I started watching Green Wing last week after I’d finished
watching every episode of That Mitchell and Webb Look again (seasons 1 and 2
for the fourth or fifth time, season 3 for the second), which I’d turned to
after watching the entire Father Ted series for the third time. I’d noticed
Green Wing had turned up on Hulu but had been avoiding it for some reason—I
think I’d watched a completely out-of-context scene on YouTube years ago and
made an instant I Don’t Get This, Therefore Bad judgment. I think I also read a
review or something that made a comparison to Scrubs, which also set off a
great big NO alarm (although I don’t think I’ve ever watched more than a scene
or two of Scrubs, but the scenes I watched made perfect sense to me and were
still clearly unenjoyable).
But time marched forward as did technology, and now that the
Internet is mighty enough to provide full episodes of British shows I’d
otherwise never see, my accumulated viewing and nerdiness and actor recognition
capability gave me more than enough reasons to dive into Green Wing—Look! Fran
from Black Books! And there’s the artist guy from Spaced, who’s also in Big
Train, and the lady from Peep Show and That Mitchell and Webb Look, and there’s
Simon from Numberwang who’s also Johnson. And there’s a guy from The Office,
and the girl who plays his girlfriend who I think also played his girlfriend on
The Office, and also there’s the woman who played an evil American production
secretary in that Amy Heckerling film I watched because David Mitchell had a
small part in it, and also that ginger fella looks familiar and I’m not sure if
it’s because I’ve seen him in something or because he looks like someone I
could be distantly related to, like a cousin of a third cousin or something.
It took me three episodes to get into Green Wing. At first
the manic, hyperphysical acting and gratuitous boob humor put me off, and I
didn’t quite get the speed-up slow-down editing—although that I think was
mostly due to the cognitive dissonance of seeing experimental filmmaking
techniques slipped into a television sitcom. But by episode 4 I’d completely
fallen in love with the show, having grown to adore it for its manic,
hyperphysical acting, its experimental editing, and its boobs. I read something
somewhere referring to Green Wing as inspired by commedia dell’arte, a term that
conjures up images of mimes, something I typically don’t want to see on TV (or
anywhere, really). At the risk of sounding like I’m writing an Intro to Theater
term paper, the thing that really stands out most about the show is the
physical performances and the way the actors use their bodies—and if this show
can make me like an acting style associated with mimes, then there’s definitely
something magical going on. I also like the way the show is broken up with
shorter scenes where there’s just the characters interacting—scenes that aren’t
necessarily tied to the main storyline, which adds a loose, energetic feeling
of a sketch show.
And also, Green Wing features my most favoritest thing in
the world—Fictional Portrayals of Weird and Awkward Women. I love Tamsin
Greig/Fran from Black Books’ frumpy, frazzled and clumsy Dr. Caroline Todd, and
I super-love Michelle Gomez’s Sue White—a character that is not only psychotic and
pathologically antisocial, but also Scottish. I can’t explain why it gives me
such pleasure to watch crazy Scottish people, or why Scottish people are so fun
to watch go mad (I saw In the Loop the other night—written by one of the
writers of Peep Show and directed by the Scottish Italian guy who co-wrote,
produced and directed the Alan Partridge series—and I was so entertained by
Scottish swearing and tantrumming that I retardedly clapped my hands in delight
when the second violent, sweary Scottish guy appeared in the film [I don’t know
if that’s necessarily a spoiler, but it might ruin the surprise a little if you
haven’t seen the film] [sorry]). Other than being part Scottish myself, I don’t
know any actually-from-Scotland Scottish people and am not sure if
batshittiness is part of the national character—but if it is, well, it would
just explain a lot.
Best line—Harriet (played by the wonderful Olivia Coleman,
aka Sophie on Peep Show): “I even took three morning after pills to, y’know,
flush him out. Now he’s just… blinky…”
Oh, also! It was created, co-written, directed, produced, and edited by Victoria Pile—a lady woman! Prior to Green Wing, she created/directed/wrote/produced Smack the Pony, an all-lady sketch comedy show and the next thing I need to dig up on YouTube.
