WalfordE20 is one of the best posters on Walford Web Kindergarten. I'm surprised John the Headmaster allows him to stay.
John's a pretty fascist sort of fellow. He's banned my name entirely on Walford Web kindergarten - how's that for tolerance and freedom of speech? You'd think JohnBoy would be more understanding and tolerant, himself - but nooooooooooooOOOOOOOOO.
He's a bit of a little dictator, our John ...
Anyway, WalfordE20 started a pretty good discussion, wondering why so many of the recent young male characters appearing on the programme were epic failures.
General consensus answer: That the recent Powers That Be are desperate to find the next Dennis or the next Sean - relatively pretty young men who could actually act - and at the same time, they are pandering to what is basically the lowest common denominator of viewer- the shallowest of teens, who don't give credence to anyone unless they are earth-shatteringly beautiful. Ergo, actors are now hired for their looks, irregardless of any acting talent or experience. More than that, characters are created with only their looks in mind, and no conceiveable character arc.
Tyler and Anthony Moon were introduced and parrotted as the latest set of bruvs, but we never really established who they were. Anthony was supposed to be the clever one, the one admired by Tyler - yet he never shook off the deer-in-the-headlights look and ended up being a dolt, with the movements of Felix the Cat in the early cartoons.
First of all, Leslie Grantham had been hired and had actually filmed scenes as Pete Beale, when Julia Smith and Tony Holland were struck by the chemistry he exuded, and they wanted him more to the forefront of the soap. Anita Dobson, late of The National Theatre and a real EastEnder, showed the ability to play a flashy, overt type of character - it had nothing to do with looks.
*Betty* later identifies Wendy Richard as being not one of the strongest characters in the show. When Richard was cast, she was in her forties, and a national icon from her days as Walker's girlfriend in Dad's Army and Miss Brahms in Are You Being Served?. These roles weren't glamorous as much as they depicted air-headed young Cockney girls of the time, precursors (with less bling) to TOWIE. Gillian Taylforth tested best with Peter Deane, which meant calculations were done to make Kathy Beale's character as young as was legally possible to make her Pete's wife. The character Kathy is only three years older than Gillian Taylforth in real life - unlike Kacey Ainsworth's character, Little Mo, who was ten years younger than Ainsworth and four years older than Jessie Wallace, who played her older sister.
Looks are important, and there are very famous actors who are as talented as they are beautiful, but I don't see George Clooney or Michelle Pfeiffer on EastEnders, do you? Instead, I see Scott Maslen's impression of a human tree, Jacqueline Jossa gurning and Tony Discipline's smell-the-fart acting technique.
Thankfully, WalfordE20 has enough nous to put widdle *Betty* on the Naughty Step where he belongs:-
Word up ... and something special for widdle *Betty* ...
John's a pretty fascist sort of fellow. He's banned my name entirely on Walford Web kindergarten - how's that for tolerance and freedom of speech? You'd think JohnBoy would be more understanding and tolerant, himself - but nooooooooooooOOOOOOOOO.
He's a bit of a little dictator, our John ...
Anyway, WalfordE20 started a pretty good discussion, wondering why so many of the recent young male characters appearing on the programme were epic failures.
General consensus answer: That the recent Powers That Be are desperate to find the next Dennis or the next Sean - relatively pretty young men who could actually act - and at the same time, they are pandering to what is basically the lowest common denominator of viewer- the shallowest of teens, who don't give credence to anyone unless they are earth-shatteringly beautiful. Ergo, actors are now hired for their looks, irregardless of any acting talent or experience. More than that, characters are created with only their looks in mind, and no conceiveable character arc.
Tyler and Anthony Moon were introduced and parrotted as the latest set of bruvs, but we never really established who they were. Anthony was supposed to be the clever one, the one admired by Tyler - yet he never shook off the deer-in-the-headlights look and ended up being a dolt, with the movements of Felix the Cat in the early cartoons.
Impressions of Anthony Moon
Tyler was supposed to be a smooth ladies man, then he had a foul temper, then he was in love with Whitney, then he wasn't. No one knew. Derek even beat him up.
Several people say EastEnders is trying to recapture Dennis and/or Sean. Sean was an amalgamation of Dennis and Grant. Sean's and Grant's backstories were virtually identical. Both smacked the shit out of their daddies and then ran off to join the army. Both were psychos. But EastEnders has also been trying to resurrect another Jamie Mitchell, and more times than not, that's failed. I'm pretty certain that Jay and Abi are this generation's Jamie and Sonia.
But usually, whenever EastEnders goes looking for testosterone, they fail. (Ferreiras, anyone?)
Quite often, their male ingenue successes just happen. Jack Ryder provided incipient sexuality for teenagers, and older women wanted to mother him. Charlie Clements was a loveable geek. Charlie G Hawkins was a later version of Sid Owen's adolescent Everyman - the ordinary guy (Ricky, Darren) who got the beautiful girl (Sam, Bianca, Jodie).
Nigel Harman and Robert Kasinski were strokes of luck. People remark on Harman's success since leaving EastEnders, where he was never the strongest of actors; he returned to musical comedy, for which he was trained, as was Neil McDermott. Harman's character was likeable, through sympathetic writing; McDermott's less so because the writing had deteriorated.
At the moment, we've got shot of Anthony Moon (pronounced Annannee), but we've inherited Joey Branning, played by David Witts, who's achieved the singular result of actually making Tony Discipline look good. And why shouldn't Discipline look good when compared with Witts?
Both have smidgeons of actors' training, no actual acting experience prior to EastEnders, and came to the show by way of modeling underwear for catalogues; but by virtue of the fact that Discipline has been on the show for over a year now, he has, whichever way you look at it, got more experience than Witts.
Both men's diction is atrocious, but Witts's is particularly bad. He's said he's learning from Jamie Foreman, so that means doing very bad impersonations of what he perceived Foreman to have been like in his twenties. Joey was hired for eye candy. When he was first linked with yet another pretty face who came to EastEnders by way of modeling with no acting experience, Hetti Bywater, Joey and Lucy were touted by the PR Department as being the next power couple - the next (seriously, they said this) Sharon and Grant.
But, as weak Executive Producers from Berridge onward, have forever courted and pandered to the teenaged market, someone noticed a soupcon of chemistry between David Headupass Witts and Jacqueline I-Love-Myself-So-Much Jossa,. so now after kissing Shona McGarty in a chemistry test, he's moved onto Jossa.
The fact that both characters are eminently unlikeable makes no difference to TPTB. They're Brannings and Brannings are supposed to be cool - even if one is unintelligible and the other gurns and shouts her lines.
EastEnders has come to this. I fucking ask you.
Into this mire, wades sweet *Betty*, who's probably at uni as I speak dazzling his professors with how narrow his mind is, who pronounces sanctimoniously the following (in response to an observation by WalfordE20:-
This is a bit of a simple way of looking at it. But I think it's wrong to criticize for this reason alone.Boy, is he wrong.
When originally casting the show, they doubted Wendy in the role of Pauline Fowler as she was supposed to be glamorous. Gillian Taylforth almost lost out on the role of Kathy because she looked to young for the role. And the actress who played Angie was recasted at last minute because she didn't have a look.
So if a character was to arrive in the show as some strapping hunk, and was actually as ugly as sin and getting all the girls and playing them off against one another would you really believe? So sometimes looks are important to a role, which means the problem actually lies with the characteristics and writing rather than who they are hiring.
Looks are a hell of a lot to do with casting. Do you think Leslie Grantham would have got the role of Den if he didn't have some sort of good looks and sex appeal about him?
First of all, Leslie Grantham had been hired and had actually filmed scenes as Pete Beale, when Julia Smith and Tony Holland were struck by the chemistry he exuded, and they wanted him more to the forefront of the soap. Anita Dobson, late of The National Theatre and a real EastEnder, showed the ability to play a flashy, overt type of character - it had nothing to do with looks.
*Betty* later identifies Wendy Richard as being not one of the strongest characters in the show. When Richard was cast, she was in her forties, and a national icon from her days as Walker's girlfriend in Dad's Army and Miss Brahms in Are You Being Served?. These roles weren't glamorous as much as they depicted air-headed young Cockney girls of the time, precursors (with less bling) to TOWIE. Gillian Taylforth tested best with Peter Deane, which meant calculations were done to make Kathy Beale's character as young as was legally possible to make her Pete's wife. The character Kathy is only three years older than Gillian Taylforth in real life - unlike Kacey Ainsworth's character, Little Mo, who was ten years younger than Ainsworth and four years older than Jessie Wallace, who played her older sister.
Looks are important, and there are very famous actors who are as talented as they are beautiful, but I don't see George Clooney or Michelle Pfeiffer on EastEnders, do you? Instead, I see Scott Maslen's impression of a human tree, Jacqueline Jossa gurning and Tony Discipline's smell-the-fart acting technique.
Thankfully, WalfordE20 has enough nous to put widdle *Betty* on the Naughty Step where he belongs:-
But hiring for looks alone when it's clear someone cannot act is where the problem lies. There's nothing wrong with actors having good looks and sex appeal, but if they cannot work with the most basic material then they should not be hired.
Word up ... and something special for widdle *Betty* ...
Update: Our widdle wad tried to clarify his position and only succeeded in tying himself further into knots, wittering on about how good-looking actors have to learn to play the camera to their advantage. Last word on the subject goes to Nebraska, for one of the best and most polite smackdowns I've read:-
Re the bold, this nails it. The bottom line is that EastEnders has got itself into a bad habit, mostly via Bryan Kirkwood's obsession with Hollyoaks-style beauty, of hiring young, inexperienced actors entirely on the basis of their looks, with no emphasis on talent. Previously, most of the young talent came via Italia Conti of Anna Sher, and they came, via these schools, with portfolios and curriculum vitae. Acting experience. They may have started out guest-stinting on established television shows. The Tullys and Cartys of this world came via Grange Hill. The Disciplines and Witts of this world come from catalogue modelling; the Jossas come from after-school drama workshops.
It shows. We have gurners and mouth-breathers so bad that one would be forgiven for thinking they have speech impediments or that they're deaf, the way they shout their lines.
On her second point, I fully agree. Tony Discipline has become more bearable for the same reason that we put up with Laila Morse's Big Mo: TPTB have recognised these actors' limitations and have consigned them to the second tier of importance as supporting characters. We won't see Tony Discipline with bags full of dialogue and/or a major storyline for awhile, if ever. This is the least that should be done with David Witts. - the most is that both actors should be given the axe. With all the best will in the world, these boys aren't actors, and pigs will never fly.
Oh, and memo to *Betty*, the "Jake Woods and Steve McFaddens" of the world are good at playing themselves. They're not a standard by which to measure acting ability.
Sorry Betty, I understand what you're saying and I agree something needs to be done both about the narrative and writing, but why should EE train incapable actors while on major roles? I don't get it. If they're in a prominent part with storylines at the forefront, they need to already be very familiar with the tricks of the trade. If they aren't, it's the wrong casting. They might look the part but not act the part, it's a half arsed job.
I also disagree Tony improved; the only improvement I've see is that he's not given as much screen time and lines, so he's more bearable as a secondary supporting character.
Re the bold, this nails it. The bottom line is that EastEnders has got itself into a bad habit, mostly via Bryan Kirkwood's obsession with Hollyoaks-style beauty, of hiring young, inexperienced actors entirely on the basis of their looks, with no emphasis on talent. Previously, most of the young talent came via Italia Conti of Anna Sher, and they came, via these schools, with portfolios and curriculum vitae. Acting experience. They may have started out guest-stinting on established television shows. The Tullys and Cartys of this world came via Grange Hill. The Disciplines and Witts of this world come from catalogue modelling; the Jossas come from after-school drama workshops.
It shows. We have gurners and mouth-breathers so bad that one would be forgiven for thinking they have speech impediments or that they're deaf, the way they shout their lines.
On her second point, I fully agree. Tony Discipline has become more bearable for the same reason that we put up with Laila Morse's Big Mo: TPTB have recognised these actors' limitations and have consigned them to the second tier of importance as supporting characters. We won't see Tony Discipline with bags full of dialogue and/or a major storyline for awhile, if ever. This is the least that should be done with David Witts. - the most is that both actors should be given the axe. With all the best will in the world, these boys aren't actors, and pigs will never fly.
Oh, and memo to *Betty*, the "Jake Woods and Steve McFaddens" of the world are good at playing themselves. They're not a standard by which to measure acting ability.
No comments:
Post a Comment