Childish man of many talents
Atlanta and outer space are keeping Donald Glover aka Childish Gambino busy, finds Rick Bentley.
Call him Childish Gambino. Call him Lando Calrissian. Call him Earnest Marks. Whatever you call Donald Glover, that name will be associated with the massive amount of success the actor/musician/producer is having.
Glover can be seen in the second season of his series Atlanta, which starts on our screens this week. The cable comedy about two cousins trying to find success in the Atlanta music scene has already earned Glover a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor - Comedy or Musical, plus a Primetime Emmy acting and directing award. The Television Critics Association gave Atlanta three awards, including an individual honour for Glover.
Glover didn’t look back at what happened the first season, but focused on making the second season as good on its own merits. He’s gone so far as to call the second season Atlanta: Robbin’ Season. He turned to a unique source for inspiration.
‘‘We definitely went into this season trying to figure out what we liked
Trauma, Tonight, 8.30pm, TVNZ1
From the creator of Doctor Foster comes a new three-part British psychological thriller, where the lives of two fathers collide as tragedy strikes. John Simm plays Dan, whose son dies while in the care of Jon (Adrian Lester), Dan believes the doctor is responsible for the death and begins to unpick the very fabric of Jon’s life. ‘‘As human drama, Mike Bartlett’s thriller is pure theatre,’’ wrote The Telegraph’s Chris Harvey.
All in the Mind, Tonight, 8.30pm, Prime
Documentary in which Kiwi brain development specialist Nathan Wallis presents compelling science about a very big life question: is a man’s grey matter about the first season.
‘‘We just looked at it as 30 minutes on television. We weren’t trying to think about it in terms of sitcoms or, like, tropes or what had come before,’’ Glover says.
‘‘We didn’t really look back at Season 1 for inspiration. I feel like if you do that as a producer ... you tend to be risk-averse, which I really think is bad for art.
‘‘We just went into this, like, ‘Why are we going to do Season 2? Everybody does Season 2.’ And I felt like the theme that we really wanted to go for was this. And I think, in the writers’ room, we talked a lot about How I Spent My Summer Vacation by the Tiny Toons.’’
The influence of Tiny Toons –an animated show about a group of young cartoon characters – came from how all of the episodes of the How I Spent My Summer Vacation series could be viewed and enjoyed individually. But if watched together, there is a connective thread.
This was going on while Glover was slipping into the role of the coolest man to ever fly through the galaxy, the same as a woman’s? His experiments include giving toys to chimpanzees and taking on New Zealand rally driver Emma Gilmour in a race track hot lap. Lando Calrissian, for the Star Wars prequel Solo: A Star Wars Story.
Stepping into one of the most iconic roles in sci-fi film, Glover never felt any extra pressure. It was the first time in a long time where all he had to do was act.
Under the name Childish Gambino, he picked up a Grammy for Best Traditional R&B Performance for his song, Redbone and he’s bringing his mysterious Pharos music festival to Auckland in November.
Unsurprisingly, the 11 episodes in the second season of Atlanta will again rely heavily on music. ‘‘The music of the show is such a different part of it. It’s kind of the mouthpiece for Atlanta, the actual city, the way we use the music in the show,’’ Glover says.
The inclusion of local artists has provided a platform to be part of what the show is trying to say. Their music helps Glover look at the bigger social, political and financial elements that define the people.
Rillington Place, Monday, 9.30pm, UKTV
Renowned actors Tim Roth and Samantha Morton lead the cast in this gripping three-part, 2016 drama about the notorious serial killer, John Reginald Christie. ‘‘It is a tale that has been told many times before. But the depiction of the manipulation, the entrapment, the complicity without blame, the forced compromises and the black misery spreading from one man’s evil has surely rarely been better done,’’ wrote The Guardian’s Lucy Mangan.
Stealing Van Gogh, Thursday, 8.30pm, Sky Arts
In 2002, two thieves broke into the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, stealing two paintings and disappearing into the
‘‘We always talk about grey areas. Everything’s so fire and ice, and most of the world, most of the time, is in the middle,’’ he says.
‘‘Specifically with being black and making money, you start to realise how much of that is tied to being poor and how much of that identity is part of the things you can’t have and the things people won’t let you have, and you don’t know where the lines are any more. It’s hard to be yourself because that definition is changed by what people are allowing you to do and what people are allowing you to say and who you are allowed to hang out with and stuff.’’
That kind of deep thinking in connection to a TV show is part of Glover going by so many different names and doing so many different things.
As far as he’s concerned, the best part of his life is he’s still close to his family (his brother, Stephen Glover is also an executive producer and writer on Atlanta) and he continues to have a sense of humour about everything.
– Tribune Content Agency, LLC
''The music... It's kind of the mouthpiece for Atlanta...''
❚ Atlanta: Robbin’ Season
screens on SoHo, Saturdays at 8.30pm. An encore screening of episode one repeats on Tuesday at 11.30pm.
night. The theft is listed by the FBI as one of top 10 art crimes of all time. In this new BBC documentary, presenter Andrew Graham-Dixon pieces together the story of the two paintings and looks at the wider world of art crime.
The Journey, Saturday, 8.30pm, Rialto
Screenwriter Colin Bateman’s ‘‘what if it happened this way?’’ 2017 scenario is the ideal showcase for two fabulous character actors. Colm Meaney and Timothy Spall both deliver perfectly pitched performances as real-life Northern Irish political rivals Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley, which draw the viewer in and let them decide who has the more reasonable position.
– James Croot