The Morning Show, Fawlty Towers, and Coldwater

Hannah Fernando: 00:00:53

Foreign hello and welcome to Binge Watch, the podcast where we take a look at the hottest new TV and film releases on streaming television platforms. I'm Hannah Fernando, the group editor of Woman and Woman and Home magazine.

Ian MacEwan: 00:01:09

th September: 2020

Hannah Fernando: 00:01:36

And we'll also be joining Rob and Rylan on A passage to India on BBC iPlayer and tuning into a new season of Apple TV drama the Morning Show. But first, Ian, tell me what's in the news.

Ian MacEwan: 00:01:48

John Malkovich is joining the cast of Apple TV Florida set comic crime drama Bad Monkey, starring Vince Vaughan, for its second series. What else is in the news, Hannah?

Hannah Fernando: 00:02:03

Well, David Mitchell, Diane Morgan, Ramesh Ranganathan, Alan Kark, all the greats and reigning champion Bob Mortar. Even greater will be among the competitors when prime video comedy competition. Last one Laughing Returns. Oh, can't wait.

Ian MacEwan: 00:02:17

That is a pretty good lineup. Okay, this week we have, well, a stage production of a classic sitcom. We've got a new travelogue, we've got Thriller and a returning drama.

But we start on the streaming platform you with Fawlty Towers, the play, and here's a clip.

Hannah Fernando: 00:02:42

Basil?

Ian MacEwan: 00:02:42

Yes, dear?

Hannah Fernando: 00:02:43

Oh, no, you saw them. Basil?

Ian MacEwan: 00:02:47

Yes, dear?

Hannah Fernando: 00:02:48

Could you come and attend to a gentleman over here, dear? 19.

Ian MacEwan: 00:02:53

What, you mean over where you are, dear?

Hannah Fernando: 00:02:55

Well, the last one was only 22.

Ian MacEwan: 00:02:58

He was actually, I'm quite busy over here, dear. Are you very busy over there?

Hannah Fernando: 00:03:03

I'm on the telephone, Basil.

Ian MacEwan: 00:03:05

It's 50 years ago that the BBC aired the first episode of Fawlty Towers. Hannah. Yes, the sitcom co written by and starring John Cleese as irascible talkie hotelier Basil Falcy. Alongside Prunella Scales is his wife Sybil.

And Andrew Sachs, confused Spanish waiter Manuel. Well, it is.

And it's the reason you and Gold are showing the stage version, which John Cleese adapted it for the stage and he based it on three classic episodes.

So one, of course, the Germans don't mention the war, the hotel inspectors, which Bernard Cribbins memorably was in, and another one called Communication problems, which featured Mrs. Richards, the hard of hearing guest who didn't like using up the batteries on her hearing aid. So it's the original West End cast. Adam Jackson Smith plays Basil. Anna Jane Casey plays Sybil. Hemi Yerom is Manuel.

I mean, Fawlty Towers has repeatedly been voted the best ever British sitcom. And the scripts stand up so well. I mean, I sort of thought, do I really need to watch this?

Because I've seen those episodes countless times, you know, I'm sure most people have, but they still work. And it's brilliantly cast because I have to say, you think, well, who, you know, who can step into John Cleese's shoes, especially as Basil?

And Adam Jackson Smith does it superbly. Now, there's also a bit of a surprise. Paul Nicholas, of course, he was a bit of a heartthrob back in the day, wasn't he?

He was in a sitcom called Just Good Friends. He was also a pop star. He's done quite a lot of musical theater. Well, he's now playing the Major. Would you believe it?

He's one of the long term residents at Fawlty Towers, so. So, yeah, it's really well done. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's still so, so funny. It's just a.

It's just a classic farce, beautifully constructed and the way they've combined the episodes works very effectively. And there's also a little bit of a surprise right at the end, which I'm not going to spoil for you. Hannah, did you enjoy this?

Hannah Fernando: 00:05:39

Yes, I did, actually, and I didn't think I would because I, I don't.

I recognize how popular this was and I recognize that I am in the minority when I say this, but I didn't actually love it first time round, which it is. I know, I know. I'm the same with Blackadder. You know, my feelings about Blackadder, the same sort of thing for me. But I, I know, I know. I've said it.

I've. I've said it out loud now. I've can't. There's no going back. However, I can see that I am in the minority and I can see the brilliance of it.

It just doesn't tickle me in qu. The same way as it might someone else. But it's quite a brave thing to do, I think.

Something like this and trying to step into the shoes of John Cleese is pretty tricky too. I met him the other day, actually.

Ian MacEwan: 00:06:29

Was he very angry?

Hannah Fernando: 00:06:31

It wasn't particularly angry, but he was, he says what he thinks. He's relatively direct and I, I don't know, I, I think that if you like Fawlty Towers, you're going to like this.

But I do think they were brave to do it, but they've done it incredibly well. Very true to what it originally was. And if you liked it first time around, you'll certainly like, like what they've done here.

Ian MacEwan: 00:06:55

Yeah. And of course, Eric Idle did spam a lot, didn't he, based on sort of elements of the Holy Grail.

And now Cleese is working on a stage version of Life Of Brian. So, yeah.

Now, next up, we're moving across to Apple TV plus for the fourth season of the drama that, well, effectively launched that streaming platform. It's the morning show, and here's a clip.

Hannah Fernando: 00:07:24

I'm a firm believer in second chances. Maybe this is an opportunity to make it right. This is a reset, a different company, a different culture. We promised real change. Yes.

Now, I'm a bit of a fan of Jennifer Aniston and I wasn't quite sure when I first watched this. As I say, this is season four, isn't it? I wasn't quite sure how I'd. How I'd find it, really, because she sort of.

She's known for her role as Rachel in Friends, isn't she? She's done various other things, but always she's kind of stereotyped. But in this, she is quite. She's really quite different.

And I think that the proof is in the pudding, the fact that it has been commissioned again. We've got Reese Witherspoon as well, who's brilliant, and we saw her in.

In the last series, sort of walking away from it all after admitting some wrongdoings and kind of leaving the industry. And we're back with a bang with this one. Really, it's. It's really moved on.

If you watch season one and have watched them all, they've really kind of, I think, massively moved on. Now, it's all relatively incredible in places. It's, you know, not exactly very likely, some of the stuff.

But this particular season, from what I've seen of it so far, is really quite dramatic. It's quite punchy. There's so many duplicitous people in one room and these, they've gone into sort of new technology.

They've looked at deep fake videos of certain people that could threaten their career. There's the love lives of different people all intertwined with each other. It's a ruthless new board.

And in some ways, I like the fact that it's mirroring, to a degree, albeit some of these storylines, as I say aren't very credible and are a bit sort of over the top. I love the fact that it kind of mirrors real life because we're seeing, aren't we, in real time daytime TV merging to a degree, merging shows.

We're seeing that with ITV at the moment. And this is NBN coming together with UBA to form ubn. So by doing that, you've got new people.

Some people will get bigger seats at the throne, other people will get lost along the way. So already you've got a lot of kind of angst and ego ready to fight. And you really, I think you really feel it actually in there.

You can really see it.

The bit that I think is really interesting and we talk about this a lot, probably because I work in the women's lifestyle portfolio, but we talk about women lifting each other up, you know, the idea of empowering other women. And it's actually not always that common. Women sort of tend to pit against each other, particularly in the workplace, I think, which is really sad.

And you really see it here. My goodness, do you see it here? The storyline often are better than what the news that they're pumping out.

Frankly, you'd rather see the scandal on the shop floor than you would what they're actually showing.

And I, I've really enjoyed what I've seen so far and I, and I really did think this might be a bit of a one trick pony when I saw it first time around season one, then it went, season two season, I thought, hang on a minute, is this kind of. Have we had enough here?

But I think they've done a really good job of moving with the times, as I say, dealing with AI, which is a really big thing in the industry. And those deep fake video that kind of threaten to ruin Alex's career. It's. Yeah, if you liked the rest of them, you're going to like this.

Ian, what did you think?

Ian MacEwan: 00:11:14

Yes, high quality, isn't it? 10 episodes, but they're released weekly so you can't binge your way through it.

But I haven't followed it all the way through the first three seasons, but yeah, I picked up the gist pretty quickly. And yeah, as you say, I mean, what a cast. Aniston with a spoon. You've got John Hamm, you've got Marion Cotillard and my favorite, Billy Crudup.

So, yeah, it's got, I mean, I think to some extent, I think if you work in the media, you're kind of less likely to want to watch series about the media. So it's not necessarily the sort of thing I would be drawn to seeing as I sort of work connected to TV shows. But it's really well done and they got.

Yeah, it starts off with some good storylines. So there's, and that if these, the Olympics are coming up and Aniston's character is going to be working as a sort of anchor.

Oh, there's also a storyline about, about AI taking all our jobs, which we certainly need to be aware of. Hannah. Yeah, but.

So she's interviewing a fencer who is coming to the Olympics, but actually secretly her father slips, slips Alex a note saying we want to defect. So there's that storyline. John Hamm will be back as Alex's ex lover, a billionaire, Paul Marx. Reese Witherspoon, the ex presenter.

So she starts getting these messages about a cover up. Okay. And she's going to go back to work on the morning show. But yeah, she's going to be sort of. Is she going to be working on this new story?

Who knows? And meanwhile, crops character Corey, who was the CEO, I really like him. And he is failing to make it in Hollywood, which is quite amusing.

So yeah, it's, it's, it's quality tv. This is very, I mean the script is great.

So there's a very amusing moment where Crud up wanted to do some filming outside and he looks out the window and there's all this sort of orange smoke because of the climate conditions and he says, don't tell me they elected Trump as Pope. So it's just, it's very witty, it's very well written, is well performed. So yeah. Welcome back.

Next up, a new ITVX thriller starring Andrew Lincoln and an Indian odyssey for Robin Rylan on Iplayer. Right after this, over on ITVX we have a new drama called Cold Water and here's a clip. John, when did you come here to Scarlet?

We decided it was time for a change.

Hannah Fernando: 00:14:16

The neighbors have invited us over for dinner. Big smiles. We're a normal family and we're delighted to see them.

Ian MacEwan: 00:14:23

I like Tommy.

Hannah Fernando: 00:14:25

He makes my skin crawl.

Ian MacEwan: 00:14:27

So you may well have caught the first two EPPs of this this week. Good to see Andrew Lincoln back, isn't it?

He's not been on British TV for quite some time since he went off to play Rick Grimes in the never ending zombie drama the Walking Dead over in America. But to me he'll always be egg in this life, which was the show that broke him about some young barristers sharing a house.

Anyway, so, yeah, he plays John, who is a husband and father is a six parter by the way. And you can, you can get it all on icvx and it start.

He lives in London and there's this sort of altercation in the playground with a rather violent parent which he basically walks away from or runs away from. So this is, this is a traumatic event for him.

And as a result of that we gather he, his wife Fiona, played by the wonderful Indira Varma, move to the Scottish town of Coldwater. So they're kind of, they're looking for a fresh start. Yeah, there's trouble in the marriage.

Anyway, they get invited to dinner by their new neighbors and Tommy is played by Ewan Bremner, who I guess he's best known for train spotting really, isn't he? And he is wonderfully creepy in this. So Tommy's wife Rebecca is played by Eve Miles. She's the local preacher.

But she seems like quite a, sort of quite a character and quite a free spirit. So she seems fairly approachable.

Tommy is quite weird and like on the evening that they go around for dinner he managed to just to get John to pray with him, which is like alarm bells, red flag. Anyway, so I'm not going to spoil the surprises.

But yeah, there's going to be an incident and that's going to kind of bind Tommy and John together, which might be something that John lives to regret. I'll say that it's been described in fact by Eve Miles as a Scottish version of Twin Peaks or Fargo. I don't think I'd agree with that.

But I really enjoyed it. I especially enjoyed Ewan Bremner. He is just fantastic in this. And yeah, it's a good creepy thriller.

There was a plot point where I thought, which is a very vital plot point where I thought, I don't believe he would have made that decision. I'll let you know. Realize what that is for yourselves. But yeah, I thought it was great fun. I love this sort of thing. It's terrific.

And yeah, looking forward to seeing John getting deeper and deeper into trouble. What did you think, Hannah?

Hannah Fernando: 00:17:34

Zombie dramas is what we've obviously known Andrew Lincoln for previously and it's so great to see Andrew Lincoln back, isn't it? As you say? I mean, I really enjoy everything pretty much. He's been in and that says a lot for a zombie drama because you know how I feel about them.

But, but this is a really different character and it's, it's really, it's really different is what I would say. I thought it was really different. It's it's dark, it's quite mysterious and it's a different sort of approach to a bloke, I suppose.

You know, he's quite a kind of a repressed guy and quite sort of sad and lonely and you see, you sort of see a different sight. And we're so often not exposed to that, I think.

And I think that's a really interesting take on somebody, actually, because we, we don't usually see that. We see the men playing the, you know, the big guy, don't we, and the strong guy and all the rest of it.

So I think this is a bit different and probably makes Andrew Lincoln dig quite deep. So for me it was just something that. That bit different and really nice to see him back on, back on his. On. On our screens, really.

I, I definitely will stick with this though. I think it's something that a lot of people will enjoy. But I go back to the same thing that I always say. You need to sit down and watch this.

You can't do something else at the same time. I think this is quite. It's pretty captivating.

Ian MacEwan: 00:19:00

We're going to finish on BBC iPlayer with a new travelogue called Robin Ryland's Passage to India. And here's a clip.

Hannah Fernando: 00:19:09

It's so romantic.

Ian MacEwan: 00:19:11

I feel like I want to propose. Don't.

Hannah Fernando: 00:19:13

Okay. We're in India. It's India. It's land of excess.

Ian MacEwan: 00:19:19

Wow, look at this detail.

Hannah Fernando: 00:19:21

Ola. Rome.

Ian MacEwan: 00:19:22

Come on, come on. There was definitely a little bit of.

Hannah Fernando: 00:19:25

Underlying sexual tension between us. Maybe one side.

Ian MacEwan: 00:19:28

You come getting down there with COVID.

Hannah Fernando: 00:19:32

Well, of course, we've seen these two before, haven't we? Before with their grand. Grand tour. And, and actually the beauty of this is their relationship because they are great friends.

In fact, there were many a headline of the idea that the two of them even being together, which of course is absolutely not true because Rylan has embarked on a lovely new relationship and is incredibly happy. But I digress. I think the chemistry between these two is absolutely fantastic and 100% makes this and also the fact of how different they are.

So for one, you're taking Rylan completely out of his comfort zone. He has never, ever been to India before.

And then you've got Rob Rinder who has traveled to India before, who is slightly wider traveled person and is completely interested in absolutely everything and taking Rylan along for journey. So Rylan is. I mean, what you see is what you get with Rylan. He's so incredibly honest about his. His feelings and his worries and his concerns.

And I was reading an interview and he was saying he was worried about getting deli belly and he was worried it was going to be too hot, and he had all these concerns and then he got there and got bitten by a mosquito and it sort of went up like a huge golf ball. So that this is that following them and seeing them do various different things, including puppetry. They do a rap performance.

Yeah, that actually happens. And not.

Not so unusual for, say, Rylan, who of course made his entrance to the celebrity world via a reality singing show, but probably a bit different for Rob Rinder. They spe speak to and deal with a billionaire art collector. It's really cultured, but in a way that's very obtainable, I think.

And I think that's what's really important with this, is that we all love travel shows, we all love seeing different places, we all love seeing places that we might want to go to. But, yes, it's usually done well, actually. No, to be fair, like, the Joanna Lumley ones are absolutely amazing.

They're brilliant, but sometimes they feel that little bit unobtainable. And they also aren't necessarily particularly honest with some of the fears that some people have by going further afield.

And Ryan absolutely gets that and he deals with that and he makes it very, very real. Very sort of boy next door, girl next door vibes.

And their chemistry, as I say, is what makes this absolutely work, apart from the fact that you get a beautiful backdrop and learn those two. And I now want to go and visit India. What do you think, Ian?

Ian MacEwan: 00:22:10

Well, as you know, previously, Rylan and Rob have both been kind of TV kryptonite for me. I have not been a fan, but I'm a complete convert. I must say, having watched episode one of this, I thought it was terrific.

And, yeah, as you say, the chemistry is great. And I mean, they're two. Two guys who came from quite humble backgrounds.

Although Rob sounds very posh and is very cultured, he had quite a tough start in life, as did Rylan. And, yeah, so they bring very different things, but there's clearly a lot of. A lot of affection between them. And it's.

It's a bit of a different take on India because usually they're like plonking people in front of the Taj Mahal and that kind of thing, aren't they? But they do some interesting things, as you say, they. They go inside a sort of billionaire's house, which is just full of artworks, and.

And they do some rapping on the street with this guy. A musician who. He's in the lowest cast in India. And so they learn a bit about the caste system.

And I've got to say, they're pretty, pretty good at the rapping. So, yeah, all the episodes are on iplayer, but yeah, it's, it, it's, it's interesting. It, it's very varied.

I mean, this, yeah, as you say, this community of puppeteers that they go and, and put on a show with it. I think a lot of it is stuff you will not have seen before.

But I mean, even though there have been countless travelogues about India and like, you having watched this, I thought I really want to go actually, you know. So, yeah, I. A total convert to Robin Rylan. Great job, guys.

Now we've got to that time, young Hannah, my lad, where we find out what the hell you've been binge watching.

Hannah Fernando: 00:24:18

Well, I continued to watch, we reviewed it last week, the Freddie Flintoff Field of Dreams and I continued to watch it with the Famalam and I really, I've just really. Do you know what? I really enjoy it, really.

I particularly love the, the girls in that group who are just so angsty and bass act the whole time and get really grumpy. He just doesn't rise to it at all, does he?

Just sort of seems to wash over him because they're all hating on each other and they're not going to build a raft and I hate that they're just gonna go. And so it's just, I don't know, all the equilibrium is kind of restored by the end. But it's really good fun. I really enjoyed it.

Ian MacEwan: 00:24:58

Well, Taskmaster is back, of course, with one of my favorites, Reese Shearsmith. So, been watching that, but I found an absolute nugget for you on Netflix, Hannah.

A new series called AKA Charlie Sheen, in which the great man himself talks about his rather eventful life career. And I think unapologetic is is the word I would use to describe his contribution.

But yes, it's, it's, it's gripping stuff that you've got to watch it. And yeah, it's got. His ex wife Denise Richards is in it and she's telling it like it is.

Well, we've just got time to look ahead to next week's offering. So what's on the binge watch menu, Hannah?

Hannah Fernando: 00:25:49

Well, Mae Martin and Toni Collette star in Wayward, which is a Netflix thriller about a Vermont school for troubled teens.

Ian MacEwan: 00:25:56

And David Tennant and Toby Jones headline in a new ITVX drama about the news of the world phone hacking scandal. Yes. So we look forward to those and much, much more. But in the meantime, dear listeners.

Hannah Fernando: 00:26:14

Watching.