Comic art imitates life under lockdown for David Tennant, Michael Sheen in Staged

In Staged, two of the better actors around have some fun playing fictionalised versions of themselves to pass their time, and ours.

David Tennant and Michael Sheen play fictional versions of themselves in Staged.

Eddie Cockrell picks the Free-to-air, Pay TV and Streaming highlights this week.

-

Free-to-air

An increasing number of stories, narrative and nonfiction, will be set against the lockdown scenario as creatives dream and fidget in equal measure during these singularly unprecedented times. Some will have larger and thus more polished budgets than others, and such is the case with Staged. Across six half-hours, presumably assembled on the fly but exhibiting a pleasing and reassuring mix of the scripted and improvised, two of the better and more hardworking actors out there at the moment have some fun playing fictionalised versions of themselves to pass their time, and ours, by doing what they do best. If these kinds of programs are the wave of the near future, Staged sets a bar just high enough to be noteworthy.

In last week’s debut, England’s lockdown has cut short the newly begun rehearsals for a London play set to star Michael Sheen (seen recently in Quiz) and David Tennant (now in Des), under the direction of West End sensation and aspiring filmmaker Simon Evans. As the two actors, who clearly have developed a more-or-less relaxed rapport after working recently on the Amazon-BBC fantasy miniseries Good Omens, traded quips, insults and stories online, Simon popped up onscreen to persuade them rehearsing remotely was the key to success and fulfilment.

“We might find we’ve got something that people need when this whole thing passes,” he says, somewhat nobly. In truth, Simon’s lofty ambitions mask insecurity and ineptitude. He ends up crashing at the house of his sister Lucy (Lucy Eaton), whom he thought was in the south of France with her boyfriend but has returned and is annoyed at both men. He also is fending off agent Jo (Nina Sosanya), who’s sceptical of his directorial strategy.

In Monday’s episode, David’s partner Georgia (Georgia Tennant) asks him to mind the kids while she puts the finishing touches on her novel, and Michael, alarmed that he and his wife Anna (Anna Lundberg) are drinking too much, decides to offload their empties into the bin of the elderly lady next door.

Throughout, Michael and David bicker over who gets top billing in the play and meditate on art, the game of Battleship and haggis.

As the series progresses a trio of guest stars drops in to provide counsel and guidance, though identifying them by name would spoil the surprise; suffice it to say that in the interconnected realm of show business the most unlikely yet somehow logical relationships may be forged.

In the real world, Evans was on the verge of directing his international feature film debut in Cambodia when the pandemic hit, so he and fellow writer Phin Glynn came up with the idea for Staged when the artistic director of the theatre for whom he was preparing Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing suggested online rehearsals. Glynn knew Tennant and Tennant brought in new mate Sheen. “I hope the real Simon Evans is not quite as inept,” Evans said to one journalist. But, in the end, the play’s the thing.

Staged, Monday, 8.30pm, ABC Comedy and iView

-

Bites

Drunk History Australia
Monday, 10pm, Ten
Drunk History US
Wednesday, 9.50pm, 10 Shake

There’s a certain lockdown synchronicity to Ten’s launch of its cleverly bifurcated fourth channel, 10 Shake, this weekend. Among the shows featured on the new strand is the original American version of the immensely funny acquired taste Drunk History (pissed comedians recount the past as it’s acted and lip-synched by name talent), even as the channel’s mothership replays the equally hilarious local version. Monday’s episode finds Matt Okine recounting what inspired Banjo Paterson (Tex Perkins) to write Waltzing Matilda, while Em Rusciano tells of Dawn Fraser (Erin McNaught) stealing the flag at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Wednesday’s half-hour includes William Randolph Hearst (John Lithgow) clashing with Orson Welles (Jack Black) over the making of Citizen Kane as told by Steve Berg. Drunk History joins such other adult fare in the evenings as free-to-air newcomers The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, The Charlotte Show and the first season of Teen Mom Australia. From 6am to 6pm, 10 Shake features children’s programming.

Lockdown Stories
Tuesday, 9.30pm, ABC and iView

“My skills aren’t wholly suited to dealing with a health crisis,” emerging filmmaker Neve says apologetically to her doctor parents at home in Launceston as the restrictions commence, “but I wanted to help you and support you, so I made this.” Hers is one of the seven intimate vignettes told by emerging artists mentored by ABC Religion & Ethics producers Tracey Spring and Olivia Rousset. Bernie in North Fitzroy gives us a glimpse into his group house and a local restaurant cooking for frontline workers, while international student Anna worries from her one-room Brisbane apartment about her mother and grandmother in northern Italy who have tested positive. Yolngu woman Siena shows her Yirrkala community in North Eastern Arnhem Land prioritising its elders’ safety, and Tyla’s Passover in Melbourne is enhanced by her large family. In Cairns, performance artist Lou confronts her solitude with grace, and Brazilian-born Eric hosts his family in Perth when they’re stranded here following his wedding.

The Feed Presents Surrogacy in the Time of Covid
Tuesday, 10pm, SBS and SBS On Demand

“Who’s left holding the baby?” is the flip yet fair question press assets ask in this poignant and thought-provoking edition of The Feed. As news reports tell of people separated and/or stranded by restrictions, borders, oceans and finances, spare a thought for those who engaged surrogates, here and internationally, to assist in growing their families. Veteran SBS journalist and producer Elise Potaka has done just that, with revelatory results. Kath is in Sydney carrying a child for same-sex expectant parents Ben and Terry in Brisbane; can the couple get there, and back, in time? Australian Stephen and his partner have a surrogate in Texas, while also stateside, carer Trish looks after infant Zach while the baby’s new Chinese parents attempt to get there from the mainland to collect her (“definitely not part of the job description,” she says cheerfully). Sydneysiders Sophie and Julian dash to the Ukraine for their new baby, with time running out. “Magic,” says Sophie of their journey, “but very overwhelming and scary and beautiful and joyful and all that at the same time.”

-

Pay TV/ Streaming

The ill-fated space shuttle in Challenger: The Final Flight.

Disaster waiting to happen

In the exasperatingly underrated series For All Mankind over on Apple TV+, the “what-if?” premise of the show is that the Russians landed on the moon before the Americans, thus supercharging the West’s commitment to space travel and exploration. The alternative universe narrative finds the economic weight of the government and popular sentiment of the people elevating the space program to a fever pitch of reverence and excitement.

While a reasonable approximation of this space-focused patriotism was true in the early 1980s during the first five years of the space shuttle program, that support and enthusiasm came to a screeching halt when the Challenger blew apart 73 seconds after launch on January 28, 1986.

The accident killed seven astronauts (including, in the most damaging of the public relations disasters to befall the event, New Hampshire schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe, the first civilian private citizen selected to participate).

Now, with little fanfare but a groundswell of critical and popular support, Netflix has released the four-part documentary series Challenger: The Final Flight, which takes a surgical though provoking and resonant look at the well-meaning yet fatal hubris that led to this avoidable yet somehow inevitable tragedy.

“We’re really in the space business to stay,” an exultant Robert Crippen said in April 1981, and he had a reason to be optimistic. NASA had just successfully built, launched and landed STS-1, the first orbital test flight of the craft popularly known as Columbia, with Crippen as pilot. The mission ushered in an era of unbridled achievement and optimism for the agency, as is documented in the first episode, Space for Everyone. The so-called “reusable space truck”, crewed by a racially and ethnically mixed group of trained professionals, embarked on a series of 24 missions that initially captured the public’s imagination.

The novelty soon wore off and in episode two the reasons are revealed. Only six of the first 19 launches happened on time, yet the routine nature of the enterprise soon relegated them to the back pages of the newspapers. To remedy this, president Ronald Reagan announced a teacher would accompany a crew, with a field of 10 selected from an initial field of thousands.

“The girl next door was going to ride in a shuttle,” remembers Peter Billingsley, the child actor and star of the 1983 seasonal hit movie A Christmas Story who at 14 was enlisted as a spokesman for the agency’s Young Astronaut Program. As this was unfolding, Utah-based contractor Morton-Thiokol was struggling to fix problems with the rubber O-rings that sealed the gargantuan thrusters used to power the craft up through the Earth’s atmosphere. “Not risky enough not to fly” was the tragically misguided conclusion.

In episode three, A Major Malfunction, that inevitable tragedy comes to pass. With numerous opportunities to avoid the launch, NASA opts to proceed.

“Nobody planned for anything like this,” remembers Barbara Morgan, who trained as McAuliffe’s back-up, in the fourth and final episode, optimistically titled Nothing Ends Here. In the aftermath, a pair of NASA officials emerge as those most prominently involved in the pivotal decisions that led to the explosion. Both are interviewed, with one contrite and the other defiant. In a statement of ultimate ambivalence, the latter observes: “Going into space is something that great countries do. They want to advance technology. They want to learn. It’s also risky. You have to take some chances.”

The shuttle program eventually recovered, though America’s commitment to space exploration has stalled. To move forward, this lesson must be remembered.

Challenger: The Final Flight, streaming on Netflix.

-

Bites

What to Do When Someone Dies (aka Without You)
Streaming on Acorn TV

Mystery fans may be forgiven for not recognising the current title of the gripping three-part 2011 ITV drama Without You. It was adapted from a well-received 2009 novel of the same name by Nicci French (the nom de plume of husband-and-wife writing team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French). Schoolteacher Ellie (Pushing Daisies’ Anna Friel, never better) and her accountant husband Greg (Marc Warren, Beecham House) are trying to have a child, but then he’s killed in a horrible motor crash at a remote location. But who was the blonde next to him in the passenger seat? This sends Ellie into grief-stricken jealousy and focused concentration as she finds the dead woman’s husband and embarks on a hazardous journey in which she takes on a new identity and becomes surrounded by even more death. Friel subsequently won an international best actress Emmy for her performance in the British detective series Marcella.

Chandra Levy: An American Murder Mystery
Sunday, 9pm, Investigation Discovery (ID) and Foxtel On Demand

“This was not your normal missing person,” a crime reporter says, not long into the first of three episodes comprising Chandra Levy: An American Murder Mystery, one of a series of true-crime specials presented by Investigation Discovery this past month (and still available via Foxtel on Demand). Anyone in the Washington metropolitan area in the summer of 2001 will almost certainly remember that name. The 24-year-old journalism major from California had been working as an intern at the Federal Bureau of Prisons while pursuing a masters in public administration when she disappeared from her Dupont Circle apartment in early May that year. Suspicion soon fell on a Democrat congressman from her home district who had an airtight alibi yet eventually admitted to an affair with Levy but denied involvement in her disappearance or what was presumed to be her death. When another suspect emerged and her skeletal remains were discovered in the city’s Rock Creek Park two years later, the case continued a series of twists and turns that highlighted the ineptitude of the local police department. One participant described the strange affair as “House of Cards on steroids”.

Friends
Streaming on Binge

When HBO Max launched in the US in late May, the plan was to have the cast of Friends reunite for their 25th anniversary to publicise the venture. That didn’t happen because of the pandemic and probably won’t until next year at the earliest. As HBO owner WarnerMedia Entertainment’s direct-to-consumer chairman Bob Greenblatt told The Hollywood Reporter: “We didn’t want to just suddenly do it on a web call with you, you know, six squares and people shooting from their kitchens and bedrooms.” In the meantime, Foxtel’s new streaming service, Binge, is offering the complete run of 10 seasons. Certain series have always served as visual comfort food, and there’s something about the chemistry among the cast of Friends that draws new generations to their Manhattan antics and pairings. Despite the actors’ best efforts to develop careers beyond their characters, the pull of familiarity is too great a lure. “You’re never going to get rid of Friends, sorry,” Jennifer Aniston recently told show business website Deadline by phone. “You’re stuck with us for life, guys.”