Rachel Brosnahan superb as Mrs Maisel in standup |
The theme is a Jewish New York woman who finds herself moving into standup comedy. Surrounded by two deeply contrasting families, her own and her husband’s, both distinctly Jewish but in radically different ways, she has to negotiate a way through obstacles not all of which – by any means – are of her own creation. Many of the dramas of her personal life become the raw material for her comedy sets, of which there is at least one in every episode; in fact, however, much of the dialogue in the general story is worthy of standup – even the first episode includes a quarrel with her husband in which many of her replies to him are more than worthy of a comedian.
It’s hard to pick out any one actor in this pageant of outstanding performances. The main character, Miriam ‘Midge’ Maisel is superbly played by Rachel Brosnahan, well supported by Alex Borstein in the extraordinary and highly original role of her eventual friend and manager Susie. Among the other characters, one of my favourites was Kevin Pollak as Midge’s father-in-law. But there are plenty of other excellent performances.
Two other good series, both from Netflix (the second originally by the Discovery Channel), both deal with forensic psychology, but from different standpoints.
Holt McCallany (left) and Jonathan Groff in Mindhunter |
The relationship between the two agents central to the story, well played by Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany, provides the action with a compelling and effective driving force.
The second of these series is Manhunt: Unabomber. This is based on historical events, in that it shows the real hunt for the real Unabomber – Ted Kaczynski whose trail of bombs between 1978 and 1995 left 3 dead and 23 injured. However, even here there is a high measure of fiction: the real person behind the central character, the FBI profiler whose approach enabled the perpetrator to be identified, Jim ‘Fitz’ Fitzgerald, played by Sam Worthington, has pointed out that the his role in the series has characteristics of several other people in what is, in effect, a composite.
I also found that the negative and obstructive attitude of Fitz’s bosses, while it effectively reinforces the drama, is probably exaggerated. Still, a series needs drama, and this one certainly has it. It also has, in Paul Bettany as Kaczynski, an extraordinary performance in a complex role.
The central theme particularly appealed to me, fascinated as I am by language: the use of forensic linguistics, the study of patterns in speech or writing to identify the perpetrator in this case.
Paul Bettany is outstanding as the Unabomber |
Vanessa Kirby and Matthew Goode in season 2 of The Crown |
Funnily enough, although I never did much about it, I’ve been interested in MacMillan since the early eighties. My boss at the time had previously worked for the MacMillan publishing house. He told me that the old man, who always looked extremely frail, would occasionally drop by to visit staff. Their fear was that the former Prime Minister might keel over in their office, so they would pray for him to move on to someone else before they had the embarrassment of having him die at their feet.
Vicky (Victor Weisz) gave us SuperMace |
Though I’m even more grateful to it for providing outstanding entertainment, along with Mindhunter, Manhunt: Unabomber and, above all the others, The Marvellous Mrs Maisel.
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