It has been a long time since I’ve written a blog. It’s not that it’s been a deliberate neglection, but rather it has just fallen so far down the priority list this last year, it’s practically been buried into the ground. If you read my little mission statement that I outlined in my very first blog (not that I’m suggesting you do) you’ll see that I wanted to use this page as an outlet for my passions; essentially anything that I care about enough that I feel the need to put my feelings towards it on paper, or yknow WordPress. This has previously included why Chelsea shouldn’t sack Frank Lampard (that one was proven almost immediately idiotic), the f***ing European Super League (still fuming about that) and then any books or films that I fell in love with. And it is the latter that is the reason for me ending my self-imposed blog hiatus now.

I have just watched the final ever episode of Derry Girls. And though I am prone to over-exaggeration and have a tendency to declare the last good thing I’ve seen as “the greatest ever”, I am actually pretty confident in this latest shotgun reaction: Derry Girls is the past decade’s best, and defining, television comedy.

I actually first discovered the show around three years ago, in a pre-Covid world, when I was living abroad in Germany. I think I was randomly suggested some small clip compilations on YouTube and when caught in one of those mindless YouTube cycles where all your body is capable of is clicking the next video, I found Derry Girls for the first time. Perhaps on some level, I was crying out for the comfort of traditional British humour in my unfamiliar surroundings and that’s why it connected with me. Or it could be that the show is just really, really bloody funny.

It is perfectly suited to my sense of humour. Not necessarily jokes every minute and not anything dramatically cruel or shocking. Not quite a PG kind of comedy, but certainly 12A. It’s gentle humour, not clever or experimental, just real people making fun of each other like real people do. It’s something I mentioned in my love letter to Gavin and Stacey (https://georgefbrown.wordpress.com/2021/01/16/a-love-letter-to-gavin-and-stacey/) and it’s not as easy or as unremarkable as it sounds. It’s incredibly hard to write, and then to recreate on screen.

This is linked to the fact that the show is so intrinsically tied to its setting; you can’t ignore the Derry in Derry Girls basically. It is a snapshot of one specific place in one very specific era, with an incredibly important historical context. And it’s based on the creator’s (Lisa McGee) own childhood experiences in that place. So, it’s not really a surprise that it all feels real. To some extent, it probably is. However, the next reason I think the show deserves so much credit is that it would be easy, within the cosy little world it creates, to get comfortable and unambitious with its content. Instead, McGee takes risks with her themes and plotlines and they all pay off.

Even though great efforts are made to make it seem like the 1990’s, we still have clever little hints to the issues of today. One of the girls, Claire, is revealed to be a lesbian in Series One, and that is quickly and happily accepted by her friends and family. Without stereotyping, I think it’s a fair statement that your average Catholic family in 1990’s Northern Ireland might not have been quite so understanding, so it’s certainly a deliberate move on the part of the writer to normalise this. And, as with everything in Derry Girls, it allows for some fantastic and unproblematic comedy. One of my favourite scenes in the last series is Claire’s parents talking to an openly gay friend about their daughter, I can’t quote it directly but it’s something like: “Our daughter’s one too, though she’s still young, so she’s not fully qualified yet.”

And this risk-taking continues with the show’s outright refusal to ignore the darker side of the time period. It weaves the everyday, nonsensical issues of teenage life in with the major events of The Troubles seamlessly: Season One concludes with the girls joining Orla in a joyful step-aerobics session on stage whilst her family watches the news coverage of a nearby bombing on television, the girls celebrate James’s decision to stay in Derry whilst waiting for President Clinton to make a speech and in the finale, Erin and Orla’s eighteenth birthday party is somewhat overshadowed by the referendum on the Good Friday Agreement. Which leads me to my final point:

I recently listened to the podcast, Brydon &, where he was joined by his Would I Lie To You co-star, and one of my favourite TV personalities, David Mitchell. During their chat, Mitchell outlined that he thinks very strongly that comedy is the hardest thing to do and, most strikingly, the very highest form of art. I agree with him. It’s one thing to create tension and drama using real-life events, its another to subtly comment on them whilst managing to make someone laugh at the same time. And that’s what Derry Girls does. In the final episode, the two opposing sides of the referendum are embodied in a childish falling out between Erin and Michelle whilst the entire Troubles conflict is represented through a hilariously terrible school play (taking me back to the shameless, cringeworthy cliches of GCSE drama performances).

Just when Derry Girls has you laughing your head off, that’s when it makes you cry. And it’s all so deliberate and expertly crafted. It’s precisely because we are so familiar and comfortable with these characters that it affects us so much when things go wrong for them. Obviously, there was the genuine gut-wrencher of the death of Claire’s dad in episode five (spoilers, sorry), but there are subtler touches like Michelle actually looking affected by the horrendously amateur Troubles sketch as it caused her to think of her ostracised and imprisoned IRA fighter brother or my personal favourite moment of the whole show: Joe putting his hand on son-in-law Gerry’s shoulder when they watch the bomb report, having spent practically every other second of the series chastising him with increasingly inventive insults.

I honestly can’t speak highly enough of the show and I could keep writing for a lot longer about its considerable merits, but I’ll end with this: In a world of endless sequels and various “universes”, there is a real lack of anything new or original. And then Derry Girls stepped forwards. And somehow a comedy set in 90’s Northern Ireland has become the defining show for our new, modern era.

I rewatched Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise this week, planning to use it a source for a bibliography I have to write for Uni. It is a risk to return to a film you loved upon first watching it, as the enjoyment can so often be wrapped up in the individual, first-time viewing experience. Seeing it again can, on occasion, take away the magic. Thankfully, truly great films don’t suffer this indignity. And Before Sunrise is a truly great film.

The film is the first of a trilogy, which chronicles the relationship between two people who first meet on a train to Vienna and then two subsequent encounters, all nine years apart. It stars the same actors, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, playing the young lovers through their first meeting, reunion and after they are married and have kids. Linklater directs all three and, along with his Oscar-nominated Boyhood, he has built his reputation as the master of these ambitious and experimental movies. And therefore nearly all of the attention and analysis of the three films that make up the trilogy is centred on their unique, episodic nature. My own Uni essay is based on this very thing. And yet, this can detract from just how brilliant the films are in their own right.

The true genius of the trilogy is that if someone were to watch the films as they were released (in 1995, 2004 and 2013) then that viewer will have grown up at exactly the same rate as the two characters, Jesse and Celine. And as their own priorities and morals and values change, so do those of the characters, so that a relationship is created between viewer and film that is truly a rare and wonderful thing. But for someone that hasn’t had that honour, it is inevitable that one of the films will always produce a greater connection than the other two. And given I’m twenty-three, about the age of Jesse in Sunrise, this is the one that I love the most.

The film takes place around the streets of Vienna, as Jesse and Celine wander semi-aimlessly, more interested in each other than their surroundings, but the setting is crucial to the film’s power. It feels like we too are on a holiday, that we too have escaped for a day, into this foreign land we may never see again. It is of course, unmistakeably, a love story, yet it remains totally devoid of anything resembling cliché or cheesy Hollywood rubbish. The script is authentic and nuanced and the two leads’ chemistry is inevitably fantastic. Where it stands above similar films is in the fact that it so perfectly displays the awkwardness and blind naivety that characterises all young relationships without ever getting lost in it. Perhaps it is the fact we know of the greater, encompassing project that is behind the film, but it certainly possesses a self-aware or self-deprecating quality. You’re never annoyed by their pretentiousness as the film always manages to produce this echo of “Don’t mind them, they’re just kids.”

There is just something so wonderfully fleeting about it all. We see Jesse and Celine meet, spend one night together and then depart. And that’s all we need. The closing montage is a thing of genuine cinematic beauty, a collection of shots of all the places the couple visit. A bench on an empty backstreet, a statue in a square, the Ferris wheel where they had their first kiss, the path down by the Danube etc. All abandoned, as if they had come alive purely for the lovers to enjoy; a romantic idea that perfectly embodies how it feels when you are properly and thoroughly loved up. It may only be the first instalment of a truly momentous trilogy, but standing alone, I would argue Before Sunrise is so much more than an experiment. It is the most accurate and beautiful snapshot of young love ever put to film.

Let’s be fair. It’s been a shit year. We’ve all needed, at various times, a little pick-me-up and I have found just the film to provide it. The Intouchables or Untouchable, as is the release title in the UK, is one of those films that can’t fail but make you smile. It proved so popular and successful that there was even an Americanised remake, The Upside. For the love of God, don’t watch that instead. The Intouchables may not be a masterpiece of cinema in terms of innovative direction, it is just a simple story beautifully told and brilliantly acted.

The plot revolves around the aristocratic Phillipe (played by Francois Cluzet) who is a quadriplegic and requires a round-the-clock carer in his beautiful Paris home. Driss, (Omar Sly) a poor immigrant living on an estate, simply comes to the interview to get a signature so that he can continue receiving welfare benefits. Instead, Phillipe hires him and they begin to build an unconventional friendship.

A lot of the comedy of the film comes in the traditional ‘fish out of water’ narrative and the contrast between Driss and Phillipe’s upbringings and interests. However, where it really excels is in the way it deals with the disability element. There are times when Phillipe is even the butt of the joke, with Driss teasing him for some of his limitations. Yet, this is never awkward or mean-spirited and comes across instead as typical of an interaction between two able-bodied people, which is exactly how it should be.

The positive representation goes further, with Phillipe never shown to feel too sorry for himself or in any way bemoan his condition. He tricks the police, smokes marijuana and even has a romantic arc, making it one of the better, most rounded portrayals of a disabled character that I can remember on screen. And yet, the whole time you are waiting for something to go wrong. For his condition to worsen, for him to lose hope, for the sad ending that seems inevitable in this kind of film.

It never comes. Instead, the film indulges in some of the best feel-good moments I have seen in a long while. The paragliding sequence with Phillipe and a reluctant Driss taking to the skies, to the backing track of Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good”, is wonderful and if the ending shot doesn’t at least bring a happy tear to your eye, then I can’t help you. You’re a lost cause.

There are films for every occasion. Some are designed to make you think, others to make you feel, some fail to do either but instead allow you to switch off and escape. If you are after a film that will, if nothing else, brighten your day and make you smile, then I really can’t recommend The Intouchables enough.

Sadly, it takes a pretty special book these days for me to feel genuinely excited about reading a novel. Luckily, John William’s Stoner is a pretty special book.

I came upon it purely by luck, browsing through WH Smith’s pretty average selection of classics (I used to work for Waterstones so I may be a tad biased) when I’d actually come in for something else. It was the title that stood out to me; it evoked memories of reading works from the drug-fuelled Beat Generation writers such as Kerouac and Burroughs. I like a bit of that. So, I thought I’d take a punt, given that I don’t read for pleasure enough and thought actually spending money on a book might inspire me to do so.

Stoner contains exactly zero mentions of recreational drugs so if you were looking for that, as I was initially, I guess you’d be disappointed. However, if you got over that quickly, you would find yourself being pulled in by a genuine masterpiece of twentieth century literature.

The plot is basic. It follows William Stoner, a poor farm boy who goes to the University of Missouri and whose discovery and subsequent love of English Literature inspires him to teach there as well. Not exactly the most thrilling synopsis ever. And in that respect, I would concede its maybe a bit of a ‘writer’s read’, if there is such a thing.

That is due to the skill of the author in carefully crafting every sentence to make the ordinary and everyday exchanges of life seem so interesting. If you’re a regular follower of this blog (I know there’s millions of you…) you’ll know that I have a particular fetish for this ability, it’s something I admire in TV shows like Gavin and Stacey and Detectorists and it’s on display in pristine prose format from the very first line of this novel. Williams describes studying, work, friendship, love, hate and even death in such a way that you will find yourself going ‘whoa’ and re-reading many a line again just because it sounds so good.

Most of the criticism on the novel is centred on an atmosphere of sadness that permeates throughout. I don’t disagree with that as such, the exchanges between Stoner and his wife are particularly brutal at times, but I wouldn’t say that it left me feeling down or depressed. Instead, I would choose to see it as a novel about celebrating small victories. It’s about making the best out of a bad situation. You find yourself cheering when Stoner, at this point an old lecturer past the point of caring, misbehaves just enough to get one over his villainous head of department. Equally, as the novel gently ticks along, you find yourself liking the man at its centre more and more. At the beginning he’s sort of one-dimensional and, if anything, a bit dull by modern standards, but by the end you appreciate that this is a thoroughly decent and kind man who deserves a break that he never properly gets.

One of the opening lines of the novel tells us that Stoner is not often remembered by his colleagues after his death. Given that the book was first published in 1965, it has certainly not suffered the same fate as it’s titular character. I can confirm that I won’t be forgetting it in a hurry either.  

We are living in a golden age of television at the moment. Never has there been such quantity or quality consistently available to our watching eyes, with the plethora of streaming services now out there also meaning that there is more content than we could ever want or need. Due to this, it has perhaps become inevitable that some shows simply just slip under the radar and don’t attract the attention and praise that they rightly deserve. Detectorists is one of these shows. In fact, rather ironically given what the show is about, it is a tiny speck of gold among the rubble.

First broadcast on BBC Four in 2014, Detectorists never captured the public imagination in the way other comedies like Gavin and Stacey or Fleabag have done, though it is worth pointing out it still featured in the thirty most watched shows of the last decade. But I hadn’t heard of it. And so to me it seemed underappreciated. When my flatmate recommended it and we began to religiously sit down and watch it, I was slowly sucked into its charm and simplicity and having just watched the final episode, I can now say that it is a true masterpiece of British television.

I will attempt to describe the basics of the plot now but with the crucial disclaimer that there is no-one on Earth who could attempt to sell Detectorists based purely off what happens in it, because basically nothing does. It follows Lance and Andy, two strange, awkward men (played astoundingly well by Toby Jones and Mackenzie Crook) whose main passion in life is metal detecting (hence the title). Stay with me. Every episode we see them going out into the fields of their local rural area, hoping to find ancient gold but often instead ending up with bottle caps or other bits of discarded trash. We see their wonderfully mundane interactions with their fellow members of the DMDC (Damebury Metal Detecting Club) and we see snip-its of their perfectly normal and simple home lives.

And yet the real selling point of the show is that it revels in the dull. It is a celebration of everyday normality. Mackenzie Crook is also the writer of the show and deserves the utmost credit in crafting sharp and at times hilarious dialogue when all the characters are really talking about are the questions from QI or University Challenge the night before or the merits of their respective metal detectors. More than anything, the atmosphere he generates is a pleasant one, one where you’re encouraged to gently chuckle along. There are no elaborate comedic set-ups or witty punchlines, though a special mention here has to go to Sophie Thompson’s Sheila, who manages to make me laugh out loud with literally every thing she says. My particular favorite is when she suggests that to raise money, the eclectic and odd-looking members of the DMDC should release a nude calendar!

Other things I want to mention include the wonderful cinematography, which features long, sweeping shots of the countryside. Honestly, dull old England has never looked so good. Also the fact that there are no nasty characters, everyone is layered and fundamentally good-natured; even the rival detectorists, the Dirt Sharks, act more as the butt of the joke and are ultimately redeemed in the end. And finally, the theme song, written and sung masterfully by Johnny Flynn, which is so heart-warming and catchy I have now made it a crucial part of my Spotify playlist. Seriously, it bangs.

The final thing I want to say is another compliment to Crook, who really cannot get enough acclaim for the skill of his screenwriting. As a writing student, I have been taught relentlessly about the importance of setting up plot points and then bringing them to a satisfactory and ‘earned’ conclusion. Crook does this as well as I’ve seen anyone manage it. Every little thread, however trivial or irrelevant it seems, will eventually be drawn together and often in a way that makes you beam with delight.

So, very much like Lance and Andy, I felt like I was wandering around the endless fields of the intimidating television landscape. With Detectorists, I can honestly say that I unearthed a piece of hidden gold.

When Gavin and Stacey returned after ten years with the 2019 Christmas Special, the show also had the chance to return to the public conscience. The truth is it had never left. The 12.3 million viewers that tuned into the special on BBC One on Christmas Day show just how popular and culturally significant the show has become. That works out at nearly 20% of the population watching the same show at the same time. It is the show that launched the career of James Corden, one of the few British entertainers to truly have cracked America, spawned a ton of catchphrases and idioms and massively helped Barry Island’s tourism. It is also my favourite programme. I have probably seen each individual episode about twenty times each. I could accurately repeat whole scenes line by line. It has become like a comfort blanket and a friend. Whenever Gavin arrives at his parents, Pam and Micks, it feels like I too am home.

So, what makes it so iconic? I think the first thing to mention is a quality that I have probably just invented but that is best described as ‘rewatchability.’ It is not a synonym for good or brilliant, as there are numerous television shows that I have enjoyed hugely when watching them but have no intention of returning to. It doesn’t even necessarily connote quality in terms of something that is critically well-received or that is truly original. ‘Rewatchability’ instead refers to an inherent warmth or charm and it tends to be a quality that is found in shows whose goal is to make the viewer happy. The best and most obvious example is Friends, whilst other American sitcoms like The US Office and New Girl also manage to produce this, mainly because with 24 episodes in a season, there is so much content to enjoy. One huge compliment to Gavin and Stacey is that it manages to be so ‘rewatchable’ despite there only being three seasons of six to seven episodes and a couple of Christmas specials. It will just always be able to to raise a smile or cause a chuckle, even when you know exactly what is coming next.

This ‘rewatchability’ is also due to another key attribute of the show, which is its realism. Other shows are more laugh-out-loud funny but none have been able to create characters that are as authentic or true. As iconic as comedy characters like Alan Partridge or David Brent are, you can’t really imagine yourself bumping into them in the supermarket, whereas running into Pam, Mick or Bryn seems somehow normal and believable. None of them are comedians, they are just normal people who happen to say funny things, which is what most normal people can do in my experience. All of this is borne from the earliest premise of the show, with James Corden saying in a number of interviews that he’d “never seen a Wedding on TV like one he’d actually been to.” That one-off show about a wedding eventually became a multi-episode series but that effort to create something true to life has led to an affinity between the characters and audience that is rarely found. I saw on Facebook the other day a thread a fan had posted, imagining how the Gavin and Stacey characters would all be coping with the lockdowns of the past year. That sort of says it all.

Finally, I want to mention the sheer brilliance of the writing behind it. James Corden and Ruth Jones are rightly celebrated for the quality of their scripts and you always know a piece of writing has entered the hall of fame when the process of creating it becomes famous as well and Corden and Jones’ epic marathon writing sessions have done just that. Jones on the laptop and Corden wandering around restlessly proved to be a wonderful recipe for success. It’s a combination of well-crafted scenes that masterfully increase in tension and humour, a number of genuinely hilarious one-liners (“There’s the salad”, “It’s usually used on cattle but she reckoned the effect would be exactly the same” and “Where to she now then” to name just three) and a sort of unique, intrinsic language that is both nonsensical and authentic. The iconic moments of the show: Smithy’s Indian order, the fishing trip motif and the ‘American Boy’ rap are all examples of script-writing at its very finest.

So, thank you Gavin and Stacey for providing so much entertainment. I don’t think I will ever stop re-watching you. If I could be so bold as to ask for one more little favour after all you’ve already done… a fourth series wouldn’t hurt.