugging this play, she’s like a shot of adrenaline in the most tiresome of TV staples.
“Doctor, the TV patient seems to have flatlined.”
“Nurse, give me five minutes of Julie Hesmondhalgh, quick”.
All of which preamble brings us to her performance in The Greatest Play in the History of the World.
For a show about past, present and future, it’s apt that it takes me back 40 years when I used to write to NASA requesting stuff. They would send glossy booklets, signed astronaut photos and loads of info about space missions. One was a stunning book about the Voyager probes, which fired my imagination.
Around the same time, Carl Sagan’s phenomenal TV series Cosmos was airing on the BBC; every episode was a glorious education on space, the universe and our place in it. Four decades on and those issues are more relevant than ever thanks to Julie’s one-woman show.
It helps that I know nothing about it going in. The simple set is a masterpiece of design. It either looks like what it is: two enormous racks of shoe boxes, or when dark, the data modules from a huge computer. With expert lighting, the tone changes between hard, cold facts and Julie’s warm, energetic, passionate, compelling narration.
If you’re going to deal with issues on a universal scale, it helps if your narrator has one of the most mellifluous voices in showbusiness. And the script is truly epic. It centres on a small cast of characters, mainly Tom and Sara, and their assorted interactions.
Yes, I’m being deliberately vague because it’s one of those sorts of plays. Superbly witty, beautifully written and boasting a third act that ramps up to a dizzying display of verbal gymnastics. There are also some glorious throwaway lines which will be lost on many people.
And while the first 50 minutes or so are lots of seemingly random threads spun out, when tied together in that finale, it’s a thing of beauty.
That last few minutes left me choked up a couple of times as everything fell into place and the bittersweet comedy drama made good on its titular promise, while poking fun at critics who might condense that bold claim to a two-word review.
Ian Kershaw has long been one of Blighty’s best writers, and this underlines the fact with heavy strokes.
Okay, it’s not the greatest play I’ve ever seen, but it certainly comes close. It’s genuinely that good.
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