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Reviews11
siobhan-rouse's rating
I saw this a few years ago on BBC4 (apparently only the second time it has been broadcast in the UK) and was very impressed. Dennis Potter wrote this at about the same time as "Brimstone and Treacle", but this has a much clearer structure and a more obvious point than "Brimstone".
Just about all Potter's plays were versions of incidents in his own life, this one even more than most. And, amusingly, the film makes it perfectly clear that we (the viewers) are supposed to draw some conclusions from this. (I especially like the scene when the actress telephones a friend to say "This writer gives me the creeps, I think he's going off his head".) For all his faults, Potter was very self-aware, even though he liked to play games with viewers and interviewers.
Unlike most of Potter's plays, "Double Dare" ends with a clear message - that the male writer's fantasies about women could have appalling consequences if they spilt over into the real world. However, I like even more Kika Markham's suggestion of an extension to that scene: the woman could get up from the bed and say "Wait a minute - you can't do that to me !" This film could very well be remade today - I wish someone would.
Just about all Potter's plays were versions of incidents in his own life, this one even more than most. And, amusingly, the film makes it perfectly clear that we (the viewers) are supposed to draw some conclusions from this. (I especially like the scene when the actress telephones a friend to say "This writer gives me the creeps, I think he's going off his head".) For all his faults, Potter was very self-aware, even though he liked to play games with viewers and interviewers.
Unlike most of Potter's plays, "Double Dare" ends with a clear message - that the male writer's fantasies about women could have appalling consequences if they spilt over into the real world. However, I like even more Kika Markham's suggestion of an extension to that scene: the woman could get up from the bed and say "Wait a minute - you can't do that to me !" This film could very well be remade today - I wish someone would.
The previous long-winded review completely misses the point about this series.
Andrea Newman first wrote this story as a novel in the early Seventies, and she has written many other novels and TV series on the same theme - that of the "generation gap" being manipulated by sexually active teenagers. The author is not writing from a "male" or "conservative" point of view, she has simply observed a lot of families and individuals under stress and accurately described a lot of the social neuroses of the Seventies,
(As a matter of fact, I heard Andrea Newman on the radio a few years ago saying that she also wanted to mirror the classic Greek plays such as Oedipus, which would explain some of the more lurid activities in her stories - men jumping into bed with their mothers-in-law, etc.) Certainly the sexual content (without actual nudity) in this series went well beyond anything seen on British TV before this point, but the sex scenes are realistic, not absurd fantasies. Maybe this is why the series made such a huge impact on the viewers. To even hint at incestuous feelings makes most viewers feel uncomfortable, and this had never been implied on TV before (and, come to think of it, few 21st century dramas would dare do this now).
I was very impressed by the acting in this series; this was made back in the days when most TV drama resembled stage plays performed in front of video cameras, and most of the cast are very skilled theatre actors. An exception is James Aubrey, whose "American" accent is hopeless - shouldn't the director have told him not to bother?
The overall message of the series - or at least the message that I perceived - seems to be that sex makes everyone unhappy. Which is rather surprising for the Seventies, but then good writers are people who don't just copy their contemporaries, but have the guts to say what they really think.
Andrea Newman first wrote this story as a novel in the early Seventies, and she has written many other novels and TV series on the same theme - that of the "generation gap" being manipulated by sexually active teenagers. The author is not writing from a "male" or "conservative" point of view, she has simply observed a lot of families and individuals under stress and accurately described a lot of the social neuroses of the Seventies,
(As a matter of fact, I heard Andrea Newman on the radio a few years ago saying that she also wanted to mirror the classic Greek plays such as Oedipus, which would explain some of the more lurid activities in her stories - men jumping into bed with their mothers-in-law, etc.) Certainly the sexual content (without actual nudity) in this series went well beyond anything seen on British TV before this point, but the sex scenes are realistic, not absurd fantasies. Maybe this is why the series made such a huge impact on the viewers. To even hint at incestuous feelings makes most viewers feel uncomfortable, and this had never been implied on TV before (and, come to think of it, few 21st century dramas would dare do this now).
I was very impressed by the acting in this series; this was made back in the days when most TV drama resembled stage plays performed in front of video cameras, and most of the cast are very skilled theatre actors. An exception is James Aubrey, whose "American" accent is hopeless - shouldn't the director have told him not to bother?
The overall message of the series - or at least the message that I perceived - seems to be that sex makes everyone unhappy. Which is rather surprising for the Seventies, but then good writers are people who don't just copy their contemporaries, but have the guts to say what they really think.
I remember a BBC series back in the Seventies called "Warship", and despite being made on a low budget and suffering from some theatrical over-acting, the stories were pretty gripping. You really got a sense of what serving on board a warship must be like.
So when I tuned in for "Making Waves" I was hoping for similar excitement - but what a disappointment. The first problem was that I could hardly understand what the characters were saying. Most of them had very strong geordie, scots or scouse accents, and while this may well be true-to-life it didn't aid communication with anyone not born in those parts. Added to this was a lot of music thumping away while people were talking. And if you can't understand what characters are saying, how can you care what happens to them? I got the distinct impression that the first episode was in fact two episodes that had been knitted together, so frantic and ill-explained was the action. I simply couldn't follow what the characters were doing or why, or why anything happened.
The series was performing so poorly for ITV that it was yanked after three episodes.
So when I tuned in for "Making Waves" I was hoping for similar excitement - but what a disappointment. The first problem was that I could hardly understand what the characters were saying. Most of them had very strong geordie, scots or scouse accents, and while this may well be true-to-life it didn't aid communication with anyone not born in those parts. Added to this was a lot of music thumping away while people were talking. And if you can't understand what characters are saying, how can you care what happens to them? I got the distinct impression that the first episode was in fact two episodes that had been knitted together, so frantic and ill-explained was the action. I simply couldn't follow what the characters were doing or why, or why anything happened.
The series was performing so poorly for ITV that it was yanked after three episodes.