Eclectic Trains

The Devil's Whore is coming to Channel 4. It is difficult to contain my excitement. In a preview in The Sunday Times a whole list of treats are placed before us. First and foremost, this new television drama is written by Peter Flannery the writer of Our Friends in the North. All right, a very close second is that The Devil's Whore is about the Cromwell and English Revolution. Here's a list of other things to get excited about:

- the cast includes Dominic West (The Wire) as Cromwell
- there hasn't been a prime time civil war drama since 1983
- it was filmed in South Africa
- it has a big budget - £7m for a four-parter
- Flannery read the King James version of the Bible (1604) to research dialogue and the use of "muscular metaphor and simile" (it might not rock your boat but it's rocking mine)

Flannery unashamedly engages his audiences with big ideas, his characters are complex and he wants to take you on an unforgettable journey. What more could we want?

"I'm not selling this as a way of passing your GCSE in 17th-century history... I'm trying to write a thrilling story about those times and what the issues were..."

[England's civil war in The Devil’s Whore, The Sunday Times]

Bring on the English Revolution! See you at the Channel 4 barricades on November 19th. [I'm guessing 9pm but the online listings aren't giving up crucial information like that just yet].

I think I might like the work of David Hare but unfortunately I have seen very little of it. I saw "Skylight" in the 90s with Michael Gambon and Lia Williams at the National Theatre which I really enjoyed at the time. I stumbled across a trailer the other night for "My Zinc Bed" and decided to stop everything and watch it with my better half. What a disappointment. I am a fan of all three actors: Jonathan Pryce, Paddy Considine and Uma Thurman, but their talents were lost in a "tv play" that just felt forced and quite undramatic. Anyway, I never planned to write a review, or anything so formal, but isn't it nice when you find an articulate reviewer who says everything you want to say and more? Lucy Mangan's review in today's Guardian did just that. I leave you with two intelligent quotes that re-raise some very pertinent questions about the nature of good tv drama.

I can't work out if it is a depressing testament to the debasing effects of the junk-television diet we habitually follow that the heightened language of My Zinc Bed - unashamedly writerly writing - felt like an affectation and distraction, or if it is simply a sign that the intimate medium of television does indeed require a less mannered form of language, lest it overwhelm rather than serve the piece.

...Even an ideas play needs drama as well as discussion.

This great review, which also takes a swipe at BBC policy towards commissioning drama, can be found here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2008/aug/28/television.television1

Thank you Lucy.