Post by fluffet on Apr 27, 2010 22:26:51 GMT
Marc Wootton has a new series on BBC 3 Tuesday at 10.30pm called
LA LA LAND and it takes Shirley Ghostman his parody of the uncannily familiar dodgey psychic to a new level (along with two new characters all played to perfectly observed perfection by Wootton).
The first episode sees Shirley on the run from the police in the UK where he's a wanted man for fraud, deception and hiring a hit man to "take out" a missing child that he declared was dead only for her to turn up exposing his con.(I kid you not...Wootton's not taking any prisoners this time)
It's not hard to see where his inspirations come from as he takes Ghostman to L.A where he meets with real people unaware he's a spoof (think Ali G , Borat) including a publicist who rather than balking at his revelations and lies "It was all going fine till that little bitch turned up"
asks him if he really had a series with Living TV cause that would give him a start.
With his bank accounts frozen by the UK authorities him and his driver come dogsbody Chico flit from one con to another to pay their way .
He actually manages to get a bank card from a genuinely unaware if slightly kooky girl he cons into a "reading" and pays off his entire hotel bill in seconds without her cottoning on.
In fact Wootton perfectly portrays the repeat after the fact style of so many psychics out there as he word for word churns out exactly what the girl has just told him as if it was mystically related from above.
And he now reckons he can "hypnotise" as well ...which basically involves him saying sleep then clicking his fingers only to have the unmoved subject stare blanking at him when he asks them for money or a hotel room for free.
The other characters are an arrogant young director whos ideas are less than original "i want to do a documentary on sharks but this time underwater in a cage" and a feckless idiot man child who's deceased softcore actress mom travels with him in an urn as he vies to be come the next Jason Stratham....you couldn't make it up...mainly because you wouldn't need to these characters of Wootton's are ten a penny in real life and in L.A and are so well observed and characterised by him it should be achingly obvious to anyone watching that what he's doing is saying How can anyone let these idiots say and do the things the do far less believe them !
If you loved his Ghostman series ..or if you never seen it before give it a watch if nothing else purely for the pastiche Ghostman character alone.
Like every TV career psychic you ever knew was put in a blender then reconstituted into one big Uber fraud right before your eyes.
LA LA LAND and it takes Shirley Ghostman his parody of the uncannily familiar dodgey psychic to a new level (along with two new characters all played to perfectly observed perfection by Wootton).
The first episode sees Shirley on the run from the police in the UK where he's a wanted man for fraud, deception and hiring a hit man to "take out" a missing child that he declared was dead only for her to turn up exposing his con.(I kid you not...Wootton's not taking any prisoners this time)
It's not hard to see where his inspirations come from as he takes Ghostman to L.A where he meets with real people unaware he's a spoof (think Ali G , Borat) including a publicist who rather than balking at his revelations and lies "It was all going fine till that little bitch turned up"
asks him if he really had a series with Living TV cause that would give him a start.
With his bank accounts frozen by the UK authorities him and his driver come dogsbody Chico flit from one con to another to pay their way .
He actually manages to get a bank card from a genuinely unaware if slightly kooky girl he cons into a "reading" and pays off his entire hotel bill in seconds without her cottoning on.
In fact Wootton perfectly portrays the repeat after the fact style of so many psychics out there as he word for word churns out exactly what the girl has just told him as if it was mystically related from above.
And he now reckons he can "hypnotise" as well ...which basically involves him saying sleep then clicking his fingers only to have the unmoved subject stare blanking at him when he asks them for money or a hotel room for free.
The other characters are an arrogant young director whos ideas are less than original "i want to do a documentary on sharks but this time underwater in a cage" and a feckless idiot man child who's deceased softcore actress mom travels with him in an urn as he vies to be come the next Jason Stratham....you couldn't make it up...mainly because you wouldn't need to these characters of Wootton's are ten a penny in real life and in L.A and are so well observed and characterised by him it should be achingly obvious to anyone watching that what he's doing is saying How can anyone let these idiots say and do the things the do far less believe them !
If you loved his Ghostman series ..or if you never seen it before give it a watch if nothing else purely for the pastiche Ghostman character alone.
Like every TV career psychic you ever knew was put in a blender then reconstituted into one big Uber fraud right before your eyes.
