James's qualifications for the role of box-set supercritic are as follows: (1) Immense learning. (2) A beautiful prose style. (3) A sharing in the concerns and honest appetites of the yeoman viewer-consumer…Play All is a small book but by no means a slight one. Large-brained and largehearted, and written with astonishing energy, it carries its study of the box-set dramas—these vast and spiraling narratives to which we have delivered ourselves en masse—into revelatory depths while reserving the right to be, wherever possible, superficial, waggish, ludicrous, Clive James-ian. It is also quite obviously and plangently full of love: love of life, love of story, love of art, love of daughters. Against a darkening background the TV screen flickers brighter, and James's mind casts its illuminations with still greater vividness.
Play All: A Bingewatcher's Notebook
Narrated by Clive Chafer
Clive JamesUnabridged — 4 hours, 47 minutes
Play All: A Bingewatcher's Notebook
Narrated by Clive Chafer
Clive JamesUnabridged — 4 hours, 47 minutes
Overview
Television and TV viewing are not what they once were-and that's a good thing, according to award-winning author and critic Clive James. Since serving as television columnist for the London Observer from 1972 to 1982, James has witnessed a radical change in content, format, and programming, and in the very manner in which television is watched. Here he examines this unique cultural revolution, providing a brilliant, eminently entertaining analysis of many of the medium's most notable twenty-first-century accomplishments and their not-always-subtle impact on modern society-including such acclaimed serial dramas as Breaking Bad, The West Wing, Mad Men, and The Sopranos, as well as the comedy 30 Rock.
With intelligence and wit, James explores a television landscape expanded by cable and broadband and profoundly altered by the advent of Netflix, Amazon, and other “cord-cutting” platforms that have helped to usher in a golden age of unabashed binge-watching.
Editorial Reviews
07/04/2016
Australian author James (Unreliable Memoirs) brings his sharp critical eye to TV’s current golden age, providing witty and insightful musing on popular and critically acclaimed series of the past two decades. He posits that good television is an art form and a mirror for reflecting modern cultural concerns. Contrasted with the “relentless catalogue of mechanized happenings” of blockbuster films, it provides “something to discuss.” Displaying a talent for apt description and pop culture recall, James declares Tony Soprano “a magnetic mountain” and Don Draper “Don Giovanni in a Brooks Brothers shirt.” He places Mad Men in its historical context and takes Aaron Sorkin to task for The Newsroom’s cardboard cutout characters. His commentary on the trope of the “irritating daughter” (and its subspecies, “the kidnapped irritating daughter”), in 24 is hilarious and spot-on. Some of his opinions are controversial—he dislikes Breaking Bad’s Walter White and calls his cohort Jesse Pinkman an “unbearable punk.” His description of Game of Thrones’ Daenerys Targaryen as “not especially stunning” will particularly irk some fans. As readers of James’ prior work will expect, this is a cerebral piece of work. “For the subtleties,” he writes, “we still need books.” Jokes about Marcel Proust’s mother aside, however, his book is far from inaccessible. (Sept.)
"James loves television, he loves the winding stories it tells and that we share them together. Play All is a late love letter to the medium of our lives."—AA Gill, Sunday Times"His style, smart as paint and full of esoteric references, but entranced by the stupid and the stupidly enjoyable, has been widely copied but never surpassed. . . . He shares with these serial dramas a fiercely intelligent populism, a willingness to play to the crowd while trusting they will be able to keep up without too much plot-summary or handholding."—Joe Moran, The Guardian"A loving and breezy set of essays about the shows [James] admires and the flowering of TV more generally. . . . James is an incisive and hilarious critic with a relaxed, learned voice. . . . Play All is full of riotous turns of phrase, keen observations, and sick burns."—Willa Paskin, Slate"James brings a fundamentally serious eye to his chosen medium, littering the prose with grand literary references, eager to engage with television as a worthy, even important, part of culture. . . . He does so with wit and knowing levity, conscious that television is neither fiction nor film, and that it carries its own evaluative criteria."—Andrew Irwin, Times Literary Supplement"Play All is a small book but by no means a slight one. Large-brained and largehearted, and written with astonishing energy, it carries its study of the box-set dramas . . . into revelatory depths while reserving the right to be, wherever possible, superficial, waggish, ludicrous, Clive James-ian. It is also quite obviously and plangently full of love: love of life, love of story, love of art, love of daughters. Against a darkening background the TV screen flickers brighter, and James’s mind casts its illuminations with still greater vividness."—James Parker, New York Times Book Review“If the [Nobel Prize in Literature] were ever to go to a critic, I’d give it to Clive James. He has so much erudition and high-stepping passion. He writes excellent poems and even better memoirs. He has delivered very good books of translation. He is a polymath. He is also very funny.”—Dwight Garner, New York Times"James brings his sharp critical eye to TV’s current golden age, providing witty and insightful musing on popular and critically acclaimed series of the past two decades."—Publishers Weekly
“Clive James was the best television critic of his generation, and in this absorbing look at the US TV dramas that have flooded our screens in recent years, he shows that he has lost none of his flair.” —Simon Shaw, Mail on Sunday
"Eminent literary and cultural critic James comes back to an old beat: reviewing the offerings on the small screen. . . . [James] writes with unfailing insight. . . . The only flaw . . . is that it’s too short, leaving readers wanting more."—Kirkus Reviews"James [is] as canny a critic as one could desire, and as elegantly smooth a writer."—William Deresiewicz, Harper's"Play All is brilliant, comic nourishment. James has never written better or with so much mischief and elan. His observations—withering and celebratory—are bracingly intelligent and written in so accessible and winning a voice."—David ThomsonClive James was the best television critic of his generation, and in this absorbing look at the US TV dramas that have flooded our screens in recent years, he shows that he has lost none of his flair.” —Simon Shaw, Mail on Sunday
"James [is] as canny a critic as one could desire, and as elegantly smooth a writer."—William Deresiewicz, Harper's
"Play All is a small book but by no means a slight one. Large-brained and largehearted, and written with astonishing energy, it carries its study of the box-set dramas. . . . into revelatory depths while reserving the right to be, wherever possible, superficial, waggish, ludicrous, Clive James-ian. It is also quite obviously and plangently full of love: love of life, love of story, love of art, love of daughters. Against a darkening background the TV screen flickers brighter, and James’s mind casts its illuminations with still greater vividness."—James Parker, New York Times Book Review
“James brings a fundamentally serious eye to his chosen medium, littering the prose with grand literary references, eager to engage with television as a worthy, even important, part of culture… He does so with wit and knowing levity, conscious that television is neither fiction nor film, and that it carries its own evaluative criteria.”—Andrew Irwin, TLS
"A loving and breezy set of essays about the shows [James] admires and the flowering of TV more generally. . . . James is an incisive and hilarious critic with a relaxed, learned voice. . . . Play All is full of riotous turns of phrase, keen observations, and sick burns."—Willa Paskin, Slate
“His style, smart as paint and full of esoteric references, but entranced by the stupid and the stupidly enjoyable, has been widely copied but never surpassed… He shares with these serial dramas a fiercely intelligent populism, a willingness to play to the crowd while trusting they will be able to keep up without too much plot-summary or handholding.”—Joe Moran, The Guardian
“We need a definite reassessment of the so-called Golden Age of Television, and who better to do it than Clive James… There’s no doubt that James has still got it. Even when you don’t agree with him you will be pleasantly provoked.”—James Medd, New Statesman
“This snug body of writings will enrich your appreciation of TV drama’s big hitters and help elevate discussion of them… Often as entertaining and compulsorily viewed as the very shows themselves.”—Hilary A. White, Belfast Telegraph
“Everyone who has written television criticism since the 1970s, including this reviewer, has done so in the long shadow of Clive James… On every page and sometimes every paragraph there’s a sentence at which you have little choice but to stop, think and, inevitably, admire.”—Andrew Anthony, The Observer
“James loves television, he loves the winding stories it tells and that we share them together. Play All is a late love letter to the medium of our lives.”—AA Gill, Sunday Times
08/01/2016
According to a recent Deloitte "Digital Democracy Survey," binge-watching TV shows has become a favorite pastime of American consumers, with 53 percent of those surveyed binge-watching entire seasons of dramas via online streaming services or DVD boxed sets. Australian cultural and literary critic James (Latest Reading) posits that this phenomenon is not unique to Americans but to viewers of TV programs in general, including him and his family. He examines this trend in a series of insightful essays, written more in a personal blog-like style rather than as an academic critique or sociological treatise. In describing dramas such as The Sopranos or The West Wing, James conveys his opinions and reactions to the compelling characters and meticulously crafted storytelling as would a fan sharing his or her passionate commentary on social media. Yet, he does so through the lens of an experienced critic aware of the cultural significance of a show's themes or the technical merits of its production. Ultimately, though, these pieces reflect his and others' actual delight in "consuming" TV shows in large chunks of time, rather than exploring the "why" of this behavior in entertainment consumption. VERDICT For fans of pop culture and TV binge-watchers alike.—Donna Marie Smith, Palm Beach Cty. Lib. Syst., FL
Binge-watching is a 21st-century pastime. It seems everyone’s doing it, including noted TV critic and author Clive James. In response to having been diagnosed with cancer, James spends his time binge-watching TV shows new and old. Clive Chafer narrates James’s commentary. In particular, Chafer matter-of-factly explains James’s ranking system for various series—from “The Sopranos” to “Game of Thrones.” As James makes dry quips on each of the boxed sets he’s completed, his humor is not lost on the listener, due to Chafer’s stellar performance. Binge-watching may be a common recreation in today’s world, but James’s explorations of the phenomenon and Chafer’s cultured British accent bring this discussion of it to a higher level. A.G.M. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
2016-05-31
Eminent literary and cultural critic James (Latest Readings, 2015, etc.) comes back to an old beat: reviewing the offerings on the small screen.The TV critic for London's Observer from 1972 to 1982, the author briefly revisits some of the standards of the time, such as Hill Street Blues, while allowing that the landscape has much changed: time-shifting technology affords us the leisure of devouring a season or two of Game of Thrones or The West Wing at a sitting, binge-watching not what the networks necessarily want us to watch but what we wish to. Part of the critic's work is to tell us precisely what we should wish to watch, of course, and here James, though doffing high-toned intellectualism, settles for the more elevated fare, about which he writes with unfailing insight. What makes The Sopranos, a James favorite, tick? There is a grammar of genre, and Tony Soprano is not entirely free to operate outside of it, even as David Chase broke some of the old rules; just so, James writes, the captains of the Star Trek franchise are all generic representatives of the "principal elder" archetype, even the youthful James Kirk "back in the innocent days of William Shatner's first hairpiece." Ranging among box sets of Band of Brothers, Mad Men, The Tudors, and the like, James delivers sometimes-profound aperçus ("the new mythology gets into everything, and the first thing it gets into is the old mythology") and humorous asides: David Tennant, the erstwhile Doctor Who, will probably not be pleased to be described, with respect to another series, as "the only weirdly half-bearded middle-ranking policeman in England," though Téa Leoni, of Madam Secretary, might appreciate James' remark that "she looks the part, her lithe grace rising in stature from not being chased by Jurassic raptors." A gentler companion to Harlan Ellison's The Glass Teat (1970), the only flaw of which is that it's too short, leaving readers wanting more.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940169723175 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Blackstone Audio, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 08/30/2016 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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