Declan Cashin

Writing: the art of applying the ass to the seat

This is my job more or less summed up. Brilliant.

(Me gurning with beautiful man-child Taylor Lautner after an interview in LA last summer)

My TV feature on Coronation Street in today’s Irish Independent

Has Coronation Street become too gay? That might seem like a redundant question for a soap that has over the past 50 years proudly promoted female characters so camp and outrageous in style and behaviour that they make actual drag queens look like cloistered novitiates in comparison.

Think of Bet Lynch, Elsie Tanner, Rita Sullivan, Vera Duckworth, and Gail Potter-Tilsley-Platt-Hillman-McIntyre. And that’s before we even mention Liz McDonald or Leanne Battersby.

In such company, the Street’s few modern gay characters seem positively mundane. All of which makes a recent kerfuffle about an alleged “gay agenda” on Corrie all the sillier.

The fuss kicked off a few weeks ago when British art critic Brian Sewell wrote a much-quoted piece for – where else? – the ‘Daily Mail’, lambasting the north England soap for featuring so many gay, bisexual and transgender characters of late.

“Is it true that the lives of heterosexual Mancunians are haplessly intertwined with transvestites, transsexuals, teenage lesbians and a horde of homosexuals across the age range?” Sewell asked. “Is Manchester now the Sodom of the North?”

True, the rainbow is currently beaming brighter over Weatherfield than it ever has before. Teenager Sophie Webster is involved in a lesbian relationship with a schoolmate, while barman Sean Tully is in a relationship with another man, and the couple is seeking to have a child.

The most recent pink infusion into the show involves Audrey Roberts’ tentative relationship with a middle-aged transvestite.

All of this is what has Sewell, and I’m sure a few others, up in arms. In his article, Sewell blamed one of the show’s openly gay scriptwriters for commandeering the show with his own agenda – as if Britain’s longest-running soap could so easily be “led astray” by just one person.

Sewell – who, it should be pointed out, is something of a self-hating bisexual – also believed that gay characters are over-represented on the show. “Are soaps, watched by pre-pubescent children — who may still have some tattered remnant of innocence that we should cherish — really a proper platform for sexual propaganda and special pleading?” he agonised.

Funny, but Sewell doesn’t seem to have any problem with the children of these islands watching murder, rape, domestic violence, adultery, and criminal behaviour portrayed far more graphically and regularly on screen in a soap like Corrie. Once the children are not exposed to the nefarious evils of homosexuality, everything is dandy.

That point is crucial. This gay Corrie controversy blew up at the same time as much wider criticisms of the soap’s storylines emerged. For weeks now TV critics and fans have been taking to newspapers, blogs and social networking sites to knock boring, long-running storylines like that of killer John Stape.

These have been singled out as reasons for the show’s recent decline in the ratings. Even Corrie head honcho Phil Collinson has conceded that there is too much crime on the show, promising a re-orientation of the soap’s storylines over the coming months.

So it appears that it’s too simple to just lay the blame for Corrie’s woes at the feet of its gay characters. Contrary to what Sewell thinks, gay characters still make up a tiny percentage of this and just about every other show on television.

That being said, gay people have far more visibility and confidence in the real world today, so why shouldn’t a format as uniquely popular as soap operas in some way reflect that change? It seems incredible in 2011 to still have to make that argument.

Corrie, more than any other soap, has been especially slow to adapt to the changed social and cultural circumstances of gay people in Britain.

Even when it did fully approach the topic with the character of Todd Grimshaw in 2004, it was done in as sensational a manner as possible. However, to be fair, Corrie did break new ground with its sensitive introduction of soap’s first transsexual character, Hayley Patterson (now Cropper), in 1998.

Today, most regular TV viewers don’t blink twice when gay characters and storylines are introduced to their favourite shows, which, of course, is how it should be. By all means attack such plots for being boring, or badly written, or poorly performed, but not for their existing in the first place.

The bad news for people like Brian Sewell is that gay characters are not going anywhere.  Corrie seems determined to keep going with its pink-tinted storylines, while EastEnders has just announced that Phil Mitchell’s troublesome young son Ben will soon come out as gay.

It should be interesting to see how Walford’s most notorious hard man responds to such unexpected news. Maybe that’s why gay storylines are popular, because, from a writer’s point of view, exploring how people deal with, and react to gay people is still relatively new and ripe for exploration, unlike, say, someone cheating on a spouse or dealing with an unexpected pregnancy.

And you know the best part? If you don’t like it, there’s a very simple solution. Just don’t watch it. That’s still the most effective criticism of all.

Nifty poster – trailer looks good too.

Caught a screening of Friends With Benefits tonight, and I must say I was pleasantly surprised. Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis have terrific chemistry, the script is knowing and sharp, the pace is breezy (kudos to Easy A helmer Will Gluck), and the overall tone is just fun. Infinitely better than the wretched No Strings Attached that we got earlier this year, though that’s probably damning with faint praise. To top it off, it has Patricia Clarkson as a hippie mum, Richard Jenkins and Dharma from Dharma & Greg as JT’s family, Woody Harrelson as a raging homo, and cameos from Emma Stone and Andy Samberg. What’s not to love? FWB is out here in September.

Brilliant. View more here.

TV feature from Saturday’s Weekend magazine in the Irish Independent

It might still be summer, but ‘Weekend’ reckons it’s never too early to start looking ahead to the new shows that’ll be debuting on our screens in the autumn.

Of course, we don’t fully know yet what will make it over this side of the pond, or when exactly, but with the proliferation of digital TV and downloading/file-sharing, there’s a great chance that many or all of the following will come across your radar at some point:

*Terra Nova:
You’ll like this if you liked: Lost, Jurassic Park
What’s it about? No less a powerhouse – and fictional dinosaur expert – than Steven Spielberg is the brains behind this pre-historic action adventure series. Dubliner Jason O’Mara – in his second big US break after the axed remake of Life on Mars – stars as the head of a futuristic family that travels 85m years back in time from their doomed present in order to “colonise” the past and give a lifeline to the human race.
Potential? TV execs have spent the past two years desperately looking for the new Lost, the kind of “event television” that inspires obsessive fan devotion, and lucrative multi-season plot arcs. FlashForward, The Event, and V all flopped. With this pedigree, Terra Nova stands a good shot of making it.

*New Girl:
You’ll like this if you liked: Friends, How I Met Your Mother
What’s it about? Zooey Deschanel – star of the movies (500) Days of Summer and Your Highness – plays Jessica Day, a bubbly twentysomething who has just broken up with her model boyfriend. She moves in with three single guys, while her own gal pal Cece hangs around dispensing advice and engaging in sassy banter with all.
Potential? Clearly modelled on the deceptively simple ‘pals hanging out’ format pioneered by Friends, New Girl could go either way. Sitcoms like these need something to make them stand out, some kind of quirk or different point of view. Deschanel is certainly quirky. Let’s hope the show takes its cue from her.

*Happy Endings:
You’ll like this if you liked: Cougar Town, Friends
What’s it about? This comedy already aired for 12 episodes in the US as a mid-season replacement last spring. Like the aforementioned New Girl, this one is another ‘hanging out’ ensemble and stars 24 alumnus Elisha Cuthbert as a girl who dumps her fiancé at the altar. The show looks at the repercussions of this act on their close-knit posse of pals.
Potential? ‘Weekend’ has seen this first half-series and can say that after a shaky start, Happy Endings finds its feet to become a genuinely funny, warm and whip-smart ‘Generation Y’ comedy. Casey Wilson – supposedly sacked from Saturday Night Live for not being skinny enough – is the breakout star as the group’s resident single gal. The good news is that the show has been commissioned for a full second series, and E4 has snapped up the rights to air it here from September.

*Ringer:
You’ll like this if you liked: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Alias, Veronica Mars
What’s it about? Making her first return to the small screen since the stake was driven through the telly heart of Buffy in 2003, Sarah Michelle Geller plays rival twin sisters Bridget and Siobhan. When the former is wanted for murder, she hides out by taking over the life and identity of her sister who has mysteriously disappeared. Bridget soon discovers that there was a lot more to her supposedly mundane twin than meets the eye.
Potential? After the pilot episode was screened last month at the Critics Choice Television Awards, wags picked Ringers as one of the eight most exciting new series of the year. Geller has proven that she’s a pro at mixing action with sensitivity and wit. Here’s hoping she brings those skills to the table again.

*Person of Interest
You’ll like this if you liked: Lost, Alias
What’s it about? Michael Emerson – still best known for playing bug-eyed hero/villain Ben Linus on Lost – reunites with JJ Abrams for this crime thriller. Emerson plays Mr Finch, a mysterious billionaire who has developed technology that predicts future crimes. He hires a former CIA agent (Jim Caviezel, from The Passion of the Christ) to help him stop these crimes before they happen.
Potential? Heads at the CBS network in the US say that Person of Interest scored the highest test ratings of any dramatic pilot episode they’d shown in 15 years. Such is the level of anticipation that the network has even bumped the mighty CSI from its usual slot to make way for the newbie. Greatness is expected.

*Smash:
You’ll like this if you liked: Glee, The X Factor
What’s it about? Steven Spielberg – again – clearly wants to cash in on the success of Glee with his own spin on the pop-musical format. Smash will look at life behind Broadway, focusing on the creation of a musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe. Former Will & Grace star Debra Messing will play the woman hired to write the show while the imperious Angelica Huston is on board as a theatrical producer. British actor Jack Davenport (This Life) also stars.
Potential? You’d be forgiven for rolling your eyes in anticipation of a cheap knock-off, but says star Messing: “It’s different than Glee because it’s a drama and it’s naturalistic, so you really do see the behind the scenes.” Hmm.

*Pan Am
You’ll like this if you liked: Mad Men
What’s it about? Christina Ricci takes the lead in this 1960s-set drama set in the-then ultra-glam world of pilots and flight attendants on the since-closed Pan American airline.
Potential? There’s certainly a trend for nostalgic entertainment that winks at recent history, to which the huge success of Mad Men attests. The premise of this sounds saucy but slight; it remains to be seen if the characters and the action will be given the space to really take flight. It’s a fine retro line between Don Draper and Austin Powers.

*Prime Suspect:
You’ll like this if you liked: Erm, Prime Suspect, The Killing, every cop show ever made
What’s it about? The talented Maria Bello assumes the Jane Tennison role made famous by Helen Mirren in a US remake of the classic British show.
Potential? Why bother, you may ask? Fans have every right to be wary of a US translation of their beloved procedural. But American TV can get often get it right, given half a chance. Approach this on its own merit, and you might even end up liking it.

My TV feature on the return of Entourage in today’s Irish Independent

It’s time to hug it out for one last time. Showbiz-bromance comedy Entourage returns tonight for its eighth and final season, where over the course of just eight episodes fans will learn if pretty boy actor Vinny Chase and his coat-tail-riding buds get their ‘happy ever after’ endings.

Credit should go to Sky Atlantic for being so on the ball: this opening episode only aired last night on HBO in the US. Long-dubbed the blokes’ version of Sex and the City, Entourage is loosely based on executive-producer Mark Wahlberg‘s early years in Hollywood in the 1990s, when he and his ligging friends became (in)famous for their wild partying and womanising.

Continue here

My latest feature for movies.ie

t’s probably the understatement of the century to say that it hasn’t been the best couple of weeks for journalism, due to Messrs Murdoch, the News of the World, ‘Hackgate’, and Rebekah Brooks (how could you trust anyone with that complicated a spelling for her name anyway?)

So for the time being, as with most things in life, we’ll have to escape into the fantasy of movies to redeem the profession, and counterbalance the rotten revelations coming out on an almost hourly basis.

To that end, here are 10 movie hacks with whom you’d happily go off the record, share your byline, give your exclusive, bury your lead (okay, that’s enough of that, thank you very much – ed).

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My interview with jockey AP McCoy and his wife Chanelle ahead of next week’s Galway Races in today’s Irish Independent.

It will be a particularly triumphant homecoming when Loughrea native Chanelle McCoy arrives in Galway for this year’s races along with her husband, Antrim-born jockey AP McCoy, and their three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Eve.

Earlier this month the McCoys finally made it to Buckingham Palace to collect AP’s OBE from the queen, some seven months after the honour was first announced. And as Chanelle explains, the delay didn’t go unnoticed by Her Majesty.

Continue here.