"Game Change"

I just saw the trailer for HBO's new television drama, Game Change, based on the 2008 American presidential campaign. The drama, which stars Woody Harrelson, Ed Harris and Julianne Moore, is the story of how Sarah Palin came to be nominated as the Republican Party's candidate for vice-president and how Senator McCain's campaign ultimately ended in defeat for him and victory for Barack Obama. The trailer made me very, very excited to see it and the performances, script and cinematography all look amazing. 

Me loves me some Shane Mack

Every now and then a great movie can introduce you to a great soundtrack and, from there, to a great new artist. That's what happened to me when I watched the 2007 movie Shelter, a beautifully-shot love story set in California about two young men, Zach, and his best friend's brother, Shaun. Shelter is short, sweet and it probably has two of the most brilliantly natural and "real" performances I've ever seen on screen. It has also has fantastic music.

The movie's soundtrack featured quite a few songs by the Texas-born singer-songwriter Shane Mack, including Lie to Me and More than this (a personal favezies.) Since watching Shelter, I've become a big Shane Mack fan and try to listen to some of his music when I'm sitting down to write Popular or really anything to do with Cameron or Blake. More than this is probably the one I've listened to the most.

Anyway, I strongly recommend an i-Tunes creep for Shane's music and having a look at the trailer for Shelter (below.) 

Also - have a great weekend!

A Hartman Family Thanksgiving

Blake Hartman's first proper experience of November in Belfast hadn't exactly filled him with confidence for December. In contrast to the cold but bright fall days he was used to in Connecticut, Belfast seemed to count a November day as a good one if it happened to be dry. Or rather, if it didn't rain. There had probably been so much rain the day before that the ground and the leaves were still wet. And it was always overcast. No wonder everyone here hated Fall/Autumn.

Today, however, Blake's usual sense of homesickness was far, far worse. It was Thanksgiving and he was three thousand miles away from his mom, his grandparents, his cousins and his friends. It hadn't been helped by the dozens of cards he, his dad and his brother had received from home, with their friends photographed as a family to send out holiday good cheer. 

His dad was at home right now organising a big Thanksgiving dinner for them, but it would be the first without their mother's cooking, the first without friends calling over, the first time they didn't sit down after a long day of watching the parade and playing tennis outside. It was the first Thanksgiving away from America and Blake hated it.

"Happy Thanksgiving, Captain America."

Elena Maria Vidal's review of "Popular"

Elena Maria Vidal, the author of "Trianon" and "Madame Royale," a series of novels about the French royal family, and "The Night's Dark Shade," a love story and religious drama set in the Middle Ages, has given a great review of Popular: -

Neither half knew that the other half knew anything about it and so there was no possibility to talk about it openly, even if they had been capable of frank, honest, emotional discussions — which they weren't. ~from Popular by Gareth Russell

Released in July 2011, Popular by Northern Irish writer Gareth Russell, is a scathingly witty and humorous romp dealing with privileged teenagers in Belfast. Now I must admit that before meeting Gareth and reading his novel I had a quite different picture of Belfast than I have now. Most of what I knew about Northern Ireland were the news stories of civil strife and terroristic violence which I heard throughout my life, and which made me resolve never to go there.

In Popular, however, Belfast is not the Irish version of the Middle East as Americans tend to visualize it. Instead, Popular's Belfast is the Paris of the British Isles, a city full of glamorous and exclusive shops and restaurants, elegant homes, and *fabulous* balls and parties which the Romanovs themselves would have relished. The "Troubles" which haunted Northern Ireland for over thirty years, resulting in the deaths of over 3500 people, with occasional eruptions even today, are absent, which serves to heighten the bold frivolity of the teenagers' lives. Protestants and Catholics go to school side by side. The world inhabited by Meredith Harper and her friends Imogen, Kerry, Catherine and Cameron is insulated from ugliness and fear, with the biggest worries being what to wear to a specific event and keeping one's place in the clique. As the title of the book tells us, everything in the lives of the teenagers revolves around being popular. However, since they are the children and grandchildren of those who survived The Troubles, it is not surprising that they would choose as their queen someone with a cool head and a quick tongue, who demands absolute loyalty.

It would be a mistake to classify Popular as another piece of trite teen fiction or chick-lit; it is much more. Popular, although it is a novel, has much in common with a comedy of manners, a drama which satirizes the manners and affectations of a particular social class with the emphasis on comic and witty dialog. It follows in the tradition of Molière's Le Misanthrope, Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer, Sheridan's School for Scandal and even the novels of Jane Austen. Most especially, Popular reminded me of such works of Oscar Wilde as The Importance of Being Earnest for its sheer entertainment quality and unapologetic aristocratic flair. Not surprisingly, Popular has already made the transition from book to stage play.

Since the setting is contemporary, the language of Popular is of the present; the protagonists speak pretty much the same way teenagers do everywhere, with swearing and vulgarity, while engaging in what we in America call underage drinking. Being that the characters are mostly Irish, the banter is especially brisk, sparkling and humorous. As we follow the friends from party to party, the interactions become thought-provoking as well. In seeing the foibles, vanities and deceptions of  fifteen and sixteen year olds we are forced to acknowledge that perhaps we have behaved in similar duplicitous and self-indulgent ways, without having the excuse of youth and immaturity. Underneath the froth are heartbreaking truths which most of us try to ignore, as do Meredith and her cronies. In the meantime, the parents of Meredith and company hardly appear at all. Such is the skill of the author in bringing his characters to life that I had to keep reminding myself that they are fictional so I need not worry about them.

While on one level the teens are like teens everywhere, there are differences which make them unique to their own time and place. Although they are under the influence of Sex and the City, Mean Girls and Coppola's Marie-Antoinette they still seem to value purity, especially Meredith, who is a practicing Catholic. Meredith is one of the most interesting heroines I have ever encountered in fiction although I detested her at first. She has been compared to Scarlett O'Hara but I think she is a lot more intelligent and less given to histrionics; there are no Ashley obsessions. She is more like the virgin princess in Puccini's Turandot than anyone else: the icy, intransigent maiden. Meredith appears to have it all together; she has everything, absolutely everything, except a mother. The fact that her mother abandoned her might be the reason why Meredith is so controlling of everyone else, pulling strings behind the scenes, always scheming, while ruling her clique with an iron hand. She is especially against great displays of emotion; her enormous self-control makes her a born leader, which her wealth and sense of style allow her to carry off with aplomb. Meredith is also uncompromising when it comes to protecting her friends, although she bullies them a bit at times, for what she thinks is their own good. She holds them to the same high standards which she has for herself, and ultimately, I think she should become a nun; she would make a good Mother Superior. Only in Ireland would the scenarios of Popular exist with the same mix of hilarity and pathos, along with a small dose of innocence which the rest of the world has forgotten.

Popular is the first of a series; with such colorful personalities, it will be interesting to see where it all goes. I am already looking forward to the next installment.

For a link to Elena Maria's review page on her blog, Tea at Trianon, click HERE.

Playing Blake Hartman

Adam Gillian is a former student of the Royal Belfast Academical Institute, which, weirdly, given how catchy its name is, is locally shortened to "Inst". Despite the fact that the story of "Popular" is set in Malone and Adam resides in Malone, the genius of the auditioning process lead to him being cast as one of the very few characters in the novel not actually from there. Instead, Adam, who is active in the local music and musical theatre, was cast as Blake Hartman, a native of New Canaan, Connecticut, who transfers into Mount Olivet Grammar School, south Belfast, and becomes entangled in the messy world of the BT9 cliques. Today, Adam's here answering some questions about Blake Joshua Elijah Hartman.

1. Adam, you're playing Blake Hartman in 'Popular'. Who is he and what attracted you to the role?

Adam: Blake Hartman is the 16-year-old, eldest son of an American pastor, who has moved to Carryduff, Northern Ireland (without even knowing that the north and south of Ireland are two different countries ... jeez). Originally from New Canaan, CT, his father has relocated after a problematic divorce, and has moved to Northern Ireland with his 'kid brother', Jack. Blake played tennis for his high school, and is therefore quite athletic. He is confident but not cocky, charming but not sleazy and works best in one-on-one friendships. In many ways, he is the epitome of the American teen, and he himself is somewhat aware of this. He is in Malone now, and come hell or high water he will be making friends. Little does he know what Malone has in store for him... I suppose what attracted me to the role of Blake is the amount of similarities there are between he and I. Where Blake could be seen as the anti-hero, I very much see him as a good guy who means well but gets crosswired along the way and loses his direction.

2. Tell us a bit about your new song 'Run to Me' about Blake's experiences in 'Popular'. 

 

Adam: Well when I read the book and got more and more into the storyline and into Blake's head, I saw a lot of potential for a great song. He is a hopeless romantic and his relationship with Cameron is one of such bittersweet tenderness that it lent itself very well for lyrics and ideas. I enjoy songwriting quite a lot, so I felt I'd try my hand at writing in the mindset of a character. After a few weeks of playing around with ideas and lyrics I finally came up with 'Run to Me'. Lyrically it would be from Blake's point of view, how he feels about Cameron, how he wants to be the one holding him and basically says everything Blake can't say in the book/play. All being well, it will be recorded very soon and available to hear on iTunes, and there will hopefully be copies of it to grab on the night!

3. 'Popular' is set on the Malone Road and, obviously as an American transfer student, it's not a setting Blake himself is initially familiar with. But, because of his friendship with Cameron, he gets drawn into its wider network. What do you think his attitudes to the clique system at Mount Olivet really are?

 

Adam: I think Blake is quite surprised at how tight the cliques really are in Mount Olivet. He does find them trivial and somewhat petty and pointless, but he also sees how much it means to Cameron to be part of Meredith's group, and almost finds it endearing. Blake can get quite jealous of the girls being close to Cameron, in a selfish way but it never really causes many problems between Cameron and him. Sure, there were cliques in his school in America but never to the extent of the ones in Mount Olivet! The popular, or "plastic" kids got over themselves by the time they left Middle School and went into the big, bad world of High School. Then it was every polo-shirt wearing boy and flip-flop wearing girl for themselves!

4. In the theatre version of 'Popular,' we see a few new scenes and a side to Blake that we don't see with his storyline in the novel. I'm thinking especially of the scene with Cameron's birthday present and his scene with his younger brother, Jack (played by Ross White). How much do you think the Blake of the book and the Blake of the play differ?

Adam: The Blake in the book and the Blake in the play are similar yet totally different. The added scenes allowed for a far better insight into his personality and how he felt about a lot of things and consequently added more depth to his character. The Blake in the play is a lot more aggressive when he needs to be, but at the same time is polite when the occasion calls for it. He is compulsively friendly and does his best to please everyone. But it is this compulsive need to please others that leaves him in a mess. He would rather others were happy than himself; his best and worst quality and ultimately his downfall.
 

In the book Blake almost has the Edward Cullen factor, in that he is the dreamboy that the girls want, but his downfall leaves him with nowhere to run and therefore he can easily be hated. I feel that the play gives him a chance to redeem himself. I may be biased however, people may still hate him!

5. Okay. Usually I ask people who their favourite character is in these interviews, but to mix it up a bit, who is your personal least favourite? No pressure, but I will instantly be judging you. Obviously.

Adam: Wow, see what you did there. Cunning. Well I've gotten on very well with the cast and they are terrific people, their banter bus never stops! If I had to pick my least favourite character it would have to be Meredith. I get that she's radiant (obv) and she's beautiful and all the rest, but she pretty much epitomises everything I don't like about her world - at the risk of sounding like an Indie or, God forbid, Coral. Meredith is the one person Blake's charm and compulsive politeness does not impress and he's left with nothing to offer. I'm sure they get on later in the series.. lol jk, he will forever hate her!

6. One reason why people should come and see 'Popular' in September 2011:

Adam: You get to see what the kids of BT9, 'BT Fine' and 'BT Beau' really get up to with daddy's credit card and an interest for scandal!

Adam can be seen on stage at the Belvoir Players' Studio Theatre playing Blake Hartman in "Popular" by Gareth Russell from September 6th to 10th 2011. "Run to Me" will be available on i-Tunes soon.

When Royalty meets the President

Just back from their honeymoon in the Seychelles, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge carried out their first official royal duty as a married couple when they met President and First Lady Obama, who are on a state visit to the UK and Ireland this week. 

The meeting took place at Buckingham Palace and the Duchess's dress, for those fashionistas amongst you, is by Reiss.

"Gone with the Wind" (1939)

"Why does a girl have to be so silly to catch a husband?"

"Gone with the Wind"

Director: Victor Fleming (won the Oscar)

Running Time: 3 hours,  58 minutes

Random Fact: The "hunt for Scarlett O'Hara" was allegedly the most competitive casting race in Hollywood history

Based on the novel Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (1936)

Cast

Vivien Leigh .... Scarlett O'Hara (won the Oscar)

Clark Gable ..... Captain Rhett Butler (Oscar nominated)

Leslie Howard ..... Ashley Wilkes

Olivia de Havilland .... Melanie Hamilton

Hattie McDaniel .... Mammy (won the Oscar)

Also won the Oscar for: Best Art Direction,  Best Cinematography,  Best Film Editing,  Best Writing , an Honorary Oscar for  its pioneering use of colour, Best Technical Achievement and, of course, Best Picture

Gone with the Wind is justifiably one of, if not the, most famous movie of all time. Based on the 1936 bestseller by Margaret Mitchell, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937, Gone with the Wind was an epic achievement, both technologically and artistically in its day. At Oscar season, it predictably swept the board, winning ten Academy Awards. It was not just the longest movie ever made in sound when it first premiered in 1939, running to three hours and forty-four minutes, but it was not only one of the first movies shot in colour. So incredible and so expensive were the techniques used to shoot Gone with the Wind that the Academy created the Oscar for cinematography in its honour and for the next two decades it was remained the most visually stunning examples of technicolor too. It was so commercially successful that as well as being released in 1939 and running in most world cinemas well into 1941, it was re-released in cinemas in America, Europe, South America, Australia and Britain in 1947 (when its message of society adapting in the aftermath of a devastating war was especially relevant), 1954, 1961 (for the one hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of the American Civil War), 1967, 1971, 1989  (its fiftieth anniversary) and 1998. Adjusted for inflation, it is still the highest grossing domestic movie in American history.

Gone with the Wind tells the story of a spoiled Southern belle, Scarlett O'Hara (played by British actress Vivien Leigh), and her experience of ten years of American history, beginning when she attends a high society barbeque (above) at a neighbour's plantation on the day the American Civil War begins. Manipulative, brazen, deceitful and often spiteful, Scarlett O'Hara is also flirtatious, ruthless and monumentally self-absorbed. Yet, somehow, she is undoubtedly the heroine everyone is cheering for throughout Gone with the Wind's four hour extravaganza. As romance after romance fails and the lavish lifestyle of the Southern upper-classes is swept away when the South loses the Civil War in 1865, Scarlett proves that whilst she is a woman likely to hurl herself onto her bed weeping for days when she doesn't get her own way about what dress to wear to a party, when it comes to the major catastrophes of life, she is definitely the ultimate survivor. Surveying the ruin of her homeland in the aftermath of the Civil War, Scarlett vows that if she has "to lie, steal, cheat or kill" she will overcome the poverty and chaos which has swallowed up the life of wealth and privilege she once enjoyed. She vows she will hold on to the family's plantation at Tara and despite the fact she claims to find them useless and irritating, she fulfils all four of her vows in order to keep her family safe from the invading Yankee armies, famine, defeat, mental illness, political turmoil and crippling taxation.

Jennifer Aniston's new ad

Really like this new ad for Smart Water.


I always think it's so funny/bizarre when the media try to paint Jennifer Aniston's life as a tragedy and that she's really unhappy. I don't get that vibe from her at all, in any interviews or anything she ever does. 


Anyway, apparently Jennifer recently got hit with a viral sex tape, allegedly showing her, but in fact showing a porn star that looks like her and in her new ad for Smart Water, she pokes fun at that. This is a great ad.

True Love in Mississippi

I love this story!

A local newspaper in Memphis, Tennessee, has profiled the love story of one of my best friend's grandparents! Courtney ("Coco") Pannell is currently a Senior at Yale and one of my favourite partners for cocktails.

Pete and Mary Tate (above) were set-up on a blind date together when she was studying at Ole Mis, back in 1957.  They were married in 1958 and have three sons - Mike, Mark and Jeff. Mary Tate says, "I don't remember the first date, but he came to my door and had on gray pants and a pink shirt, and I thought he was awfully stylish. Oh, and white buck shoes!"

You can read the whole story, here.

Congratulations!

An interview with Christopher Gortner, author of "The Tudor Secret"

Early this week, I reviewed Christopher Gortner's novel The Tudor Secret, which you can read here, and I'm delighted to post this interview between Christopher and I discussing his new book and its inspirations. My thanks to the author.

The Radiant Face of American Conservatism

Big shout out to my friend Courtney Pannell, who's posted a new video as part of a Yale student-led initiative trying to get Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana to run as the Republican candidate in the US Presidential elections, 2012. The jilted ex in Coco's video is President Obama. 

I should point out that I'm not necessarily endorsing any candidate here. I'm just saying my friend is wonderful.


The video will be shown in Iowa, Indiana and New Hampshire next week.


Read more at Yale Daily News.


Co-authors include Max Eden, Michael Knowles and production was by Caleb Smith.

Great new musician

OK, so I say new. New to me anyway and thanks to my sister Jenny for introducing me to this guy's music. 

Tyler Ward is a really cool American musician with a great voice and I was actually listening to some of his music last night as I finished off the manuscript for Popular's first sequel. (Big thank you, by the way, to Kerry Rogan, Eric Spies and Coco Pannell for the texts, BBMs, banter and encouragement last night.  And in Coco's case, prayers - I am fairly confident God could refuse her nothing.) 

Anyway, Tyler Ward's cover of California Gurls and Love the way you lie are awesome and I'm pretty sure that in Popular, Mark Kingston, Blake Hartman and Catherine would love his music. 

You can follow Tyler on Twitter here and on Facebook here.

Entertainer of the Year

A huge congratulations to my friend Laura Schwartz (above), who has just been nominated as one of the six finalists for Events Solutions Magazine's "Entertainer of the Year Award". Laura, who is the author of the very successful Eat, Drink and Succeed: Climb Your Way to the Top Using the Networking Power of Social Events, was formerly a Special Assistant to President Clinton and the White House Director of Events. Laura now works in Chicago with her company White House Strategies, an event, media, political and message consultancy firm. She's a phenomenal public speaker and a really wonderful person. 

Laura and I first met when she was speaking at the Oxford Union in a debate on American foreign policy and I was chatting to her wonderful mother and sister, Andrea, at cocktails after. Andrea was saying how beautiful Oxford was and there was so much to see, so I offered to tour guide and the next day the entire Schwartz family and I took a tour of the city I love. They are fabulous people and it was such a highlight of that term to meet them and hang out with them. 

Anyhoo, before I gush too much, I should thank Laura for how encouraging she has been about Popular and say how amazing this nomination is - and how deserved too! 

If you'd like to vote for the delightful Miss Schwartz, here is the link and she's in the Solo category.

And if you'd like to see Laura in action, back when she was commenting on the 2008 Presidential election, click here. She's talking about one of my favourite topics: the importance of the visual! ;) 

Good luck, Laura!

Happy Birthday, Eric!

Continuing in my delightful birthday series, I wanted to say Happy Birthday to one of my favourite people - Yalie and Maryland native, Eric. After a capering friendship which has taken in the heady environments of New Haven, New Canaan and Paris, I thought I would post sixteen of our shared "best bits." Some of these may seem cruel.

1. "Gareth, I don't understand what you're saying, but you're wrong."

2. Eric to our fabulous waitress, Karen: Can you tell me about the risotto?

Karen (cheerfully): For sure. OK, so the risotto is one of our best-selling items on the menu. It's really filling, it's really rich; it's got some great herbs used in it. Cooked to perfection and so flavourful. It's really delicious.

Eric (bantering): Oh, wow. I guess you really want me to get the risotto then, right?

Karen (instantly stony): I don't care. I mean, I'm not the one that's going to be eating it.

3. "I feel like my life has suddenly turned into me being like a 1950s housewife, permanently acting as a buffer between you and the rest of the world. Like, you know the kind of wife who wipes the beer glass down when a waitress brings it over and some beers sloshes down the side? And the wife wipes it up before the husband sees it? That's me."

4. "Gareth, if you don't shut up, I'm going to take you to where the Bastille stood, laugh, and then bring you over to the Place de la Concorde, trip you up, and run away."

5. "Of course it's not good enough for you, Gareth! Because you think you should be with Scarlett, murmuring 'Lover' in each other's ears, while you lie on a cloud spun by Chanel and are served Fiji water by angels!" 

6. You introduced me to the world of froyo. And for that, I am eternally grateful. 

7. "If I wear what he's wearing, he can't make fun of it!"

8. http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2528/3874070207_7f8a1dd9d1.jpg

9. One night in Mory's, when I had to drink from an ENORMOUS tankard while you all sang Yale songs, Alexa and I had a serious breakdown in communication and I didn't quite entirely understand the rules of the game. It turns out that I didn't have to keep chugging until the song finished, but I had to have finished chugging the entire thing by the time the song had finished. My mistake was made clear to me when I realised that the second part of the game was having the cup placed atop my head to make sure I'd drunk it all. A full third of this enormous pitcher still remained and I was therefore soaked. And I thought you were going to have an aneurysm you were laughing so hard. I then informed you that some day, one day and somehow God would take revenge on you on my behalf for laughing so hard at my liquor-created misfortune. Then, a glass of wine was spilled in your lap. And you proceeded to yell at me for praying for it to happen.

10. You patting my shoulder and murmuring, "Take your time," when I drained of all colour and got a far-off, misty look in my eye when we entered the site of Marie-Antoinette's final prison cell in the Conciergerie.

11. "Are you drunk?" 

"Of course I am."

12. The night you came to the Pi Phi house to discover that Coco and I had somehow concocted a plan to have a baby together.... "So, dinner went well then?"

13. The world's slowest sliding automatic doors and your face of pure, frustrated rage.

14. "This is a picture of a manatee. Manatees are protected against the cold by a layer of blubber; I can only assume that this is how fat professor copes, since he refuses to turn up the heat in this room."

15. BBM-related sleep sync-up

16. The fact that for the first two weeks of our friendship you repeatedly referred to my book as Fabulous 

Hope you had an amazing birthday and remember, Harry Potter Day.

"Popular" News Update!

Hello all!


Well, firstly and very excitingly, Popular now has a brand new UK publication date of 7th July 2011, with its first sequel hopefully hitting the shelves in January 2012. So, circle that date in your calendar - unless, like me, you consider effort to be très irritating, in which case you can just rely on somebody else to remind you about it closer to the time. That's what this blog is for. Or, if you would prefer, you can click on Popular's page on the Penguin website and sign up to receive news on Popular's publication and events, by e-mail!


You can do that by clicking here.


To those of you who have asked about the US publication date for Popular via Facebook and e-mail, I promise I am not withholding Meredith's shimmering manipulations from you on purpose. To the delightful Sorority who wanted to make it part of their Book Club, you very much sound like my kind of people! To those  friends who threatened to cut me if I didn't give them American news, I'm afraid I consider that over-zealous. News will be forthcoming at the first available opportunity!


For the British and Irish readers, there will also be a brand new sparkling cover to admire on 7th July.  And if you want to follow me on Twitter, you can at http://twitter.com/garethrussell1. Or become a fan on Facebook.


In other news - as you can see - Popular now has its own utterly delightful on-line blog here, which will carry news about the books, as well as info about the real-life locations in Belfast, character profiles with information and fact-files not revealed in the novels, (Imogen's favourite TV shows are True Blood and Mad Men) and information about the novel's fictional setting, Mount Olivet Grammar School - its school houses,teachers, rivals, real-life inspirations, traditions and other pupils.


It's already started with a profile of the most popular clique in Upper Sixth - the Pashmina Brigade.