cbwaldenwood
I freely admit I am a drama geek. I love live theatre and backstage tours. My husband religiously go to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. This series captures all those quirks, ups and downs and backstage goofs. A friend recommended the series to us because her actor son recommended it to her. He said it was really true to life. The acting is fabulous. I am not familiar with many of the actors but would like to see more of other things that they are in particularly the main character Geoffrey. The comedy is subtle but laugh out loud funny. There are also so many touching moments. I wish there were more seasons. Anyone know if there is any discussion of returning to it? I agree that to really get the most out of it you do need to know your Shakespeare starting with the title. So watch and enjoy.
Ant_Lan
The huge, main and irrefutable difference between American sitcoms and British comedy is that the "Brits" limit one aspect of it, in order to blow the roof on others. It usually plays only for 6 to 12 episodes a "series" but defies conventions, blows its nose at profitability, and exudes complete ingenuity of content.Canadian television often tries to imitate completely one of the two. Slings & Arrows manages the unthinkable feat of bridging the gap. 6 episodes, an unusual "mélange" of laugh-out-loud funny and character-driven drama, and it's just a whole guilty-pleasure load of commercial fun.Series stars a deliciously exuberant Paul Gross as a washed out stage actor, forced to take over the Shakespearean company of his recently deceased former mentor. His task: mount a festival-closing Hamlet, in less the 5 weeks, with an action-movie star as his lead, no budget, and against corporate hands trying to turn the whole thing into a theme park. Oh! and he just recovered from a much-publicized mental breakdown.Trying to 'explain' Hamlet is already no small task, but the series succeeds with brilliance in not only exploring the makes of it behind the curtain, complete with jabs at corporate America and stings at Hollywood, but in incorporating the bard's numerous themes and characters into its very fabric. Gross' colorful Geoffrey embodies the Danish Prince, a man in the edge of insanity, stuck with visions of his annoyingly dead father figure. The company's sponsor, an American tough broad, reeks of Lady Mcbeth's evil trickery -and dialogs ("Are you a man" she asks her accomplice and honorable man of a Brutus). The mentor himself, before becoming an all-Canadian haunting to his pupil's Hamlet, starts out as King Lear, driven to madness by his "children". And the central play's couple, half of it played by a pre-fame and spot-on Rachel McAdams, brings the Romeo & Juliet theme to sweeter yet compelling levels. The rest of the cast and support players compose many microcosms of unforgettably well written moments of dialog, courtesy of "Kids in the Hall" graduate Mark McKinney, himself part of the cast.When all is said and done, "Slings & Arrows" will rival in Television history with high-level gems the likes of "Blackadder" and "Fawlty Towers", all the while remaining truly Canadian in essence, and completely accessible to anyone out for a good time in front of the tube.
em-106
I highly recommend this program to any and all. It's a riveting account of life backstage at a theatre. I was hooked five minutes into the premiere episode. The writing is excellent and the actors couldn't be better. The characters are so well defined, I feel like I know them all. I just watched the final episode this morning and cried hard, knowing that was the end.Is there anyone out there who might have some say about doing more seasons? Come on. I just want to go hang out at Anna's desk.Please.
Gregory Dietrich
If you're a theatre junkie or have ever been involved in theatre then this show is for you. It's a blast to watch the "behind the scenes" drama of a theatre troupe and it's extremely well written and well executed. It seems as though the producers were completely unable to come up with anything but amazing cast members and the writers seem incapable of creating anything less than great "dramedy" (not a big fan of the word but it fits). The acting is sublime (really just wanted a chance to use the word sublime...just mean that the character interpretations are fantastic and the commitment of the actors to these neurotic characters makes the whole thing believable...this is awfully long or a parenthetic statement isn't it?) I would highly recommend that anyone check it out if they can because I could be wrong about it appealing mainly to a niche audience. I just found it recently while channel surfing and I can't get enough. I might even buy the DVD's even though they're a little pricey for the number of episodes.
