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Monday, June 4, 2012

On Lip Service by Harriet Braun (TV series, 2010-2012) (TV-14)

with Laura Fraser, Ruta Gedmintas (The Borgias), Fiona Button, Heather Peace, Emun Elliott, James Pearson, Roxanne McKee, Steven Cree, Anna Skellern, Adam Sinclair, Natasha O'Keeffe, Valerie Edmond, Hilary Maclean...

Cast of "Lip Service", Season 1 - from left to right: Cat (Laura Fraser),
Sam (Heather Peace), Frankie (Ruta Gedmintas), Sadie (Natasha O'Keeffe),
Lou (Roxanne McKee) and Tess (Fiona Button)

Lives, loves and lusts of Lipstick Lesbians in Scotland.
"Lip Service" is an irreverent and poignant drama series that focuses on the romantic lives of young gay women in contemporary Glasgow. Frankie, Cat and Tess were at university together, and in the subsequent years, were all swept into relationships.

Cast of "Lip Service", Season 1 - from left to right: Sam (Heather Peace),
Cat (Laura Fraser), Sadie (Natasha O'Keeffe),
Frankie (Ruta Gedmintas), Lou (Roxanne McKee)  and Tess (Fiona Button)

Who doesn't remember "The L Word"? Who doesn't miss a decent series that actually speaks to lesbian in a - if possible - positive way? Lip Service is a BBC production, a risky one, that decided to take on the subject, with the idea of representing mostly lipstick lesbian, in their environment, in a set place (Glasgow) and time (the series two seasons take place in six month nowadays time).

Cast of "Lip Service", Season 2 - from left to right:
Lexi (Anna Skellern), Ed (James Anthony Pearson), Frankie (Ruta Gedmintas),
Tess (Fiona Button), Jay (Emun Elliott) Cat (Laura Fraser) and Sam (Heather Peace)

The fist season was more of a show off of a diversity of lesbian having an active emotional life (and sex life for some), focusing on the love drama and the past of Frankie, with a soft mystery on who are her true parents. Honestly more of a pretext to go on with a dramatic and imbalanced character. The second season take a turn (radical) which makes the character deal with it in various ways, creating a better context for the audience to involve themselves.



In other words, if the first season was a way to discover characters in a very shallow way, with fancy cinematography and hot/original sex scenes, the second one goes deeper in a psychological journey for some of the characters in dealing with an intense event, growing up and dealing with a departing career for Tess and the brother of Cat, Ed, and eventually more romantic drama and sex.

Cast of "Lip Service", Season 1 - from left to right: Sam (Heather Peace),
Sadie (Natasha O'Keeffe), Frankie (Ruta Gedmintas), and Tess (Fiona Button),
Cat (Laura Fraser) and Lexi (Anna Skellern)

I didn't like so much the first season of the series, kept on watching and was greatly surprised by the second season. Will there be a series 3? To be continued...

Watch Trailer - Season 1


Watch Trailer - Season 2

2 comments:

  1. Obviously a series that will appeal to those of that particular persuasion.
    However the implied idea that all attractive women are closet lesbians is pathetic!

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    Replies
    1. Hi, yes, very true. I don't believe it is a great series, but I though it was important that the BBC (public television!) invests in a broader range of subject, with identities that need still to be normalized to the mainstream audience. What Showtime did was yet not reaching out to people, only those ready to pay for this specific channel.

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