Staged Explained: What’s Up With the Ending?

Director Simon Evans was in half-hearted talks before the lockdown with acclaimed actors David Tennant and Michael Sheen to star in his production of Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author. at the West End Theatre. Well, more precisely, he negotiated with David, who agreed and even managed to persuade his old friend Michael, whom Simon is afraid of. They began to rehearse, but then the lockdown struck, everyone was locked up at home, the production was postponed indefinitely.

Simon takes the opportunity to suggest that David start rehearsals online. At first, David does not really understand how this is even possible, but David’s wife Georgia (Georgia Moffett) believes that her husband will benefit from daily rehearsals, so David agrees. David also persuades Michael to take part in online rehearsals – and he joins.

However, it quickly turns out that Simon is a lousy organizer. In addition, he is afraid of everything, and at the moment when you need to take a clear position, Simon just runs away from the online, so David has to take on a bunch of problems. And when it turned out that another actor was originally invited to the role of Michael and Simon did not really settle the relationship with him, then a complete mess begins.

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Who are David Tennant and Michael Sheen – probably no need to explain. Each of them has an impressive film career, each of them played in Shakespeare productions – both played Hamlet, Tennant played Richard II, Sheen played Henry V – and they starred together in the wonderful series “Good Omens” by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett , where Michael Sheen played the archangel Aziraphale and David Tennant played the demon Crowley.

The series “Staging” turned out to be such a kind of homely and very ironic continuation of “Good Omens”, where David and Michael play like themselves – famous actors who rehearse the play online with an unsuccessful director.

The script of this series was written by Simon Evans with Fin Glynn (Glynn also acted as a producer), and here the writers need to say a huge thank you, because it was really very funny, cool, ironic and witty. It is clear that these wonderful actors made a large share in the success of the series, but there the script with dialogues is absolutely wonderful. Moreover, Simon Evans himself as a character in the series took a very unenviable role, and this speaks of his good sense of self-irony.

It is clear that Tennant and Sheen do not play themselves, but follow the script, but they are in their homes, with their wives who take part in the series: actress Georgia Moffett, David’s wife, played with Tennant in the super popular TV series “Doctor Who”, Anna Lundberg, wife of Michael Sheen, a well-known Swedish TV presenter and journalist – so something personal is somehow brought into this all.

The series has a total of six twenty-minute episodes, each episode beginning with cut-scenes and voice-over credits from the cast, and ending with cut-scenes and voice-over credits from the cast. And this is all really great! Dramaturgy, dialogues, seemingly endless biting, but such friendly squabbles between Michael and David – it was very cool.

Interestingly, in Good Omens, it was Tennant who, as it were, played the main violin, was cynical and incredibly sarcastic! Apparently, after that, Michael Sheen was assigned a similar role in the “Staging”, and Tennant here is a kind of compromiser, raker of all sorts of problems and even a substitute for himself – there is an absolutely gorgeous episode with Samuel Jackson, who, as it turned out, was originally supposed to play the role Michael Sheen, but he was fired. Tennant is trying to solve these problems with him and at the same time is substituted nowhere further.

And there’s a great purely cinematic joke (there are a lot of them in the series) when Tennant calls Samuel Jackson the name of Michael Sheen, and constantly swearing Jackson (he is in the appropriate image) asks David, who the hell is this? (Jackson and Sheen starred in the very powerful 2010 film The Unthinkable.) And then the series plays on that story in a funny way.

In addition to Jackson, cameos of three more actors were inserted here. Nina Sosanya from “Real Love” and many other films and TV shows perfectly played the producer of the production. Adrian Lester appeared in a funny episode. Well, the wonderful Judi Dench appeared in the sixth episode, and everything was perfectly done with her from all sides – both in script and in how it was all played.

Plus, add to this the very funny national picks of the Welshman Michael Sheen with the Scot David Tennant (Tennant is a pseudonym taken by the actor in honor of Neil Tennant from the Pet Shop Boys pop group, David’s real name is McDonald); disputes over whose name will be first on the poster and why; Michael Sheen’s attempts to plant his drunk bottles on a respectable matron neighbor; well, and other absolutely gorgeous episodes that appeared here all the time – it’s just really just some kind of holiday.

I don’t want to compare it with “Good Omens” at all, it’s a wonderful series, but just “Staging” – it was done literally on the knee, but it turned out perfectly. I was really in awe, I looked with great pleasure and I will definitely review it, because almost every dialogue can be savored there.

Well, purely for connoisseurs, I note that David has a real TARDIS in his yard. But it’s certainly an easter egg for Doctor Who fans. And I’m wondering: how much did David buy it for, and is it a Chinese fake?!

Now the question is where to get it and in what form, especially since this series is not normally presented even on IMDB. I took it on “Rutreker” here. There is an original track, AlexFilm dubbing, United Statesn and English subtitles. I listened selectively to the translation and voice acting of AlexFilm – very decently done, so if you can’t watch the original with subtitles, then don’t spoil the impression.

 

Staged movie meaning

Director: Simon Evans Cast: David Tennant, Michael Sheen, Georgia Moffett, Lucy Eaton, Anna Lundberg, Simon Evans, Rebecca Cage, Nina Sosanya, Judi Dench, Samuel L Jackson

Series, UK, 2020, 20 min. 1 season, 6 episodes

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