Kiefer Sutherland, Moulin Rouge, and the buzz-worthy success of Yellowjackets

The Independent’s entertainment newsletter [View in browser]( [The Independent]( January 22, 2022 [The Independent]( Written by Annabel Nugent The IndyArts Newsletter Hello and welcome to another edition of the Indy Arts newsletter! It’s been a TV-heavy week for culture – at least if my Twitter newsfeed is anything to go by. Certainly, there have been some lows ([the ongoing popularity of Netflix’s Too Hot to Handle continues to baffle]( even me – a self-confessed fan of trash TV) but all eyes are on Showtime’s hit teen cannibal drama Yellowjackets. The series, which is currently being released weekly on Sky Atlantic in the UK, might just be the final nail in the coffin of Netflix’s binge model. At least Kevin E G Perry thinks so, writing that the [show is “reminding audiences of the joy of delayed gratification”](. A personal highlight has been seeing Melanie Lynskey on my screen every week, as she enjoys some very overdue time in the spotlight. And so of course, I wrote about why [Melanie Lynskey is completely deserving of a career renaissance]( on the same scale as Kathryn Hahn and Laura Dern. Elsewhere this week, [Ellie Harrison spoke to the cast of As We See It]( on the emotional process of making the groundbreaking autism comedy. And Isobel Lewis got a behind-the-scenes peep into the fantastical, musical ride of West End’s take on Baz Luhrmann’s [Moulin Rouge](. Since her 1994 debut aged 15 (top right), Melanie Lynskey has consistently turned in scene-stealing performances (Alamy/Showtime) It was a sad day for music when Meat Loaf died aged 74 on Friday. In the wake of the news, charming anecdotes have resurfaced surrounding the legend – [including how he came about that unusual moniker](, [what the only thing he wouldn't do for love was](, and [the time a "jealous" Prince Andrew tried to push him into a moat](! [The Saturday Interview – Kiefer Sutherland]( [Oscars image]( Sutherland bounced around various schools in Canada before dropping out at 15 to take his chances in the family business (Nathan Clark) For this week’s Saturday Interview Kevin EG Perry spoke with acclaimed actor and lesser known country singer Kiefer Sutherland. The 55-year-old spoke openly about his famous father, activist mother and his storied career playing vampires, cowboys and special agent Jack Bauer. Oh, and he also has something to say about the critics who thought 24 was promoting torture as an interrogation tactic. [Oscars image]( Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer in the long-running ‘24' (Alamy) Read an extract from our Saturday Interview below… Sutherland, who was born in London in 1966, seems to have been always destined for an eventful life. When the FBI stormed in that day in 1969, it wasn’t his celebrity father, Donald Sutherland, they were looking for but his mother, Shirley Douglas. The daughter of Tommy Douglas, a socialist politician who was the architect of Canada’s welfare state, Douglas was both an actor and a committed civil rights activist. After founding the fundraising group Friends of the Black Panthers, she helped to organise their free school breakfast programme across Los Angeles. During the raid on her home, she was arrested for allegedly trying to buy explosives for the Panthers, a charge she always maintained was a set-up. “The FBI… how do I say this politely?” wonders Sutherland. “They made it as difficult for her to operate as possible, to the degree that they put her in prison. In prison she organised the first Prisoner’s Union, at which point they said: ‘You know what, how about we just deport you?’ She said: ‘Only if I can take my children’ and off we went to Canada!” Sutherland believes his family were particularly targeted because of his father Donald’s fame and left-leaning political views. The elder Sutherland had become a Hollywood star with the release of The Dirty Dozen in 1967 and was a high-profile anti-Vietnam war activist. “Because of my father’s politics, they felt he was a Social Democrat, a socialist, who believed in nationalised health care and large government, and those were not necessarily ‘American values’,” says Sutherland. Documents declassified in 2017 showed that at the CIA’s request, Donald Sutherland was placed on a NSA watch-list in the early Seventies. At the time of the FBI raid, he was in Yugoslavia playing a hippie tank commander in Kelly’s Heroes. Co-star Clint Eastwood broke the news to him that Douglas had been arrested for trying to buy explosives for the Black Panthers with a personal cheque. When Donald has told this story in the past, he’s included the fact that when Eastwood got to the part about the personal cheque he laughed so hard, Sutherland had to help him back to his feet. [Read the full interview here]( What to binge this week [Oscars image]( Juliette Lewis stars in Showtime's 'Yellowjackets' [Yellowjackets]( The only upside of not having seen Yellowjackets yet is that you won't have to wait a week between each infuriatingly intriguing episode. The series manages to be a modern twist on Lord of the Flies without feeling derivative. Yellowjackets tells the story of a high school girls football team whose plane crashes in the wilderness in the Nineties. It follows two timelines: the immediate aftermath of the crash, and the present day survivors. Between the cannibalism, ghosts, blackmail – it's got everything a drama-hungry audience could want. Plus, a stellar cast (Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis, Christina Ricci and Tawny Cypress) to boot. What are you waiting for? Yellowjackets is available to stream on Sky Atlantic Out and about [A Poet for Every Day of the Year – National Theatre]( Live poetry is a profound and underrated thing, and for one night only at the National on Tuesday, Allie Esiri curates a poetic journey through a calendar year. It'll feature work from some of the world's greatest poets, read by leading actors including Lesley Sharp and Damian Lewis – and is dedicated to Lewis's late wife, the actor Helen McCrory, who read at the event in the years before she died. Buy tickets [here](. [Operation Mincemeat – Southwark Playhouse]( This comedy musical tells a story too outlandish to be made up: a Second World War mission sees the corpse of a homeless man dressed up as a Royal Marine and floated out to sea, with false documents in his pocket as an attempt to mislead the enemy. "It has all the subtlety of an M4 Sherman tank, crashing its way from one sketch to the next," wrote Isobel Lewis in her [four-star review](, "and is all the better for it." Buy tickets [here](. [Moulin Rouge! The Musical – Piccadilly Theatre]( If you're a fan of camp, bombastic, opulent musicals, then you've probably already got tickets to this long-awaited stage adaptation of Baz Luhrmann's beloved 2001 film. "It is ostentatious, absurd, and completely ravishing to look at," wrote Ava Wong-Davies in her [four-star review](. Apparently, if you go on a weekend, the crowd joins in on all the biggest numbers. Buy tickets [here](. Essential reading [The 17 worst sex scenes in movie history]( [The 17 worst sex scenes in movie history]( [35 best movies to see before you die]( [35 best movies to see before you die]( [Ashling Murphy was ‘just going for a run’ when she was killed but that doesn’t matter]( [Ashling Murphy was ‘just going for a run’ when she was killed but that doesn’t matter]( If you can spare a minute we’d love your [feedback]( on our newsletters. [The Independent]( Join the conversation or follow us [Facebook]( [Twitter]( Please do not reply directly to this email You are currently registered to receive The Independent's entertainment newsletter. Add us to your safe list of senders. If you do not want to receive The Independent's entertainment newsletter, please [unsubscribe](list_name=IND_Culture_Newsletter_CDP). If you no longer wish to receive any newsletters or promotional emails from The Independent, you can unsubscribe [here](. 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