Blackpool (TV series)

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Television series
Original title Blackpool ( UK ) / Viva Blackpool ( US )United KingdomUnited Kingdom 
United StatesUnited States 
Country of production United Kingdom
original language English
year 2004
Production
company		 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
length 360 minutes
Episodes 6 of 60 minutes
genre Crime , dramedy , jukebox musical
Director Coky Giedroyć
Julie Anne Robinson
idea Peter Bowker
production Sally Haynes
Laura Mackie
First broadcast November 11 to
December 16, 2004
on BBC One
occupation

Blackpool is a British jukebox musical - comedy drama produced by the BBC . The doctorate of letters Peter Bowker ( Desperate Romantics ) conceived and wrote the six-part miniseries . The leading roles were played by David Morrissey , David Tennant and Sarah Parish .

action

Ripley Holden (the ambitious, arrogant owner of a gambling hall arcade amusement , from him as a "family entertainment center") in Blackpool . The coastal city in north-west England is known as a kind of northern European Las Vegas , and an important source of income for Blackpool is gambling. Holden wants to turn his arcade into a Las Vegas-like casino hotel and lead the city to new heights. To do this, he finds influential friends and investors, including local police chief Jim Allbright. It appears that half of Blackpool, including all of Holden's employees, have invested in the construction of the new casino hotel. Holden's wife Natalie is the glamorous wife, but she is shy, lonely and frustrated by the marriage, Ripley hardly appreciates her. Natalie and Ripley have two children, spoiled twenty year old Shyanne and sixteen year old Danny.

Shyanne adores her father, although he has so far scared off all of her lovers within a very short time. Their latest acquaintance, Steve, turns out to be Ripley's classmate. They haven't been on good terms since an unpleasant event in their youth that was hidden from Ripley's family. Ripley's attempts at deterrence and bribery only lead to alienation from his daughter and a growing love affair between the two. Shyanne is dismissive and mean towards her mother, the relationship is tense and cool. In the course of the story, the two get closer again. Danny is more like his mother, is more shy and sensitive, he is constantly insulted and belittled by his father. Ripley sends him to an expensive private school, but Danny threatens to slip off the beaten track, he uses the school laboratories to produce amyl nitrite , an ingredient for blood pressure medication and (meant here) poppers . He sells both these tranquilizers and stimulants, including Speed , all over town, and regularly supplies prostitute Hailey with poppers for her customers. Natalie, Shyanne and Danny are all under the strong influence of Ripley and are at the mercy of his whims, the same applies to his employees and investors, the tenants of his apartment block and a large number of other Blackpool residents.

When a murder occurs and the victim is found between Holden's slot machines, the local police summon the experienced criminalist D.I. Peter Carlisle from Kendal , 90 kilometers away , is supported by his trainee, Detective Constable Blythe. Carlisle proves to be clever, charming, quick-witted, incorruptible and at the same time extremely manipulative and is a thorn in Holden's side. Since the Detective Inspector comes from outside, however, Holden's extremely corrupt friend Allbright has no authority and instead ends up quickly on the suspect list. The police investigations take their toll on everyone involved, Ripley himself is suspected of murder, his private and professional life is shaken and brings both his tyrannical character and long-forgotten legacies and well-kept secrets from his past to light again. Carlisle tries everything to prove the murder and first wants to play Natalie against him, but catches himself falling in love with her and tries to keep her out of the investigation. The two begin a brief affair, until Natalie learns of Carlisle's true identity and original intention.

Danny gets into a downward spiral of guilt, loneliness and drug addiction and finally tries to take his own life, he is found in time by his father and prevented from suicide. He confronts DI Carlisle, whom he blames for Danny's emotional chaos. As the story progresses, Holden's family becomes more and more involved in the investigation. Danny tries to cover his father; Ripley makes the false confession of taking the body to the arcade to dissuade investigators from his son; Natalie invents an alibi for Ripley's stay that night.

DI Carlisle grows increasingly frustrated and eventually decides to persuade Ripley's opponents, including Hallway, to give false testimony. At this point, DC Blythe first confronts him with his affair. Blythe finds Carlisle's behavior disproportionate and inappropriate, and an expression of lovesickness rather than rational policing. As a result, Carlisle withdraws from the case and reconciles with Natalie, the affair flares up again. He wants to leave the city and asks her to accompany him, after some hesitation she agrees.

Ripley is deeply in debt, he finally has to admit that his lucky streak is over. He leaves the gambling hall and its debts to his accountant Adrian Marr, who believes that he can make a more trustworthy impression on investors and appraisers than his former boss and friend. At home, Ripley finds his wife's packed suitcase and finds that his marriage is also going up in smoke. Natalie decides against leaving her husband for Carlisle and waits for him at home with the children, while Ripley gives in to his desperation, first gambles for hours in his abandoned arcade and then throws all the tenants out of his hostel in order to set it on fire . When his little world collapses, Hallway, the biggest opponent of his arcade, becomes his solid rock, to whom he confides and from whom he receives advice. Ultimately, Ripley emerges from the events as a purified man. He speaks to Carlisle, admits that he has not seen Natalie as happy for a long time as during their affair and gives both of them his blessing. In return, to DC Blythe's horror, Carlisle abandons the investigation into the Hooley murder and blackmails his subordinates into doing the same. After Adrian is arrested for falsifying accounts, Ripley leaves the arcade and the insurance for the burned-out house to his son, who wants to replace some of the simple slot machines with dance floors and cappuccino bars and make the center more youth-friendly overall. Through Hailey, Ripley finally finds out that Danny had rushed to her aid that night when the violent Mike Hooley attacked her. The drug cocktail acted as a potent blood thinner, and Danny's single blow in Hailey's defense killed Hooley.

In the wedding speech for his daughter, Ripley draws the conclusion: "They say, a man who's lost a fortune but found his heart is a wealthy man indeed" ( It is said that whoever has lost all his possessions but found his heart is truly rich ) . He says goodbye to Natalie, encourages her to give the relationship with Carlisle a try and eventually travels to Las Vegas to start a new life.

background

The series begins as a comedy bordering on slapstick, but with each episode it gets darker: Ripley's world is increasingly falling apart, everybody's life is becoming increasingly desperate and hopeless. In addition to this gradual transition from an overly comedic to a strongly dramatic focus, a special feature of the series is also the way in which pop music texts are integrated into the narrative: although the actors sing along with the songs, the voices of the original singers are superimposed, so several singers can be heard at the same time and the singing of the performers sometimes creates the impression of lip-syncing or simply singing along with a song running in the background (radio or similar). The numbers also create a connection between characters who are spatially or otherwise separated from one another, because almost every song is interpreted in alternating roles by several characters in the series, whose current state of mind suits them.

The choice and implementation of the pieces is less about the singing or the musical accompaniment than about the interpretation of the text in the context of the plot. The vocal interludes have a remote character, in the songs the characters express their thoughts like a monologue in the theater. Some of the vocal interludes are accompanied by exaggerated and slightly surreal dance interludes by all the characters present. The latter stylistic device is strongly reminiscent of the narrative style of television dramaturge Dennis Potter , who used this type of dance in several of his famous productions, including The Singing Detective (1986, 2003). A third element is repeated in every episode: A few times per episode, when DI Carlisle or Ripley Holden reach a new level of their duel, threaten each other or other people or gain a new insight, a fruit machine becomes a few seconds in a sequence (similar: one -armed bandit ), in which all three reels show the same moving image of the head of the detective or the entrepreneur (occasionally also that of other characters, including Natalie and Holden's accountant Adrian) in front of a differently colored background. The sequence shows a short, exaggerated pantomime image of the current emotional state of the person depicted.

David Morrissey ( murder on page one , Nowhere Boy ) was seen as the arcade owner Ripley Holden , David Tennant ( Royal Shakespeare Company , Doctor Who , Broadchurch ) played the criminal investigator D.I. Peter Carlisle and Sarah Parish ( The Pillars of the Earth , The Holiday , ShakespeaRe-Told ) played Holden's wife and Carlisle's lover Natalie. Peter Bowker designed and wrote the series, he had previously been responsible for the modern BBC adaptations of The Canterbury Tales (2003) and Flesh and Blood ( BBC Two , 2002), in 2005 he contributed to the ShakespeaRe-Told ( Shakespeare new told ), a continuation of the Canterbury Tales adaptation concept. Directed by Coky Giedroyć and Julie Anne Robinson , the film was filmed on location in Blackpool itself and in Brentford . The cast also included John Thomson and Steve Pemberton .

The series was produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation , which it aired on six Thursdays from November 11 to December 16, 2004 on its main channel BBC One . Each of the six episodes lasts an hour, a format typical of British miniseries. In the US , the series was broadcast in 2005 by BBC America , where it ran under the title Viva Blackpool and won, among other things, a Peabody Award for BBC Worldwide, the commercial international offshoot of the BBC. In 2006 the BBC produced a television film as a continuation of the series, this was also entitled Viva Blackpool , based on the hit song "Viva Las Vegas" by Elvis Presley , which was also chosen as the first song in the soundtrack of the miniseries described here.

occupation

  • David Morrissey - Ripley Holden - all episodes
  • David Tennant - Detective Inspector Peter Carlisle - all episodes
  • Bryan Dick - Detective Constable Blythe - all episodes
  • Sarah Parish - Natalie Holden - all episodes
  • Georgia Taylor - Shyanne Holden - all episodes
  • Thomas Morrison - Danny Holden - all episodes
  • Kevin Doyle - Steve - all episodes
  • David Bradley - Hallworth - all episodes
  • Steve Pemberton - Adrian Marr (Accountant) - all episodes
  • David Hounslow - Deputy Chief Inspector Jim Allbright (Investor) - all episodes
  • John Thomson - Terry Corlette (Investor) - all episodes
  • Jacqueline Pilton - Ruth - all episodes
  • Lisa Millett - Hailey (Prostitute) - all episodes
  • Jim Whelan - Deaf Barry - Episodes 1, 2, 4, 5, 6
  • Michelle McCaw - Chantelle - Episodes 1, 2, 4, 5, 6
  • Connie Walker - Karen - Episodes 1, 2, 3, 5
  • Cathryn Bradshaw - Mary Webb (Terry's girlfriend, Ripley's ex-lover, gift shop owner) - episodes 3, 6
  • James Cartwright - Mike Hooley (Murder Victim) - Episodes 1, 4
  • Joe Armstrong - Mark Reed (alleged friend of the victim) - episodes 1, 2, 4
  • Suzanne Proctor - Barwoman - Episode 1
  • Leigh Edmonson - Tenants - Episode 1
  • Josef Altin - Machine Strimmer - Episode 2
  • Betty Legs Diamond - Drag Queen - Episode 2
  • Mike Lunney - Legal Counsel - Episode 2
  • Anne Nolan - Fortune Teller - Episode 3
  • Paul Ready - Will (drug addict, police decoy) - episode 3
  • Mike Rogers - Desk Sergeant - Episode 3
  • Emily Aston - Emma - Episode 4
  • Tom Ambrose - Policeman - Episode 5
  • Matt Brint - Policeman - Episode 5
  • Peter Sives - Youth - Episode 5
  • Paul Chahidi - Registrar - Episode 6
  • Tom Swire - David - Episode 6

Music used

The following songs were interspersed in the plot:

episode song Original interpreter Performers in the series
episode 1 " Viva Las Vegas " Elvis Presley Holden family: Ripley, Natalie, Shyanne and Danny
" You Can Get It If You Really Want " Jimmy Cliff Ripley (with guests at the casino opening)
" She's Not You " Elvis Presley Ripley (with Natalie and three prostitutes)
" These Boots Are Made for Walkin ' " Nancy Sinatra Ripley and DI Carlisle
Episode 2 " The Gambler " Kenny Rogers Ripley, Natalie, Danny, Hailey, DI Carlisle, DC Blythe
" Cupid " Johnny Nash Natalie, Ripley, DI Carlisle, Shyanne
" Should I Stay " Gabrielle Drag Queen, DI Carlisle, Natalie, Ripley
" I Second That Emotion " Smokey Robinson and the Miracles DI Carlisle, Natalie
Episode 3 " Brilliant Mistake " Elvis Costello Ripley, Danny, Natalie, Shyanne, Karen, DI Carlisle, Hailey
" Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me " Slade DI Carlisle, Natalie
" The Boy With The Thorn In His Side " The Smiths DI Carlisle, Danny, Will (with cops and the homeless people around)
" The Secrets That You Keep " Mud Natalie, Ripley, DI Carlisle
Episode 4 " Walk Tall " Val Doonican Danny, DI Carlisle, Interrogation Room Guard, Will ?, Natalie, Ripley, prostitute
" I'm Gonna Make You Love Me " Diana Ross & The Supremes with
The Temptations 		Ripley, Adrian, Ruth, Deaf Barry, Hailey (with Building Supervisors)
" Ooh La La " The Faces Ripley, Danny, Natalie, DI Carlisle
Episode 5 " Should I Stay or Should I Go " The clash DI Carlisle, Ripley, Danny
" Invisible " Alison Moyet Terry (with Ripley and Allbright)
" Don't Stop Me Now " Queen Ripley, Adrian
“ Knock Knock, Who's There? " Mary Hopkin Ripley, Natalie, DI Carlisle, Shyanne, Danny
Episode 6 " White Wedding " Billy Idol Adrian, Natalie, Ripley, Steve, Shyanne, Danny, DI Carlisle
" There Goes My Everything " Engelbert Humperdinck Ripley, DI Carlisle, Natalie
" Don't Leave Me This Way " The Communards Ripley, Shyanne, Steve, Natalie, DI Carlisle, DC Blythe (with wedding guests)
" (There's) Always Something There to Remind Me " Sandie Shaw Ripley, Allbright, Terry, DI Carlisle, Natalie, Danny

The songs listed above were released as a soundtrack CD at the same time as the series was broadcast. A six-page enclosed booklet justified the choice of each song.

Reception and awards

The series was largely positively received by critics and viewers. Between four and five million viewers saw each episode, a satisfactory, if not overwhelming, rate. In 2005 she received a BAFTA nomination for Best Drama Series, which eventually went to Sex Traffic ( Channel 4 ). This was followed by a Grand Prize award and Best Miniseries Award at the Banff World Television Festival ( Banff , Canada ). In December 2005, the Golden Globe nomination for the series was announced in the category of best television film / miniseries (the nomination was made under the US alternative title Viva Blackpool ). The award at the 2006 Golden Globe Awards went to the US drama Empire Falls .

In October 2007, the US broadcaster CBS aired an adaptation of the series entitled Viva Laughlin , developed by Bob Lowry and Blackpool creator Peter Bowker. The framework story corresponds to that in Blackpool , the production team consisted of BBC Worldwide, CBS Paramount Network Television , Sony Pictures Television and Seed Productions . The adaptation was discontinued after only two broadcast episodes due to low viewership.

International charisma

Outside the UK, the series has so far been broadcast in seven other countries by local subsidiaries of the BBC or comparable public service broadcasters. In the Netherlands and Belgium this was done in Dutch synchronization.

The series was also released on DVD in the United Kingdom, Australia and the Netherlands . Foreign-language versions of the series can be ordered from international online retailers in German-speaking countries; German-language synchronization does not yet exist.

Trivia

  • Ripley once disparagingly says of DI Carlisle as the only Scots present, "Talking of women ... here comes Mary, Queen of Scots". Mary, Queen of Scots ( Mary, Queen of Scots ) is the English name for Mary Stuart , Queen of England and France in the 16th century and the most famous Scottish monarch to this day. In keeping with Ripley's other idioms, the designation could also be understood word for word: Mary , i.e. Mary in the sense of the biblical mother of Jesus , would then sarcastically stand for the honesty or (pseudo) holiness of the detective; Queen is a slang term with an insulting character, which roughly corresponds to the German tune and denotes men who do not correspond in their appearance to the male image of the person speaking or who stand out due to affected behavior.
  • The phrase "Thanks for the insight, Trisha!" Ripley says to Police Chief Allbright in episode 4, refers to the actress and presenter Patricia Gloria "Trisha" Goddard, who primarily hosts breakfast television . From 1998 to 2010 she had her own tabloid talk show named after her in Great Britain, after which she continued the format in the United States.

language

  • In keeping with the location of the series, the actors speak a strong Northwest English dialect from the Liverpool / Lancashire area. This accent is characterized, for example, by the changed pronunciation of the vowels "o" and "u", which are pronounced like a mixture of the German "o" and "u" - unlike in the rest of the British and non-British pronunciation, which are mostly rather goes in the direction of the German "a". An “h” at the beginning or a “t” at the end of many words are not pronounced.
  • The dialect is also reflected in the colloquial vocabulary, so in the north of England a "lad" is used when it comes to a boy or man, son or friend, or when a bully is talked about in a friendly way . For the latter, also words like "skally" are used (not here in the sense of female prostitutes, but male or gender neutral as bastard or stricter form of scallywag / ne er ) bound locally in this form and meaning.
  • Most of the cast on the show are actually local and use their own accent. David Morrissey (Ripley) is from Liverpool, Georgia Taylor (Shyanne) from Greater Manchester , John Thomson (Terry) and Thomas Morrison (Danny) from Lancashire. Minor differences between these three closely related accents are largely masked by the cast. David Bradley (Hallworth) comes from neighboring Yorkshire and also speaks with an almost unchanged accent. Some other actors, including Sarah Parish (Natalie), who comes from Somerset in southern England , changed their pronunciation for the series more or less strongly.
  • The only exceptions are DC Blythe and his manager DI Carlisle. Both belong to a police unit from Cumbria (even further north). Bryan Dick (Blythe) grew up on the Cumbrian-Scottish border and speaks with his own accent. Carlisle is also part of Blythe's unit, but reveals in the course of the plot to have at least temporarily grown up in Glasgow , Scotland. Due to this fact, actor David Tennant did not have to disguise or completely replace his native Glaswegian as in a number of other stage and film productions.

Doctor Who

  • In episode 3, DI Carlisle crosses the street just in front of the entrance to the large, signposted Doctor Who Museum to meet Natalie. The newly opened museum had previously existed from 1974 to 1985 and was reopened in 2004 just in time for the announcement of the newly launched science fiction family series. The choice of location is no coincidence, both series are produced by the BBC and broadcast on BBC One .
  • David Tennant , who plays Detective Carlisle here, got the lead role of the tenth doctor just a few months later , which he then played until 2010.
  • Both David Morrissey (Ripley Holden) and Sarah Parish (Natalie Holden) later had guest roles at Tennant's side in a Doctor Who Christmas special , and the relationship was reversed: Morrison played Jackson Lake , a companion in 2008 . H. Supporter, the doctor. Parish, on the other hand, embodied the Empress of Racnoss in 2006 and thus an antagonist of Tennant's main character.
  • David Bradley (Hallworth) had a guest role on the series in 2012. In 2013 he took on the leading role of William Hartnell (played the first doctorate from 1963–1973 ) in the BBC documentary An Adventure in Space and Time about the creation of the cult series. In the finale of the tenth season "The Doctor Falls" and the following Christmas special "Twice Upon a Time" (both 2017) Bradley has a cameo in the role of the first doctor, since the original actor Hartnell had died in 1975.
  • Bryan Dick (DC Blythe) played a guest lead role in an episode of the Doctor Who branch Torchwood .

Further overlaps of the Blackpool leading actors

  • In 2007 Sarah Parish and David Tennant faced each other again in the leading roles in the BBC feature film Recovery . In it you play a happy married couple with two teenage sons who are put to a severe test by a serious brain injury.
  • David Bradley reunited with Tennant in the first season of the 2013 crime drama series Broadchurch . As in Blackpool, he played the leading role of a detective inspector . In contrast to Blackpool and DI Peter Carlisle, Broadchurch and the character of DI Alec Hardy contain neither comedic nor musical elements.
  • In the third Broadchurch season 2017, Sarah Parish worked again in Tennants cast.
  • Bradley (since around 1970) and Tennant (since 1996) are active members of the ensemble of the renowned Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). After completing his studies at RADA, David Morrisey also received a two-year engagement at the RSC.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 65th Annual Peabody Awards , May 2006.
  2. ^ "Viva Blackpool" on the BBC website, Drama section.
  3. ^ "Viva Blackpool" in the IMDb .
  4. ↑ 63rd Golden Globe Awards Nominations . December 13, 2005. Archived from the original on April 2, 2007.