Simms continued ~ Or Life On Mars, but not as we know it

Now that ‘Life On Mars’ is over, we have to find other ways to amuse ourselves. Amuse or confuse, same-same, eh? And so it goes… Due to the eagle-eyed-ness and plain ol’ cunning of a Greatest Pal, got stuck into the old 1997 BBC series ‘The Lakes’ this week. You’ll recognise a few faces straight off the bat – John Simm, of course, Paul Copley (janitor as took half the Manchester Gazette hostage in LOM series 1), Kevin Doyle (Steve, the theatre-running boyfriend of Ripley Holden’s daughter in ‘Blackpool’), Mary Jo Randle (Morgan from ‘The Bill’) and even wee Marshal Lancaster (Chris ‘sorry boss’ Skelton from LOM). Oh aye, they’re all in there – and about twenty-five other people whose faces I know but couldn’t tell you where I’ve seen em. It’s a non-stop face-spotting extravaganza, I can tell you.

It’s also one of the most shameless, down-n-dirty representations of a village gone to pot that I’ve ever seen. I swear to all the major and minor deities, if yer neighbour int banging their next-door-neighbour they’re killing their wife or smoking pot, raping village bikes or stirring it fert newcomers. Bloody hell, it’s a regular Dallas-int-Lake-District – on Speed.

John Simm looks about twelve years old (as I spose he would have been about twenty-five when he made this) and puts in a very impressive performance as the wee Scouse lad who’s just misunderstood. He gets to smile a lot more and be a cheeky arse, and he should be a cute little charmer. Well, he is, butter wouldn’t melt, but there’s still summat as says ‘you can’t fancy him, he’s Sam’. Weird, but there you go. The old ‘I wouldn’t kick him outta bed’ dunt apply – lovely as he is, he wouldn’t get a look-in. Odd. Still, fascinating character and extremely well-done. As are all the rest of the cast, don’t worry. We’ve already ripped through series one, and are now stuck very firmly into series two. It’s one of them ‘just can’t NOT watch the next episode’ deals, I’m afraid. I’ll let you know if I’m impressed wi the ending...

So onto other things as have caught me attention this week – Take That. I know I’ve mentioned as how I bought the album ‘Beautiful World’ an’ it grew on me, but fer some inexplicable reason I’ve felt the need to repeat ‘Like I Never Loved You At All’ on me iPod about ninety times this week. It’s just suddenly grown on me overnight. That an ‘Starman’ by David Bowie – one of them tracks you always loved to bits and then, for some reason back int mists of time, forgot about. Then you uncover it and love it all over again, as if you’ve never heard it before. Bloody marvellous. Best way to enjoy music, I reckon.

That’s music then, onto films. The winners and losers from the 26th Hong Kong Film Awards have already sorted their DVDs and them hard-working buggers wi the marketing skills of a Ferengi over at YesAsia have collected them into one page. It’s a one-stop shop fer sorting this month’s entertainment, HK film-wise. Top of the page of course is the Aaron Kwok vehicle (for which every other bugger won an award but HIM), ‘After This Our Exile’. Strangely enough, the proper 159-minute Director’s Cut is only available in the Taiwan version – the HK one is the cut-fert-sex-scenes version. Bastards. What’s the matter, HK audiences too immature to watch it? Or the local censor bods are just too embarrassed to let it go? Whatever the reason, the Taiwan version, right now, stands at the only full Director’s Cut available. Fascists.

That’s about it – nowt left to bang on about, everything’s updated and sorted fert moment. Bloody marvellous.

Waiting fer Saturday’s new-new ‘Doctor bloody Who’, in which we find out just how he’s going to stop a couple o salt cellars and one dalek-human pinstripe-wearing hybrid. And ruminate on just how Kylie Minogue will fit into a cyber-suit fert next series…

Peach and lube, people…

Tags:
The Lakes ~ John Simm ~ Life On Mars ~ Paul Copley ~ Marshal Lancaster ~ Take That ~ David Bowie ~ HK Film Awards ~ Doctor Who ~ daleks