This is a fun episode – I like it a lot. Like last week, it’s another one that’s a bit more focused/structured, which I appreciate, albeit without the Extras-esque big celebrity guest star.
When Jo, the play’s producer, suggests sitting in on a Zoom rehearsal, Simon realizes it’s high time they begin, you know, actually rehearsing the play. This goes about as well as you’d expect, and Simon struggles to maintain his very tenuous grip on the proceedings as the situation between Michael and David descends into mayhem.
For starters, even though this episode doesn’t feature a “celebrity” guest, it does feature a familiar face that adds an important facet to the tenor of the episode. Nina Sosanya, who I saw first as the mom in Doctor Who’s “Fear Her” and more recently in Casanova (another David Tennant entry for Other Doctor Lives,) plays Jo. She’s appeared on the show before, but her role today is quite a bit larger. I enjoy the air she brings to her scenes with Simon, that pervading sense of “I’m giving you a chance here because I believe in you as an artist, but if you’ve been dicking around with everyone’s time, I swear to God….” And with David and Michael, she’s even better. Jo is every inch a practical person who’s spent her career dealing with temperamental artists, and she manages to handle them both very effectively, giving each actor what he needs individually while also recognizing the ways they’re being identically childish.
Because both David and Michael are pieces of work here. They’re still nursing grudges from the events of the last episode, and as soon as Simon tries to start a real rehearsal, it’s open season and their personal issues boil over under the guise of “helpful” acting critiques. Their conflict here is very much in the wheelhouse of what’s been established about both of them as characters, and as Michael takes issue with David’s “cartoonish” performance, David is increasingly on the defensive, at one point shouting the excellent line, “Just because you’re mumbling, that doesn’t mean it’s good!”
I’ve talked before about how the often-aimless feel of the show nicely captures the sensation of quarantine for a certain segment of people, and with the way that rehearsals have gone so far within the story, they’ve articulated another common side of quarantine. While their initial reactions to it are all different, David, Michael, and Simon all have some level of enthusiasm about doing the play. They look at it as something to fill their hours, a way to be productive during lockdown and be ready to “hit the ground running” when the theatres reopen. But between the upset to their usual routines, the penned-in feeling of being stuck at home, their nagging worries about the pandemic, and the mild depression that’s infusing their lives, they’re not able to really get things off the ground. There’s very little else for any of them to do, but they still avoid doing it, finding any excuse to get distracted during rehearsal or end early. I know that, for me personally, there have been times over this past year when I’ve struggled to be creative and/or productive, and I know that many others have as well. Of course, the twist on this is that, by creating a show that so accurately presents that feeling, all the participants involved are actually being both productive and creative, so kudos to them.
I feel like this is a difficult series to look at too deeply from an acting perspective, which makes it hard to really dive into the David Tennant of it all like I have in previous Other Doctor Lives projects. Throughout, the demands each episode poses to Tennant aren’t especially great, and each episode seems to build and develop on more of the same, but that doesn’t mean that Tennant isn’t very good here (the same goes for Michael Sheen, by the way.) He’s doing a fine job of creating the characterization of David through little moments, and his acting chemistry with Sheen, by turns combative and commiserating, really shines. In this episode, he’s particularly good in the rehearsal/argument and the subsequent session with Jo and Michael.
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