The Loose Connections Recommender # 28

On What Really Goes On Behind The Scenes

So, as you may remember from last week, I am in the midst of playing some album celebration shows - and now feeling fit as a fiddle I’m happy to report. Thank you so much for your warm well wishes, I found them very comforting.

Last night we played at an excellent small venue in Sydney called The Factory Floor, so named because it is underneath a much larger concert hall called The Factory.

Just before we went on, I thought I better ‘go see a man about a dog’ (in case that’s not clear I mean do a pre show wee/pee) and so I went up the stairs next to our backstage area that led to the bathrooms for the much larger The Factory.

There was no show on up there and so many of the lights were off. I took care of bizness and headed back the way I came in…or so I thought….but I found myself disoriented and then lost in the darkened zone, turning corners and passing doors that did not lead where I needed to get to. I have a terrible sense of direction, and bad memory/observation skills when I’m distracted, which I obviously was, and my heart really began to pound as the Cruel Sea anthem This Is Not The Way Home (featuring our Kenny Gormly on bass who much to my endless joy also plays with me in The Great Beyond) flooded my brain and I began to wonder if I was actually going to manage to find my way back to the stage area or if I’d be wandering like a lost rock ghost all night. I didn’t even have my phone with me to call for help. Just as I was getting a little panicky, I turned a corner and found my way home.

Proof of Life! Photograph by Chris Familton (borrowed from Instagram, thanks Chris!)

After the show, when my ute/pick up truck was packed full of drums and guitar stuff and merch and keyboards, and I was dropping my dad off on my way home - he played keyboards with us on a few songs - he turned to me and said ‘A funny thing happened to me tonight while you were playing the second last song … I went upstairs to find the bathroom and got so totally lost it was like Spinal Tap’ …. boom boom …. like father, like daughter! Its lucky the both of us made it out alive!

Anyway, that neatly brings me back to the reason I’m writing this - on with the recommendations for shows about what goes on behind the scenes!

1. This Is Spinal Tap (1984) - undoubtedly the greatest and most excruciatingly realistic and hilarious behind the scenes of rock music film ever made. If you haven’t seen it, for goodness sakes, just do.

   Here is the oft referenced classic ‘Hello Cleveland/Lost Backstage’ sequence that I can unfortunately really relate to.

2. My First Film (2024) - This debut Zia Anger film is batshit crazy, messy and deeply wonderful. It also happens to star my wildly talented niece Odessa Young, and is about a young filmmaker’s trials and tribulations of desperately trying to make her first (super low budget & arty) film - a thinly disguised version of her own life - whilst navigating an array of challenges including a clueless, needy boyfriend, out-of-it crew members and multiple ‘situations’. Hard recommend. You can find it on Mubi.

3. The Comeback (2005 and 2014)

Billed as ‘the first fictional funny sad reality show comedy hybrid’, The Comeback - conceived, co-produced and co-written by its mastermind star Lisa Kudrow - traces the return to television of actress Valerie Cherish, who had a hit sitcom called I’m It! in the 90s before falling into ever increasing obscurity and when she is cast concurrently in a new sitcom and a behind the scenes reality show, she is determined to make the most of her new opportunities if it kills her.

Shot entirely on two handheld cameras, raw reality show footage style, her torturous attempts to maintain control over a narrative she doesn’t even fully grasp while dealing with insecurities, hot young actresses and frat boy asshole writers who have it in for her, is cringe comedy at its finest as well as a moving treatise on trying to remain relevant in an increasingly incomprehensible world that doesn’t appreciate her talents or share her values. The two seasons were shot 9 years apart, and there’s talk of a third season happening at some point. Painfully funny.

4. Hacks

   I may have written about Hacks before, I can’t remember and I’m too tired to plunder through my back catalogue, but in case this multiple award show favourite has somehow passed you by, the show is an absolute cracker.

   I didn’t realise til my comedian friend Luke pointed it out, but its basically a Joan Rivers biography, and Jean Smart as acid tongued, narcissistic, brilliant but ‘over the hill’ superstar stand up comedian Deborah Vance is simply magnificent.

   The premise is officially described as ‘a dark mentorship’ between ‘a legendary Las Vegas comedian and an entitled, outcast 25 year old in the world of stand up comedy’, but the fucked up beautiful friendship that forms between the young writer and her demanding boss is so layered and nuanced and outrageous it veers between leaving you convulsing with laughter to fighting back tears. Three sparkling seasons of this incredibly written work of art, go get it!

5. Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (2010)

   ‘I will do anything, I will wear a diaper….’

   The groundbreakingly honest documentary that Hacks draws so deeply from, unlike the many self serving celebrity docos, this film just lays it all on the table and dares you not to be blown away by Joan’s enduring drive, determination and at times desperation to climb the showbiz ladder and not get knocked off … surviving the frustrating and often humiliating boys club mentality of the comedy world, the challenges of motherhood against a relentless work ethic, the need to stay relevant and make money, the suicide of her husband - an absolutely searing portrait of a brilliant and brave entertainer and showbiz legend.

6. Call My Agent! aka Dix Pour Cent

This French hit series, created by a top French talent agent and set in the cutthroat and absurd world of a top agency, features non stop cameos and guest appearances from various icons of French cinema playing versions of themselves as clients. It has proved so popular its been adapted for UK, Italian and Bollywood audiences with a US version in the works. For my money, although all the characters are fantastic (with Camille Cottin an absolute standout) the agency personal relationship dramas don’t work quite as well as the on and off set dramas, but the lengths that the agents will go to to secure roles or to deal with the various troublesome situations their clients find themselves in makes for an incisive, knowing and fabulously ridiculous comedy series.

7. Fiery Hawk (2014)

This under the radar skit by Cardinal Burns about a humiliating audition has become somewhat legendary within the acting world and is impossible to watch without dying laughing - my husband and I may have watched it together over a 100 times. Enjoy! Warning its very Not Safe For Work! but it is undoubtedly the most realistic depiction of what it is to be an actor I’ve ever seen and should probably be required viewing for any young person that has dreams of entering the industry.

I’ll leave you to your day on that humiliating note and thank you for joining me here in the Loose Connections office bed today! If you enjoyed, please leave me a little heart below for the sake of the algorithm or share with a friend.

And please do also share your recommendations for more works in this vein below, god knows we all need a little light relief and knowledge about what really goes on behind the scenes! Pull the wool off our eyes!

Now I’ve got a gig to get to. Adios friends! x