Bean Talk

A glaring hole in my TV timetable was pointed out by a visiting niece and I have done much to rectify that in the last couple of weeks. Mr. Bean shows up every night on weekdays at 8:30 pm (preceded by one of those candid camera shows called Just For Gags, a Quebecois show). All this on POGO, a channel that didn't show up earlier on my radar.

The thing about the Mr. Bean series apart from the brilliant acting and the situations is how the writers never lose grip on the characterisation. Mr. Bean isn't all an imbecile, he just has a radically different way of approaching things and the writers always keep him true to his illogic. They don't try and wrench sympathy from the viewers as may have been the easy way by showing him as an idiot. Mr. Bean is selfish, sometimes mean, not above ripping off the head of his only friend, the emaciated teddy, to make a paintbrush and is easily tempted into cheating.

For anyone who would find it hard to believe that Rowan Atkinson is capable of playing anything else (such is his body language), I recommend the equally brilliant Blackadder series. The first Blackadder is a little like Mr. Bean, but later versions become this suave, cynical, canny character, far removed from Mr. Bean.

The team of Atkinson, Richard Curtis, Howard Goodall have had a tremendous influence on some of the popular English films in the last 15 years. Especially the Curtis brand of romantic comedies. However stereotypical, they never disappoint.