Entertainment For Lively Minds
Rafe Spall = David Walliams
Posted by Steerpike on 26 May 2011 - 9:38pm.
Anyone seen them in the same room?
I'm thinking of the performance of the former in BBC's current drama The Shadow Line.
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Yes. Rather You Than Me 2008
BBC4 Frankie Howerd TV biopic.
Spall played Frankie Howerd's lover, Dennis to Walliams playing the man himself.
He's a good actor.
I thought
Rafe was channelling John Lydon!
steerpike, are you me?
I made this very point to my wife about an hour ago. Rafe's hamminess is detracting a little from on otherwise fine show.
I'm listening to your conversation
... via hidden mic, headphones and reel to reel tape machine.
Mmm. I'm rather enjoying this
but there's certainly a crunching shift of gears between the solid serious acting of the likes of Christopher Ecclestone and David Schofield and the bizarre campery of Rafe's Walliams/Lydon/Heath Ledger's Joker routine (Every time he appears I'm reminded of Benny Hill's cameo in The Italian Job) and Stephen Rea's overly mannered oh-so-polite hard man ("He had a wire around his neck in a second", this guy? really?). The gay ex-con introduced this week looks like leading the programme further away from solid ground.
And this is a personal failing (and possibly not pc), but every time that Sergeant speaks, I can't make out a word 'cos I'm mesmerised by her freaky sofa cushion lips...
Also, just because something is written, produced and directed by one person does that mean nobody goes over the dialogue with a red biro. Much of the writing is great but particularly in the first episode there were some awfully clunky exchanges ("CUNTstable") which a collaborator might have filleted.
But - did I mention - I'm really rather enjoying it...
I'm enjoying it too,
but some characters (Daniel's smoothly Machiavellian boss), the smarmy journo, the smarmy journo's Jackie Collins-esque boss for example, are a tad on the hammy side.
And Stephen Rea has clearly been watching John le Carre adaptations. Is he not an evil George Smiley as played by Alec Guinness?!
Having very recently watched "Tinker, Tailor ..."
That's a great comparison!
Ooh yes. That ladyboss was a bit lazy.
It occurs to me that, with luck, the way to view this is like the football season.
The Killing, being amazing for 14 episodes and then losing it at the death, was Arsenal.
Maybe The Shadow Line,frustrating and shambolic but full of potential, is Liverpool. There may be a glorious finale. (Okay, sixth place, but you get the idea...)
The Customs & Excise guy
has helped no end, but there're too many narrative threads going on for a series of just six episodes. Spread over 12, fine, but not half a dozen. And I don't care about the bullet lodged in the brain.
Brain Bullet
The bullet lodged in the detective's brain is probably the most ludicrous thing in this series. I know it's just telly and doesn't have to be particularly real, but it's a very far-fetched version of the Metropolitan Police where a copper is back on duty 3 months after being shot in the head, let alone with the bullet still being there stuck in his bonce. An extremely serious breach of Health & Safety policy!.
That aside, it's a very enjoyable series and has had me hooked from the start. I particularly enjoyed the 3-way chase between the chauffeur, Jay and the detective.
I thought Rafe Spall was ludicrous too
But everyone's raved about The Shadowline so much it's like saying you think Richard Thompson's rubbish.
"I'm the one holding the balls" (looks up)
Come back Rafe, we didn't mean it!
Just watched this week's episode of this barmy series. Perhaps Rafe's silence this week is an attempt to imitate in a drama the loud/quiet/loud dynamic of a Pixies record.
I'm predicting Walliams/Rotten at full volume next time and I'm beginning to believe they might make enough sense of this lunacy to provide a mostly satisfactory conclusion.
And I was wrong: that woman doesn't have to say a word in order for her lips to distract me...
I'm finding a fair amount of it...
...is faintly annoying (definitely the Spall/Lydon ham-fest), but I'm staying with it because I do find Stephen Rea's performance and character fascinating. And yes, I too was thinking evil-George-Smiley...
Smileys on BBC radio 4 extra
at the moment and it knocks this into a cocked tifter every time.Rafe Spall compared to Simon Russell Beale? Not really...
shit
should be titfer