Worlds apart
On set of E4’s new sci-fi-comedy-drama-allegory, The Aliens…
Britain in the late 1970s was a time of notorious turmoil. The Winter Of Discontent. The explosion of punk. The rise of Margaret Thatcher. And who could forget the alien craft that crashlanded just off the North Wales coastline? This is the alternate reality of The Aliens, a new six-part comedy drama from E4. Total Film has come to the set to find out what happened to these extraterrestrials – and the reality is a grimly familiar one...
We’re on the outskirts of the Bulgarian capital of Sofia, on a set that’s been transformed into Troy, a British shanty town run by gang lords. It’s here, in the parallel present, that the aliens have been confined in a conurbation so dystopian and seedy as to make Mos Eisley look like Pleasantville. There’s blood on the ground, stray dogs prowl the streets and a gutted car smoulders. The streets throb with tension. Although that might be because there’s a lot of filming to squeeze in before the first three episodes wrap tomorrow.
Ghetto heaven
Jumping into a backfiring Mondeo is Lewis ( This is England’s Michael Socha), a bigoted border guard working at Troy’s checkpoint, where the aliens – known in the human world, disdainfully but rather brilliantly, as ‘Morks’ – are tagged and allowed outside to perform menial work. He’s on his way to see Lilyhot (Michaela Coel, creator/star of uproarious E4 sitcom Chewing Gum), an alien with whom he has formed an unlikely alliance after she offers him a way out of his unhappy, aimless existence. Socha and Coel wander over during a break in filming. In spite of the tight schedule, the pair seem impressively energetic and vigorous, joshing each other and generally demonstrating the bubbling chemistry that ignites the show.
“Lilyhot’s very cold-hearted and ambitious,” says Coel of the alien who has an eye on deposing the feuding drug barons currently running Troy. “She’s learnt how to disassociate feelings and empathy from where she wants to get to.”
“Lewis’ slow introduction into the alien world enables him to live a life he’s not forced into,” adds Socha, whose character discovers facts about his family history that prompt a fundamental reassessment of his values. “We all have expectations and cling on to a certain group for reasons of self-worth, so as not to be ostracised or cast out, which is where his anti-alien prejudices come from. When he spends time in Troy, he slowly starts to love it.”
Weirdly, there’s a lot to love in this ghetto for a downtrodden underclass. “There’s a lot more freedom inside Troy than there is
outside, as Lewis discovers,” says Fintan Ryan, who created and developed the series in tandem with production company Clerkenwell Films ( Misfits). “They’re doing what they’ve got to do to survive, and having a good time while they’re doing it.” Meanwhile, members of the more strait-laced, evangelical Alien League advocate complete segregation, having constructed a complex, faux-biblical mythology around their arrival on Earth.
There’s a touch of City Of God in the aesthetic and a smattering of District 9 behind the concept, but Ryan claims to be inspired by a mixture of Sin City – “a place where all bets are off” – and Scorsese’s Mean Streets and Taxi Driver: worlds where comedy and horror, danger and unpredictability jostle on a knife edge. This tone is embodied by the casting of Kill List’s Michael Smiley as Troy’s alien crime boss Antoine. “The laughter is a relief after the visceral bits,” Smiley explains, resplendent in the tracksuit and trainers that comprise Antoine’s uniform shortly before he’s busted out of jail.
Grand follicles
What’s most unexpected is how, well, normal Smiley, Coel and their fellow aliens look. Not for them green skin, antennae or fingertip lights; these extraterrestrials are humanoid, with a handful of physiological differences: they get their kicks from consuming dishwasher tablets, they’re deafened by dog whistles and their hair (known as ‘fur’) bankrolls Troy’s criminal kingpins: once collected, it’s flogged to humans who smoke it as a narcotic.
“If the drug’s growing on you, you’d be stupid not to harvest it,” reckons Smiley. “Anyway, if the aliens didn’t have any currency, the humans would probably have wiped them out by now.” It might be a gas to live in Troy, but the stakes could hardly be higher. Indeed, the sky-high concept comes with an unavoidable topicality: in the weeks prior to TF’s visit, waves of refugees have entered mainland Europe only to be detained in strikingly similar circumstances.
“The aliens are persecuted and kept in a really fucking shit place, whereas the humans live like humans,” agrees Socha. “If you see the border, it is very like what we watch on the news, but crises like this have been going on for years in many different countries.”
Ryan acknowledges what he calls “an unhappy coincidence”, but doesn’t dwell on it. “I’m interested in underdog stories and people that don’t fit in,” he says, “but I’m not trying to make a satire or raise awareness of anything.” He chuckles. “If there’s a revolution because of it then great, but I’m not going to hold my breath...”
ETA | Coming Soon The Aliens is coming soon to E4.
‘If the aliens didn’t have any currency, the humans would probably have wiped them out by now’
Michael Smiley