THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

The Traitors Series 2

I loved series one of The traitors when it was on in December 2022. From the episode I was hooked. Series 2 has finally started and once again I'm hooked. Early signs are that they seem to have got the right balance of keeping the format the same but including a few little twists to keep the players guessing.

For those that haven't seen it - 22 strangers taken to a castle in a remote location in Scotland, Claudia picks some to be Traitors (in series 1 it was 3 of them), with the remainder being faithful. Each night the traitors chose one to murder (not literally, but they immediately leave the game), with everyone finding out at breakfast who has gone. Each day all players work together to complete challenges to add money to the prize fund. Each evening all players debate who the traitors may be before voting on who they believe is a traitor, with that person confirming whether they are a traitor or faithful before leaving.
At the end of the game, the money is split between the players remaining in the game, but if any traitors remain in the game they take all of the money for themselves.

As I've got older I just don't have the patience for game shows any more. Think it's an intolerance of stupid people but I also don't like Winkelman and her fringe

We seem to only watch sport or drama these days

_________________
Turn Stadium MK WHITE In The Playoffs

It's on BBC Iplayer now!

_________________
Cuboid of bum fluff

I've watched the first three episodes and I'm hooked. Well written , superbly acted and a gripping storyline.

Narcos well worth watching ....we are not really into drug baron type shows but enjoyed it

We have just started watching 'Mire' on Netflix ...Polish crime drama set in1980s....really interested setting

_________________
Turn Stadium MK WHITE In The Playoffs

The Gentleman

I was talking to someone recently, in fact it may well have been Mr Söze of this very here parish, where I was saying that I’ve never seen either a Jason Statham film, or one directed by Guy Ritchie. Turns out I was wrong on both counts as I’ve seen the one where Brad Pitt plays a bare knuckle boxer, and the source material for this. Both of which I didn't particularly like. Therefore I wasn’t exactly holding the prospect of this in any high regard. However…

I can’t recommend this highly enough. Yet another miniseries where you think that you could easily fit another episode in before you go to bed on a school night. Nothing to tax your brain, no hidden meaning. Just a good old romp. If you’ve seen the movie of the same name then you’ll be aware of the premise. Landed gentry runs a massive marijuana farm on his country estate, and tries to fend rival dealers off. It’s more or less the same thing, with the twist that he inherits the estate, and title, after his father dies, and had no idea that he was in partnership with a drug gang headed by Ray Winstone, who plays his usual Sarf Landan rogue to the hilt. If you’ve seen him in anything, then you’ve already seen him in this. But that’s not to say that he's no good. He’s very good. The two leads, Theo James and Kaya Scodelario, are both outstanding. Just the right amount of sexual chemistry, with a hint of will they won’t they thrown in for good measure. The supporting cast are equally as outstanding, and it turns out that Vinnie Jones is actually a good actor. Who knew! A special mention to Daniel Ings who plays the older brother passed over for the inheritance. He’s very funny from start to finish.

As I say, it’s very good. Give it a go, you won’t be disappointed, and at only eight episodes you can easily do the whole thing in a week.

_________________
When you make your music, do you think about the man in the street? No, I've met the man in the street. He's a Ladybit.

Yeah we enjoyed it though not our normal thing

Never gets boring and a good pacey script....crucially with a decent ending too

_________________
Turn Stadium MK WHITE In The Playoffs

Wreck

I’ll admit, I wouldn’t have started this had it not been for one of the actors just being announced as the main character in the next Game of Thrones spin off, but we started this tonight and couldn’t stop until the end of the first season. I’m awful at summaries but I’ll give it a go.

Set on a cruise ship, the basic premise is that the main character, Jamie, lost his sister in the preceding cruise as she supposedly jumped off the ship. To try and find either her or the truth to what happened to her, Jamie enrolls as a crew member and with a couple of friends investigates his sister’s disappearance. Throughout the first 6 episodes we learn the truth behind it all however, as crew mates go missing and a killer duck mascot is seemingly on the lose…

There’s 2 seasons available on iplayer and I’m very certain we won’t wait long to start season 2.

_________________
Cuboid of bum fluff

I’ve watched a couple of things back to back this week.

Slow Horses, Series 2

Pretty much like the first one, which I’ve reviewed earlier in this thread, and pretty much followed the exact same pattern. I’ve no idea why this gets so much praise, it’s really not very good. Having said that, I’m the one who sat over six hours in a couple of days watching it. So more fool me. There’s a third series already out, so I’d obviously be a fool not to watch it. Unusually in a TV miniseries there are actually no good turns in this. No one is any good, and Gary Oldman must have been paid extremely handsomely to turn in such a cliché of a performance.

3 Body Problem

From the team that brought you Game Of Thrones, and somewhat like that it moves at an extremely slow pace. It’s a good premise though. Some shadowy agency discover that earth is going to be invaded by an alien species. But the twist, and it’s a good one, the planet they’re from is 400 light years away. So it’ll take them 4 centuries to get here. But hold your horses, there's an even better twist. They’re obviously far more advanced than us, but we’re developing faster than they did. Therefore, when they arrive on earth, we’ll be technologically superior to them. So this first series is focused on the aliens trying to stymie our development.

In all honesty it wasn’t great, but like Thrones I’m assuming it’ll pick up the pace as it develops.

_________________
When you make your music, do you think about the man in the street? No, I've met the man in the street. He's a Ladybit.

This Town

BBC1

1981. For those that can't remember, or were not yet born, the 80s wasn't all New Romantics, Big Hair, shoulder pads and City-boy yuppies with Porche 911 turbos. At the start of the decade there was mass unemployment, recession, inner city riots and general miserableness. The Thatchertolla was the most unpopular PM on record (the Falklands War and an improvement in the economy saved her bacon in 1982). As a young person though, it was a golden era for music. Punk was waning, being replaced by New Wave, post-punk, a Two-Tone led ska revival and electronica. Rap was really growing and disco/soul/jazz-funk dance music was huge. It means that my record collection is MUCH better than yours, you loser.

Out of this era comes a prime time series from the creator of Peaky Blinders. Now, I never watched PB, so I can't say if that's a good thing or a bad thing. However, I'm three episodes in and I'm really enjoying it, despite a couple of minor reservations. Set in Birmingham and Coventry, this is a multi-path story centered on an extended family who are a mixture of Irish and Jamaican immigrants and more importantly, their first generation children.

Lead character Dante is a weird lad, a poet and a dreamer (yeah, calling the poet Dante is annoying, when his elder brother gets saddled with Gregory). Said brother Gregory is a proper hard geezer who was a bouncer for a local gangster (who is at the heart of another thread in the story) but joined the army to get away from what his life was becoming. Their cousin Bardon is the son of an IRA man, part of an active cell in Coventry, who are keen to pull Bardon into the cause. Skinhead girl Jeannie is a musician who wants Dante to write the lyrics to her songs, their friendship leading to some serious violence involving her boyfriend and his mates, a bunch of skinheads who are part of the Birmingham City Zulus. Bardon is a good singer, having been raised to sing Republican rebel songs. The story's arc presumably sees them forming a ska band to get away from their various problems but we'll see.

The acting is good across the entire cast, especially the young leads. The look of the thing is great too (shitty, graffiti covered underpasses, grim tower blocks, scruffy council estates and awful pubs. The clothes are great too). It made me very nostalgic. It's definitely worth you giving it a go.

BTW the soundtrack is bloody great; lots of bangers but with a few odds and sods inserted to support the narrative.:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0hmh357

_________________
I don't need your ill-informed, half-baked, idiotic opinions. I have plenty of those myself.