TV BLOG IN QUOTING SHAKESPEARE SHOCK

Sons Of Anarchy

Bravo

Tuesdays, 10pm (and +1)

The latest big US show hit our screens last night and immediately went weird. Apparently this story of a California biker gang is based on Hamlet, and it's created by an ex-The Shield writer, so it's bound to be oblique. But sometimes, if you're doing a show about biker gangs, you need to show the gang on bikes for more than a minute in the first half hour of the show. This was an intriguing rather than dramatic start...

It's going to take some commitment, because there are so many Sam Crows to get to know (yep, after Generation Kill, it's another show with its own language – you don't call them Sons of Anarchy; it's Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original; SAMCRO). There's the Jewish Elvis impersonator (oh, they're very quick to make it clear the Sam Crows aren't racists, with black business partners and a rivalry with a white supremacist gang), the bloke who looks like he's wearing eyeshadow... and the Scotsman. That was particularly odd - I thought I wasn't hearing his accent right.

There are some interesting pieces of casting. Ron "Hellboy" Perlman makes total sense as the patriarch (or Claudius figure); Katey Sagal (see the next post, "Wot we seen urrin?") is Gertrude, though with a touch of the Lady MacBeth's about her too; Drea de Matteo (Adriana in The Sopranos) is Ophelia going off the rails (get thee to a nunnery); and isn't that the FBI boss from The X-Files (Mitch Pileggi) lurking as a rival gang leader? (They're called the Nordics, so presumably he's Fortinbras).

Of course, no show can succeed without a decent soundtrack these days and while it's heavy on Americana (the theme's by Curtis Stigers), it's not a case of playing "both kinds of music - country and western" – I think that was even a Jesus & Mary Chain tune accompanying a pool cue beating.

I'll be following the exploits of the citizens of Charming (Really? That's the ironic town name gone with?), if only so we can work out which characters are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and will be hoist by their own petard, and who is Osric - a part whose portrayal was greeted with critical acclaim in a 1985 production at King's School Canterbury ("a foreboding presence" - The Cantuarian).