JOHN ADAMS

At the start of the summer holidays I was flicking through Virgin 'T.V on demand' wondering if I would ever come across anything worthwhile watching. Eventually I stumbled across the HBO series 'John Adams'. At first glance I didn't think much of it (it did sound rather dull). Until, that is, I remembered seeing an advert for it on Television a while back. I recalled thinking "that looks damn good! I must watch that!" -which of course I never did. So there was my chance.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the show, it follows the life of U.S founding father John Adams throughout the American war of Independence and beyond. It was a HBO/Playtone production so Naturally I expected pretty good quality television.

As a history fanatic there are several periods I am particularly interested in, Ancient Greece, The 2nd crusade and the golden ages of His Majesty's British Empire. The latter centred specifically around the 1770s -when America was but a British colony (Ah the good old days.). As this programme was obviously set in this time period I automatically had to watch it.

However, although I expected a high level of drama and production value from HBO, it was after all an American tale, told by americans. And so I expected it to be extremely 'gun-ho' 'god bless america!' sort of vibe -along the same lines as 'The Patriot'.

Yet, to my surprise, the first episode made absolutely clear that this treated the subject matter in a totally different way than the Patriot. The first thing that struck me as pretty brave on the part of the show makers was the fact that no one (not one character) in the entire show had any hint of a modern American accent. This I thought was rather unusual, seeing as the patriot took the view that Americans always had their accent and we had ours. Instead, what I found was that the Colonial accent was a rather strange variant of the English accent -the English too being rather unusual. It seemed they had gone out of their way to get as realistic a fell as they could get to history.

Apart from being a refreshing surprise, the accent similarities helped set up the world of the show. For example, many of the very early 'Revolutionaries' did not want independence at all, the in fact wished to be taxed fairly and have their rights as "natural born Englishmen" restored. This would have been a bit harder to sell if they were demanding these things in a broad american accent. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but these small additions just help me believe the world more -unlike The Patriot (Which I do still like).

Anyway, off the historical babbling and back to the show. The show's principle character (John Adams) is played to perfection by Paul Giamatti and features many a big name in the cast, including Tom Hollander and Tom Wilkinson. The show ropes you into the world with a fantastically effective but simple title sequence. If you don't watch the show I highly recommend that you watch the title sequence on youtube. It is fantastically simple, being just a sequence of shots of flags flying, and yet, with the brilliantly placed music it sets you up for the fell and tone of not only the show but the time in which it s set. All that with some flags and a bit of music -impressive.

Paul Giamatti is absolutely perfect for the role of John Adams and after a while even begins to look like him. The show is centred around his experience in the war and his life after. Because John Adams was lawyer turned congressman there are naturally not any sweeping battle scenes. Instead you're drawn into the political, human and personal side of the war and Adams' struggle for independence. Although there is no epic battle scene they certainly do not shy away from showing wide establishing CGI shots when necessary.

There is a huge amount of passion and drive that comes out of Giamatti's performance -especially when giving speeches (Which there are quite a few of).

I also like how the show is all about the somewhat 'forgotten' founding father of America. A point which the show repeatedly weaves throughout the series.

But another very important point the show conveys is that the American revolution was not the fairy tale legend that it seems to have become. It shows that it wasn't just an oppressed people rising up and defeating an evil empire. It shows that it was a harsh, ugly and brutal affair -with extremists on both sides.

The series as a whole gives the audience a really intriguing, dramatic and entertaining panorama of the life of John Adams. The show is by far the best piece of television I have seen. Now, I just need to wait for the dvd price to come down.