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Featured, Young Drunk Punk

Young Drunk Punk Bruce McCulloch grows up

Originally published in Reel West Magazine winter 2014

Bruce McCulloch is an accidental marketing genius. His stage show Young Drunk Punk was touring the country while he promoted the book it spawned, Let’s Start a Riot: How A Young Drunk Punk Became a Hollywood Dad, and the TV series it inspired, Young Drunk Punk, which aired on City in the spring and is rerunning on CBC this fall.

“They’re very different but it’s the same kind of comedic and emotional material,” says McCulloch, whose last TV production was the Kids in the Hall mini-series Death Comes to Town for CBC. “People trying to find their place in the world, a young guy who doesn’t fucking know anything and thinks he knows everything.”

Young Drunk Punk the TV series stars Tim Carlson and Atticus Mitchell as teenagers Ian and Shinky in 1980s Calgary, “somewhere in the lost years between high school and ‘what’s next.’”

McCulloch calls it “more comedically and thematically autobiographical than literal,” but the series does film in the townhouse community he grew up in. “Literally the same place. So where I walked around having gobbled acid as a 15 year old we’re now shooting.”

Adding to the surreality is that McCulloch and his real-life wife Tracy Ryan play Ian’s parents. No nepotism there though: “Oh yeah, of course I auditioned her,” he says. “I auditioned her once for Superstar and she didn’t get the part. I’m a tough mofo.”

He didn’t write a part for himself, either, and it’s probably fair to say he didn’t audition for it. “I never act unless someone asks me to, I never audition. I don’t think of myself as an actor first. Even when I wrote this it didn’t occur to me to play this character. Other people were saying ‘you’re the dad, right?’”

While the stage show and book delve into some poignant territory amid the laughs, he describes the series humour as mostly silly. In the pilot, the boys are chased after trying to steal a stereo from a crowded party. But he’s also aiming for likeable and maybe more importantly, relatable characters.

“We’re all lost. Even the people who seem like they’re not are lost. The guidance counsellor is lost. You just keep going forward,” he says. “At 50 I feel like a punk maybe even more than I did then. I feel like I’m different from everyone else. Yes, but we all are. The guys in the TV show are years away from understanding that.”

McCulloch found his band of fellow outsiders in the other members of Kids in the Hall, a bond that continues 30-something years later. They’ve done shows this year in Toronto and the United States and McCulloch says they plan to work together again when the stars and schedules align. But he’s not yet looking for the next big thing, any more than he did back in the early days of his career.

“I thought I’d like to make a living writing, and figured we should get on TV. But I had no plan, I just wanted to make stuff,” he says. “My own personal journey in this world is to enjoy what I’m doing and not be on the next thing.”

The current thing is working within the big machine that is television production, adjusting as he goes to capitalize on what the actors bring to the part and what material lands the way he wanted it to. In the editing room in Toronto, McCulloch says he can now start to wonder about Young Drunk Punk “is this the coolest show ever or is it just really weird?”

“We have a lot of Canadian shows trying to be like American shows, to look like, talk like American shows. I have pride in this being Calgary in 1980s. We talk about the Flames and Oilmen. I thought Less Than Kind was wonderful for much the same reason – it felt like I was there.”

Does he worry about the show’s reception, given the scrutiny Canadian comedies are under lately?

“Never hope or you’ll get your heart broken,” he says before adding “I feel pressure with everything I do.”

“We don’t do many TV shows here, so I want this to do well for me but for the young actors, the executives, the fans, for everyone who wants to do TV shows.” He pauses. “Thanks, you’ve just heightened my sense of failure and doom.”

The first season of Young Drunk Punk re-airs on CBC starting Tuesday, October 6. 

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Featured, Saving Hope

Interview: Kim Shaw, Saving Hope’s newest doctor in the house

It doesn’t take long for Hope Zion’s newest junior resident, Dr. Cassie Williams—played by Kim Shaw—to make an impression on Dr. Alex Reid in Thursday’s new episode. Cassie’s bubbly enthusiasm and confidence attracts the attention of all. But this being Saving Hope, nothing on the surface is truly what it seems, and key facets to Cassie’s life are uncovered by the end of “Start Me Up.”

Shaw’s gig on Saving Hope is the latest in an impressive body of television work. The Windsor, Ont., born actress has appeared in sitcoms like Two and a Half Men, Anger Management and How I Met Your Mother, and high-profile dramas like NCIS and The Good Wife. We spoke to Shaw about her career, playing Cassie and winter weather.

You’ve had a really varied career. You’ve been on comedies like Two and a Half Men, Anger Management and How I Met Your Mother, and dramas like The Good Wife and NCIS. That’s a lot of high-profile stuff.
Kim Shaw: It’s been a roller coaster. You never feel like you work enough. I moved to New York when I graduated from high school and went to theatre school and kind of started working right out of the gate. I was very lucky to find people who wanted to work with me and put in the time, management-wise. Then I got sick of the cold and moved to L.A. about five years ago and, happily, haven’t had to waitress since I made that move. When you’re a comedy actress, which I kind of consider myself, you never really feel like you ever get a chance to show that darker side. And then when you’re doing a dark show, you just want to be light! [Laughs.] It’s been fun to explore all of that.

How did you get the role of Dr. Cassie Williams?
I’m a Canadian citizen but have been living in the States and I applied to have a Social Insurance Number. Saving Hope was the first audition I had after getting the card. It was a self-tape, so my boyfriend—God bless him—put me on tape about 20 times, just trying to get the takes right for the scenes they had given me. You send that away and kind of forget about it after it’s gone. I got that wonderful phone call that every actor dreams of—that they were interested—and they tested me out of Los Angeles and I booked it and flew to Toronto.

My best friend is a nurse, my mom is a nurse and my brother is a doctor, so I’ve had that repertoire in my system but have never gotten the chance to do it myself. I’ve played heroin addicts and things on the other side of it, but this is so challenging. Everyone on set has been so lovely … it’s lovely to join a well-oiled machine and feel like you fit in immediately.

Saving_Hope

How does your family feel about you playing a doctor?
I called my brother and told him, ‘I’m a doctor now! In your face! Mine happened a lot quicker than yours!’

Has anyone on-set, like Michael Shanks or Benjamin Ayres played practical jokes on you?
Wendy Crewson is the most trouble on-set. She is just the most fun; she is an amazing person and cracks everybody up. I have a couple of story arcs with her and I’ve learned so much from her, from who I want to be as a person and who I want to be on-set. Erica has just had a baby, so she has this glow and joy about her all of the time which is fun to be around. I don’t have a lot of scenes with Michael, but during the table reads he likes to throw in zingers and make everyone laugh.

Cassie certainly makes an impression when she appears on Thursday night. She’s spunky and ready to go.
She’s over-eager, but I think anyone—on the first day of the rest of your life—is excited to get started. I’m sure that’s how I came across on our first table read.

That excitement is tempered by an incident that occurs a little later on.
As medical students, I think you think you’re ready but you’ve only been cutting open dead bodies for the past four years and you crave that real OR. It’s overwhelming as an actor to be in the OR for the first time because you’re covered in plastic, the gloves are so hard to put on, you’re sweaty and your mask is on. I’m glad I got to show how I felt on the inside.

At the end of the episode, there is another incident, this time involving Dr. Curtis. How long will it take for that storyline to shake out?
It’s a little bit of a slow burn, but it’s a juicy storyline once we get into it.

What can you tell me about Cassie’s evolution this season?
The thing I enjoy about her the most is that she is extremely empathetic, which I can relate to, and she is going through this thing. She thinks she wants to be a doctor and realizes how hard it is to see a patient as a patient and not a person. She struggles with that, and how blunt she has to be. Doctors have to be really cold sometimes and she has a hard time with that. She is one of the smartest doctors—she knows her stuff—but she struggles with the emotion of the new job.

Saving Hope airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CTV.

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Featured, Murdoch Mysteries

Review: Murdoch Mysteries frees Crabtree

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All right Murdoch Mysteries fans. I think we all knew Constable Crabtree wasn’t really guilty of killing Archibald Brooks, but who did it and why were the questions I had bugging me all summer long. And, judging by the tweets I read with #freeCrabtree attached, I wasn’t the only one.

Those questions were answered during “Nolo Contendere,” Monday’s Season 9 premiere where Crabtree was exonerated, Murdoch got hit on the head and Emily planned her exit from Toronto in favour of London with Lillian. Turns out it was Simon who’d shot Archie, and he and Edna escaped Toronto for parts unknown, breaking Crabtree’s heart in the process.

“Nolo Contendere,” which is Latin for “I do not wish to contend,” began dourly, with Crabtree and former Chief Constable Giles wiling their day away in the prison yard. The murder of a fellow inmate named Foster who’d warned Crabtree people were looking for Edna got the copper’s mind racing. Who was looking for Edna and why? (I’m always amazed the way TV shows can transform a space to suit their needs, and MM is no exception, turning an old mill site in Guelph, Ont., into the Don Jail Crabtree and Giles rotted away in.)

Peter Mitchell and Paul Aiken’s script quickly shifted to the city as Murdoch and Higgins visited Edna’s old apartment, the site of a burglary. That visit, a chat with Crabtree and a slug to the back of the head later and Murdoch was untying a knot of evidence involving a raw diamond, assumed identities, bicycle grease, roquefort cheese and murderous army buddies.

I wondered how the writers would return Crabtree from a detective—and leaving Station House No. 4—to a constable, and they did it in an ingenious way. As Giles stated, Crabtree’s “Nolo Contendere” plea meant he wasn’t guilty of the crime and it closed the books on the case. Sure, he’s got to work his way back up to being a detective, but at least he’s allowed to be a copper.

And, really, that’s all fans care about, right? What did you think of the episode? Comment below or via @tv_eh.

Notes and quotes

  • It only took Murdoch and Julia one scene to get smoochy with each other, something Hélène Joy told me would be a common occurrence in Season 9.
  • I got a distinct Red and Andy vibe from Giles and Crabtree, didn’t you?
  • “I knew there was a reason I married you!” Judging by the way Hélène Joy reacted, I’m pretty sure that line was ad-libbed by Yannick Bisson.
  • I loved how Crabtree used his fellow inmates’ against one another to find out who killed Foster.

Murdoch Mysteries airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on CBC.

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Featured, Murdoch Mysteries

Murdoch Mysteries by the numbers

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Did you know Murdoch Mysteries is CBC’s top Canadian entertainment program? Since its CBC premiere in fall 2012, over 13.5 million Canadians have tuned in — that’s about 40 percent of the population, or 2 in 5 Canadians.

In honour of the show’s Season 9 premiere tonight, and thanks to Shaftesbury and CBC fact gatherers, here’s the lowdown on Canada’s favourite artful detective:

9 seasons
134 episodes
177 murders solved
Sold to 110 countries

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736 days of shooting
More than 8800 hours of filming
135 unique locations
1 screeching in
8500 production jobs triggered in Ontario

Murdoch_Shatner

25 historical figures
32 inventions and counting…
90 guest stars including 1 prime minister and 1 Star Trek captain

Murdoch_Mysteries_Cast

2332 sideburns
1002 ties
184 corsets

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1 proposal halted
1 proposal denied
1 proposal accepted
2.5 weddings

CBC

3 coroners
3 career changes for Ogden
10,346 complaints from Higgins
756,348 karate kicks

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1 steamship
1 new millennium
2 trips to the future
1 future British prime minister
1 nudist camp
1 bottle of absinthe
1 James Gillies
2 disruptive Garlands
1 game of dominoes
2 nights on an island with an axe murderer
1 dose of ginseng in Brackenreid’s dinner

The-Artful-Detective-banner-IV-57SN-Z1RW-JPV7-orig

0 Martians
0 werewolves
0 vampires
0 Egyptian curses
0 Venusians
0 ghosts
0 revenants
0 zombies, Haitian or otherwise
0 lake monsters, which Crabtree said all along
0 mole men???
0 leprechauns (yet…)
1 Artful Detective

Murdoch Mysteries airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on CBC.

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Featured, This Life

Review: This Life has heart, humour … and no yelling

It’s hard to convey the tone of This Life in a quick recommendation to friends. I’ve resorted to: “It’s about a single mother with cancer, but it’s good.” And: “It’s like Parenthood without all the yelling.” It’s poignant and funny and warm, and the ensemble cast have their own storylines apart from the central fact that the central character explores what she wants from life after she’s been given a death sentence.

Based on the Radio-Canada series Nouvelle Adresse, This Life premieres tonight as CBC’s best new ratings hope this fall. It feels like a show that belongs on the public broadcaster while also feeling like a subtle move toward their cable-esque hopes. Less sharp right turn than a Strange Empire, more a curve toward complexity.

ThisLifeLawsonsThe pilot starts with single mother and newspaper columnist Natalie Lawson (Torri Higginson) finding out her cancer is back, and terminal. She’s reluctant to tell her children Caleb (James Wotherspoon), Emma (Stephanie Janusauskas) and Romy (Julia Scarlett Dan) and parents (Janet-Laine Green and Peter MacNeill). Younger sister Maggie (Lauren Lee Smith) is an unreliable confidante, spilling the news to siblings Matthew (Rick Roberts) and Oliver (Kristopher Turner) who rally around Natalie. Neighbour Danielle (Rachael Crawford) and Romy’s principal and Natalie’s new love interest Andrew (Shawn Doyle) round out the regular cast.

Developed by Michael MacLennan, the series is helmed by showrunner Joseph Kay who shows tremendous confidence in moving slowly through time and plot to linger on character. Natalie’s diagnosis slowly becomes known to some of her extended family, and the ripple effects on their lives is seen in poignant details, mostly the expressive faces of a wonderful cast.

I didn’t know of Higginson before seeing the first four episodes of the series, but she brings a warmth and natural ease to a difficult role. Natural is a word that kept popping into my mind, from the acting to the way the show is lit, and yet there’s a stylishness to the direction as well — a well-shot image at the end of the pilot is both beautiful and meaningful, for example.

Sometimes the diagnosis seems almost an afterthought to the characters in the expanding soap stories of the extended cast, and I’d find myself wondering if the reactions were too small, but then we’re hit with the quiet devastation unfolding, often beneath the surface.

Even Natalie’s story isn’t all about cancer. She’s a woman who becomes dimly aware before the prognosis that her life might not be the one she meant to lead, her identity and her writing wrapped around her children, her sister Maggie wondering if Natalie has lost herself.

Maggie herself is experimenting with sex and with being a more responsible adult, one of which tends to get in the way of the other.  The character sometimes feels like the familiar lost woman-child trope, the show teetering on judging her for her and allowing herself to own her sexuality, but Smith plays her with an awkward charm and awareness that feels fresh.

11-year-old Julia Scarlett Dan is fantastic, playing the troubled youngest child with an unaffected maturity, and there are wonderful performances from the seasoned professionals as well.

English audiences won’t likely be spoiled by foreknowledge of the French version — 19-2 in a similar position hasn’t seemed to suffer from spoilers – but it will be interesting to see if Kay and his writing team follow the same path as the original.

In a puzzling oddity of scheduling, the English and French versions appear to share a timeslot, meaning the devoted francophone audience may not have the opportunity to watch the remake live even out of curiosity.

If they did, they might find it equally puzzling that an unabashedly Montreal-set series, with French-language signs prominently displayed, is otherwise lacking evidence of French-speaking people . But the setting adds a unique visual element even if not all the cultural elements make it onscreen.

Quibble aside, This Life is a wonderfully chaotic family drama that will draw you in, quietly but firmly.

This Life airs Mondays at 9 on CBC.

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