INTERFACE, by Laura Nunn #PGat35
IMPORTANT: This review contains SPOILERS. Massive great honking ones. If you haven’t ever seen Press Gang (Seriously?! Are you a KD?!!! What are you even doing here reading this, you fool?! Click right on over to Amazon, buy yourself the complete series boxset and remedy that situation immediately before you read any further…) #CommissionsEarned
I’m going to lay it out for you. Interface has never been among my favourite episodes. So if this is in your top five, you may wish to look away now and think about Colin in a bunny suit, whilst humming Disco Info songs to yourself…
The Junior Gazette hears of the Roxburgh Award – an opportunity to win a computer for the newspaper (a lovely ahead-of-its timeline from Colin, who can “almost taste the computer; in megabytes”). We see the paper’s progression through the various stages of the award over a few weeks, via amusing scenes of Tiddler delivering post, including to a somnambulant Frazz. One does wonder why the Junior Gazette gets quite so much post that they need to make mail delivery a ‘thing’, and specifically, why anyone, ever, would want to write to Frazz.
The computer is duly won and installed with a modem (a modem, folks! In 1989!) and then the proper narrative starts in earnest. And oh boy, is there an awful lot of earnest.
Let’s test out this modem then. Danny (clearly because every other main character was visiting their aunt in Sherrington that day) and Miss Hessope/Jessope (I assume it’s double-barrelled) are in the school office, sending wind-up messages to Lynda. There is no explanation as to why the school needs a computer with a modem in 1989. I think we can just assume Mr Winters has an ASCII porn fetish. He looks the type.
We learn Kenny’s dad has a computer and a modem. I have a theory about Kenny; in the first series and flashback episodes, Kenny’s house seems quite nice, quite middle class and he lives near Lynda. In later series, he appears to live in a very grotty council flat and no longer seems to have a dad. I am guessing the 1980s collapsed round Kenny’s stockbroking Dad’s ears, his parents’ marriage failed, despite Kenny’s best intentions at peacemaking and he emigrated to Australia to get away from the unpleasantness. Right, good, that’s canon now.
Lynda goes a bit… unbalanced next. Yes, I know she’s still getting over her heartbreak with James Armstrong, but I’m not sure we can completely excuse her behaviour. Seeing Colin making a ‘virtue of a necessity’ and selling the Mystery Writer angle, Lynda suggests she’s not selling papers so much as selling her soul. Yes, Lynda. Selling the Junior Gazette to children is selling your soul. This is especially the case when the Mystery Writer’s TV column is about Miss Marple, which as every teenager knows, is a gateway drug to Inspector Morse, and nothing good comes of that. I hear that’s how Whatsisname started, on a bit of Marple, nothing serious. Before he knew it, he was mainlining Columbo and the rest is history.
As the queue of Mystery Writers lines up (including Steven Moffat pulling a Hitchcock* for the very sharp-eyed), Lynda continues to overreact, talking to a blank computer screen, telling the Mystery Writer that he’s “ruining her life”. Bit strong Lynda, bit strong. Save something for There Are Crocodiles. Interestingly, she seems a lot less bothered about anonymous articles when it comes to Friends Like These and removing Sarah’s name from the article. Maybe, what with her life already ruined and all, she’s just stopped caring.
Lynda decides to pop over to Spike’s house to pick his brains about the whole Mystery Writer situation, and a lovely scene unfolds where Spike thrusts his dirty underwear at her (not in that way), mistaking her for his father. Lynda’s “I can’t tell you how much this means to me” is perfectly delivered, as is Spike’s reaction. To facilitate conversation, they decide to play Trivial Pursuits. This seems to be entirely like Trivial Pursuit, but with an extra ‘s’ on the end. Perhaps it is the Norbridge edition.
Lynda and Spike are in detective mode, working out that from the page number from the Roxburgh Award advert, and a film showing at the cinema, they should be going to 26 Laurel Avenue. What a load of shit. Totally impossible, would never happen. The unison, Famous Five, ‘Laurel Avenue’ is enough to make you vom. Don’t. Hold onto it; you’re going to need it in about ten minutes time.
Onto Laurel Avenue, and Lynda enters the house alone, despite Mr Homer’s best serial killer impression. He looks a bit like Mr Winters and Matt Kerr; I wonder if the casting director got a buy-two-get-one-free on middle-aged gingers.
Anyway, Lynda finally meets Billy, and another nice line, “You’ll understand if I don’t get up”. Moffat certainly shows the ability to bring bathos and humour to the character. Billy doesn’t want to talk to Lynda, so she pops off for a chat with the serial killer instead, and helps him with the drying up. Mr Homer explains he got the computer from work, “What’s one computer to Roxburgh’s?” Hmm, in the 1980s, I’d guess at about £1500, or to put it another way, about 3 months’ average salary in 1989. It seems unlikely that his boss would have OK’d this. I suspect fraud. Perhaps something for the Junior Gazette to investigate at another time.
Spike, who evidently doesn’t believe in doorbells, appears in Mr Homer’s kitchen just in time to hear Lynda say that he’s kind of sweet, and in another lovely moment, we get to hear “I can’t tell you how much this means to me” thrown back at Da Boss. It becomes clear that Spike was the man on the inside, as an old friend of Billy’s, rather undermining all his clever ‘detective’ work earlier in the episode.
Lynda does a great job of treating Billy as she would treat any other member of the news team – “be there or forget about the Junior Gazette altogether”. One wonders why she’s so bothered about this, as the Mystery Writer features is proving a boon for sales, but – as we realised before – Lynda equates selling copies of her newspaper with selling her soul. Perhaps she’s in the wrong job.
Anyway, fast forward to the team meeting, and it doesn’t look like Billy’s coming, so they crack on. But oh – look, just as they’re about to start, the newsroom doors swing open and who is it, but our favourite serial killer/fraudster, and his disabled son. You know that vomit you were holding onto earlier? Release it now. Spike starts to slow-hand clap. The rest of the news team joins in. Tiddler actually gives him a standing ovation.
If I were Billy, I’d have wheeled myself right out of the newsroom, and would have been sure to leave massive scrape marks all along their corridor. But he doesn’t. Lynda, at least, continues to treat him like any other member of the team and asks for the minutes to read: “Billy Homer – late”.
*not a euphemism
READ MORE from Laura at the most excellent LAURA’S PLOG
A NIGHT IN, by Ash Stewart #PGat35
IMPORTANT: This review contains SPOILERS. Massive great honking ones. If you haven’t ever seen Press Gang (Seriously?! Are you a KD?!!! What are you even doing here reading this, you fool?! Click right on over to Amazon, buy yourself the complete series boxset and remedy that situation immediately before you read any further…) #CommissionsEarned
It’s Saturday afternoon, and Lynda is handing out ‘yellows’…
I don’t know how A Night In came about, but as it’s a bottle show using only the regular cast, and just the newsroom, chances are it was a money saving exercise. That’s the usual reason. Often such shows don’t really work too well. This isn’t one of those times.
The premise of A Night In is that it’s a Saturday night shift. And no-one wants to work Saturday night…
Lynda uses every trick in the book to get Spike to work the shift; initially making it sound like she’s suggesting she and Spike go on a date, before getting all Dirty Harry on his ass… only, instead of using the most powerful handgun in the world she uses the red office phone.
The thing about good TV is that when you’re watching it it should feel real. That’s not to say it should be realistic. Press Gang certainly feels real, but is in no way realistic. The world that is created by the show is one that you can fully believe in, so that when odd things happen they feel real for the world we’re in.
Take the argument between Spike and Lynda when they’re toe to toe, just after he’s arrived for his shift; no-one would ever, ever, have an argument where every retort is dripping with wit. But, Spike and Lynda would, and therefore it feels real. For an episode like this one, that’s very important as the pair of them spend so much time bickering in a ‘we-hate-each-other-except-we-really-love-each-other-but-can’t-admit-it-yet’ kind of manner that is so typical of their relationship.
Both Spike and Lynda are hiding their feelings throughout the episode in different ways. Lynda’s coming to terms with her boyfriend dumping her by throwing herself in to her work… and by destroying pencils. Whereas Spike uses humour to ease the pain caused by the fights between his mum and dad, and the multiple times she left. By the end of the episode there’s kind of an understanding between the pair of them, and they’re further along the road to the inevitable day when Spike will slay a dragon for Lynda.
And talking of odd things, a character shouldn’t be able to spend almost the entire episode in a pink rabbit outfit and make it work. But it does. It’s largely due to the strength of Paul Reynolds’ performance that makes this work; his comic timing is just superb.
The state of Colin’s mind, as he descends in to madness throughout the episode is mirrored by the condition of the rabbit suit. In pristine condition at the start, and frayed and wrecked by the end of the episode. You really feel sorry for him as he crawls under the table and whimpers, once he believes his business life is over.
Incidentally; a point here about fancy dress, and wakes… Colin turning up at Warner Edison’s wake dressed as a bunny pre-dates a certain pair of beloved comedy characters dressed as Batman & Robin arriving at a wake by almost seven years… just throwing that in there.
We’re also starting to get the beginnings of a burgeoning sense of continuity here; Pings crop up, unheralded, a couple of times as the earrings Tiddler wears, and as Colin’s bunny nose. And, as mentioned, we have a great use of the red telephone. It’s something that will only increase in time, in a way that those who pay attention will notice; yet not in a way that crosses over in to fanwank.
A Night In is a real change in pace from what we’ve seen so far with Press Gang; whereas the four previous episodes are very plot driven, here we have a really neat piece of character drama where very little actually happens. It’s a sign of confidence that the show can do something like this so early in its run and make it work, but Press Gang manages it.
READ MORE from Ash at his blog DIGRESSION…!
Press Gang @ 35 