At least give me an odd number from time to time, "you have 33 hours to go catch that white-collar criminal!"
In many ways, David Simon's latest production, The Deuce, (Soho) is an orgy of cliches, but he of all people can be relied upon to fashion something rather fetching from the hoariest of chestnuts.
Set in a beautifully rendered 1970s New York, (Deuce is a nickname for 42nd Street) this already feels as authentically glorious as his previous works, such as the fabled The Wire and less-loved but solid Treme. He's also back with ace collaborator George Pelecanos, with whom he's done his best work.
There are also clear nods to the great gritty New York films of the '70s: Taxi Driver, Dog Day Afternoon, etc.
Set in a beautifully rendered 1970s New York, (Deuce is a nickname for 42nd Street) this already feels as authentically glorious as Simon's previous works
If you've ever been to New York pretty much any time up to the mid-90s, you'll recognise the pre-Disneyfied Times Square setting of The Deuce; the trash on the streets, the XXX cinemas, the grime. But even if you've only been to Kings Cross or K'Rd you'll know the look. There seems to be an international palate for these places, a bustling patina of worn architecture, pent up sex and if you're lucky, neon.
The art direction and attention to detail are of the highest order and for most of the first episode of this series, I was unusually transfixed by the street scenes, like a man in a gallery eyeballing the brush strokes on a Hopper or Caravaggio. I rewound a few just to soak up the street vibe again. That detail is also felt via the script with Simon's wonderful dialogue, dialled back from usual hyperbolic TV drama carry on.
The Deuce is about the birth of commercial and legal porn in the modern world. It's also about a guy, or two guys to be exact. Both are played by James Franco. The identical twin bros are loosely based on real-life characters who worked the fleshpots of '70s New York.
Hookers, pimps, Mafiosi, it could so easily have been a clusterf*** of cliche, but with Simon and Pelecanos at the helm, fear not, there are adults in charge. They're not selling sex as much as detailing exploitation.
That said, they have fun along the way, it is a fine line between sexy and sexist after all, to quote Spinal Tap.
Like Franco, the wonderful Maggie Gyllenhaal also co-produces. She stars as Candy, a streetwalker doing it for herself rather than working under a pimp. She is, of course, a walking cliche, the hooker with a heart. But before long, we start to see the depth of her character, the motivations that will presumably compel her into a grim life of making porn rather than the much grimmer life on the street. It's a luminous performance.
In one scene, a phone message left by Candy's mum, who looks after her child back home somewhere, much is revealed. I replayed that moment too, just audio down a phone line, so perfect was the tone, the dialogue, a tiny detail so artfully rendered that it rips your heart. I suspect there are millions of these luminous spheres to be had in the coming weeks.
The Toast of London
Meanwhile in The Toast of London (Netflix), Steven Toast, middling actor, hopeless ladies man and casual misanthrope, is suffering from the sort of arrested development that makes for thigh-slapping comedy. He's one of the great man-babies of the genre, up there with David Brent, Larry David, and Homer Simpson.
Toast is played by Matt Berry, a recidivist scene-stealer on other great comedies such as The Mighty Boosh, and The IT Crowd, thanks in part to his booming voice and a face that somehow says '70s porn star and Baron Von someone or other at the same time. Toast, the show, has the DNA of absurdist British-comedy greatness too, going back to Monty Python if not all the way to The Goon Show. Naturally, it's bawdy as all get out, with sex ever-present but played at a high pitch and played for laughs.
Toast has a plethora of nemeses, all with terrific names, there's Ray Purchase, (whom Toast is cuckolding) and Clem Fandango, an ad-industry grotesque who might be greatest archenemy since Seinfeld's "Newman". All three series are to be found on Netflix.
It's tremendous fun, for adults of all ages.
