HBO

Starting this Wednesday 24th on Sky Comedy or NOW TV is The Rehearsal, a genuine one-off which is pretty much the best and most original thing I’ve seen on TV for years – my wife and I haven’t talked about a programme this much since Twin Peaks: The Return (not that they’re similar, except in a “holy cow, what on Earth did I just watch?” kind of way…) and I can’t recommend it enough.

I hadn’t heard of Nathan Fielder before this, but he’s a dead-dead-deadpan Canadian comedian whose previous claim to fame was Comedy Central’s “Nathan For You”, a reality show where he’d advise small businesses on how to be more successful, occasionally with surprisingly successful results… in The Rehearsal, he offers to help people rehearse (in quite ludicrous detail on HBO’s dime) crucial moments in their lives, with the intention of getting the best possible result, but after that I struggle to describe how things proceed…

Episode 1 is quite self-contained, but episode 2 starts a longer arc, and isn’t quite as immediate, but it perfectly sets up 4 amazing episodes of ever-escalating rollercoaster TV which turns itself inside-out and back-to-front, defying its classification as “cringe comedy” at » Continue Reading.

Slightly belatedly just getting to the end of Treme, with it’s 4th season.

For anyone not familiar it is a drama by The Wire team about a disparate group of characters trying to put their lives together in post-Katrina New Orleans. Haven’t seen it discussed too much here but there is much to recommend it.

1. The music – I never seen a drama that included so much music – possibly a third of each show includes live New Orleans bands, and it is often in the background of other scenes. I have discovered quite a lot through the show and ther are also accompanying cds, plus websites where they namececk every song in each episode – it’s a real treasure trove.

2. The setting – different, contemporary and familiar but somehow slightly exotic

3. The subject – it’s not crime, fantasy etc but about the real drama in these peoples lives across the social spectrum. It can be a bit slow and a bit preachy but the writing and the tunes pulls it through.

4. The characters – well drawn and believable (ish, once again occassionally “really??”)

5. The acting – strong across the board (apart from DJ » Continue Reading.

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