Celebrating Stephen Graham
I have not blogged so far, on television or films and generally stick to my books for recreation and down time. However, over the last couple of weeks, and for the first time in months, if not years, my husband and I found a couple of excellent series to watch, which deserved praise and attention. Both starred Stephen Graham, who is starting to become my favourite actor!
Never before have we had so many television channels and apps to choose from when we want to sit down and enjoy a movie, documentary or series, and yet, the choices have become so vast that we are often left spending most of our evenings clicking the remote incessantly. This has been the case in our household, and for many months, neither my husband or I have been able to choose a good series or film to invest in.
Along with repetitive strain injury, and a dying remote battery, rarely has so much variety guaranteed a great cinematic experience. Can too much choice be a burden? Are our minds saturated with new channels, Sky viewing, Freeview, Prime, Youtube and Disney+, to name just a few?
I can remember when there were three channels, before channel four was introduced sometime in the early 80s, if I remember correctly. I can even remember further back, when colour television was a luxury, and most TV sets where huge boxes, as wide and deep as they were tall! As a child my family and I had a small black and white portable television, which was then upgraded to a colour set, probably not much bigger.
Now we have two flat screens, one is 65 inch, both are Smart TVs, with so many apps and channels to click on I lose the will to watch! I spend more of my time reading, because the choices are more organised; a physical book, or a download on my Kindle, or one bought on Amazon. For me, this is a more straightforward source of entertainment and one which doesn’t cause tendinitis from excessive clicking!
I usually take the experience from book reading to my website, as a way of sharing knowledge and blogging to other readers about my opinions on different authors. It’s kind of a one-woman book club but I am also a member of Goodreads, where I get to share thoughts on different books and this is an interesting and supportive community of fellow book lovers.
I have never done reviews on television though, and this is a first. However, I have been inspired to write about a particular actor, who seems to be climbing the dizzy heights of stardom, due to what I would describe as exceptional talent. Stephen Graham is an English actor, born 3 August 1973, who started his career in the early 1990s, starring in Snatch, alongside Hollywood Legends Brad Pitt and Jason Stratham.
He has gone on to star in Gangs of New York, with Daniel Day Lewis and Leonardo Decapiro, as well as This is England. I was more impressed with some of his more recent work, and after watching Adolescence and then straight after, Little Boy Blue, I became fascinated with his work. I went back to some earlier productions, one called Boiling Point, where he stars as a head chef of a declining restaurant, fighting the stresses of being an absent father, while battling alcohol and drug addiction and full time work.
This man takes a character and becomes immersed, so that every emotion expressed, is felt by the viewer and transcends the screen. You become invested 100% in his experience and the essence of his character as he metamorphoses into his character. His versatility awards him such diverse roles from speaking cockney in Snatch, to the broad Liverpool accent in Adolescence and Little Boy Blue. In the former, the directing is very unique in that only two cameras are used, each one switching during scenes, so that the viewer gets a real sense of the events as they unfold.
In adolescence the story tackles the experience of a normal family where the teenage son is convicted of murder, after stabbing a teenage girl. The actor when interviewed explains that having read real reports of this happening more frequently in the UK, he felt that as a community, we all have a responsibility to support our young generation, to tackle this kind of crime, and reduce the incidences. He explores this in the series, and was very conscious not to have a fractured family background for the child, and to demonstrate that crimes like this sometimes have no obvious reason. By doing this, he shows that the responsibility for prevention should never lie just in the school system, or the family setup, or the police service.
The series he starred in called Little Boy Blue was based on true events, and he played the part of the detective running the case to find the killers of the young boy shot to death after a football practice. I admit this was a difficult watch and very emotional, having two sons of my own, one at a similar age. However, the acting is breath taking and Stephen once again, shows the versatility of his acting skills.
Stephen has received nominations for seven television awards and one academy film award, as well as being honoured with an OBE in 2023. There are many other productions he has starred in and directed/produced which can be found by searching his name. I can say, hands down, that he is one of my favourite British actors, he has such a strong screen presence, and I sense a real kindness about him, a humility not often found in those who have risen to fame so successfully. I am now waiting with baited breath, and hands hovering ready to click, for the next opportunity to see him shine again! Here’s hoping!
