I’ve watched three excellent comedy pilots recently and, as I’m running out of things to watch on Netflix and the Great British Bake Off is to go over to the dark side, I hope that all of them get picked up.
Megalith, Amazon, have produced their own little stable, (and I’ve kind of pinched their tagline for this post) Three new pilots: I love Dick, The Tick and some other thing with Jean-Claude Van Damme in it (that I couldn’t be bothered to watch). The one that stood out for me was I Love Dick.
Based on the experimental, (part-memoir) novel by Chris Krauss, of the same name; I Love Dick is funny, innovative and quite touching, in an offbeat way.
The central character of I love Dick (also called CHRIS KRAUSS) is a struggling filmmaker who (in her own words) is ‘straddling forty’ and accompanies her husband, SYLVERE (Griffin Dunne) to a Texas outland, which houses a ramshackle artist's community. Chris is played by Kathryn Hahn, more often seen in minor but memorable comedy roles, she appeared in Parks and Recreation as a ruthless political adviser. Sylvere is due to teach a class at a school run by the DICK of the title - a quirky and charismatic Kevin Bacon. Chris reluctantly accompanies Sylvere to a welcome party that is populated by crass, pretentious types, who are both unwelcoming and overfamiliar, in equal parts.
“You’re the holocaust wife.” A party quest says to Chris. (Sylvere’s speciality is a ‘new interpretation’ of the holocaust).
In amongst all the posturing nonsense, sits Dick, nonchalantly rolling himself a cigarette. Chris is instantly captivated by him and invites Dick out to dinner with she and Sylvere. Dick accepts and, at the dinner, is both challenging and flirtatious and Chris seems to fall instantly in love with him (or form an instant infatuation, depending how you view it). The program is interspersed by her voiceover, reading out snippets of her letters to him (the sourcebook is made up of letters).
‘Dear Dick, Every letter is a love letter.’
The words flash up, white on a red background, accompanied by Hahn’s voiceover.
The stories that Chris writes about Dick, the narrative that she weaves around him, seem to ignite something in Chris and Sylvere’s marriage.
I’m intrigued to see where the program makers will take the story, if I Love Dick gets made into a series. I’m reading the book at the moment and the program bears only a slight resemblance to it. The book is made up of letters, meditations on art, gender politics and memoir. It is highly personal and revelatory (At least, It seems so, but we are unclear how much of it is fiction). The flyleaf proclaims it to be the ‘most important feminist book of a decade’. It doesn’t have much of a plot to it, it’s more of a treatise. It poses something of a challenge in terms of transferring this into a linear narrative (perhaps they won’t even try) and this is why it must be picked up! It’s the most interesting thing to emerge from an already stellar, U.S stable, this year.
The second, pilot I watched, homegrown this time, was The Circuit, written by Sharon Horgan and Dennis Kelly, who haven’t collaborated since the brilliant BBC3 comedy, Pulling.
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-circuit
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-circuit
The Circuit features the most excruciating social gathering since Abigail’s Party. Adeel Akhtar and Eva Birthistle play hapless GABE and NAT who end up at a dinner party at the house of warring couple HELENE and SASHA. They seem to step, along with the other guests, directly into a domestic fallout, between the hosting couple, At one point the diners hide in the bathroom for a while, under the guise of examining the new fixtures.
The Circuit is hilarious, albeit uncomfortable, viewing. There are misunderstandings, rows and broken bottles. It’s weird but when you try a describe it - it makes it sound like a slightly more violent version of Terry and June but this doesn’t really convey how funny it is. Just give it a watch and see what you think.
Finally, the third pilot, another British one - Motherland.
Sharon Horgan has her hand in this one too, as well as comedy olympian, Graham Linehan, comedian Holly Walsh and Linehan’s wife Helen Linehan.
Anna Maxwell Martin plays a working mother, JULIA, who gets her dates mixed up and tries to take her children into school in the half term. She unexpectedly finds herself having to entertain her own and someone else’s kids and her frantic desperation, as she tries to sort out some childcare, is all too familiar. But if this makes it sound like something that only smug marrieds can relate too, think again. Motherland perfectly encapsulates the boredom, ennui and quiet panic, which often accompany parenthood. It also examines the rather scary and alienating world of the school gate mafia - the coterie of full time, uber parents (generally mothers) who don’t make newcomers particularly welcome.
A male parent, KEVIN, played brilliantly by Paul Ready - who also appears in The Circuit, playing a vulnerable, sensitive party guest, is made very unwelcome by the uber mums, as is LIZ (played by Diane Morgan, more commonly known as Philomena Cunk, acolyte of Charlie Brooker). Single mum, Liz, is seen as a sexual threat but doesn’t seem to care about the fact that she and Kevin have been exiled from the ‘big table’ in the coffee shop.
Motherland basically follows a day in the life of Julia trying to cope with being in sole charge of her own children but it is very, very funny!
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