|
Post by nottobe on Apr 12, 2024 19:16:34 GMT
I never saw the stage version of this but wow what a great series,don't know if there will be better this year. It's very dark indeed but also very gripping with touches of humour. Jessica Gunning is superb as Martha, an actress I am always glad to watch and hopefully this will elevate her more. But of course the star is writer and performer Richard Gadd who really bears his soul here and does stray away from painting himself with all his flaws.
I would love for them to stage the play again as it would be fascinating to see the original. Anyone else seen either version ?
|
|
|
Post by talkingheads on Apr 13, 2024 10:05:43 GMT
I saw the play at the Fringe a few years ago. I remember it veins one if the most visceral, upsetting things I'd ever seen. Because it was only an hour, it got very intense very quickly, thousands of voicemails swirling through the air, relentlessly raising the stress level.
The TV show the most astonishing drama I've seen in a long time. What I really liked is that it would have been so easy for Gadd to write himself as a blameless victim, but he makes such monumentally awful decisions. Equally, a lot of the stuff he tries to say to Martha comes from a place of empathy.
|
|
54 posts
|
Post by theatrescribe on Apr 15, 2024 17:22:22 GMT
I saw it at Bush Theatre (and also Monkey See Monkey Do at Soho Theatre which the TV show borrows some elements from). It was a riveting and gripping show - the main difference was that it was a one man show and that Martha was not shown; instead it used voice messages and text messages, I remember thinking that it was a very technologically advanced show and that the digital elements were really well incorporated. The landlord, friends etc were represented via interview type clips that were interspersed throughout the show. The TV show is absolutely superb and is deserving of the plaudits it's getting. There have been a few changes to the story from the theatre show - the 'viral video' scene as far as I can tell didn't happen in real life - the reality is even more shocking. {Spoiler - click to view}He'd actually achieved some level of success at the time when he was going through these events and he was performing another show (Monkey See Monkey Do) which won a lot of plaudits - so while he was performing a show about sexual abuse he was also dealing with a stalker. Maybe they thought the chronology was a bit confusing but it's a bit of a shame they didn't represent that as to me it made the experience even more shocking. It's a brilliant show and I'd urge everyone to check it out - fantastic performance from the person who plays Martha too.
|
|
7,972 posts
|
Post by alece10 on Apr 17, 2024 6:26:20 GMT
I've just started watching this on the advice of forum members. I am 2 episodes in and am enjoying it. However I find, for a true story, it's rather implausible. She says she is a lawyer who owns lots of property (which i realise she doesnt) and yet she says she can't afford a drink and he has seen where and how she lives, so why does he not challenge her? I guess the reason is that the series would only last one episode. Anyway it's still entertaining even if its all a bit far fetched.
|
|
3,040 posts
|
Post by crowblack on Apr 19, 2024 13:11:30 GMT
It's powerful, but I think it would have worked better if he'd been played by a much younger actor - there's a level of naivety, haplessness, vulnerability and delusion - and even the title - that don't really work when he looks getting on for middle aged himself. Martha's meant to be much older, one of life's losers, but looks the same age as him. There's also the question of why the other characters don't report or record the physical assaults on them: with the racial element and loads of witnesses to one of them they'd have a case for police action
|
|
3,040 posts
|
Post by crowblack on Apr 19, 2024 19:44:29 GMT
Uncomfortable with a global TV drama based around a real woman with severe mental health issues who is presumably still out there somewhere hopefully trying to recover and rehabilitate.
|
|
|
Post by theatregoer22 on Apr 19, 2024 21:52:45 GMT
Uncomfortable with a global TV drama based around a real woman with severe mental health issues who is presumably still out there somewhere hopefully trying to recover and rehabilitate. I'm two episodes in and finding it a compelling watch, but that thought also crossed my mind.
|
|
3,040 posts
|
Post by crowblack on Apr 22, 2024 11:59:53 GMT
And, inevitably, both names in the frame are now getting threats. The allegedly real people also look very like the actors cast to play them. This does feel irresponsible.
|
|
395 posts
|
Post by Nelly on Apr 22, 2024 13:49:47 GMT
And, inevitably, both names in the frame are now getting threats. The allegedly real people also look very like the actors cast to play them. This does feel irresponsible. If they are indeed the two people who have been allegedly identified, then they've really not done much on the Netflix Drama to make them unidentifiable at all really, have they? Agree, it seems incredibly irresponsible.
|
|
|
Post by talkingheads on Apr 23, 2024 7:59:23 GMT
And, inevitably, both names in the frame are now getting threats. The allegedly real people also look very like the actors cast to play them. This does feel irresponsible. If they are indeed the two people who have been allegedly identified, then they've really not done much on the Netflix Drama to make them unidentifiable at all really, have they? Agree, it seems incredibly irresponsible.
I think Richard Gadd has been very brave to relive his trauma to make the show, but the discourse from amateur sleuths on Twitter has been vile. Sharing videos and profiles, accusations. As if the irony of doing that after watching a drama about stalking wasn't enough, it's so dangerous and I think it's really irresponsible of Gadd to make her so easily identifiable.
|
|
3,040 posts
|
Post by crowblack on Apr 23, 2024 9:45:51 GMT
Yes, there's a big difference between a stage show and a global netflix production with a pause button. We're in the 'true crime podcast' era, and things like the reaction to that poor woman who drowned in the river, amateur sleuths all over the scene. When a show is pitched as incredible but true, of course people are going to go, hang on, is it really true? Is there evidence? That's human nature. If the show uses vivid, direct quotes from social media accounts that still exist, legal cases that are public record, then yes, people are going to be traceable. If you say someone you worked with behaved in a certain way, then everyone you worked with, all listed on IMDB, will be in the frame, like Agatha Christie's Ordeal by Innocence. In my admittedly limited experience, I think a UK broadcaster would be more cautious here with safety checks and repercussions.
|
|
2,839 posts
|
Post by couldileaveyou on Apr 23, 2024 9:57:39 GMT
|
|
3,040 posts
|
Post by crowblack on Apr 23, 2024 10:21:10 GMT
There's now 1.6 million views on a Twitter post that shows Martha's dialogue alongside the still existing Twitter posts of the woman alleged to be the real Martha. He hasn't made much (any) effort to disguise her, from her ex job and field, looks, haircut, nationality, history, right down to the diet coke.
|
|
|
Post by talkingheads on Apr 23, 2024 11:07:17 GMT
Bit late isn't it? I honestly thought lawyers would go through the scripts with a fine tooth comb before it got anywhere near production, a statement after millions of people have watched it won't do a thing. Would Baby Reindeer be classified as doxxing, using verbatim quotes that have obviously been very easily traced?
|
|
894 posts
|
Post by karloscar on Apr 23, 2024 14:11:02 GMT
Doxxing implies malicious intent which is clearly not the case here.
|
|
6,873 posts
|
Post by Jon on Apr 23, 2024 14:17:52 GMT
I wonder given the success of the TV adaptation if we might finally see the original version go to the West End since it was postponed due to the pandemic.
|
|
3,040 posts
|
Post by crowblack on Apr 25, 2024 21:42:55 GMT
I wonder given the success of the TV adaptation if we might finally see the original version go to the West End since it was postponed due to the pandemic. Seeing the way this story is now developing across social media and the media, probably not...
|
|
3,040 posts
|
Post by crowblack on Apr 27, 2024 9:59:58 GMT
Doxxing implies malicious intent which is clearly not the case here. There's certainly dishonesty when he claims he made her unrecognisable: quite the contrary, he and the production seem to have gone to great pains to cast an actress who looks, dresses, has the CV, has the speech patterns, actual cut and paste dialogue, and presumably accent of the alleged 'real Martha'. Every single aspect of that could have been altered to distance her, but weren't. In the series, he then goes on to portray Martha physically assaulting people with racial abuse, and going to prison for stalking him. We know the latter isn't true, so is the former? An unreliable narrator is a familiar trope in fiction but it's very dodgy when you are claiming it's fact. And she's getting online death threats for her behaviour as portrayed in the series. It's 'emotionally true', says Gadd, weaselly. Even more icky is that he includes a scene - and it's ambiguous whether it's fantasy or reality, of his character, played by himself, having sex with an actress who looks like a real person. That's like an analogue version of personally tailored 'deepfake porn'. Netflix have a ratings hit, and controversy is all grist to that mill, but there's a reason why shows like this are rare - it's because they're reckless.
|
|
|
Post by Matt on Apr 27, 2024 10:13:28 GMT
Has anyone thought that this is all a big setup that he’s been planning for years? He said he worked hard on making her untraceable, yet it actually seems that not many details were changed at all, and someone as big as Netflix didn’t go over every detail with a fine toothed comb to check this? Netflix would get sued to hell. Something just doesn’t add up.
|
|
3,040 posts
|
Post by crowblack on Apr 27, 2024 10:30:35 GMT
Has anyone thought that this is all a big setup that he’s been planning for years? He said he worked hard on making her untraceable, yet it actually seems that not many details were changed at all, and someone as big as Netflix didn’t go over every detail with a fine toothed comb to check this? Netflix would get sued to hell. Something just doesn’t add up. I've seen some people wondering if it's a Black Mirror thing but I think it's more like a lack of care by the programme makers and platform in pursuit of the sort of story that can be, and is, this year's Tiger King style ratings hit. As he portrays himself in the series, he's a man who makes very bad decisions and is desperate to make it in showbusiness, even going back to a predatory man who, as portrayed in the series, sexually assaulted him, to get a career boost.
|
|
4,127 posts
|
Post by kathryn on May 4, 2024 20:39:27 GMT
Doxxing implies malicious intent which is clearly not the case here. There's certainly dishonesty when he claims he made her unrecognisable: quite the contrary, he and the production seem to have gone to great pains to cast an actress who looks, dresses, has the CV, has the speech patterns, actual cut and paste dialogue, and presumably accent of the alleged 'real Martha'. I’ve seen something like this happen before with news programmes that claim to have changed the names of people in anonymous interviews - they actually said that and put their real name in inverted commas. At the time I thought it a bit of a clever bait-and-switch, as you’ve just been told that the one name that is definitely not theirs is the one you have been given, even though it is. They should have checked whether the tweets still existed. They could have kept everything else exactly the same and got away with it not being identifying just by saying that they’d changed stuff to make sure she was not identifiable, because people would have discounted the details in the series
|
|
|
Post by talkingheads on May 8, 2024 17:11:45 GMT
I need to preface this with DO NOT WATCH PIERS MORGAN'S SHOW.
The real Martha will be interviewed tomorrow. I think it's absolutely vile to use an ill woman for views.
|
|
|
Post by sph on May 8, 2024 23:07:50 GMT
I'm not encouraging anyone to watch Piers Morgan's show, as I don't like him or his rather distasteful interviews where he basically just shouts over anyone he considers "woke", but has there actually been a mental health diagnosis regarding the "real" Martha?
It seems that everyone has been making assumptions, which, whilst possibly correct, seem to favour treating her as an unfortunate victim, rather than viewing her as the perpetrator of a crime, which she is. I wonder if people would be so concerned for the mental health of a male stalker who went to such extreme lengths?
|
|
3,040 posts
|
Post by crowblack on May 9, 2024 9:22:00 GMT
It seems that everyone has been making assumptions, which, whilst possibly correct, seem to favour treating her as an unfortunate victim, rather than viewing her as the perpetrator of a crime, which she is. She's both. In a society with better mental health care this situation could be prevented. Instead a situation with two people with serious 'issues' playing into each others obsession has been made into a TV entertainment with little thought to safeguarding (of both of them). It feels a bit like The Lady in the Van - turning a strange life experience and a real woman with serious mental health problems into drama, but at least Alan Bennett waited until she was dead.
|
|
|
Post by sph on May 9, 2024 14:25:28 GMT
But that's an assumption about a person you don't know based on her portrayal in a TV series. And what were Gadd's serious issues and why are people so keen to lay blame at his door? He was the victim of two traumatic crimes around the same time, if his story is true.
|
|