Swingtown

The best programme by a country mile on TV in 2010 was Swingtown, an exploration of the sexual anomie brought on by suburban boredom in 1970s America, starring Molly Parker and Jack Davenport among others. Like The Ice Storm but without the nuance, stunning aesthetic or complex performances.



Swingtown posits that every female during the era looked like a bargain basement Sissy Spacek.



My fella and I largely became addicted to this programme on the basis of Jack Davenport's APPALLING Amercian accent. From week to week we could barely wait to see what parts of the script he would murder next in a generalised US drawl. He was obviously so self-conscious of how bad it was that sometimes he just didn't bother at all. Witness the phrase 'out and about' in the clip below:



You'll note Davenport's characteristic performance mode in the clip is smug; as if a leering conceitedness will detract from his foundational failure to adequately portray an American. You will also note that every weekend is Studio 54 time in Swingtown. The plethora of cliche and stereotypes in the show was mind-boggling. The one thing it was missing was sex - strange for a show which titularly entices through suggested orgies. Don't be fooled by images like this:



It was more like this:



But with flares.