Sherlock & Daughter: A late Victorian red thread case, with gay actors, a lesbian subtext, Dougray bum, and Kasper cock

 

Since Arthur Conan Doyle began publishing stories of the Baker Street detective and his...um...roomate, hundreds of movie and tv adaptions of the Sherlock Holmes mythos have appeared.  Many depict Sherlock and Watson as gay-subtext buddies or even boyfriends, but I don't hold much hope out for Sherlock & Daughter, now streaming on MAX. Having a daughter pegs him as heterosexual, and with those two sorting through clues, Dr. Watson is bound to be relegated to a few walk-on "Hello, old chap" lines.  

But David Thewlis (Sherlock) played gay poet Paul Verlaine against Leonardo DiCaprio's Rimbaud, and almost-gay Lupus in the Harry Potter movies. And he has shown us his d*ck several times on screen, so I'm reviewing the first episode anyway.

Scene 1: London, 1896 (Sherlock is in his mid 40s). He takes a hansom cab through a late-Victorian cityscape to the crime scene, a giant mansion, and greets Inspectors Bullivant and Whitlock (Aidan McArdle, left early photo).  The kidnappers dragged the boy from his room, but the maid intervened, and they fled.

Uh-oh, Sherlock finds a red string on the boy's wrist, refuses the case, and rushes out.  

"But his father is the Italian Ambassador." 

"Tough, I'm out."

Scene 2: New York, still 1896.  Amelia bursts into a cheap hotel, past the prostitutes, and gets a room.  A bellhop named Cooper (Kasper Andreasen) offers to carry her luggage, but he actually leads her to the alley and tries to rob her.  She pulverizes him, but he takes her purse anyway.

Left: Kasper Andreason, from Banbridge, Northern Ireland, hit the newspapers in 2017, when the 12--year old raised thousands of pounds for children with cancer with a paperclip swap.  In 2020, he flew to London to interview the stars of the movie 1917.  

Age 21 as of this writing, Kasper has 5 acting credits on the IMDB, including the paranormal teen Silverpoint and Mordlichter - Tod auf den Färöer Inseln, so I'm guessing that he's fluent in German.

A more...um...intimate portrayal after the break

At the steamship ticket office, Amelia has no more money, but she offers a blueprint for a machine that pasteurizes milk, so you can bring it on ships.  You're offering that to a ticket agent?  How about a CEO?  He doesn't want it, so how about her mother's watch?

Scene 3: Back on Baker Street, Sherlock looks at a mysterious letter he received, while his housekeeeper, Mrs. Halligan, brings his dinner.  He rejects it: the egg is overcooked. 

She scoffs: she only agreed to help out because he's taken the case of the kidnapping of her sister, Mrs. Hudson, and Dr. Watson.  Why would that require you to take a job as his housekeeper? 

"Tough, it's simple instructions. 4 minutes 12 seconds to boil an egg for toast soldiers.  Go find someone with the brains to do it properly." Toast soldiers must be a Victorian thing.

When she storms out, he looks at the message: "Lamp in the window tonight to show you will observe the thread or Watson and Hudson (the housekeeper) will pay like your maid."  Next he opens a box with a red thread and severed finger.

Scene 4: On the steamer en route to London, Amelia is also playing with a red thread.  A rich girl in a pink cape approaches and starts flirting voraciously.  Careful, ladies: Oscar Wilde's trial just ended.

Oh, well, what the heck: let's change course for "Lesbos, where kisses, languishing or joyous, burning as the sun's light, cool as melons,  adorn the nights and the glorious days" (Baudelaire).

Back stories: Amelia's father lives on Baker Street (hint, hint), and the Girl's father is the new U.S. Ambassador to the U.K.  "By the way, Papa is throwing me a ball to celebrate my coming out. Won't you come as my date?" You're quite an ally, Dad.  Yes, I know she means coming out into society.

Uh-oh, the girl's chaperone, Lady Violet, aka the Wicked Witch of the West, appears, drags her away, and warns Amelia to back off, or she'll put her in the brig. The Girl is going to marry the aristocrat that her parents choose; she doesn't have time for indulgences like lesbian romance!  

Scene 5: Amelia stays out of sight until they reach New York.  Then the Girl spots her, rushes up, and assures her that class distinctions are meaningless, they should become very close friends.  "Call on me anytime.  Anytime." 

Native American actress Blu Hunt (left) identifies as "super queer," and played a queer character on "The Originals."

Amelia makes her way through London's Chinatown, gets cruised by a prostitute (what, is she wearing a Pride flag?), barters food from an African lady, and finds a secluded park bench to sleep on.  Why not go directly to Baker Street and reunite with your Dad?

More after the break. Caution: Explicit.

Mitch Hewer: "Controversial" gay teen on British tv grows up to star in pantos, play Fortnite, and post a j/o video

 

18-year old Mitch Hewer, a new graduate of the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Bristol, entered acting with a bang in 2007 when he was cast a gay teenager on the teen angst drama Skins (2007-13).  After years of Thatcher-Major homophobia, Britain was becoming more gay-positive: laws prohibiting teachers from saying "gay" and public officials appearing at pride events were struck down, and Tony Blair introduced a civil partnership that gave gay couples many of the rights of heterosexuals.  There were several gay characters on British tv, but apparently a gay teenager was "highly controversial."  Mitch got  death threats, and was attacked by a guy with a knife.

Maxxie is a gay-stereotype dance major (which makes sense: Mitch was a dance major at the academy). During his 17 episodes, he hooks up with the down-low Tony (Nicholas Hoult),  helps him through a serious head injury

Attempts to hurt himself...

Shows his butt....

Tussles with homophobic Muslim student Anwar (Dev Patel) but manages to remain his friend, then date him...

Is stalked by a female student with a crush on him...

Gets a boyfriend named James (Jack O'Connell), and they leave the series together, along with Anwar.  

Playing a gay teenager on British tv got Mitch a lot of attention.  He made the cover of Attitude in March and October 2007, and posed nude in Cosmopolitan in 2008 to promote testicular cancer awareness.

After Skins, Mitch starred in Brittanica High (2008-09), about students in a London drama school.  His character, Danny Miller, is straight, the focus of "all of the girls" in the school, but he eventually narrows it down to New Girl Lauren and her enemy-turned-ally Claudia. There's a gay student, Jez (Matthew James Thomas), but his plot arc involves reconciling with his father.  No boyfriend.

Two more straight roles followed:

In Behaving Badly (2014), Nick (Nat Wolfe) is in love with Nina (Selena Gomez), but she is dating Kevin (Austin Stowell).  When they break up, Nick bets that he will be able to bed her before Labor Day.  Mitch plays a minor character, Steven Stevens

Nightlight (2015) is a found footage movie: When Robin (a girl) refuses to go to prom with Ethan (Kyle Fain), he ends up dead and then starts picking off her friends.  The two boys in the group are Chris (Carter Jenkins) and Ben (Mitch),

More after the break. Caution: Explicit.

Siblings, Episode 1.1 or 1.3: Dan falls for a guy who uses a wheelchair, so he pretends...with real n*de wheelchair guys

 Siblings is a Britcom (2014-16) now streaming on Amazon Prime, featuring lazy, amoral siblings Hannah and Dan (Charlotte Richie, Tom Stourton).  Reminds me of The Other Two, so let's take a look at "Wheelchair Conference," which the IMDB calls Episode 1.1, but Amazon Episode 3.3

Scene 1: At breakfast, Dan is describing a bank robbery that "really happened," but it turns out to be a movie.  Hannah has to rush to work (at 10:30), because she has a new boss who might expect her to show up. The old one was always drunk, and didn't notice whether she was there or not.

But what is Dan supposed to do while she is away?  "Go out and make a friend."

Scene 2:  Hannah rushes into the office just as Drunk Boss is leaving.  He's been sacked for good for silly things like "gross incompetence."  Now she has to find a way to kiss up to the new boss

Cut to the coffee shop, where Dan approaches a Writer (Rob Carter, who is heterosexual) busily working on his novel (just work at home0.  He asks inane questions, and "jokes" that he's going to pour coffee on the guy's laptop.  But he slips, and actually does! (just work at home).  Friendship attempt thwarted, he leaves.

Scene 3: After a long day of trying unsuccessfully to make friends, Dan comes home to Hannah conducting extensive research on the new boss, looking for an angle.  The problem is, there are a lot of Annette Walkers online, so she has to learn about everything from Costa Rica to the University of Hull.

Ulp, there's a homeless guy named Biscuit in the house.  Time for a lot of jokes about how homeless people are disgusting, har har, and Dan is an idiot for inviting one home, har har.   About 40% of homeless youth are LGBT, kicked out by homophobic parents. A sizeable percentage are victims of physical and sexual abuse.

Scene 4: At the office, Hannah tries to kiss up to the new boss by demonstrating her knowledge of Costa Rica and the University of Hull, but this is a different Annette Walker.  She's been going through the reports, and discovers that Kevin's  job encompasses Hannah's job, so one of them is redundant.  Hannah falsely accuses Kevin of being homophobic, so he'll be let go.  Interesting -- 20 years ago you would be fired for being gay, and now you're fired for being homophobic.

Kevin is played by Matthew Steer.  No intel on whether he's gay.

Uh-oh, Kevin is talking to the new boss about his report analyzing five years of appraisal statistics.  Hannah heads him off with "Weren't you saying last week that gay people shouldn't be allowed to live by the seaside?"  "Um...no."

The Boss can't work late tonight, because she's meeting her son for dinner, and she has to get the company car refitted for his wheelchair.  What a coincidence -- Kevin  had to get his car refitted for his mother-in-law's wheelchair!  Uh-oh, Hannah is out.

Or maybe not: "My brother Dan uses a wheelchair, too.  He's 23."

"My son is 23, too!  Why don't the two of you come to dinner with us tonight!" Setting them up on a date?

It takes a while to become accustomed to using a wheelchair.  

Scene 5: Dan falls head-over-heels in love with the son, Charlie, who is a video game developer -- his dream job! And Charlie is impressed by the jokes that Dan's sister hates.  Dan asks him out on a date:

"Sorry, I have a basketball game tomorrow night, but you can come and watch.  We're playing in the semis."

"I've got a semi right now!" Thanks for sharing, buddy.

Charlie is played by David Proud, who uses a wheelchair in real life.  He is famous for his role as Adam Best, a snobbish Oxford student, on EastEnders, and is heterosexual in real life.

Back at dinner, Dan explains how he had the "accident" that led to his needing a wheelchair: he was jet-skiing in Puerto Rico with this smokin' hot supermodel -- incredible body -- and they were making out, and...dude, I don't care if your bi, but you won't attract gay men by talking about ladies with incredible bodies.

Scene 6: Boss Annette invites Heather to a business weekend, where they will be staying "in a hotel" (tell me more, tell me more)

Cut to the wheelchair basketball team in a pub after the game (hey, no fair -- I wanted to see some of the game).  Dan asks Charlie to stay with him "for the rest of my life."  Too soon, dude!

Left; Random n*de guy who uses a wheelchair.

Then Dan  invites Charlie for a sleepover: "Of course, we won't be doing much sleeping!"  Charlie balks, a straight dude not realizing that Dan has been hitting on him, so he backtracks "Because we'll be watching films and stuff, not sex."

More after the break

Big Boys: A gay university freshman tries to make friends, get laid, and find his tribe. With a lot of Dylan d*cks

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Matt Smith: Who doesn't want to see the penis of Prince Philip, Charles Manson, Christopher Isherwood, Superworm, and Dr. Who?

 

We've been watching the 2011 series of Doctor Who, the seemingly endless British sci-fi series that sends the last remaining Time Lord through time and space to save Earth, an alien planet, or the entire universe.  Again and again.  Oddly, when his world-saving takes him to modern day Britain, there are plenty of exteriors, but when it is a distant planet or the far future, all we see are endless corridors. 

Doctors regenerate every few years, getting new bodies and personalities.  Right now it's Matt Smith, an effervescent, jokey type, with an inner trauma that sometimes comes out.  After all, he saw the destruction of his people, and he's over 1,000 years old, so dozens of human companions have died, gotten lost, or left him to go on with their lives.

Matt Smith has appeared as the Doctor in dozens of projects outside the show itself: videos exploring odd corners of his universe, video games, a lot of four-episode miniseries, spin-offs starring former companions Sarah Jane and Amy Pond

The children's program Blue Peter. 

Comic Relief: Red Nose Day, An Adventure in Time and Space...I got tired of counting.  You have to be British to really understand his amazing popularity.

The Doctor would be enough for a career, but Matt has played a wide range of other characters, mostly based on real people:

Christopher Isherwood, the gay author of A Passage to India and Maurice, in Christopher and His Kind, a 2011 adaption of his memoirs. Left, the one without the biceps.

Rowing star Bert Bushnell in Bert & Dickie, 2012.  Neither was gay.

Prince Philip, the consort of Queen Elizabeth, in The Crown, 2016-7.

Robert Maplethorpe, the controversial gay artist, in Mapplethorpe: The Director's Cut , 2018  

Left, the one with the ring

Hippie cult leader Charles Manson in Charlie Say, 2018

Plus a variety of fictional characters. As far as I can tell, they're all heterosexual.  I guess he only takes gay roles if they're of historical significance.

A detective fighting witchcraft.

An evil clone with a nice bulge.

A zombie-fighting parson in the Regency era.

The case worker of a refugee family facing evil

An evil spirit in the psychedelic 60s

A tourist in Morocco for whom things go terribly wrong

More Matt after the break

"Man in an Orange Shirt": Constantly depressed gay Brit hooks up, gets a boyfriend, plays cards with Gran. With bonus n*de Julians

 

Man in an Orange Shirt is a two-part BBC television series or coherent movie.  Part 1 features the "forbidden love" of two soldiers immediately after World War II.  It has a sad ending.  I don't want to watch that, so I'll skip to Part 2, about a modern-day couple, Adam and Steve.  Adam and Steve, like from the homophobic slogan: "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, therefore you shouldn't be gay"?  That's ridiculous! Is this a comedy?

No, a drama: "A minefield of internalized issues and dangerous temptations line the road to their happiness."  In 2018?

Scene 1: Long close-up of an eye as Adam (Julian Morris, who didn't come out until he was 38) scrolls through a hookup app while walking down the street.  He stares with a sinister expression, as if he's on his way to murder someone.

Cut to a long close-up of an elderly hand next to black-and-white photos of a man getting married and in a soldier uniform.  It turns out to belong to Mrs. Flora, a woman with a man's haircut, reading the newspaper while her attendant brings pills. If she was married to the WW2 guy, she'd be well over 90 now.

Psych!  Adam wasn't on his way to murder someone, he was just going to work.  He doesn't even seem to hate his job as a veterinarian. After returning a dog to its kid, he sees his next patient, a cat owned by Steve (David Gyasi)

Adam and Steve?  Come on, that's ridiculous.  

Some stuff about a sick, meowing cat that I'm fast forwarding through.

Scene 2: And then Adam (left) and Steve have sex, but blurry, in weird angles, with obstacles in the way.  The dialogue is "Yes! Yes! Moan." 

Mrs. Flora's attendant leaves, with shepherd's pie in the oven for later, while Adam walks down the street with a bouqet of flowers.  Either the sinister look is his natural express, or Adam hates everyone and everything. 

He sits down to dinner with his grandmother, Mrs. Flora, and compliments her plate warmers.  She thinks that he is mocking her. A bit paranoid, Gran?  Then she criticizes his jacket. 

They discuss how Gran did a good job raising him, as opposed to...his sister?...who is having twins and therefore reprensible?  I'm not catching these British insult/compliments.  

Gran notes that she deflects all of the busybodies who ask when he's going to settle down: "Some of us prefer our own company."  Or you could just out him.  You know that he's gay, right?

Dinner over, Adam leaves, but Gran stays at the table, looking despondent.  You left her to do the dishes?

Scene 3: In Adam's absurdly elegant London flat, he stands in the shower and tries desperately to scrub off a stain on his shoulder.  I don't get it.  This guy didn't appear in the last episode, so what is the significance of the stain?  A reference to "Macbeth"?

He drops in to give Steve his dead cat's ashes, and finds a super-elegant apartment and a fey older boyfriend, Casper the Friendly Ghost (Julian Sands, below), who is annoyed but accepts the hookups as a necessary evil, required to have access to Steve's penis. 

Adam tries to complement Steve's apartment and his job as an architect, but Steve find something wrong with each. Come on, dude, look on the bright side. You've got a great job, a great apartment in downtown London, a boyfriend who doesn't mind hooking up, and a tripod between your legs.  Cheer up!

Scene 4: Adam having dinner with female friend Claudia and her husband David (Eddie Arnold, who died in 2008, leaving over 140 classic country-western songs.  Aspiring actors might want avoid naming themselves after famous names, to make internet searches possible).   They want to fix him up with swishy American drama teacher Dwight (Hal Scardino):

"So, how do you know Claudia?"

"She was my girlfriend at uni."

"Oh.  I thought you were...um..."  The word is "gay."  Why is it so hard to say it?

"Um...,yeah...but..."  "I turned him!" Claudia chirps in.  Girl, don't say that, even as a joke.  It gives the homophobes ammunition for their "Being gay is a choice" arguments.

Adam continues to be despondent, and sneaks in the back room to check his hookup app contacts. Just date the swishy drama teacher.  He wants to ditch his friends for a hookup.  Claudia checks his face and dick shots to make sure he's worth it -- "yeah, hotter than Dwight, go on." 

Meanwhile, Gran is playing cards with her old-biddy friends.  One leaves to use the loo, and the others gossip about "two dates" with a man -- to a hotel!  Gran doesn't get it -- she hated sex, and was thrilled when her husband died and she didn't have to do it anymore.  Maybe you just hated sex with men, dear. Try out the Daughters of Bilitis.

Scene 4:  Adam trudges despondently through the busy streets as if he's on his way to a funeral instead of a hookup.  Cut to him topping the guy, Bruno (Phil Dunster) -- all dark, nothing showing.  Afterward Bruno complements him on his passion and tries an introduction, but Adam isn't having it: no names, no overnights, no "I'd like to see you again."  While Bruno is in the bathroom, he zooms away to trudge despodently through the streets of London. I get the impression that the showrunner strongly disapproves of recreational activity.  Even the participants hate it, and have to take six-hour long showers afterwards.

Scene 5: Adam fixes Gran's router while she heats up the food that her attendant prepared -- and complains about it, of course. I like complaining, too -- "here are the things I hated about it" is much more fun than "it was good."  But lady, there are limits.   

In other news, the letting agency said that the cottage needs too much work to be lettable (rentable?), so Gran wants to give it to Adam.  In Britain, a cottage is a small house in a rural area with no land around.  

"Besides, it will get you out of the city!"  You got it backwards, Gran: gay men move into the city.

Cut to Adam walking despondently and then being despondent at work.  He calls Steve -- for a date?  No, to help him renovate the cottage.  He's an architect, yeah?  

The place is a horrible dump, with moldy wallpaper, holes in the ceiling, a hole in the bedroom floor, no heat, and depressing furniture from the 1950s. But Steve thinks it's "brilliant," a perfect fixer-upper.  He's bored with "tarting up kitchens" and is desperate to "get my hands dirty."

More after the break. 

"The Stranger": The one with a Kai Alexander butt, an alpaca-biter, Eddy from "Absolutely Fabulous," and two heterosexual horndogs

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"Waterloo Road," Episode 10.1 or 14.1, "What I did last summer," with a new headmaster, a side piece, dark secrets, and dicks.

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"The Third Day": Jude Law in "The Wicker Man," with scissor goblins, a dead son, Will Rogers, and Dagliesh dick

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Marcus Hodson: Shape-shifting demon or hyper-masculine Midlands model? With nude merman bonus

On Dead Hot (2024), Marcus Hodson plays a shape-shifting demon, a hermetic Magus who travels between esoteric realms through the Eye of Horus bar and its mysterious Red Phone.  I wanted to know if he plays other mysterious Pucks or Lords of Misreason, but his IMDB listing is rather basic  Five roles, all 2022-2024: 

You Like That, a short about a gay American student in Edinburgh.

The Stand-up Sketch Show, where comedians perform "a surreal reconstruction of their own material."  Marcus is a background player in five episodes.

An episode of Domino Day, about a young witch "haunted by her need to feed on others." In Episode 2, Marcus plays a hookup who smooches with her and is eaten.

Gentleman in Moscow is about a Russian aristocrat placed under house arrest in a hotel for the rest of his life after the 1917 revolution.  He befriends a little girl who also lives in the hotel; Marcus plays her piano teacher.

He also plays one of the mermen in The Little Mermaid.

Only one other paranormal show, and he doesn't even play a supernatural being?

Not many biographical details available. A 2021 article in Pause magazine states that he is 25 years old, from Manchester but living in London. He began modeling at age 18, then started university, but left to go pro.

In spite of the paucity of biographical details, Marcus has a very active social media presence, with hundreds of posts about travel, food, and beefcake. Here he is in Greece

In Rome

On the beach.  Does Marcus have a palsy disorder in his left hand, or is he displaying some magickal gestures?

More after the break