Something was bugging me about Marcus Bachmann. Not his obvious homophobia and crazy "pray away the gay" therapy. No, it was the sneaking suspicion that I had seen him, and this little passion play, before.
Here is Marcus and his bearded lady (or is he the beard?) dancing at a political rally.
Where else have a seen a 50ish man, acting the beard for a grasping, power-mad, possibly insane, middle-aged woman with a really huge ass? Why does this tale of a psycho married to a stylishly-grey and obviously gay man, seem so familiar.
Because I have seen it before, and as with all bad American tv shows, the BBC did it first and better. Like they did with "Man About the House", "Absolutely Fabulous", and "Life on Mars", the providers of pop entertainment in the US have given us Bachmann Crazy Overdrive, a weak remake of the BBC original. It first appeared on the tele in 2007 as "The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle" and simply did not need remaking.
Like all good BBC shows, only Canadians and left-leaning Americans will have seen it and be in on the joke. The rest of the U.S. will continue to think that Jack Tripper is an original comic jewel and that Payne was a clever bit of comedy about a hotelier obsessed with his competition and his amusingly foreign bellhop.
Jared, paving the way for fat fancy boys on either side of the Atlantic.
