Happy Mardi Gras every-LGBTQI-body! In occasion of the day, acquaint yourselves with SPARKS – an upcoming comedy series by Kyran Wheatley and Warren Clark starring prolific slashies and our Mardi Gras guides to good times Tom Ballard and Brendan Maclean.
The mockumentary webseries, which will premiere online on March 13th, aims to give a new perspective on all things love and marriage equality. Maclean will star as the eponymous Gerald Sparks, a hopelessly devoted B-Grade wedding planner unable to share in the joy he’s dedicated to giving his clients, regardless of his love for his partner Dave, played by Anthony Gooley.
Of the series, Maclean said “There are a lot of independent projects out there but Sparks was the first one that felt like it had a purpose. Sharp script writing, relevant to everything I believe in – but really it was because it made me laugh right from the first script read. It’s powerful but not too preachy, hilarious but with heart.” Check out the trailer below:
We asked Brendan about the role of popular culture role normalising homosexuality, as well as how he thinks Sparks will achieve this, and he had this to say:
TV has done a lot to help us homos along. Be it suave matinee idols like Tony Curtis dropping hints in the 50’s to the Ellen DeGeneres who now simply lives on our screen as a proud, in love lesbian. It lets everyone know gay simply is. That gay comes in all forms; gay works at the corner store and on the radio, gay is everywhere that straight is, which is terrific.The other side of the sword is tokenism: the weak, yelping entertainment reporter or the quipping, finger snapping sassy gay friend. Sure those people exist, but my issue doesn’t lie in the character traits, after all I am a limp wristed, Kylie loving friend of Dorothy myself, (Jim Schembri would hate me), the issue lies in the loveless writing of those characters and that they are written as two dimensional, boring stereotypes.
Luckily for me, and the reason I wasn’t going to let anybody else play Gerald Sparks, is the charming script by Warren Clarke, a straight fella I’ll have you know. Sure we improvised a lot, but the plot and scenarios are truthful and full of heart, no matter how cheeky or over the top Gerald became there was always reality in the objective. We consistently reminded ourselves that the script was written for a reason: the desire to be love and wanting equal opportunities to express it. And that is universal, crossing all barriers and sexual preferences.
As series co-creator Wheatley puts it: “Love is love. That’s all there is to it. Doesn’t matter if you’re gay or straight or whatever, there shouldn’t be two tiers of spending the rest of your life with someone.”
Amen! Or whatever the strongest secular term of agreement is: fuck yeah!
