Strangers in a strange land

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/04/2009 (6025 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Not long after arriving on the set of the Winnipeg-set Less Than Kind, you have an idea Season 2 of the upstart Citytv series will be no less comically caustic than the first season.

You only have to witness actor Benjamin Arthur on the Pacific Avenue set at the Manitoba Production Centre, clad in a wholly inappropriate little silk dressing gown.

The costume may say "Look at me!" but the Vancouver-based Arthur, who plays out-of-work actor Josh Blecher, is hysterically screaming, "Don’t look at me!" after a nude modelling gig in a life drawing class goes horribly awry.

Only his character is mortified. When rehearsal is done, Arthur is comparatively shameless, sporting that minuscule little gown during an interview and on set with cheeky aplomb. Literally.

In the first season of the half-hour series, Josh returned to his frigid Winnipeg birthplace after a sustained stall in his career, which peaked, we learn, with his starring role in the obscure Canadian cop drama Thunder Bay OPP.

Josh endured his share of humiliation in the first season, and in Season Two, Arthur says, it’s only going to get worse.

"We shot some stuff yesterday that I never thought I’d be doing on camera on a television show, that’s for sure," he says, referring to Josh’s initial foray into the realm of nude model.

In a subsequent conversation with the series’ writer-executive producer-showrunner, Kids in the Hall/Saturday Night Live alumnus Mark McKinney, Arthur sought assurance that this would be as bad as it gets for Josh as the season progresses.

I told him, ‘I think we pretty much capped it there, eh?’

"And he said, ‘No, we have something worse than that coming up for you.’"

 

***

 

Premiering in October 2008, Less Than Kind was a unique success story in Canadian television. Citytv was evidently so pleased with the first season that they ordered a second season before a single episode aired.

That was an exhilarating vote of confidence for the show’s Toronto-based co-creator Marvin Kaye, who based much of the show on his own Winnipeg upbringing. If the show’s blustery patriarch Sam Blecher (Maury Chaykin) is based loosely on Kaye’s own father, the teen protagonist Sheldon (Montreal actor Jesse Camacho) is Kaye’s own screen proxy, a frustrated, overweight kid who dreams of a life and career beyond his father’s driving school.

"The first season is just about figuring out how everything works, and I think the first season started off unevenly but the shows got steadily better as we went along," says Kaye.

"The second season for us is about how can we make it better," he says. "What different ideas would we like to explore? We sat down and said: Let’s make Sheldon’s road a little more difficult, with the father being ill (Chaykin’s Sam suffered a heart attack at the end of Season One) and the strained family life and sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, Sheldon’s a teenager and how do we deal with that kind of stuff?"

"It’s a weird journey for Sheldon this year," says Camacho, 17. "The whole family is reeling.

"The one constant for Sheldon is Miriam," Camacho says, referring to his awkward but beguiling friend played, in a breakout performance, by 15-year-old local actress Brooke Palsson.

Many of the main cast were plucked from other parts of the country, including all the members of the Blecher clan. (Nancy Sorel, who plays Sheldon’s libidinous aunt, is a Winnipeg resident.)

But McKinney takes some delight in the fact that the series is a showcase for homegrown talent too.

"That was one thing I wasn’t entirely expecting," McKinney says. "Half the cast is coming from Winnipeg."

Returning to the show is local actor Ross McMillan’s tightly-wound teacher Mr. Dubbe, who made an indelible impression in Season One with his penchant for volcanic profanity. This year, Mr. Dubbe finds himself taking custody of a provocateur teenage son, Danny (Vancouver actor Tyler Johnston), and getting a crush on Danny’s art teacher (played by Jennifer Irwin, who may be best remembered as McKinney’s corporate seducer in the first season of Slings and Arrows).

"I get a nice little storyline about flirting with this art teacher, which is great," McMillan says. "She’s just about as nuts as Lubbe is."

The whole cast seems relieved to be performing in comparatively civilized spring weather in contrast to Season One, which was shot in the dead of winter, often under brutal conditions. Arthur recalls shooting an exterior scene last year when the wind chill was dipping below -50 C.

"They put fake snot coming from my nose to my mouth. And by the end of it, I had real snot over top of the fake snot," he says. "We were talking about writing a book about how to act in minus 50, because it’s a totally different game."

Filming of Less Than Kind 2 began in late March and is scheduled to continue throughout May. The second season will air on Citytv in the fall.

 

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

 

To watch full episodes of Season One, go to www.citytv.com/micro/lessthankind

 

 

The critical consensus on Less Than Kind Season One

"Wonky domestic sitcom TV at its best. Winnipeg-based series is a worthy successor to Corner Gas, albeit a considerably darker one."

—- Rob Salem, Toronto Star

 

"Not only does it boast the acerbic wit of its producer, former Kid in the Hall Mark McKinney, but as a Canadian show that flies stealthily under the radar, it’s fearless."

— Joel Rubinoff, Waterloo Region Record

 

"One of North America’s funniest sitcoms."

— Joshua Ostroff, EYE Weekly

 

"Has an easygoing charm, but with an edge."

— Alex Strachan, Montreal Gazette

 

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