For admirers of Andrea Martin, this role was great news
It’s nice to see Andrea Martin in Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building,’’ even if her role on “Murders” taps into only a fraction of Martin’s abilities so far.
The same is true of the character she plays in the “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” movies.
No, to get the full Andrea Martin experience, you need to check out a TV series you may never have heard of: “Great News.’’
Let’s acknowledge upfront that the series does not have a Great Title. But “Great News” deserved a longer run than it got from NBC, which canceled it in 2018 after only two seasons. Now it is, happily, available on Netflix.
Created by “30 Rock” writer Tracey Wigfield, “Great News’' takes place at a TV news channel that is in a constant state of chaos. The wonderful Briga Heelan portrays Katie Wendelson, an ambitious-but-often-thwarted segment producer who is trying to get her career into a higher gear.
A complication emerges, and its name is Carol, Katie’s 60something mother, played by Martin. Hoping to fulfill her own career ambitions and determined to stay close to her daughter, Carol gets a job as a newsroom intern at the channel.
A never-better John Michael Higgins plays Chuck Pierce, a pompous, old-school newsman who dislikes having to share his anchor desk with Portia ScottGriffith, a millennial scenester deftly portrayed by Nicole Richie. Everyone in the newsroom reports, at least in theory, to British news director Greg Walsh (Adam Campbell).
But Martin is the motor that makes “Great News’' run. I know, the idea of the meddling mother is a cliché. But in Martin’s hands, Carol is an original.
A writer for The Guardian called Martin’s portrayal in “Great News” of Carol “one of the all-time great sitcom performances.’’ I am 100 percent in agreement with that.
It’s as if Martin has bundled together all the comedic tricks she’s learned in a half-century career during which she has played countless roles on TV, on film, and onstage. She first came to my attention as Edith Prickley, on “SCTV,” a TV station manager who cut a vivid figure in her leopard-print hat and clothing.
Boston-area theatergoers will recall Martin’s astonishing exploits on a trapeze in “Pippin,’’ where she portrayed Pippin’s grandmother, Berthe, in a 20122013 production at Cambridge’s American Repertory Theater. That production went on to Broadway, where Martin won a Tony Award.
For her performance a decade earlier in the Huntington Theatre Company’s production of Christopher Durang’s “Betty’s Summer Vacation,’’ Martin won the Elliot Norton Award for Best Actress from the Boston Theater Critics Association.
But the reality is that TV and film offer a permanence that theater can’t match. “Great News” is a reminder that for all their faults, streaming services can provide an afterlife for shows that didn’t get the audience they deserved the first time around on a broadcast or cable network.
And when it comes to Andrea Martin, that means another chance to see a remarkable artist at work. Great news, indeed.