Performers As A Commodity

The pain when a favourite series comes to the end. I watch a lot of tv - I love people, people watching and I'm attempting to write a comedy-drama for the small screen so it's good to see what others are doing that ticks what I like and what's popular. TV's been the front runner over film for the last few years.

As film increasingly invests in the big blockbusters, smaller independents are increasingly showing up in telly-land, which now attracts big hitters on both the cast and crew fronts, and writing is becoming ever more sophisticated.  

Although the BBC is having a phenomenal run at the moment, Netflix is the real culprit behind what's turning things eggs over easy, and who doesn't love a good Netflix series; Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Shameless USA, Orange Is The New Black, Person Of Interest, The Queen, and many more.

Alongside brilliant drama's we get to enjoy standout comedy talents like Amy Schumer, Tig Notaro, Hannah Gadsby and Tina Fey, with a mandatory dose of RuPaul's Drag Race thrown into the mix. Coming soon to the UK... Yowser!

I know people who say they don't watch tv but they watch netflix

I'm not sure when that got redefined, which is interesting because there's traditionally been such a lot of loola around seeing telly as the poor relation.

For me it's a cultural fix, it's educational, I can't take against it, I've been with it from it's early days, you could say I'm loyal to the cause.  I've many lovely associations, from music blaring into the lounge as a kid; Thank Your Lucky Stars, Juke Box Jury, Top Of The Pops, , The Old Grey Whistle Test, with bands, artists and phases too numerous to list.

To say nothing of the monochrome kitchen sink drama's in the sixties like Armchair Theatre that introduced me to amazing actors like Billie Whitelaw, Albert Finney, Tom Courtney, along with the fundamental hospital and police drama's t'boot. Let's not forget the contribution TV made in bringing Ken Loach's heart-rendering fly-on-the-wall, 'Kathy Come Home' to our screens through this the same route.

Television Rebellion

Television encouraged my early rebellion, so it's amazing now that it's making it's own case, good on y'telly. 

But learning this week of Kit Harrington's difficulties is a sad reminder of the confines of an industry where time pressures are no doubt immense and when people wobble there's not as much room as is humanely required for someone's meltdown. Once a shoot is done and dusted, that's when the underlying stress shows itself, that's when the trouble really starts. And because the studio lights are down, the next big wave is happening somewhere else and the public gazed lives elsewhere, it can be horribly lonely for an artist that later we pile in with the platitudes. The infamous words: 'If we'd only known'.

there's really is no business like show business when it comes to pushing through on adrenaline

I remember LOST disappointing people at the end, but GoT seems to have crammed way too much into it's final series, and it doesn't sound as though it ticked any favourable boxes.

After all that I'm one of the few who hasn't watched it, but my niece's have and there's a mixed response. Some feel it had a lot more mileage and maybe that's how some of the GoT cast feel too.

What do you think?

I'm a big fan of the wonderfully talented Amy. Amy. Amy. I saw her perform during her Ska phase on the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury in 2008, when she got into an altercation with someone near the front of the crowd. The show was cut short. Lots of people were laughing about it, but what I felt left it's imprint, as it would only be a matter of time.

We continue to lose incredibly talented folk and although the industry does care on one level it's hard-pressed to know how to handle matters on another.

Jane Unsworth - Health & Mindset Coach - Reel Vitality - www.janeunsworth.com