Sex, Chips & Rock-N-Roll (British Mini-Series)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: C-     Episodes: C+

 

 

An attempt to recreate 1965 over and over again is always tricky, as just about all TV and film programs that do are more interested in portraying that year as “the last good old days” before the counterculture arrived, as if that was somehow a totally bad thing.  With that said, I found Sex, Chips & Rock-N-Roll very odd in trying to make it feel more like the 1950s.  Britain was not that far behind The United States like Ireland might have seemed at one point (see Out Of Ireland elsewhere on this site), but this six-part mini-series does just that.

 

To make matters worse, the music is not that good, especially the remakes and covers of famous songs.  Almost Famous this is not.  There is the Beatles-wanna be band The Ice Cubes, too silly and too played for comedy to help the series’ problems, and even adding Phil Daniels (Quadrophenia) and Gillian Kearney (The John Lennon Story) has no bearing on the lack of authenticity of the show.  It is really just another melodrama trying to wear a 1965 Rock label.  Too bad that label is a forgery.

 

The 1.33 X 1 image looks good for a 2001 production, but the look of the show overall is lacking.  Money was spent, but it never looks or feels like 1965.  Yes, it does more often look like 1959.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo has faint surrounds at best, but is nothing great, another strike against a show taking place in the oncoming British Invasion.  Extras are all text, including a 15-question trivia quiz that is the highlight of the set, text on the cast and the Top Ten single hits in the U.K. for that year.  People not a fan of Rock will embrace its revisionism, but I found it very disappointing and filled with false notes.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo