I’ve had to learn new skills... I’ve had to learn Tiktok
TV’S DAN SNOW CHATS TO MARION MCMULLEN ABOUT TAKING HISTORY OUT ON TOUR
COMING 2 AMERICA
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ROUND an hour into Craig Brewer’s lacklustre sequel to the 1988 culture clash comedy Coming To America, scriptwriters Kenya Barris, Barry W Blaustein and David Sheffield hammer nails into their own coffins by engineering a playful on-screen conversation about the artistic merits of Hollywood.
With a laboured, self-referential wink, two characters concur that American cinema is dominated by superhero adventures, remakes and “sequels to old movies nobody asked for”.
The sentiment rings true as second-hand sermons about gender inequality and acceptance are casually thrown into the hotchpotch of crudity and character comedy (again, Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall embrace multiple latex-laden alter egos).
Murphy and Hall comfortably ease back into their roles, appropriating the lion’s share of hit-or-miss punchlines while co-stars Leslie Jones, Tracy Morgan and Wesley Snipes tussle over the scraps.
As King Jaffe Joffer (James Earl Jones), ruler of the prosperous nation of Zamunda, takes his final breath, pampered crown prince Akeem (Murphy) faces a constitutional crisis.
His country’s antiquated laws forbid women from ascending the throne, so Akeem’s eldest daughter Meeka (Kiki Layne) and her two sisters Omma (Bella Murphy) and Tinashe (Akiley Love) must marry and dutifully serve a
husband if they wish to rule.
An elderly shaman unexpectedly discloses that Akeem has an heir – an illegitimate son – back in New York.
Determined to protect the royal bloodline, Akeem bids farewell to his wife Lisa (Shari Headley) and travels to America with manservant Semmi (Hall) to track down the product of a drug-fuelled one-night stand more than 30 years ago.
His offspring, ticket tout Lavelle (Jermaine Fowler), is thrilled to discover that he shall inherit the crown and heads excitedly to Zamunda with his mother Mary (Jones) and uncle Reem (Morgan) to face three princely tests.
Political manoeuvring complicates the coronation when General Izzi (Snipes), dictatorial ruler of neighbouring Nexdoria, proposes an arranged marriage between Lavelle and his daughter Bopoto (Teyana Taylor).
Coming 2 America is a laboured reminder of halcyon days when everything Murphy touched turned to gold.
The predictable plot teaches old dogs new tricks, interspersed with cameos including Morgan Freeman, Gladys Knight, Salt-n-pepa and En Vogue. Out-takes during the end credits capture spontaneous outbursts and hilarity behind the scenes.
Everyone is invited to the party, it seems, except us.
■ On Amazon Prime Video now
What sparked your interest in history?
I come from a family were history is everything. History is absolutely essential. Other families have other hobbies, ours was history.
When I was a kid we’d be out every weekend in the driving rain looking around battlefields and castles... you name it. (Laughs) I didn’t really enjoy it very much, I have to say, but I got used to it and now I inflict it on my children.
We are so blessed here in Britain. You have amazing historical things in every city, town and village around the country.
It gets you out of the house, up the hill to the castle, or down to the docks to look at HMS Victory or HMS Unicorn, these wonderful ships that are around our coasts, the cathedrals, the beautiful old Saxon churches, stone circles, the industrial museums in the north.
You can go and look at George Stephenson’s original Rocket in Manchester. History comes alive and my kids love it.
Do you have a favourite period?
I love the 18th century, Jane Austen and Captain Cook. The French Revolution... love that period, when the world was starting to take shape and there was talk of ideas of feminism, democracy and individuals having rights, the right to vote.
And the British Empire really taking shape with amazing consequences around the world. I’ve been to Greenland to look at Viking churches and it just made me think ‘Oh, I want to stay and explore more of this coastline’, and I’ve been to Sri Lanka to film the first Portuguese settlement on the coast. I’ve probably been to thousands of historical sites in Britain, but I’m still discovering new ones all the time that are mind-blowing.
Did you have any work hit by the pandemic?
So much. I was going to be doing Second World War artillery and left-over Second World War vehicles out of a flooded quarry in Alderney.
I was going to be travelling around looking at the kings and queens of England and I was supposed to be going to France looking at the battles of the Hundred Years War.
Are you now looking forward to touring your podcast History Hit?
I’m really excited about that and we are taking the time to find great stories.
It’s a bit of road trip really because the history team will be arriving in each city, we’ll be filming, we’ll be podcasting and making a bit of an event of it.
In the evening we will do a live show and help the audience learn about their own city a bit, and bring on some experts and some friends from the podcasts and it’s going to be really good fun.
The weird thing about being a broadcaster, let alone a digital broadcaster, is you never know who is out there. You record your programme, you film Stonehenge by yourself speaking into you little microphone and you think ‘Am I just a weirdo? What is going on around here?’
And then a million people listen to it. You don’t have any concept of that. It just feels like you’re just a guy in a windcheater, huddled in a corner, so it is really nice doing the live shows and just seeing people’s faces and people into it, laughing along and getting it.
I’ve had to learn new skills the last year. I’ve had to learn Tiktok – that was one which took my by surprise.
Were you surprised at the success of the podcast and your online TV programmes?
I’m very surprised. It’s complete luck. I would love to say it was genius on my part, but it’s definitely not.
I just got very lucky. I was in it early enough and the audience came to it.
I think I’ve tried to make sure there is something for everyone. We have the classic history subjects, your Tudors and the Second
World War, but we recently had one about Disney films and how love and marriage has changed perhaps in response to Disney and Cinderella in the 1950s. It seems to work. (Laughs) You never run out of history.
What is it like watching yourself on screen?
(Smiles) I have a vision of myself when I’m filming, that I’m still in the prime of life and that I’m striding around like some handsome Hollywood actor, and then I look at the reality and it’s some sort of middle-aged bloke with greying hair sort of staggering around the place with a highpitched voice.
I have a vision of myself striding around like some Hollywood actor and then I look at reality
How have you been managing home schooling your three children during lockdown?
Two of them are at the age when they needed an adult by them all the time. My oldest, my nineyear-old, just went off by herself working away. I was very much involved in the home schooling process.
Luckily they are still young enough that I was just about able to do the maths and the English, so we were all OK and history was alright, but my oldest girl is doing science and I was a bit nervous about that.
It was pretty intense trying to do all my podcast and filming as well, but lots of people are in a worse position than me so I can’t complain.
EVERING Road is the name of a strip of houses in Hackney, north-east London. It’s also the place Tom Grennan lived out the dizzying highs and lows of his last relationship – and the place that gives his second album its name.
“It was the hub of love, the hub of heartbreak and the hub of redemption too,” he recalls in the sandpaper voice that has quickly become his calling card.
“All these different things happened in this house and on this street.
“This relationship was all around that area. It just felt right to name it that,” he says.
“I love that road and I loved that house but I also hated the person I was in that house. I didn’t really know who I was.”
Tom, 25, grew up in Bedford. He had no aspirations in music and trained to become a professional footballer, playing for Luton Town before his career stalled.
Much has been made of the fact his first real performance came at a house party, egged on by friends to sing Seaside by The Kooks, a twee indie favourite.
After that, he began to gig around London’s small venues circuit, before being spotted by the boss of Insanity Records at The
Finsbury Pub during a gig to some 30 punters.
He was signed off the back of that performance.
Since then he has gone on to collaborate with Chase & Status, Ella Henderson, Bugzy Malone and superproducer Fraser T
Smith and reached number five with his debut album, Lighting Matches, in 2018.
But it is instantly obvious listening to Evering Road that this album is a step forward.
“My first album, I didn’t really know what I was doing,” he admits.
“I was learning on the job and frankly it did what it did and people loved it.
“But this album I really knew what I wanted. I really knew what I wanted it to sound like.”
After initially being positioned as a kind of indie singer-songwriter, Tom has settled into the more mature role of gravel-voiced soul singer.
He admits he started out aping Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys and Scottish favourite Paolo Nutini before trying the vocal stylings of Tom Jones, Elvis Presley and Ray Charles on for size. Now he just sings as himself. “I’m not conscious of trying to sound unique,” he suggests. “That’s what comes out my throat.”
Evering Road is an excoriating listen. It is both an apology to the girlfriend he wronged and an attempt to purge the guilt he feels.
“I wouldn’t say it is a break-up album in the sense of, ‘Feel sorry for me, cry about it’. But it is a break-up album the way I am owning up to what I have done and I am trying to better myself.
“I am saying sorry and that I have done these things I have done and I have made mistakes, but I am trying to be forgiven for them.
“It is a heartbreak album but it is also an album that is saying, ‘I am a better man for it’.”
The pandemic has been hardest on young artists on the cusp of breaking into the mainstream – artists like Tom.
But he is philosophical about the missed opportunities.
“Everything pans out the way it is meant to,” he says matter of factly. “We are all in the same position, so I haven’t really felt hard done by.
“I have had more time to sit with it, which is sometimes a lucky thing.
“I have had more time to prepare myself and just wait until the right time. 2020 might have been my year, but 2021 is now hopefully going to be my year.”
I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was learning on the job
Tom on his first album
Evering Road by Tom Grennan is out soon on Insanity Records
PALOMA FAITH is not one to stand on the sidelines. However, during her most recent filming stint for Pennyworth series two, the performer had no choice but to let someone else undertake the action sequences.
She has recently given birth to a healthy baby girl following a planned C-section, but speaking to her prior to the new arrival, she reflects on being pregnant during filming in the midst of a pandemic.
“I had a whole new experience,” recalls Paloma, 39.
“Throughout the bit where we returned to film, which was after the first lockdown, I was in a pregnancy, so I was growing bigger and bigger by the minute.
“And then as I grew, so did the number of body doubles.
“Because I’m somebody who likes to do all my stunts myself, it was quite difficult at times.
“’I was like ‘can I just do it?’ and the stunt coordinator was very worried about his insurance.
“So, I just kept getting put to one side and [had to] watch someone else do the mutilation that I wished I was doing myself.”
Adored by DC Comics fans on both sides of the Atlantic, Pennyworth is a dark Batman spin-off packed full of twists and turns.
The tale of the Caped Crusader’s loyal butler
Alfred Pennyworth, played by The Imitation Game star Jack Bannon, the series sees Paloma flex her acting muscles as sociopathic Raven Society member Bet Sykes.
Villian Sykes is an anarchist with sociopathic tendencies and Paloma says she drew inspiration from a variety of sources ahead of filming, including serial killers.
With Pennyworth following the misadventures of Alfred, a former SAS soldier, during his 20s, series one saw him form a security company and undertake work for young billionaire Thomas Wayne, the father of Batman star Bruce Wayne, played by Our Girl and Fleabag actor Ben Aldridge.
After initially becoming a target of the fascist Raven Society – a group conspiring to take over the British government, the action became frenetic, as Alfred found himself fighting against them, helping an American group known as the No Name League.
Series two picks up one year after the events of the first, where England finds itself in a civil war.
Alfred and his SAS friends lead a resistance force in North London and are tasked with holding the city, but really he yearns for a new life in the United States.
According to Paloma, her recalcitrant character is “promoted for her loyalty,” in the new series, something that brings out the worst in her.
“She flourishes but she starts to take the law into her own hands and create her own rules – irrespective of what side she’s on – and sort of be the ruler, or dictator, of her own mini universe.”
Paloma notes that her days spent at a northern university put her in good stead for Bet’s accent.
“I do keep saying to people I really worry that it’s too Coronation Street.
I keep saying ‘I’m trying to be high-brow! I’m trying to be Alan Bennett!’
“I spent three years doing a dance degree when I was 18 in Leeds, so it did have a big impact on me.
“Observing northern colloquialisms – and obviously because I’m a touring musician, I go back there quite a lot and revisit and check in that some of the slang is still maintained and stuff.
“But it feels every time I go too northern, I get called in for additional dialogue recording to overdub the actual words.
“They’re like ‘we don’t understand what ‘owt’ is. Can you just overdub ‘nothing’?”
Despite its period setting, Paloma thinks the show is still relevant to today’s issues. “I feel like its origins are always influenced by the time in which it’s written or authored.
“So, for me, when I watch the show, there’s definite acknowledgement of current political climates on a global level and there’s parallels, because unfortunately, history repeats itself over and over again and humanity’s not clever enough to stop making the same mistakes.”
Starring Jason Flemyng (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) as Lord James Harwood and Emma Paetz (Gentleman Jack) as roving journalist Martha Kane, a host of familiar faces
are set to return for series two.
“The events of season one have taken their toll,” notes Jack, 29, of his character’s storyline.
“[Alfie] is flourishing in the sense that he’s running a large nightclub in the middle of Soho, which is a neutral zone.
“He wants to get enough money together to get to America and start afresh. He’s sort of a bit disillusioned with life and certainly not the kind of happy chappie he was at the start of season one.”
It is a show entirely removed from the Gotham that Batman fans traditionally know and love, focussing on an alternative London that combines fictitious events such as public executions with stylised elements of both the 50s and 60s.
“Obviously Michael Caine was a big influence,” notes Jack of his character. Caine played Alfred in several of the Batman films. “He was also the archetypal film star of the 60s, so we were able to watch Harry Palmer films and stuff like that.
“We tried to get more and more slang and things like that in there, it’s been quite fun.
“But obviously, because it’s made for an American audience, you can’t go too obscure because they don’t really understand what you’re on about half the time.”
I worry that it’s too Coronation Street...i’m trying to be Alan Bennett
Paloma Faith on her character’s accent
■ Pennyworth Series 2 is on Starzplay now