...or at least a strong contender for that title.
It is witty and poignant, and has a lot of intelligent things to say about theatre. It was created and written by the two actors who play the business manager of the theatre (an almost complete idiot) and his executive assistant (an extraordinarily competent woman)--Susan Coyne and Mark McKinney, working along with Bob Martin. What a coup for them!
The setting is an Ontario repertory theatre (in a town called New Burbage) that specializes in Shakespeare--based lovingly but not too closely on Stratford, of course. The premise is that the artistic director, Oliver Welles, who has sold out utterly and hates himself for it, gets drunk on an opening night and is run over by a truck full of Canadian Hams, and must be replaced at the last minute. The only available substitute is Jeffrey Tennant, a once-promising actor who had a nervous breakdown on stage many years before; he accepts the job, but then realizes that he will be haunted persistently and irritatingly by Oliver's ghost, whom only he can see. Paul Gross (who plays Jeffrey) has never been better, and he is matched at every turn by the rest of the regular cast--especially Stephen Ouimette as Oliver, and Martha Burns (Paul Gross's wife) as Ellen Fanshaw, Jeffrey's ex, an actor who thinks that being late for every rehearsal adds a certain lustre to her position in the company.
They did three 6-episode seasons, each centered around a central Shakespeare play for the season: First Hamlet, for which the management in their wisdom hires an American action film star (played by Luke Kirby), who is terrified at the idea of doing live theatre, and by Shakespeare even more so. Then Macbeth, the bad-luck play, for which they hire a big-name star (played by Geraint Wyn Davies) who knows much better than the director how things should be done and must be somehow thwarted. And finally King Lear, for which Jeffrey hires an dying theatre star who wants to do the role one last time, if he can (played by the magnificent William Hutt, an institution at Stratford for 50 years, in one of his last roles before his own death).
Many of the supporting parts are played by well-known Canadian stage and film actors. Three standouts: the poor young woman hired to be Cordelia, who must then suffer through the tirades and tantrums of the really-dying Lear, is beautifully played by Sarah Polley (daughter of Michael Polley, also in the cast). The great Colm Feore played Sanjay, a completely demented marketing consultant (or is he?), hired by theatre management in the second season--a wonderful comic performance! Finally, among many others, Don McKellar played Darren Nichols, a wild-eyed Eurotrash director who wants to stage Romeo and Juliet with the characters encased in wire hoops (as living chess pieces) and never looking at one another (because what could go wrong with that?).
I cannot recommend this show highly enough. If the rating scale went up to 11, this would be an 11!
It is witty and poignant, and has a lot of intelligent things to say about theatre. It was created and written by the two actors who play the business manager of the theatre (an almost complete idiot) and his executive assistant (an extraordinarily competent woman)--Susan Coyne and Mark McKinney, working along with Bob Martin. What a coup for them!
The setting is an Ontario repertory theatre (in a town called New Burbage) that specializes in Shakespeare--based lovingly but not too closely on Stratford, of course. The premise is that the artistic director, Oliver Welles, who has sold out utterly and hates himself for it, gets drunk on an opening night and is run over by a truck full of Canadian Hams, and must be replaced at the last minute. The only available substitute is Jeffrey Tennant, a once-promising actor who had a nervous breakdown on stage many years before; he accepts the job, but then realizes that he will be haunted persistently and irritatingly by Oliver's ghost, whom only he can see. Paul Gross (who plays Jeffrey) has never been better, and he is matched at every turn by the rest of the regular cast--especially Stephen Ouimette as Oliver, and Martha Burns (Paul Gross's wife) as Ellen Fanshaw, Jeffrey's ex, an actor who thinks that being late for every rehearsal adds a certain lustre to her position in the company.
They did three 6-episode seasons, each centered around a central Shakespeare play for the season: First Hamlet, for which the management in their wisdom hires an American action film star (played by Luke Kirby), who is terrified at the idea of doing live theatre, and by Shakespeare even more so. Then Macbeth, the bad-luck play, for which they hire a big-name star (played by Geraint Wyn Davies) who knows much better than the director how things should be done and must be somehow thwarted. And finally King Lear, for which Jeffrey hires an dying theatre star who wants to do the role one last time, if he can (played by the magnificent William Hutt, an institution at Stratford for 50 years, in one of his last roles before his own death).
Many of the supporting parts are played by well-known Canadian stage and film actors. Three standouts: the poor young woman hired to be Cordelia, who must then suffer through the tirades and tantrums of the really-dying Lear, is beautifully played by Sarah Polley (daughter of Michael Polley, also in the cast). The great Colm Feore played Sanjay, a completely demented marketing consultant (or is he?), hired by theatre management in the second season--a wonderful comic performance! Finally, among many others, Don McKellar played Darren Nichols, a wild-eyed Eurotrash director who wants to stage Romeo and Juliet with the characters encased in wire hoops (as living chess pieces) and never looking at one another (because what could go wrong with that?).
I cannot recommend this show highly enough. If the rating scale went up to 11, this would be an 11!