‘You’re not a stalker, are you?’ ‘No, I just know how to write academic-sounding applications.’
I am long overdue a post about a little adventure in appreciation that I had back in May this year.
Perhaps you recall my travails in finding any hint of a whiff of a copy of the Amanda Redman vehicle from 1996 that goes by the same name as a popular Scandi drama: Beck, about a missing-persons agency and a ~sexually liberated~ woman running it (“It’s the ‘90s!”). The episode Joplin was in also had early cameos by a young Jason Flemyng and James D’Arcy, and I found no evidence that fans of them had managed to track it down either.
Ultimately after asking around in forums and getting no reply I came to the conclusion that the only way I was going to get to see the one episode Joplin was in was if I went to the BFI archive myself. So, uh, I filled out their application form, paid the small fee, and went along on a rainy May morning.
It was bizarre and glorious and I highly recommend the experience. Let’s make Beck (1996) episode 4 the Alice’s Restaurant of BFI viewings requests!
Anyway I felt like I got VIP treatment and had the most wonderful chat with the man who works there, who did ask if I was a stalker, but I think was mostly endeared by my persistence. He brought me tea and biscuits and left me in a cramped cupboard with the digital copy to watch as many times as I wanted.
Beck 1.4
All I knew was I was waiting for ‘Charlie’ to turn up, and I feared it might not be for more than a couple of minutes, but I was determined to watch the whole episode anyway.
Full disclosure: this is an extremely of its time episode of TV. However, that does also mean it’s actually quite well written, and to be honest I enjoyed it enough that if I had access to all six episodes I would certainly watch the entire series. I am not, however, in London often enough for that, and don’t fancy paying £13 a pop.
The first familiar face to pop up was Jason Flemyng – with a lustrous head of ginger hair and a pouty expression. He gave the impression of being a returning character who was close with (a friend of?) Beck herself, and that she seemed more worried about him and his small baby than about the partner, Karen, who had gone missing and was now being (reluctantly, seemingly) returned home.
Beck’s agency is made up of her, a female partner called Therese, a sensible black colleague, and a wide-eyed innocent white boy intern. Iirc Beck and Therese are meant to be having a girls’ night out, or a break from work at least, but their office is suddenly overrun by private school boys.
Well, they look like school boys, but are apparently a ‘bloody mobile stag party’ and they’re loud, pissed, waving round huge amounts of cash, and the leader, who ‘looks like a head boy’, is a very baby James D’Arcy. Per my notes: ‘SO fey SO floppy hair’.
I scoured the background, dreading that Joplin would be a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him member of this troupe of idiots, but then it emerged why they were in the missing-persons agency:
Their good friend Charlie (“a brother!”) has gone missing! And they’d been out on Charlie’s stag do! He’s meant to be marrying James D’Arcy’s terrifying sister Isolde and he’s missing!
No one has told the bride her fiancé is missing yet, because of the aforementioned terrifyingness (she’s “a very fine shot”). Her ex, another of the obnoxious poshos, doesn’t think Charlie’s worth finding, and there are some choice sentiments shared from various lads: he’s not a bad bloke “for a w*g” [me – sorry WHAT the fuck did you say? “It’s the ‘90s!”] and “I don’t mind if you don’t find him … [he’s] a little shit, no style, clothes didn’t fit.” James D’Arcy is very scared of his sister though, so they’re here to get him found.
Luckily they brought the stripper, Charity, with them, and she’s still wearing Charlie’s jacket, with his wallet in it. Cue tart with a heart sub-plot between intern and stripper.
The raucous lads deposit a wadge of cash with Beck and Therese, and a taxi is summoned. Now we will meet the best character in the whole episodes, hands down. My notes read: ‘Even lady taxi drivers can be weird gobshites’. Bernice the taxi driver, I would die for you.
The ladies have helped themselves to a pizza voucher from Charlie’s wallet and find out his full name is Charlie Khan.
Meanwhile we get a sinister interlude at Jason Flemyng’s house, where Karen has locked herself in a room with the baby.
Now the ladies learn that Charlie is often seen wearing a crash-helmet at an address that isn’t his home…
Therese and Beck: “West Ham in 10 minutes, is it possible?”
Bernice the taxi driver: “Is Jodie Foster gorgeous? Get in.”
They have tracked Charlie to a video rental place and a dry cleaner a long way from the other address and there’s another branch of the same pizza place nearby… he must live in West Ham, not Wapping, like his mates think…
I had a wee panic that it would be another 'dead before he does anything' Joplin character when we saw a body with ‘long black hair, big nostrils’, but it’s quickly clear this is a woman who’s been beaten up – it’s Karen. Jason Flemyng is being incredibly shifty.
Beck and Therese (and Bernice) have been told by their contact at the morgue, and, per my notes 'Beck having an Emotion about this & her friend doesn’t even have a fag :('.
Bernice: “I’d offer you a drink, but I’ve only got pure alcohol.” (lady you are a TAXI DRIVER. “It’s the ‘90s!”)
Beck picks up on a sus line JF gave about his mum looking after the baby while he’s at the morgue – he’d said his mum was away earlier.
Oooooh he’s so evil :( his mum isn’t there when Beck pays him a visit at home. Beck had said in the earlier scene with him that she usually doesn’t help men looking for women like Karen when they run off, because there’s generally a good reason for them leaving and the man shouldn’t be helped to bring her back…
JF (evilly): “You were very rigorous with me.”
Beck: “You won us all over.”
He says some extra egregiously evil things about how Karen’s post-partum depression was a ‘negative atmosphere’ for the baby and how she wasn’t hot after giving birth. Bleurgh. Beck is determined she’ll get the baby off him, but the script wants to drive home very badly that it is aware that ‘driving someone to suicide’ isn’t a crime (surely beating the shit out of Karen was though??) and JF thinks he’s untouchable.
Anyway, the girls bundle in the taxi again (Bernice really wants them to adopt her). They’re doing a stake out and it’s morning now, they’ve been out all night (in the dresses they were meant to be out dancing in), and Bernice pulls out her ancient phone (low battery, pull-out aerial) and they order pizza to the taxi using Charlie’s voucher.
I am not making this up for clout (can you imagine), but I had very much guessed Charlie was going to be delivering the pizza by this point.
A veritable CASCADE of luscious black locks emerge from the crash helmet. Ohhh he’s a charmer with a cheeky smile!! But looks a bit alarmed when everyone coos “Charlie!”
“You got me mixed up, my name’s Prakash.”
He guesses Isolde sent them - "Yeah, I've seen you in movies - hit men-women!"
Turns out he just doesn’t want to marry Isolde. Because she’s terrifying.
Beck: “So why’d you ask her?”
Charlie: “She asked me!”
Girl Power! “It’s the ‘90s!”
Anyway, he borrowed his mum's boss's identity to have a bit of fun in the city, but the game got old and now he wants out. He’s fucking adorable and Beck and Therese agree.
Look at this disney prince nonsence!
Bernice also thinks Therese is adorable and propositions her, plus she doesn’t want to lose her new friends. Unfortunately Therese has a boyfriend already, so Bernice must remain lovelorn in her taxi. I'll love you Bernice!! Also I'm heartbroken all over again because I thought I had notes on Bernice's proposition to Therese but I can't find them, alas!
Rating
Dead? No!!! Alive and with such beautiful hair, such a cheeky smile!!
Evil? Not at all! Tricking your way into the racist posh boys’ club and leaving when you’re sick of them is very valid.
Affects the plot? He IS the plot! As an excuse for the ladies to have taxi adventures all night you couldn’t get much better than this.
I’m going with a big fat 4.5/5. Half a point docked for having to go all the way to London to see it. Yes, he only has one scene, but it’s a corker, and I think it's the only pre-cricket-ball-to-the-face footage I'm at all likely to get my hands on.
Sadly, it seems Jason Flemyng's character was never brought to justice - or maybe it happened off-screen or was tabled for the season 2 that never was - as he's only credited with a single episode on imdb. As to whether Beck made a choice between her Irishman or her artsy boyfriend, or the guy at her salsa lessons, I suppose I'll never find out without going back to the BFI...
---
Transcript of his scene:
Beck: Hello Charlie.
Therese (was sleeping): What?
Prakash: Nah, nah, nah, you got me mixed up. My name's Prakash.
Beck: You're supposed to be getting married today, aren't you?
Prakash: Look…I don't wanna marry her.
Beck: Then why'd you ask her?
Prakash: She asked me!
Beck: You said yes.
Prakash: Have you ever made a bad move?
Beck: Yeah I have. So who is this 'Charlie'?
Prakash: Oh (laughs) my mum's his secretary. He wants someone to flat sit while he's in New York. I met Isolde down the Blue Beat club… Oh, it was just a joke, I'd had a few beers…and then…
Therese: Then you paddled your way up shit creek.
Prakash: Isolde sent you, didn't she? Yeah, I - I've seen it in films. Hit men-women.
Beck: Ooh she wants you alive.
Prakash: Gotta face up to my responsibilities. Right I'm gonna go round there and I'm gonna tell her the truth. If she loves me, she'll accept me for what I am.
Therese: Oh grow up! She'll tear your tonsils out.
Prakash: I'm not good enough for her.
Beck: Charlie? Prakash, or whatever your bloody name is. I've got this fear that you're too good for her.
Therese: Yeah she's not gonna want to go to Upton Park on a Saturday afternoon.
Prakash: West Ham is a good team this year.
Therese: If you like netball.
Beck (handing him £20): Why don't you go and love someone a bit more honestly.
Therese: I wouldn't wanna get mixed up with them dickheads.
Beck (accepting pizza boxes): Thanks, you can keep the change. And - um, that's yours. (hands him bag with his jacket in) Bye!
