{"id":7251,"date":"2007-06-09T05:53:08","date_gmt":"2007-06-09T05:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=7251"},"modified":"2015-04-19T05:56:26","modified_gmt":"2015-04-19T05:56:26","slug":"tv-review-david-morrissey-in-viva-blackpool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=7251","title":{"rendered":"TV REVIEW: David Morrissey in ‘Viva Blackpool!’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"VIVA<\/a><\/p>\n

By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n

LONDON \u2013 The BBC has taken the U.S. title of its flamboyant musical crime miniseries “Viva Blackpool!” for a 90-minute special follow-up to a show it originally called just “Blackpool.”<\/p>\n

David Morrissey returns as the charismatic if thuggish entrepreneur Ripley Holden, whose dream it was in the six-parter to build a Las Vegas-like hotel-casino in the northeastern seaside town that is Britain’s closest thing to Atlantic City.<\/p>\n

In the special, Holden has ditched his gambling ambitions and now is a minister in the Church of Christ the Economist, preaching and performing weddings and funerals at a garish Chapel of Love. His dream now is to open a chain of such chapels across the U.K.<\/p>\n

Only daughter Shyanne (Georgia Taylor), with a child of her own, and the sad-sack employees from the casino remain from the miniseries. Holden and the rest of the cast still break into song at the drop of a hat in writer Peter Bowker’s love-letter to all that’s kitsch about American popular culture.<\/p>\n

Holden, who lives in a luxury caravan in the car park next to his chapel, remains unable to avoid the seedier side of life, which involves a plot to steal the original soccer World Cup. Megan Dodds (pictured with Morrissey) costars as a peppery con artist who has Holden wrapped around her little finger, and Annette Crosbie is a little old lady who keeps her late son’s ashes in the long-lost trophy, not knowing its value.<\/p>\n

Although good fun, the show lacks the magic provided in the original by performers such as David Tennant and Sarah Parish. Morrissey and Dodds make a lively pair, but the clever mix of reality and fantasy that made the miniseries so successful is missing.<\/p>\n

\u201cViva BlackpoolV\u201d airs in the U.K. on BBC1 at 9:10 p.m. on June 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ray Bennett LONDON \u2013 The BBC has taken the U.S. title of its flamboyant musical crime miniseries “Viva Blackpool!” for a 90-minute special follow-up to a show it originally called just “Blackpool.” David Morrissey returns as the charismatic if … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15],"tags":[3539,370,2987,853,971],"class_list":["post-7251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-television","tag-viva-blackpool","tag-bbc1","tag-david-morrissey","tag-megan-dodds","tag-peter-bowker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7251"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7253,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7251\/revisions\/7253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}