Gentleman's Compendium Of The Visual Arts (AKA Television and Films)

I'm loving Gotham to be honest. It is not really akin to any Batman film/tv-series that has ever been released, most probably because in this one, Batman is still just a kid! Instead, we get to see the genesis of the Rogue's Gallery and the central character is future-Commissioner Gordon. It is more of a police procedural/crime drama with some dark comedy thrown in, rather than a Batman series, to be honest.

It is correct to say that it never really "peaks"; there is a new case every week, but there is that underlying story-arc of Bruce starting his "training" and the gangsters stabbing each other in every back they can find.

It is very good, I'm really enjoying it.


I'm also going to start The Americans after that, because I've heard nothing but good things so far!

Last night, I saw Coalition, a Channel 4 docu-drama that was first aired back in March. It concerns the 2010 British General Election and the fallout that existed thereafter.

I really enjoyed it and I thought it was really well done. The actors playing the "Big Three" (Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg) were excellent and at times you forgot that you were watching actors and not watching footage of the three. I think George Osbourne (played brilliantly by Sebastian Armesto) got a bit of a rough deal. He comes across as so reptilian, Machievellian and scheming. Maybe it's true to life, but I don't think George would be thrilled at his portrayal.

The highs and lows of the three parties before and after the election are really well portrayed. Both Clegg and Cameron are glued to their televisions, watching intently as the exit-polls come in. By contrast, Brown is depicted in bed, snoring away. Both the Conservatives and the Lib-Dems thought they would be the next leaders, while Labour thought they were finished. The horror for the Tories and the Lib-Dems when they both underperformed and the elation for Labour when they actually did better than they thought is brilliantly portrayed.

The power plays, the horse-trading, the negotiations, the back-stabbing, the betrayals. It's all here. With nobody having a majority, the prospects of minority governments, coalitions and chaos loomed large.

While we all know how it eventually turns out (similar to here, where a centre-left party got into bed with a centre-right party; and the centre-left party ends up getting absolutely annihilated in mid-term elections and in the polls), it is brilliant to see how it all panned out behind the scenes.

I remember being in England back in May of 2010, and being on the ground for when all this stuff was going on. I didn't fully comprehend how staggering such a situation was to the British people. Here in Ireland, coalition governments and "hung-Dáil" are regular occurrences (the last time we had an overall majority Government here was in 1977). But over there, this was almost unheard of. It was always one of the Big Two that took power. The idea of a coalition and of minority governments was anathema. However, it happened.

This is well worth tracking down and it is quite brilliant.