STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Simon Gaskell (Sean Bean) teaches English by day, but by night transforms himself into Tracie Tremarco, a tarty, brassy madam with a big front. He finds herself drawn to Tony (Stephen Graham), a married man who finds Tracie's allure irresistible. But when their relationship becomes more intense and Tony is forced to choose between his wife and his lover, Simon finds himself up in the dock on a murder charge.
I'm pretty sure it was Robbie Coltraine's Cracker? that Jimmy McGovern is best known for, and I never really followed that, so I was pretty unfamiliar with his style of work and what to expect from it. I think the main attraction here was the novelty of seeing Sean Bean in drag, and it's weird watching such a masculine actor in a role like this, ditto Graham in support as a closet gay. They're daring roles for the respective actors to play, more than anything else, and thankfully the quality of the writing and the execution of the story are sharp and thrilling enough to make the whole thing pay off.
Aside from acting as a psychological thriller, there may also be an element of it that serves as an eye opener to the worlds of the respective characters, that like many 'alternative lifestyles' is sort of brushed to the sidelines in society, and often gets washed up in a sea of ignorance and preconceptions. While McGovern hasn't necessarily crafted the most sympathetic characters, he does create a scenario and a set up that feels as if it could be real and is therefore more affecting.
Unexpected in every way, this is also surprising in more ways than one. ***
Simon Gaskell (Sean Bean) teaches English by day, but by night transforms himself into Tracie Tremarco, a tarty, brassy madam with a big front. He finds herself drawn to Tony (Stephen Graham), a married man who finds Tracie's allure irresistible. But when their relationship becomes more intense and Tony is forced to choose between his wife and his lover, Simon finds himself up in the dock on a murder charge.
I'm pretty sure it was Robbie Coltraine's Cracker? that Jimmy McGovern is best known for, and I never really followed that, so I was pretty unfamiliar with his style of work and what to expect from it. I think the main attraction here was the novelty of seeing Sean Bean in drag, and it's weird watching such a masculine actor in a role like this, ditto Graham in support as a closet gay. They're daring roles for the respective actors to play, more than anything else, and thankfully the quality of the writing and the execution of the story are sharp and thrilling enough to make the whole thing pay off.
Aside from acting as a psychological thriller, there may also be an element of it that serves as an eye opener to the worlds of the respective characters, that like many 'alternative lifestyles' is sort of brushed to the sidelines in society, and often gets washed up in a sea of ignorance and preconceptions. While McGovern hasn't necessarily crafted the most sympathetic characters, he does create a scenario and a set up that feels as if it could be real and is therefore more affecting.
Unexpected in every way, this is also surprising in more ways than one. ***