Monday, September 08, 2008

Wire in the blood

The new issue of The Word magazine was waiting for me when I got home this afternoon. I do enjoy the cultural musings of David Hepworth and tend to like his unorthodox recommendations: Willie Nile, for one. There's a banging interview Hepworth has done with David Simon, the writer of The Wire, quite possibly the greatest TV series ever. We are currently up to episode 6, series 4 on the boxed set. It's not just the sprawling cast of characters, the changing backdrops to Baltimore's layers or the moral maze that blurs the lines between the cops and baddies. It's the scale of it. I'm envious that there's a screening in London of the last 5 episodes with Simon hosting a Q+A afterwards.

As a piece of work, it's amazing enough, but it's also epoch making in the way it's consumed. In the US and the UK followers have got hold of it in the most unconventional way, through downloads, Sky Plus and DVD. This is Simon on its unexpected popularity in the UK:

I'm stunned. I can't figure you people out.

We have the final series on order.

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