Posted in: Movies, TV | Tagged: american splendor, bbc, entertainment, film, harvey pekar, marvellous, neil baldwin, stoke, tv

Marvellous, And The Influence Of American Splendor

"You can't just get what you want by asking." "Can't you? I can."

 Last night BBC Two showed the docudrama Marvellous, starring Toby Jones (best known of late as Arnim Zola in the Captain America movies). The real life story of Neil Baldwin, a kind of real-life Being There character who, despite obvious "learning difficulties" refuses to accept that label – or any labels – or indeed any restrictions of polite behaviour, to get himself involved with society at all levels. A friend of bishops, senior politicians and footballers, he became a student welfare officer at Keele University, gaining an honorary doctorate despite never actually studying or even officially working there. And working with his beloved Stoke City football team as a part mascot/part kit man, who while bullied by the banter of the player, accepted it and found his own, quite hilarious revenge. It's a feel good show that also embraces tragedy and a very real fear of reality – and the power of optimism in the right hands against a world that just doesn't expect it.

So, yes, I was probably going to like that quite a lot. And I did.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0k566wcK64[/youtube]

But what Marvellous also did was to take a beat from the movie American Splendor. Which, had its cast, on camera, talk to the people they were portraying, about the events and about their portrayals. So you had Paul Giamatti talk to Harvey Pekar and Judah Friedlander talk to Toby Radloff in a scene that, up to that point in the movie, the audience mostly thought he was being caricatured by a clumsy actor. Until you met him. Also, when they switch to film footage of an event, there is no attempt to recreate the scene with actors in that form, they are happy to show the real people as they were filmed at the time, before switching to the actors. American Splendor does it on the set of David Letterman, Marvellous on a football pitch as football manager Lou Macari is interviewed and Neil Baldwin walks behind him in full Scottish dress, lifting his kilt.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APpxQm7sH5k[/youtube]

It adds both a level of reality to proceedings while also reminding you what what you are seeing is, in part, fictional, it as to be, But it invited the audience as a participant in the storytelling process, which .

The Guardian sees Marvellous as an example of the influence of Dennis Potter and his format-breaking traditions on its writer Peter Bowker, and its undeniable that Potter's work affected Bowker on a previous project Blackpool. But on Marvellous, there's a lot more American Splendor to be seen.

Even in Stoke.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!