Have you seen...?

[kiki_eng]

glitteryv prompted me with "A media (book, movie, etc.) that you like reccing to people all the time." This is probably Slings & Arrows for me, just because it feels like such a solid rec to make to a lot of different people. It's smart, earnest, and funny.

You're into Canadiana? Hoo boy. So it's about a theatre festival that bears a striking similarity to Stratford; it's amazing. Jackie Burroughs is in it. Sarah Polley. Paul Gross. \o/ You know, the mountie from Due South, yeah, he's the lead. Ranger Gord from Red Green is in it. Colm Feore. Sean Cullen. Rachel McAdams. William Hutt is in it. Seriously, it's like - anytime you find yourself walking through any kind of photo collection of people in Canadian theatre, you are going to be finding someone from this show, possibly multiple someones. It's a delight.

You like theatre? This is a love letter to the theatre. It's about the Stratford Festival, and each season of the show is a season at the theatre and they focus on two productions that they're putting on - so you get to see them performing bits of Shakespeare and having meta discussions about that performance and talking to the stage manager and about ticket sales and funding and all of these different details, and some of it's pretty cynical. But there's also theses little moments where the show goes there, right there, that's why the theatre is magic, that's why we're doing this it's great.

I'm Canadian and like the arts. Those are the two pitches that tend to come up the most.

It's three seasons of six episodes. The season arcs are well structured. They play with themes really well.

I requested it for yuletide a few years back.

Paul Gross is having a ball in this series, that is something that is so evident watching it. He spends a fair amount of time arguing with a ghost that only he can see. There are amazing characters in this. People feel incredibly, incredibly real - wonderful and awful in such mundane, human ways.

The series is made up of so many moments, so many things big and small, that I am in love with. The first performance they put on of Macbeth. Maria, drunk and surly at a party. Anna, wounded and strong. Ellen, happily dating young things. Darren Nichols, adjusting his scarf. Geoffrey, putting on a show.

I love it, so I recommend it.

Comments

[akamine_chan]

So many awesome characters - Sanjay from Froghammer, Nahum and Anna, Frank and Cyril singing and playing the piano (Frank was played by Sarah Polley's dad), Richard and Holly, Ellen, Geoffrey, Oliver (Canada's Best Hams!), the swans eating Oliver's ashes, and so much more.

And the fic! There are certain fandoms that are levels above others in terms of their fanworks, and S&A is one of those fandoms. The theater crowd gives good fic.

I'm out of the Canadian fandoms, have been for a while, but I still have a great love for this show.

[kiki_eng]

:)

[sinesofinsanity]

Gah I need to watch this show! The wardrobe lady at the theatre here almost started crying when I told her I'd been recommended the show and hadn't watched it yet.

[kiki_eng]

Yeah. You in particular really have no excuses. You should try it out, you know, when you have time.

[glitteryv]

Even though it's been literal years since I left C6D, I do have a tremendous soft spot for Slings and Arrows. A+ choice!

[kiki_eng]

It is such a wonderful show.