Thank goodness this thespy drama was short
The best thing about Staged (BBC Two) is that it only lasts 15 minutes. The format largely consists of two actors having meetings over Zoom, and anyone who has been forced to conduct work business in this way will know that not long after the quarter-of-an-hour mark you find yourself silently begging for the sweet release of death.
The actors in question are David Tennant and Michael Sheen. Or should that be Michael Sheen and David Tennant? At one point they have a tiff over whose name should go first on a poster. “No! You were first in Good Omens. It’s my turn,” Tennant protests. They are, rest assured, sending themselves up.
Why do actors love playing versions of themselves? I guess it cuts down on research time. It can be funny, and here it frequently is. Both are going slowly mad with lockdown boredom: Tennant a mixture of ennui and that particular kind of frazzled that comes from being a parent trapped in a house with children and no end in sight; Sheen more wild-eyed, feeling under siege from the birds in his garden. Their hairstyles largely correspond to their mental states. Their partners, Georgia Tennant and Anna Lundberg, also appear, which is a neat way of getting around lockdown casting restrictions.
I can’t say how far removed the screen Tennant and Sheen are from their real-life selves (although I once briefly met Tennant and found him to be lovely). But the danger with this sort of thing is that it risks coming across as a bit smug – “everyone knows I’m great, so let’s amusingly pretend I’m not!” See also: Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in The Trip.
The idea is that the pair were supposed to be appearing in Luigo Pirandello’s play, Six Characters in Search of an Author, before Covid came along. The play’s director, Simon Evans – also the director of this, of course – suggests that the trio start rehearsals over Zoom. Sheen is the trickier of the two actors, so Tennant has to cajole and flatter him into doing it.
Tennant and Sheen have decent chemistry, playing friends who are itchily competitive. Tennant has the better deal, cast as the less pretentious one (he also, if appearances are not deceptive, has the better house). Forty minutes of this would have been excruciating. Even 15 feels too long, but I don’t know if that’s because lockdown has ruined my attention span or if the show is a bit too thespy for its own good.
Long ago, I worked in a hospital. It was easy to tell the surgeons from the other consultants: the surgeons had the best suits and the biggest egos. Lenox Hill, a new eightpart Netflix documentary following the staff of a New York City hospital, has found two excellent case studies. The series opens with David Langer, chair of neurosurgery, explaining how he took this “old ladies’ hospital” and transformed it into a centre of excellence. “I took way more risks than I should have. Luckily for me, I had the balls to take that first dive.”
His fellow neurosurgeon, John Boockvar, is similarly blessed in the self-confidence department. Confidence, of course, is exactly what you want to find in the doctor who’s about to operate on your brain. It also makes for good television. Watching Lenox Hill as a British viewer, you automatically make comparisons with British hospital documentaries. Initial observations are that a British hospital would probably have told its neurosurgeons not to yell: “This is not good news! F---!” in front of the cameras when considering a patient’s prognosis.
The two other staff members chosen as the series focus are Mirtha Macri, an A&E doctor, and Amanda Littlerichardson, an obstetrician. While Boockvar and Langer make life or death decisions, Macri and Littlerichardson deal with the more mundane: delivering babies, treating the homeless. The women talk of caring, compassion and empathy; they are also pregnant, so their personal lives and relationships are to the fore. The men stay in masters of the universe mode.
Some of the patients appear throughout the series, including fabulous New York dame Phyllis. “You’re gonna get staples in your head and good drugs,” is how Boockvar sells surgery to her. Afterwards, he asks if she feels any weakness on her left side. “I don’t know, I’d have to punch you to tell you,” she replies.
It is a documentary, but you find yourself taking the characters to heart – patients and doctors alike – as if you were watching a drama.