Change Your Image
mattgreen127
Reviews
Hessie's Shed (1998)
Correction
I was involved with two of these shows as a performer. The first was an untelevised (yet as I recall it was taped?) version shot during the Melbourne Comedy Festival at the legendary Esplanade Hotel, Gershwin Room stage (ie: the "Espy" run by Trev) and Hessie participated in some improvised 'comic' stuff with myself and Rusty F (together, we were 'Fusion') which went down very well the first time round. When they got the green light to tape for ABCTV (during the next Comedy Festival?), Paul and Trev invited us back to do another and had as much fun, except for one piece that Paul did with us which, in his attempt to re-live past glories (?), died. The other stuff we did worked fine with Paul and the fab band (Largest Living Things)kicking in for a lovely (and much treasured memory of mine) to do a totally improvised, on-the-spot ode to a girl-from-the-audience, Kelly, who'd happened to have split up with her boyfriend, Dick (!)...who worked at the zoo! The audience loved the spontaneity and Hessie can be seen in the background laughing in support along with the band and the wonderful Raymond J. Great fun. Oh, by the way, Hessie was born in Australia-he just played with a bunch of Kiwis. His energy was remarkable.
Cracker (1993)
Superb. Is Jimmy McGovern redefining great TV writing?
Cracker is as good as TV has ever got. Yes, an excellent cast and direction but it's the blueprint-the writing-that makes their work so gripping. They, themselves are merely 'driving this baby home'. The depth, the complexity, the multi-layered characters and 'anti-heroes'. Keep in mind, this great work would not transfer to film. It's a wonderful example of great TV coming in a package of a time-specific episode, where the 'playing' and direction has to be 'large' to engage us-the small screen has this disadvantage against the movie theatre and yet, not so 'large' as to make it all incredible. McGovern knows when to lift us-usually,with humour- and when to hit us. Take for an example of the latter, the best....THE BEST death scene in TV history-when the magnificent and under-rated Christopher Ecclestone (Bilborough) gets done in by the wacko (played beautifully by Robert Carlysle-proving that he could do great stuff before we were baffled by Moulin Rage.) Truly a landmark scene in TV history. I haven't even mentioned the big questions it asks of post-Thatcher Britain!