The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
London Spy: Ben Whishaw, dreamy lover/genius Ed Holcroft and sage Jim Broadbent
southendmd:
And this:
reminded me of this:
southendmd:
I've been avoiding this thread (fearing spoilers, which, can really ruin a thriller) until now, as I just finished watching episode 5. Oh boy.
John, thank you, thank you, thank you for all your work on this thread. Such riches here!
Wow, so much to think about. Don't know where to start.
Ben Whishaw and his helmet hair? I'll admit I disliked him in that awful Brideshead, and also as Keats. But here, he is something else again.
All those Brokeback connections! I especially liked the ascending the staircase to the (second) bedroom.
Aloysius J. Gleek:
--- Quote from: southendmd on February 28, 2016, 02:27:24 am ---I've been avoiding this thread (fearing spoilers, which, can really ruin a thriller) until now, as I just finished watching episode 5. Oh boy.
John, thank you, thank you, thank you for all your work on this thread. Such riches here!
Wow, so much to think about. Don't know where to start.
Ben Whishaw and his helmet hair? I'll admit I disliked him in that awful Brideshead, and also as Keats. But here, he is something else again.
All those Brokeback connections! I especially liked the ascending the staircase to the (second) bedroom.
--- End quote ---
Thanks so much Paul! Welcome to the 'club'!
(But--uh-oh! The trials and intricacies of 'Clubland' are far more perilous and mortifying than trying to avoid Joe Aguirre in his trailer!)
London Spy
Episode 3
"Blue"
Club attendant: If I could ask you to settle up, Sir?
Scottie (Jim Broadbent): Yes, of course, yes.
Danny (Ben Whishaw): What did it mean?
Scottie: That my membership has been cancelled with immediate effect. A pity.
They do a marvelous Eggs Benedict.
Aloysius J. Gleek:
--- Quote from: southendmd on February 28, 2016, 02:27:24 am ---I've been avoiding this thread (fearing spoilers, which, can really ruin a thriller) until now, as I just finished watching episode 5. Oh boy.
(....)
Wow, so much to think about. Don't know where to start.
(....)
All those Brokeback connections! I especially liked the ascending the staircase to the (second) bedroom.
--- End quote ---
Yes! A month ago I said to Lee--
--- Quote from: Aloysius J. Gleek on January 29, 2016, 11:07:55 pm ---Thanks, Lee, I think it's pretty magic too. Hugely sad also--very Brokeback. I'm watching London Spy via Amazon, and I've seen two of the five episodes--the third one will not be released until next Thursday, so I'm very frustrated, and trying NOT to read too much past what I've already seen. The British fans (who saw the series on BBC 2 in November and December) are brokenhearted and insanely creative, doing fanart and fanfic--alternate time-times and what-might-have-beens; again, so Brokeback! Ah, the pain, the anguish, we knew it well, and I feel for them, poor things!
:'( ::) :-* ;D
--- End quote ---
and
--- Quote from: Aloysius J. Gleek on January 29, 2016, 11:26:02 pm ---I'll just add--if you are thinking about checking out the series--there really are a lot of Brokeback parallels, so much so that London Spy almost seems like one of those alternate reality Brokeback fantasies--imagine Ennis del Mar (Alex Taylor) is apparently a young, rich investment banker (!) who is actually a mathematical genius MI6 spy (who still don't talk too much) and Jack Twist (Danny Holt) is a London gay club kid (well, slightly aging club kid) with doe eyes and a rather feminine intuition. In this case it is Jack, not Ennis, who survives, and one day he visits and asks Ennis's mother if he could see Ennis's bedroom. With a surreal 'twist'--this happens twice! Two scary Pa del Mars--but ONE of the Ma del Mars is the scariest of all! Well, it's Spy Stuff after all, and I better say no more for the present. Just remember--like Jack was, Danny is fearless.
:o ::)
Alex's two--"fathers". Not!
--- End quote ---
So many Brokeback allusions (and I am convinced Tom Rob Smith included some of them on purpose!) like Jack's whittled horse and rider and Alex's hand made toy/fetish/model Ferris wheel--
--- Quote from: Aloysius J. Gleek on February 16, 2016, 06:59:47 pm ---Hammershøi by another name....
Although, of course, Jack--or rather, in this alternate universe, Ennis--didn't have a slew of post-graduate degrees like poor, murdered Alex.
As this is London Spy, Danny discovers that the first of Alex's two boyhood bedrooms is a 'fake', but the props--his diplomas (to 'Alistair Turner')
and his VERY precocious model of a Ferris wheel--are 'real'.)
--- End quote ---
Aloysius J. Gleek:
--- Quote from: southendmd on February 28, 2016, 02:27:24 am ---Wow, so much to think about. Don't know where to start.
Ben Whishaw and his helmet hair? I'll admit I disliked him in that awful Brideshead, and also as Keats. But here, he is something else again.
--- End quote ---
HA!!
--- Quote from: Aloysius J. Gleek on February 24, 2016, 08:22:48 am ---
I saw him more than 12 years ago in His Dark Materials at the National, which I loved--however, at the time I was not enamored of/with/by Mr Whishaw in his double (or triple?) role as Brother Jasper/a Witch/(a Daemon? a bear?)--love came late, I fear!
re that inauspicious beginning, I've just discovered this interesting note (in a very long interview with lots of lovely photos)--it seems he hated his witch as much as I did!
http://www.wonderlandmagazine.com/2013/05/flashback-friday-ben-whishaw/
FLASHBACK FRIDAY: BEN WHISHAW
MAY 16TH, 2013
In this interview from the archives, a pre-fame Ben Whishaw talks Keats, Jane Campion and his unexpectedly “humiliating” cameo as a witch in His Dark Materials.
This interview was first published in Wonderland Nov/Dec 2009.
When you came out of RADA, you played Hamlet straight off the bat. It’s the role that every actor wants to play at some point in their life and you’ve already crossed it off the list…
It was about eight months after I’d left college. I was doing a play at the National Theatre where I was playing a bear and a witch. And then I got Hamlet.
You were in His Dark Materials at the National!? Playing a bear?
[laughs] Yeah, I was a few parts. One of them was bear and one of them was a witch. There was a gaggle of witches, all played by women, and because they were a bit short on women in the cast and I was very skinny – and still am – they dragged me in to being a witch.
Did you enjoy it?
It was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life. I still can’t believe that I did it. There were several other guys who were dragged into being witches as well but they were too masculine-looking and were jettisoned. Whereas I was kept on for the entire run.
Poor Ben! :laugh:
--- End quote ---
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