PRIMAL SCREEN
Follow me up to Carlo
“You’re o to Carlow? What’s happening down there?”
“Well there’s a TV festival and Michael Douglas will be collecting a special award and your man from Billions with the beard will be there as will Oscar-winner Patricia Arquette and a whole bunch of other small-screen stars!”
“And all this is happening in the Midlands in June? You’re kidding me!”
“Not Carlow, Monte Carlo as in Festival de Télévision de Monte-Carlo which will be 59 years young this June.”
“Aha! Is that the festival with the nymphs?”
“Yep, Golden Nymphs for the winners except Mr Douglas who will be getting a crystal one.”
For years, we’ve heard talk of the Golden Age of TV. It’s difficult to argue against this. So far this year, we’ve had a vintage crop with When They See Us, The Virtues, Fleabag, The Other Two, Chernobyl and Russian Doll among the contenders. So where are the TV festivals to rival the big-screen celebrations of Cannes or Sundance or Berlin? In recent years, some of the big film festivals have dipped their toes into the small-screen market, but Monte Carlo, which has flying a TV-shaped flag for 58 years, is still where you get the best of Europe (this year, there’s Das Boot) rubbing shoulders with the US’s finest (Arquette’s Escape at Dannemora).
And you never know who you might bump into at the MC Festival: the guests are as eclectic as they are exotic. Over the years, I’ve seen the great Archbishop Desmond Tutu talking of his South African roots; Lee ‘Six
Million Dollar Man’ Majors desperately seeking a restroom; Kelsey Grammer affecting an Irish accent; Bo Derek making the case for Sharknado 3; and Aidan ‘ Poldark’ Turner keeping his shirt on. And then there are things that I cannot mention because sometimes, what happens in Monte Carlo is best never spoken or thought about agian.
Last year, John Krasinski made his debut as Jack Ryan in Amazon’s take on Tom Clancy’s all-action CIA agent (season two premieres later this year), while this year’s opening night red carpet is rolled out for Jessica Alba and Gabrielle Union in LA’s Finest, a spin-o the Bad Boys lm franchise. There will also be some Festival evergreens; The Bold and the Beautiful (still kind of bold and beautiful after more than 30 years) and Alan Cumming on his cop show, Instinct.
Dick Wolf, an honorary consul of Monaco and patron of the Festival, has been a presence at the shindig since the year dot. Everyone loves Dick, the grizzled veteran of procedurals like Chicago Med and Chicago PD and the original of the species, Law & Order. One year, the cast of his Chicago Fire arrived at a redcarpet screening draped over a re engine; last year he introduced Mariska
( Law & Order: SVU) Hargitay, who collected her Golden Nymph; and this year he’s bringing his new show, FBI, to the party. According to Wolf, who cut his screenwriting teeth on Miami Vice and Hill Street Blues, the TV landscape has changed immeasurably, but content is still king. Our insatiable appetite for TV is proof of that at the Monte Carlo Festival, the pictures may be small but the business is bigger than ever.
Donal O’Donoghue