"Karaoke" (1996) TV mini-series

Seasons:

1

Release Date:

2 June 1997 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Daniel Feeld is a screenwriter with pains in his gut and a new screenplay called "Karaoke", about a...

Plot Keywords:

Karaoke | TV Mini-Series

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Keeley Hawes	...	Linda Langer (4 episodes, 1996)
Albert Finney	...	Daniel Feeld (3 episodes, 1996)
Richard E. Grant	...	Nick Balmer (3 episodes, 1996)
Hywel Bennett	...	Arthur 'Pig' Mallion (3 episodes, 1996)
Roy Hudd	...	Ben Baglin (3 episodes, 1996)
Saffron Burrows	...	Sandra Sollars (3 episodes, 1996)
Ian McDiarmid	...	Oliver Morse (3 episodes, 1996)
Simon Donald	...	Ian (3 episodes, 1996)
Steven Mackintosh	...	Waiter (Movie) (3 episodes, 1996)
Neil Stuke	...	Peter (Movie) (3 episodes, 1996)
Anna Chancellor	...	Anna Griffiths (2 episodes, 1996)
Liz Smith	...	Mrs.Baglin (2 episodes, 1996)
Alison Steadman	...	Mrs.Haynes (2 episodes, 1996)
Kate O'Toole	...	Staff Nurse (2 episodes, 1996)
Fay Ripley	...	Club Barmaid (2 episodes, 1996)

Runtime:

50 min (4 episodes)

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Filming Locations:

London, England, UK

Company:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Trivia:

In Episode 1, Daniel makes a call from a phone booth where someone has written "Reality Sucks" on the glass, and someone else has crossed out "Sucks" and written "or Nothing" below it. In the followup miniseries ("Cold Lazarus"), "Reality or Nothing" is the name of a group of anti-media terrorists.

Movie Connections:

References The Shining (1980)

Tedium Is Not Art

Albert Finney smokes so many cigarettes in this grinding, laboured piece of establishment sham art that I feel I need to have a chest X-ray. The monotony was too much to bear but, happily, the fast-forward on my player operated flawlessly. This piece could easily have been abbreviated to 30 minutes, and even then would have been on the long side.

Repulsive characters seem to grow from under every cafe table, each more obnoxious than the one preceding, and the majority serving only to slow the passing of an already tiresome vigil. The agent's mother plucking her underarm hair and placing it under her utterly tiresome son's poached egg was a perfect metaphor for this dreadful work. His spoonerisms were way past juvenile; what on earth was Potter thinking when he foisted this cluster-bomb of non-humor onto this poor actor? As if that wasn't bad enough, the character slaps himself in the face, just in case we hadn't noticed his linguistic challenge, and turns the role into one sustained groan-inducing experience.

The only redeeming characters were the crew in the video editing suite. Here, at least, we were spared the quasi-surrealism of Potter's overbearing vision and were afforded a brief respite from the wheezing and grimacing of Finney's over-the-top shenanigans which, in close-up, were simply claustrophobic and alienating. Julie Christie's cameo was a breath of fresh air.

This is a perfect example of ersatz art offered to a confused public programmed to think that oppressive stories, albeit with some decent acting, crammed with non-sequitur plot- lines and bizarre characterizations, amount to real art -- especially when these stories are ABOUT the "art crowd" themselves.

Potter gave a good interview. Here was a man who well understood one thing about the art-jungle: there is always someone slower and duller than you. Make them feel that they have found their disease, give them a bit of tits-and-ass, disorient them, and appear to offer a way of transcending, of becoming LIKE HIM; this is lucrative.