Fair City - Worst Direction and Acting on the Planet?

1. Why does nobody in the soap suffer from the recession, they are all in good jobs, decent flats, plenty of nice clothes and enough money to drink in the local EVERY SINGLE NIGHT OF THE WEEK? That bird who came back a few weeks ago even managed to get an interview and a job offer in the space of one day, that would never happen

2. Every single episode will have characters who just happened to meet as one is entering/exiting the pub or shop, what a weak way to set up a scene instead of being more natural like a phone call or meeting inside a pub. Watch the next ep, i promise there will be a scene with 2 main characters just bumping into each other....

3. The cheap sets- houses look tacky and nasty and plenty of mistakes are evident like microphone booms visible and sound echoes.

4. Quality of acting, most people on FC just phone in their performace and it simply doesnt feel realistic or gripping in any way, they just look bored and like they want to be somewhere else.

5. Characters just vanish for months at a time with no explanation and then re-appear one day as if nothing has happened and nobody ever saya "Oh, where is so-and-so, havent seen them in a while"!

Wanderer2010 wrote: »

You are right, sets are limited and i respect that, but having characters just conveniently 'bump into each other' as one is heading for/leaving the pub/shop/park just doesnt feel organic and comes across as forced and fake. The start of Thursdays ep had Suzanne and Nassa just bump into each other on the street as Suzanne left the flat and Nassa came back from the shop- they couldnt have had their conversation in a more private place like, oh, the very flat they just spent the whole night in?? The only way i can describe it is that you can almost see the characters frozen before "Action!" is shouted and they then bump into each other and start talking- stilted, jerky and unnatural.

Franky, no. We are expected to believe that Damien, who was a rough debt collecter, becomes a snivelling wreck who never stands up to his (very unnatractive) wife. We are expected to believe that Suzanne went from snappy wife to abuser in the space of ONE EPISODE (the one where she starts comically hitting the back of the chair when Damien is cowering), instead of the slow burner that usually happens with these cases. I know she broke the cue off him but the evolution from tense woman to psychopath was way off kilter and smacks of a rushed script. I found myself laughing very hard at the beating scenes, my mates did the same, thousands of people up and down the country also found it very amusing. There is even a thread dedicated to how funny the story is on these boards! So, many people out there think the story is so bad that its funny and i am one of them, that viewpoint exists whether you want to accept it or not. Sarah Flood looks really uneasy delivering the scenes, there is a real awkwardness about the hitting scenes in that i bet they only did one take it looks that amatuer, and Damien is now moping around with Dolores (it gives her character something to do, i suppose). I accept it takes time to recover but these 2 characters, from start to finish, have made a pigs ear of such an extremely serious issue and if half the county are laughing then we have a very bad failure on our hands.

As for the other characters you mentioned, i never felt they were particularly brilliant. FC doesnt know the meaning of the phrase "change is as good as a rest" Tony Tormley is in it since day one and had every job, bedded every woman and done everything you can do in a small town, why is he still there? Its boring as they are just forcing him back with Niamh, another characters who is there years. These old hands are just window dressing and they are just there for background purposes. The producers should hand a few of these people their P45s and get some fresh faces in for a few new storylines rather than the whoe "Oh, Paul is getting together with a new female character.....thats not at all boring and predictable :rolleyes:

Glenroe managed more affecting performances in one show a week than FC does 4 times a week.

I will give you an example now- where has Keith and his brother vanished to? They had a few storyines recently and have not been seen in a few weeks, it happens all the time in FC where characters just up and disappear and then come back a few months later with no explanation as to what they were up to, it smacks of a bloated cast when they have to send a good chunk of them away for months at a time.

Ha, rejected writer? Nope, im very lucky to have a ful time job i enjoy and keep my head above water. I was just saying that if anyone did want to write scripts, the standard in FC is quite low so you have a chance!