Page 29 - Fujifilm Exposure_24 Stephen Fry_ok

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A NOVEL APPROACH
THE BAFTA NOMINATED THE BOOK GROUP HAS
QUIETLY BECOME ONE OF TV’S MOST UNLIKELY HITS. GARETH MCLEAN VISITED THE SET IN GLASGOW.
T he group sex was yester- day. Today, on the set of
The Book Group, the assem- bly – Claire, Dirka, Fist, Kenny and the rest – are eyeing each other awk- wardly. I’m not sure if the
scene now being filmed takes place after the ménage à neuf or whether it precedes the, for want of a better word, action.
After all, the members of the book group, all socially dysfunctional in their own special way, have a tenden- cy to regard each other with suspicion even without orgiastic sex having com- plicated matters.
Janice, the original footballer’s wife, suddenly gets up from her seat, as the cameras roll, and makes her way to the kitchen. She (or rather, actress Michelle Gomez) turns and faces the room. She releases her hair from a tight bun and shakes it loose. She unbuttons her blouse, drapes her- self seductively on a pillar and purrs: “What’s wrrrong with dirrrrty books?” I
think this display answers the “before or after” question. Definitely before.
It will come as no surprise, if you’re a fan of [writer/director] Annie Griffin’s quietly brilliant show, that the book under discussion in this episode is The Sexual Life of Catherine M.
The last thing you could accuse The Book Group of is being simple. Smart, sophisticated, subtle, it doesn’t scream ‘Friday night Channel 4 come- dy’. And yet it charmed audiences and critics alike.
If you hadn’t seen Griffin’s previous comedy, Coming Soon, The Book Group was something refreshing. With its lack of outright laughs, its emphasis on character and its excruciating moments of social awkwardness, you could have bracketed it in that comic sub-genre to which The Office also belongs – the comedy of embarrassment. Or you could just just enjoy its darkness, its intelligence and its sly humour.
“Channel 4 didn’t like it when I started working on the scripts; they thought it was an unsexy idea,” says
Griffin, taking a break from filming. “I think they always thought it was going to be a late-night, quirky show with a small but loyal audience.
“Then the scheduling people took it home and actually watched it. They decided they really liked it and that people would get it, but when they said they had decided to put it on on a Friday night, I was shocked. We hadn’t even discussed that possibility.”
And why would they have? A sit- com about a book group discussing the likes of The Celestine Prophecy and Don Quixote is a little ‘high-con- cept’. Griffin shakes her head. She says she thinks TV executives and commissioning editors underestimate audiences and that hyping a show can often backfire.
“If you describe it as a comedy about people talking about books, I’d like to think people would go ‘How can that be?’ and be intrigued. In general, I think television viewers don’t want to like something if it is being pushed down their throats. Sex and the City
did badly in its first year because they hyped it so much. People like to dis- cover things for themselves.
“In the last series, every episode got more and more surprising, more anarchic,” says Griffin, “and I think that all comes from the characters. That’s what I love about television – you can really identify with characters and go into relationships with them. A lot of people have that with soap char- acters but for me, it’s something like ER. When Dr Greene’s father died, I found myself wondering how he was dealing with it.”
Griffin says this attachment to char- acters is what makes TV so special. “The characters in The Book Group really exist now. Even if there isn’t a third series, and I’m not sure about that yet, the characters will go on.
“When I was writing it, I didn’t know what was going to happen. You’re sitting there and there are moments that surprise you. I don’t do story outlines, I just write and things happen. I always feel like I’m following
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Photos above: On location with The Book Group
Fuji Motion Picture And Professional Video • Exposure • 27