The Sympathizer 

43 minutes ago, Boyne said:

As you say about Milligan, a tortured genius. Suffered very serious bouts of depression. Must have been horrible. A very talented performer. I've read some of his books; great reads. I wonder if his comedy would have been different if he had had fewer issues. You're right about Python. Would have happened but were shaped by The Goons. I remember Michael Palin saying he was an avid listener to the Goons. Just be Python you had At Last the 1948 Show which had two future Pythons and gave us the Four Yorkshiremen sketch. Brilliant sketch. Yes, Sunday Afternoon At Home is brilliant.

I often prefer radio to TV comedy as like drama and reading a good book leaves so much to the listener's imagination. There have been some comedies that have made the transition from radio to TV but others that have failed. I liked Count Arthur Strong when it was on the radio. Don't think it came over well on television.

Yes, radio invites the listener's imagination. Writing for radio as opposed to television calls on very different skills. Count Arthur Strong on radio could be patchy, often wonderfully inspired but occasionally pretty dire. Steve Delaney needed a script editor to challenge him: is this part really good enough? The problem with the TV version was that it scaled back Count Arthur to being an ensemble player and the character got lost. Delaney co-wrote with Graham Linehan (Father Ted, IT Crowd, etc) which I think was the mistake. Linehan's influence took it too far into traditional sitcom territory. The Count worked on radio because he was the star - the whole point of the wonderfully deluded character - orbited by his little circle of misfits. Anyway, the Count was, originally, a great creation.

4 hours ago, CaitlinCFC said:

It made me realise at how perfectly the actress played her. What did you think?

I thought the interview from Morgan was good, and she also interviewed well in front of camera, but completely failed to hide her narcissism, so for me seems obvious she probably did the things she's accused of.

An absolutely fascinating blurring of the lines between art and real life.

5 hours ago, CaitlinCFC said:

 

 

Edited May 15, 20242 yr by Gordon Bennett
Double post

Anyone watched the latest Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan (series 4) ? 

4.2 Rwanda is well worth a watch 

appreciate he is not everyone’s cup of tea and there is too much of Romesh on television but this latest series I am really enjoying - disturbing as well as funny 

Welcome to Wrexham

Dark Matter - Excellent

Edited June 5, 20242 yr by Bebe1980

15 hours ago, andy said:

Anyone watched the latest Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan (series 4) ? 

4.2 Rwanda is well worth a watch 

appreciate he is not everyone’s cup of tea and there is too much of Romesh on television but this latest series I am really enjoying - disturbing as well as funny 

Saw a previous series or at least a couple of programmes and had respect for him going out on a limb and also his self deprecating manner seems to work.

Presumed Innocent with Jake Gyllenhaal on Apple TV is quite good. Has a good cast & a decent storyline. 

New season of The Boys.....and it's as insane as ever 😂

I've started watching Life on Mars again. Probably my favourite drama series from the last twenty years.

Edited June 16, 20242 yr by Boyne

House of the Dragon and the latest season of The Boys. For any of you young folk out there who have never seen The Boys, it's a good family show to watch with your elderly grandparents.

Another couple of truly memorable lines from the latest episode, some of which takes place in a BDSM dungeon;

"Ashley rubbed one out while she was tickling my feet" 

And also Tek Knight to Hughie;

"Sit on the cake and fart"

Have to say, for originality, laugh out loud funny, outrageous, jaw-dropping entertainment, The Boys are kicking seven shades of holy snot out of the slow paced series House of the Dragonzzzzzzz so far. A Dragon wouldn't last five minutes in The Boys.

Edited July 4, 20242 yr by just

I'm finding programs from the 90s + I missed when I was working long hours in banking.

By accident as they moved program times around I landed up watching Footballers Wives, skipped it a couple of times until I saw the team captain and alpha male Jason Terry (JT). This was released about 2005+.

I think part of my interest was to see if this was a caricature of John Terry and I would say very mildly.

The team called Sparks also play in blue too.

Some interesting story lines too also looked on Digital Spy and they were shocked this was shown on mainstream tv when it was and think it has become prophetic looking at modern stories about players social lives and Wags.

He might not be everyone's cup of tea, but have started watching Mr Bigstuff with Danny Dyer and find it very funny.

Anyone seeking some light relief should give it a go. Just what's needed after reading the Enzo topic on here which is enough to give anyone a migraine..........

 

 

 

 

Silo on appletv is amazing. 

Netflix have 2 top season 2s in The Recruit & Night Agent

I've just started watching Shardlake based on the novel Dissolution by CJ Sansom. It's a while since I read the book and I enjoyed it and the subsequent Shardlake stories. It will be interesting to see how the TV series compares to the book. As I've mentioned before I'm not a great fan of TV and film adaptations of books as I feel they rarely do the latter justice. Sean Bean is in the role of Thomas Cromwell. Not sure if that is good casting. Some of you will have seen the film A Man For All Seasons in which Leo McKern played Cromwell. I thought he was very good.

The 1530s and 1540s in which the Shardlake stories are set in were turbulent times in England with all the religious and political upheavals and some dominant characters such as Cromwell, More, Cranmer, Howard and of course Henry VIII.

On 16/06/2025 at 16:50, Boyne said:

I've just started watching Shardlake based on the novel Dissolution by CJ Sansom. It's a while since I read the book and I enjoyed it and the subsequent Shardlake stories. It will be interesting to see how the TV series compares to the book. As I've mentioned before I'm not a great fan of TV and film adaptations of books as I feel they rarely do the latter justice. Sean Bean is in the role of Thomas Cromwell. Not sure if that is good casting. Some of you will have seen the film A Man For All Seasons in which Leo McKern played Cromwell. I thought he was very good.

The 1530s and 1540s in which the Shardlake stories are set in were turbulent times in England with all the religious and political upheavals and some dominant characters such as Cromwell, More, Cranmer, Howard and of course Henry VIII.

Just finished this myself, having read all of CJ Sansom’s books.

Thoroughly enjoyed it, as good as the books? Probably not. A more than watchable and gripping series? Definitely.

Such an interesting time in this countries history as we threw off the shackles of the evil and corrupt greed of Rome & the Papacy to catapult us forward under the Protestant Reformation

Just finished "Heartstone" in the Shardlake series. He's in Portsmouth when the Mary Rose goes down. All those books are superb, you really seem to get a feel for the times.

I watched bits of the TV series and it actually looks ok. Can rarely beat the book though !

I'm watching "The death of Yugoslavia" on BBC iPlayer. Parts of it are gruesome and not easy to watch, but fascinating in the way it seems that conflicts can start from small events, sometimes even from faked events.

Heaven knows how the old Soviet Union managed to keep its different factions all over Europe from destroying each other for decades is a miracle. Well, not so much a miracle, but rather brute force .

It's amazing how watching that "Death of Yugoslavia" leads me to other related topics.

The narrator mentions that hundreds of thousands of Serbs were murdered by Croats during WW2, without giving an explanation or information.

So , I read up on it. Concentration camps were set up by Nazi nationalist gangs to kill Serbs, Jews etc. The rationale was that as Slavs, Serbs were an inferior race, even though Croats were apparently ethnically Slavs too. It's called the "forgotten Genocide." , and I admit I was completely unaware it . .But it adds to an understanding , although not an excuse, of subsequent actions.

On 16/07/2025 at 18:11, The Rising Sun said:

I'm watching "The death of Yugoslavia" on BBC iPlayer. Parts of it are gruesome and not easy to watch, but fascinating in the way it seems that conflicts can start from small events, sometimes even from faked events.

Heaven knows how the old Soviet Union managed to keep its different factions all over Europe from destroying each other for decades is a miracle. Well, not so much a miracle, but rather brute force .

Will have to watch that. Is the role of Tito given much coverage? From what I've read he was the one who managed to stop Yugoslavia from imploding. Prior to World War One the situation in the Balkans was a key factor in the outbreak of that conflict.

I've been watching episodes of Secret Army from the late seventies. A good programme about the resistance and escape lines in Belgium during WW2.

On 16/07/2025 at 18:40, The Rising Sun said:

It's amazing how watching that "Death of Yugoslavia" leads me to other related topics.

The narrator mentions that hundreds of thousands of Serbs were murdered by Croats during WW2, without giving an explanation or information.

So , I read up on it. Concentration camps were set up by Nazi nationalist gangs to kill Serbs, Jews etc. The rationale was that as Slavs, Serbs were an inferior race, even though Croats were apparently ethnically Slavs too. It's called the "forgotten Genocide." , and I admit I was completely unaware it . .But it adds to an understanding , although not an excuse, of subsequent actions.

I'm watching it and is very interesting and sad.

I read from alt sites organ harvesting was going in some camps.

Also Tito in his marriage covered the tree biggest groups in Yugoslavia so he could hold it all together yet once he went it was always going to be difficult have watched 3 episodes so far.