Rafe Spall press clippings - Page 4

10 top tens for Hot Fuzz's tenth

This year, after watching Hot Fuzz for the tenth time, and still picking up little details I'd never noticed before, I went down to the pub for a glass of celebratory cranberry juice. I thought Anglonerd magazine, too, should celebrate the brilliance of this film in a big way, so here is not just a top ten list, but ten top ten lists, highlighting the best one hundred things about Edgar Wright's comedy action flick. *Spoilers*

Jaime Pond, Anglonerd, 14th February 2017

The festive special of Charlie Brooker's dystopian anthology series is, as you might expect, entirely lacking in goodwill, depicting the holiday season as a period of solitude and emptiness. Which makes it perfect viewing for January, a time when even the faintest memory of the Christmas gorging session is likely to have you reaching for the sick bucket. Jon Hamm and Rafe Spall are two singletons, sharing stories of gadget-enabled love and loss over a Christmas dinner. But something's not quite right with their situation...

The Guardian, 3rd January 2015

I didn't have to starve for too long in search of equally gamey broth, in the reliable shape of Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror: White Christmas. Mr Brooker takes few prisoners when it comes to those possessed of pygmy imaginations, which is meet and right for grown-up telly. So within 90 minutes we were introduced to the concept of "blocking" an individual as one would an ex-Facebook friend, but actually doing so in real life (thanks to everyone in the near future having chosen to implant so-called Z-Eyes, hooked up of course to the net: do keep up); the blockee appears only as a greyed-out shadow and may neither call nor approach.

Then to the concept of extracting an "egg" of consciousness, a kind of Mini-Me, purely to toil in a tiny, white, closed cyberjail at the tasks of keeping the real-life Me fed and watered and kept at the right temperature and with the toast done just so: basically, the concept of outsourcing a small twitch of one's own soul, the better to keep body and... body together. Already we'd addressed the issues of slavery, alienation, the speeding up of time (and thus, when there's absolutely nothing to do, the creation of pathological boredom), the inadvisability of taking anyone's advice on dating, and that was within about seven minutes, before we even got on to the concept of Jon Hamm and Rafe Spall stuck in Ice Station Zebra at Christmas, caning the port.

These actors, and this in its entirety, were phenomenal, but there were so many fine ideas, both uplifting and dystopian, that I can't quickly do them justice - other than to offer the obvious thought that it's not the technology: it's us. And to observe that Mr Brooker must be becoming mildly fed up at having his technological imaginings superseded every six months. Google, do be careful what you wish for: when the gods wish to punish us, first they answer our prayers.

Euan Ferguson, The Observer, 21st December 2014

Radio Times review

Charlie Brooker's digital dystopia delivers a festive mystery in anthology form, with three connected stories about dark things in a twisted near-future. Jon Hamm and Rafe Spall lead the cast as two men sharing a Christmas meal somewhere remote and snowy. Where are they? And who are they, really? As the companions exchange stories, we see Oona Chaplin as a woman bedevilled by "smart" gadgets, and Hamm himself offering unconventional romantic advice.

Plus, in the sort of flip between virtual and tangible worlds that's the trademark of the series, the question is asked: what would happen if you could "block" people and never see or hear from them again in real life, as you can on Twitter and Facebook?

Jack Seale, Radio Times, 16th December 2014

Black Mirror: Rafe Spall excels but rest is too grim

Call me old fashioned, but I like my Christmas specials to have a bit of festive cheer. I only knew Black Mirror by its reputation as a dark satire of modern life, so I sat down to watch expecting to be both horrified and depressed.

Vicky Prior, Metro, 16th December 2014

Black Mirror interview

Black Mirror - Channel 4's mind-bending series of cautionary tales about our addiction to digital technology - is returning for a big-name Christmas special starring Rafe Spall, Oona Chaplin and Mad Men's Jon Hamm. Bryony Gordon asks them and the programme's creator Charlie Brooker what's in store.

Bryony Gordon, The Telegraph, 13th December 2014

Press clippings Page 4

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