UGLY JANE

UGLY JANE

Harvey Nigel Bains is the worst catch in all of coupling history, but he is nevertheless the fated object l’amour of Jane Edwards at the Bayview Retirement Home on British comedy’s WAITING FOR GOD. Harvey’s sleazy, underhanded ways only drive Jane’s desperate defense of him in all things, despite his open rejection of her (“Jane, you’re touching me!”) while she plays the inroads to get him to be the man she wants him to be.

Harvey, played by Daniel Hill, is dark, fit, and handsome. He is not gorgeous. He is neither particularly tall nor astoundingly muscled and probably wouldn’t warrant a general casting call in America, but he is a decently handsome man.

Jane, however, though an extremely sympathetic character, looks like she would have been drowned at birth had she been born anywhere near the West Coast of the United States. Ugly Betty’s got nothing on Jane. Actress Janine Duvitski capitalizes on her appearance to heighten the pathetic nature of her role.

WAITING FOR GOD is not a crossover show that has been translated into American like COUPLING or THE OFFICE, nor do I think it will be because of content—the subject matter is a nursing home, with old people, and wrinkles and flabs. And plus nobody could play the indomitable Diana Trent in quite the brawny path Stephanie Cole has set out. And no one in America is willing to cast talent over looks these days. “Talent is sexy,” Burt Reynolds said when he recruited Sally Fields to play opposite him in SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT. Talent is sexy and the Brits are unafraid to cast a young woman who has wide hips or an actor with over-large teeth. They cast people who know how to use their looks instead of people who only know how to look beautiful. Dear, pathetic Jane is only believable because Janine Duvitski can act, and that is an ability of true beauty.