Sunday 14 August 2011

999

Does British telly need yet another series in a hospital/medical setting? The answer is "yes", and its name is Sirens.


Only six episodes and the series is already over (still viewable for free on 4OD, provided you live in the UK). I'm missing it already.


The action revolves around a crew of three; two experienced guys and the newbie/trainee (played, above, by the very sexy comic actor Kayvan Novak, whose extraordinarily stupid Jihaddi was such a feature of brilliant satirical movie Four Lions).


Totty (and most of the near-nude scenes) is provided by Rhys Thomas, above, whose character also narrates occasionally, while the strong Leeds Police sergeant is played indomitably by Amy Beth Hayes (whose character is strikingly similar to the, er, strong Yorkshire Police sergeant in Teachers of fond memory):


There are also some peripheral firefighters involved plus, of course, any number of stupid patients most of whom are either stupidly drunk or otherwise out of their heads.


But, for me, the real talent is the third ambulance guy, played by top hotty Richard Madden:


His character is a gay Scot, all casual copulation and easy sex...


Inevitably the high-risk high jinks sometimes go wrong, leading to "let's laugh at the homosexual" scenes, but which are in no way different to the "let's laugh at the pathetic straight people" scenes elsewhere in the series.


Because this is one of those rare beasts on telly, where the gay and straight characters are all equally in it together, all matter-of-fact. A nice mark, in fact, of how far we've come in such a short space of time.


I think it's this kind of stuff which does more to promote acceptance of different lifestyles than any number of worthy education initiatives. It's just an added bonus that Sirens is also both funny and, occasionally, rather moving.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes I strongly agree. Tv,soaps, film have managed to change most people's perception of homosexuality almost totally in the last 20 years so that it is now considered not only acceptable but normal. Who says there is no such thing as human progress!

Anonymous said...

Richard Madden stars in HBO's " Game of Thrones". Thanks for lettings us know about his other work, especially that in which he bares all.
HBO has been fairly generous in its full frontal male nudity in this series. Maybe Richard will participate in the upcoming season.