This Life was one of my favourite series of the 1990s. It depicted a group of young lawyers living together in South London and was pretty cutting edge for its time. Virtually all of its stars went on to huge success elsewhere. Well, the good news is that BBC2 is making a new version of it, but set in the political world. The series is called Party Animals and features parliamentary researchers as the main characters. It's partly set in Portcullis House. I've got hold of a synopsis of the series and this is what you can look forward to:"They drink together. Eat together. Sleep together. This is politics from the ground up. The rugrats view of the political arena. the focus is on the post-Brown & Cameron generation. Their fights are as much with the upper echelons of their own side as with the opposition."
I think filming starts in the autumn and it will be shown in the New Year.
20 comments:
Already been done, in "The Project."
Surely it should be *entirely* with own sides?
Ah. Let me guess.... bright, committed young things... struggles between what is morally right and what is politically expedient..... never losing sight of the social principles that first attracted them to politics... though compromises may be necessary.... gratuitous sex when the scriptwriter thinks the audience might be getting bored... featuring Alan Clark and Prezza act-alike political figures... and one of the group is an Alaister Campbell in the making... a few episodes highlighting nasty right-wing extremists.... yawn.
This is what I pay the iniquitous TV tax for, is it?
Thanks for the warning.
I've got a better idea for a prog.
Transfer Big Brother to the Palace of Westminster - and vote the useless buggers out. Permanently.
I can imagine most researchers keenly watching the first episode and then never tuning it again, partly because it will be heinously inaccurate, and partly as it’ll remind them how unexciting their actual lives are.
Well, the good news is that BBC2 is making a new version of it, but set in the political world. The series is called Party Animals
Is it set in Belfast............or dreary old London ?
Is it ethnically balanced with Albanians and Kurds and Chinese, or just an upmarket version of Eastenders ?
Politics ? Does that get audiences ?
bt said it all. Cut-out characters. Trite. Trite. Trite. And the title ... a catcphrase that's around 20 years out of date.
Hmmm, not sure about this. This Life was classice but this...? I know atleast one researcher so will be checking with them once this airs with regards to it's relevance.;)
This Life was awful. It was just a soap opera about shallow yuppie narcissists who so obviously thought they were the coolest people in the entire history of the universe. Plus it had all that silly constantly-moving camera work that was the director showing how cool he thought he was.
Easy enough to translate that into the world of the Westminster bubble though. Just have even more sex and drugs and multiply the arrogance by ten thousand.
From World Productions:
PARTY ANIMALS
8 x 50 minute Episodes
Distributor - TBA
Ashika, Scott, Danny and Kirsty, are a group of twentysomething politicos working behind the scenes of Westminster. They spend the majority of their time worrying about their friendships, sex-lives and how to pay rent. Unlike most twentysomethings, the rest is spent on progressive tax policies, the Respect Agenda and the inexorable rise in electoral cynicism. In short: how to change the world.
Our four central characters have very different takes on the political world - left and right, idealist and pragmatist, tribally loyal and newcomer to the fold. Their fights are as much with the upper echelons of their own side as the opposition. They are essentially the rugrats of the political arena in a post-Brown & Cameron generation.
The emotional heart of the show is the relationship between the two brothers, Danny and Scott and Ashika. Sibling rivalry mixes with a loyalty and love that means when they’re fighting each other, they’re hilarious, but when they’re fighting together they’re political dynamite.
anonymous 2:32. Oh! I'm sorry! I nodded off halfway through your post.
As reported in the Observer and on Recess Monkey back in March.
Any news on when 'The Thick of it' is coming back to swear at us? I'd imagine it won't be hidden away on BBC4!
Just as important, when's the first series going to be released on DVD? It's typical of the BBC that they release tosh such as Two Pints of Lager on DVD, and then fail (at least so far) to release top quality (and, indeed, award-winning) fare such as The Thick Of It.
Hopeless - not only does it confirm Philip Larkin's law of economics (that where there is demand there is no supply), but also Conquest's law (ie 'All organisations are headed by secret agents of their opponents').
I seem to remember the original having a subtle soft-left nu-lab agenda e.g.
- "I don't want to move to the suburbs and go to dinner parties where the only topic of conversation "is Europe""
Here's an idea for a few sub-plots for the new series:-
All those "right on, oh so reasonable London-based researchers" can be worried about over-qualified, political activists from eastern Europe putting them out of THEIR jobs, working longer hours and never seeming to pay UK taxes.
Then you could have an episode when MP's themselves see fully-qualified Polish MP's under-cutting THEIR wages and putting THEM out of a job.
Then you could have another episode where some BBC producers, writers and political commentators (an Adam Bolton lookalike perhaps?) all start worrying about their pay rises when Latvian media folk start arriving in London in large numbers.....
Verity
If it's OK with you, I'll save your comment (2:50 PM) and post it in reply to one of your rants
Hey, is that Richard Tomlinson on the left? A fiendishly clever way to put a famewhore on ice.
anonymous - as I have no idea who you are and don't identify yourself with a regular identity, no, it's not OK with me for you to post anything in response to anything I have not personally replied to.
What I was saying, apparently too elliptically for you to grasp, is, the plot is trite and boring and has been done 85m times, thus I nodded off.
Incidentally, I don't rant. Even though you're anonymous, it is very apparent that you are a man and you are frightened of articulate women.
From what little I remember of the earlier series:
One young lawyerette who shoves coke up her nose and screws anybody.
One lawyerette who doesn't shove coke up her nose and only screws anybody if they can help her career.
One young lawyer so hopelessly insecure he couldn't screw anyone, even in a knockshop on freebie day (I don't think he had the guts to try coke either).
One other male who seemed determined to portray a character with all the dynamism of his nickname - Egg.
Take all four, add a selection of equally contrived characters and dump them into a script without any real story line, plots or even a sense that it might mercifully end.
Somehow, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on whether "This Life" constituted good drama or not.
RM
Another good reason for not having a TV set.
What's with the Anonymous business. Can't you think of a name for yourself?
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