When you really need to vent your frustration about that huge annoyance in your life, call TeleMoan. The new series, which went online last week, delivered a prime example of amateur filmmaking, riddled with awkward acting, clunky dialogue, and poor camerawork. That is not to say it doesn’t hold potential, but there’s a lot of work still needed to be done.
Before going into the episode itself, I wanted to praise the production on their advertisements for the series. Specifically the Facebook posts announcing their cast. With minimal description of the characters paired with an in-character photo, I truly felt I was about to watch the next IT Crowd. I felt excited to see what was going to happen. Though judging by their 9 subscriber count at time of writing this review, perhaps they could’ve worked on networking.
TeleMoan stars Alex Telling as new recruit Charles on his first day at the office, learning the ill-advised ropes on how to handle callers who just needs to let it all out. It initially sounds like a remarkably interesting concept, until you realize that the execution doesn’t extend much further. With the introduction of other cast members the show basically becomes an office gossiping over their callers. Which is fun to be part of, but not so much when you’re just watching and have no chance of input. Charles himself is a bit awkward, and is trying hard not to say the wrong thing to upset anyone. Paired with Telling’s hurried delivery, he comes across as too clean and uninteresting.
Best friend Jo (May Manning) has a similar problem in delivery, as Manning attempts to get the line out so quickly that she doesn’t focus enough on acting, or being in character. Paired with clunky dialogue “Well” and “I mean”, and her need to poke fun at every other line like she’s in a poor stand-up act, I was simply waiting for her scene to be over. Emma Fletcher as the boss Elizabeth was an interesting character, mainly because she was more a caricature of a boss. Played maybe a notch too hammy, and should steer clear of sane thoughts, a good addition to the mix. Unfortunately there’s always one that falls through the cracks, good or bad, and here it’s Alexandra (Tara King), who doesn’t seem to have a whole lot of character either way. Maybe something we’ll come to see. With that said, a happy welcome for the screen were the duo of John and Georgina (Doug Michael Thomas and Gemma Tubbs). Not every moment was a winner, but these two stood out as a pair, with obviously great chemistry and a delightfully silly sense of humour, which I hope to see more of in future episodes.
It’s understandable how in a low budget amateur production, small filming locations are unavoidable, so the range of camera work involved is not very wide. However it is certainly safe to say that an extra cut here, some practice with motion there, and avoiding the stray boom mic would improve the quality of the final product. A similar sentiment could be said for the script. New writers do not have the experience that the seasoned pen masters of the creative world posses, so they need to work their way up to it. However a good proof reader or script doctor might have been beneficial here to cut down on nonsequiturs, and attempts at info dumps. It’s more fun seeing characters talking about hypotheticals rather than telling us scenes they couldn’t fit into the narrative. And add in a flare of character, don’t let Charles just be a blank page of information. Writer, Mike Foulkes, could’ve done with spending more time fleshing out his characters with some minor notes.
Honorary mention goes out to set designer Ryan Digby. It doesn’t take much for an office to feel like an office, yet many low budget productions put in the bare minimum, with just a phone, and a pad of paper on a desk, and wonder why it looks wrong. Without going overboard, Digby was able to design a simple yet believable office space that had it’s own sense of personality. Who knew so much could be said for one room?
Although TeleMoan is far from the top of my To Watch list, I will be keeping my eyes open to see the progress this series makes, and hope it improves along the way. Though for now I’m going to hold off on recommending it: 2/10.
Royston D A 