The List TV review: Gasping

Frankie Boyle excels in Greg Hemphill’s funny short film about addiction and its perils

Harvey Higgins used to be a regular sort who liked nothing better than going out for a bevvy with his mates. But before he knew it, his booze-sodden behaviour had become intolerable for those pals and the ever-increasingly late nights developed a strain upon his marriage. When he loses his job and starts to get the shakes, things go seriously awry especially when he is too busy racing towards the reported site of a lorry that has shed its lager-laden load instead of picking up his young daughter from school.

Interventions are one thing, ultimatums are another. Harvey has had both but little seems to penetrate his skull: the warnings are all just gin off a drunk’s back. But when he finally sees the light, there is one big challenge left to face when he’s invited back to work for a business trip to … a distillery. Should he return home with a single smell of whisky on his breath, then his wedded life is over.

Given that Frankie Boyle has had his own difficult relationship with alcohol in the distant past, this short movie (an entrant in the 2014 LA Comedy Festival which now makes its small-screen debut) could be seen as a brave decision. Though perhaps no more courageous than allowing himself to grow the largest beard since Moses threw away his last disposable razor.

Greg Hemphill has created the piece and insisted that he had Boyle in mind for Harvey during the writing process. He relies mostly on the stand-up’s physicality throughout the film, given that Boyle says just a single sentence: is the message that addiction leaves you without a proper voice? Or is it simply an amusing idea to see someone who makes a living from talking to people being largely denied that function?

In its brief time with us, Gasping is continuously amusing work with at least two (maybe three) laugh-out-loud moments. Give that many sitcoms can barely engender that kind of reaction throughout entire series shows that Hemphill and Boyle were certainly on to something.

Gasping, BBC One Scotland, Mon 30 May, 10.25pm. Available on the BBC iPlayer shortly afterwards.

Watch on BBC iPlayer http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07ds2l1/gasping

https://www.list.co.uk/article/80992-tv-review-gasping/

Sally Hawkins on board for Cross My Mind

Sally Hawkins

Sally Hawkins

Screen Daily reports on Cross My Mind... 

EXCLUSIVE: UK sales company Film Constellation launches with drama fromFish Tank producer.

Oscar-nominee Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine) and rising actor Jack Lowden (’71) are set to star in UK drama Cross My Mind, the first film on the slate of fledgling UK sales outfit Film Constellation.

Written by MacArthur Fellowship recipient Naomi Wallace and Bruce McLeod (Flying Blind), the film follows the intense and erotic love affair between a recovering blinded soldier (Lowden) and a married woman (Hawkins) who is taking care of him.

But the clock is ticking, as he is beginning to recover his sight, and the carer is not who the young soldier thinks she is.

Set against Glasgow’s iconic waterfront docks, the feature is produced by Fish Tank producer and Peter Greenaway regular Kees Kasander with Julia Ton under their Cinatura banner alongside John Archer’s Hopscotch Films, who initiated the project together with the late director Antonia Bird, who was on board to direct an earlier version of the film in 2010.

Read more here...

Atomic

 Epic live concert and film experience

27-28th August  Edinburgh Playhouse

An epic live concert and film experience from Glasgow band Mogwai and renowned film maker Mark Cousins.

Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise is a fiery portrait of our atomic age, a powerful, visceral investigation of life and death in the nuclear age, combining rare archive footage with a brand new soundtrack of original music performed live by Mogwai.

With images of protest marches, Cold War confrontation, Chernobyl and Fukushima, Cousins’ impressionistic film is a kaleidoscope of the appalling destructive power of the atomic bomb, and also the beauty and benefits of x-rays and MRI scans.

Mogwai’s compelling soundtrack encapsulates the nightmare of the nuclear age, but also its dreamlike beauty. They perform their brooding score live on stage alongside the film screening.

These are the first live shows of Atomic in the UK, and the only performances in Scotland this year.

Buy Tickets http://www.eif.co.uk/2016/atomic#.VwTdF2MzNFL