Slings & Arrows



Slings and Arrows is a Canadian dark comedy about the New Burbage Festival, a thinly-veiled Fictional Counterpart of the Stratford Festival of Canada. It focuses on Geoffrey Tennant's return to the festival as artistic director upon the death of his estranged mentor, Oliver Welles (who immediately returns as a ghost visible only to Geoffrey). Each season is a Story Arc, focusing on Geoffrey's production of a great Shakespearean tragedy: the first season does Hamlet, the second Macbeth with a subplot about Romeo and Juliet, and the third King Lear.

Characters:
 * Geoffrey Tennant, the artistic director of the festival and archetypical Bunny Ears Lawyer. Played by Paul Gross, of Due South fame.
 * Ellen Fanshaw, the aging leading woman and Geoffrey's on-again-off-again love interest. If you take a shot every time she insincerely says "sorry," you'll be dead before the end of the episode. Played by Martha Burns.
 * Richard Smith-Jones, executive (business) director who nurtures a secret love of musicals. Played by The Kids in The Hall's Mark McKinney.
 * Oliver Welles, ghost, Spirit Advisor, and Foil to Geoffrey. Played by Steven Ouimette.
 * Anna Conroy, secretary associate administrative director and frequent doormat. Played by Susan Coyne.
 * Darren Nichols, temperamental director and stereotypical postmodernist. Played by Don McKellar.
 * Maria, a typical stage manager. She doesn't like actors. Especially Ellen. Played by Catherine Fitch.

This show provides examples of:
"Geoffrey: Which would you prefer: an empty house with a great play, or a full house with a piece of garbage?
 * Affably Evil: Sanjay isn't evil, per se, but he is a con man, and incredibly charming.
 * Ambiguously Gay: Darren Nichols is as camp as camp can be, but his sexuality just never comes up. Notable in that it's not played for laughs beyond his character being generally ridiculous, and there's no speculation as to which way he swings by any of the other characters.
 * Arbitrary Skepticism: Geoffrey vehemently denies the Macbeth curse while talking to a ghost.
 * As You Know: Geoffrey is rather fond of this, often unnecessarily explaining plot details of the plays to the actors. This is lampshaded at one point by Ellen, who snaps that she knows the play, thank you very much.
 * Bad Bad Acting: Averted: All acting of bad acting contained within the show resembles genuine wince-worthy bad acting. Especially Claire's. That is some very good bad acting.
 * Beta Couple: One per season.
 * Bilingual Bonus: In Season 3, Nahum acts as translator when Anna needs to speak with the Bolivians, but he doesn't always translate faithfully.
 * Bi the Way:
 * After cavorting with the musical theater company in Season 3, Richard wakes up next to one of the actresses... and the male writer.
 * Bittersweet Ending: In the Season 3 finale, . It redefines this trope.
 * Book Ends: The first season gradually reveals the events that led Geoffrey to a nervous breakdown onstage 7 years earlier, ending his acting career. In the final episode of the series,.
 * Brick Joke: In Season 1,
 * British Brevity: Actually Canadian Conciseness, but the effect is the same: Each season is only 6 episodes long.
 * British English: Frank and Cyril. "Fancy a pint, duckie?" (Remember that besides being Those Two Guys, they have the opening to themselves.)
 * Bunny Ears Lawyer:
 * Geoffrey.
 * The advertising firm Froghammer appears to be this way, using nigh-incomprehensible postmodern tactics to build up interest in the festival. It's later subverted when
 * Bury Me Not On the Lone Prairie: Oliver wanted his skull to be used for productions of Hamlet. Almost no one wanted to fulfill that request for some reason.
 * But Now I Must Go: Oliver in the final episode.
 * Butt Monkey:
 * Jerry, the understudy. Though he gets a Crowning Moment of Awesome / Crowning Moment of Heartwarming in the second to last episode of Season 2, where he gives a kick-ass performance as Macbeth.
 * Richard is used by everybody and is barely effectual at best.
 * Camp Gay:
 * Patrick, especially around his male friends, to the point where Geoffrey is rather bewildered when he notices the UST with Sarah.
 * Oliver.
 * Call Back: In the final episode,
 * Catch Phrase: Changing every season.
 * Chess Motifs: Darren Nichols' invokes this in his production of Romeo and Juliet.
 * Central Theme: Each season has a theme that relates the backstage plot to the Shakespeare play being performed.
 * Season 1: Hamlet - madness, betrayal.
 * Season 2: Macbeth - power, ambition.
 * Season 3: King Lear - rivalry,.
 * Comedic Sociopathy
 * Corrupt Corporate Executive
 * Richard is not so much corrupt as commodity-minded rather than art-minded, but that kinda comes with the territory. First, he rises above this corruption, only to eventually fall from grace into a deeper level of corruption.
 * Even more so, Holly Day.
 * Classically Trained Extra: Comes up a few times
 * Creator Cameo: The show was co-written by Mark McKinney, Susan Coyne and Bob Martin. The first two play regular characters (as Richard and Anna), but Martin also makes a cameo in a first-season episode as a plastics executive who takes a class in Shakespeare.
 * Damning With Faint Praise: Oliver's A Midsummer Nights Dream. "The production values are very high." We won't talk about the performances, the direction, or the design...
 * Does This Remind You of Anything: Ellen's meetings with her tax auditor eventually morph into therapy sessions.
 * Diabolus Ex Machina: Arguably.
 * Dead Person Conversation: Geoffrey and Oliver on a regular basis.
 * In Season 3,.
 * Double Entendre: Most occur in the text (it is Shakespeare, after all), but the actors are also proficient.
 * "He was my Bottom for seven years."
 * "I've never played Romeo before."
 * "I want a thrust in the Rose."
 * Dream Sequence
 * Enforced Method Acting: An in-universe example. After rehiring Henry Breedlove for the role of Macbeth, Geoffrey feels the need to use this when Henry defies his direction.
 * Face Heel Turn:.
 * Fake American: All of the American characters are played by Canadians.
 * Feuding Families: Not literal families, but the classical and musical troupes in Season 3 do not get along, to say the least.
 * First Episode Spoiler: Oliver is very much alive in the first episode, making spoilers tricky to avoid when describing the series.
 * Flash Back
 * The Fun in Funeral: The funeral of Oliver Wells is comical, cliche, and ludicrous all at once.
 * Heel Face Turn:.
 * How Many All of Them
 * Ho Yay: They are actors.
 * It is strongly implied that Oliver was in love with Geoffrey.
 * Patrick and his friends.
 * I See Them Too: noticing Oliver in the third season. Notably, this weirds out both Oliver and Geoffrey.
 * Idiosyncratic Episode Naming
 * Informed Attribute: The Hollywood actor in the first season rises to the occasion and delivers what we're told is a masterwork of acting. What we see of his acting is a montage of him just intoning Hamlet's various soliloquies with the same morbid tone and far-off expression.
 * Insistent Terminology: Macbeth isn't cursed, it's just very hard to stage properly.
 * Deryn Nichols will not let you forget that he was stabbed!
 * Intangible Man: Oliver starts phasing against his will in the third season.
 * Intimidating Revenue Service
 * Invisible to Normals: Only Geoffrey can see Oliver.
 * Invoked Trope: If it can be used in theater...
 * Its Not You Its Me
 * Jumping Off the Slippery Slope
 * Leitmotif: Several, particularly ones for Geoffrey's madness/creativity and final performances.
 * Literary Allusion Title
 * Looking for Love In All The Wrong Places: Ellen.
 * Love Triangle: Several examples.
 * Magical Realism: Everyone leads perfectly ordinary, realistic lives, but for the fact that Geoffrey regularly has conversations with Oliver's ghost. No explanation is given, no mythos is revealed. It just happens.
 * May December Romance: Ellen and Sloan.
 * Meaningful Name:
 * Charles Kingman as King Lear.
 * Oliver Welles.
 * Multitasked Conversation: Geoffrey, Oliver, and whoever else is around. Constantly.
 * Nepotism: Claire is the relation of "some chairman," and so her atrocious acting runs unchecked.
 * Nobody Over 50 Is Gay: Strongly averted, by Frank and Cyril as well as Oliver (who is in his late forties).
 * No Celebrities Were Harmed:
 * In Season 1, Jack Crew's storyline is loosely based on Keanu Reeves' infamous Hamlet.
 * In Season 2, Henry Breedlove is clearly meant to resemble another hugely successful, talented, and rather egotistical Shakespearean actor.
 * Ode to Intoxication: "Call The Understudy," the ending credits tune.
 * Our Product Sucks: The Froghammer ad campaign in Season 2.
 * Phrase Catcher: The circumstances of Oliver's death and the phrase "pig truck."
 * Plot Parallel: As with Central Theme above, there's always many, many connections between each season's play and backstage plots.
 * Punny Name: Holly Day, Lionel Train.
 * Put On a Bus: Kate, at the beginning of the second season.
 * Quick Nip: Oliver, before his death.
 * Real Life Relative: Geoffrey and Ellen are married in real life; Season 3's Sophie is the real life daughter of Frank.
 * Reference Overdosed: Given that the majority of the cast are in-universe Shakespearean actors putting on Shakespeare's plays and the show itself reflects those plays in its characters, arcs, and themes, this is inevitable.
 * The Reveal: The cause of Geoffrey's nervous breakdown and his falling out with Oliver and Ellen.
 * Rhetorical Question Blunder:

Richard: GARBAGE! GARBAGE! I want GARBAGE!"


 * and

"Ellen: What do you want me to do, ask her to leave?

Geoffrey: Yes! Now! Please!"


 * The Scottish Trope: Season 2.
 * Shout Out: To Shakespeare, constantly.
 * Shown Their Work: Those lengthy discussions of possible decisions for the staging, direction, and acting of the plays reference loads of critical theory and scholarship, though they're so conversationally written that you don't need to know that to be interested.
 * Show Within a Show: Much of the action revolves around the production of plays in the New Burbage Theater.
 * Sickeningly Sweethearts: Two of the interns in Season Two.
 * Sitch Sexuality: Patrick. For Joanne Kelly, anyone'd switch their sexuality. The actors would be loath to admit it, but this subplot is a Plot Parallel for Darren's incomprehensible gender-exploration production!
 * Slap Slap Kiss
 * Smug Snake: Henry Breedlove, a complete and utter asshole of a pretentious actor who absolutely refuses to take direction.
 * Spirit Advisor: Oliver.
 * Talking to The Dead: Zig-zagged like crazy in a Crowning Moment of Funny. Geoffrey's therapist prompts him to engage in this as role play during a session, guessing (correctly) that he still has a serious beef with Oliver. He then perceives a fantastic one-sided argument, admittedly carried out by a former actor of notable talent. Of course, it is actually Geoffrey holding a Dead Person Conversation with Oliver as per usual.
 * Technician Versus Performer: A recurring motif.
 * Thematic Theme Tune: The openings are drinking songs about whatever play is being performed that season.
 * Those Two Guys: Frank and Cyril.
 * Troubled Production: Rife with In Universe examples -- probably the most troubled is the Season 3 and its production of King Lear.
 * True Art Is Incomprehensible: In Universe, Darren firmly believes this. No one else does.
 * Undeath Always Ends
 * Unfinished Business: Oliver and Geoffrey both believe Oliver is present for a reason, but to their mutual despair, they can't figure out what it is so that he can take care of it and move on.
 * Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Almost everyone in the main cast, particularly Richard.
 * Viewers Are Geniuses: You can watch this show knowing nothing about Shakespeare or theater, but you'll miss a hell of a lot.
 * Vomit Discretion Shot
 * What Happened to The Mouse
 * Or the Theatre sans Argent?
 * Equally, what happens to May?
 * White Dwarf Starlet: Ellen.
 * Willing Suspension of Disbelief: Discussed in the first season. Geoffrey quotes the Coleridge line about this, and then goes on to comment, "Of course, it all falls apart if one of the actors isn't very good at pretending."
 * The Worst Seat in The House: The Minister of Culture sits in it for the opening night of Macbeth.