Rick in The Hello Girls
God, I love this! Daniel played a totally lovely and sweet 16 year old lefty! Rick is obsessed with CND, a communist group called Young Guard, and the political situation in Cuba. This makes him a bit short-sighted, thinking the word revolves around marches, but apart from that he's perfect! He's just sooo nice, e.g the Saturday before the Oxford interview, since he's not revising for it, he just assumes that since he's not doing anything else, he's spending the day with Sylvia, and suggests having a hike and picnic. Although at first he's not keen on the idea of the dinner dance, he agrees to go anyway, and I think in the end he enjoys it more than she does! The Hello Girls is set in 1950's Derby. While bestfriend/girlfriend, Sylvia is working as a telephonist, the highly intelligent Rick is taking exams, ready for a place at Oxford Uni (sniff!). This causes a very sad scene in episode 7. Rick wears an extremely cool duffel coat with a HUGE CND symbol on the back - I love it!!!
Sweet bits......
Ahhh!!!
Glasto goer in Ariel ad
Ok, only 30 secs long, but it's SO cool, I justhave to review it! It concerns both Daniel, and the fab Glastonbury Festival, you see. Daniel (Indie Kid mode) arrives home from Glasto, but oh no! Shock, horror! His shirt has some kind of unreconisable stain down it! "Relax with Ariel" and all that crap, and then at the end, "Mum" says "In my day it was different - we didn't wear any clothes." Har har! But this ad is so obviously 1995, dahlings - if it was this or last year the stain would be MUD, the year before's Glasto wasn't, so it has to be '95!
Vince in Touching Evil
This is a two part story, and the first part stands out much more because it's very wierd and druggy, so compared to it, the 2nd part is BORING! It's a police drama concerning a group of four sixth formers (including Daniel) who find a dodgy website called Amathus which makes them do dodgy things like stabbing horses and murdering homeless people in return for drugs. Fear not! Vince doesn't stab the horse (he slashes his arm for the "horse's" blood) and isn't involved in the murdering. However, he does do the drugs, and all the druggy scenes give rise to very surreal bits.e.g. At one point they are all in a derrelict house after taking LSD, and Daniel is shirtless (yum yum!), and kinda running around a room, crashing into the walls. Very surreal, very bizarre, I have no idea why that bit's there, but I'm cetainly not complaining! Oh, and Daniel's hair is lovely in this - a bit like in The Borrowers Series 2.
Monkey in Shopping
I've only seen this once, so I can't say much about it - it's pretty confusing. It's all about a joyrider/ramraider called Billy, his girlfriend, and all the joyrider/ramraider type things they get up to. There's a lot of uneccessary violence and swearing (which explains the rather annoying 18 cert), but it's très cool. Danny plays Monkey, Billy's friend who has a girlfriend called Becky. As far as I can remember, he wears some sort of jacket, and has a little diddy pony tail.
Jason in The Lily Savage Show
In The Lily Savage Show, Daniel plays Jason Savage, Lily's 18 year old son. Jason has just returned home from Borstal, is a "bit of a lad" (you hear of three girlfriends, plus of his intentions of going out on the pull!), has a passion for rather loud t-shirts, and spends his time making video diaries. Daniel appeared on The Lily Savage Show three times, mostly in his "video diaries", but once is in the studio where Jason is forced to sing a duet with his mum! One of my favourite bits is in the video diary with the social worker, where Lily calls him a babe magnet, confirming my suspicians that I am indeed a babe! And of course I like the "I wanna go out on the pull!" bit - for full quotes of that bit, see quotes page!
Paperboy in Bram Stoker's Dracula
I saw this about 20 minutes of this a couple of years ago, and so it was such a cool coincidence that I actually saw the 5 seconds of Danny in this! He looked a sort of mixture of Spiller and Wulf, which I suppose he was really, and he asks Dracula to buy a newspaper from him. That's it, really!
Eddie in Eastenders
In Eastenders, Daniel played a dodgy guy who Teresa and co. met in a pub on the Norfolk Broads. He sold Teresa some "E's" (which later appeared to be his word for Paracetamol!) and seemed to be a bit of a homophobe too. Very disapointing, as I was hoping that there would be someone else to add to the jammy actress list, which really needs updating! I can't think of any plus points to Eddie really, except that he was totally gorgeous of course! Oh well.....
Philip in 15:The Life and Death of Philip Knight
This programme requires lots of tissues to watch it, as it is amazingly sad, and it doesn't start softly either, as the first scene is Philip at the hospital, as the doctors try to revive him, and then someone identifing his body. Then the clock is turned back to 1988, when Philip is 13 and having problems with his adoptive parents, and is going through a stealing phase (school video player, stuff fom his neighbour). His parents decide that they can't cope with him anymore, so - against advice of his social workers - they get him put into care. What follows is a chain of placements in foster homes, a children's home, a youth detention centre, and finally Swansea prison (where he's sent to as the only place where he can't run away), where he eventually hangs himself. Sad, distressing, but utterly fantastic.
Tar Lawson in Junk
This is something that EVERYONE has to watch, just as everyone should read the book by Melvin Burgess. Tar is being beaten by his alcoholic dad and Gemma is pissed off by her parents and wants a "big fat slice of life" so they run away together to Bristol. Tar meets Jerry and Vonny who share their squat with them, and everything goes swimmingly until Gemma falls in with Lily and Rob, who are heroin addicts.....Although we who have read the book can laugh at certain things that really give away the fact that this is a school's prog (i.e. the nearly-but-not-quite-sex-scene ("You can forget about getting back in here!" - yeah right! Gemma hasn't got that many scruples) and the erm.. art book), but it is still a complete must see which certainly gets the message across
Shot Through the Heart
Although no doubting this was a good film, it was very harrowing and not one I really want to watch again. It's set in the Bosnian war (which explains its horror) and Dan's in it for about 5 minutes, playing someone's brother. Bizarrely he has a Bosnian accent in this!
Reviews by Emma O' Driscoll:-
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
Probably Daniel's most famous piece of work, he played Wulf, Little John's son, and proved his worth by easily matching the acting abilities of the greats such as Kevin Costner, Christian Slater, and Alan Rickman. He won a youth award in Hollywood for his performance, and I think it was BRILLIANT. I especially liked the scenes where he was chased by a group of soldiers and dogs, where he was practasing shooting with a bow and arrow, and where he attacked Will Scarlett in the crowd. I'd recommend this film to anyone
Touching Evil
This has to be one of Daniel's most intense dramatic pieces. He played Vince Wilson, a 6th former obsessed by a computer internet site called Amathus, where members were incouraged to mutilate horses, and later, to kill people. Thankfully, Danny didn't actually harm anyone, and his acting was fantastic, the best I've ever seen it. He also looked gorgeous, and his hairstyle was great. The video's availible now for anyone who wants to buy it.
Eastenders
Daniel appeared in two episodes of this soap, and livened up procedings no end! He played Eddie, a gorgeous drug dealer who persuades Teresa to buy what she believes are ecstasy pills. My only qualms about these episodes were the drug dealing and the gay bashing scenarios that he got involved in. His acting was great, and I think he even outshone the Eastenders cast!
Sayrah, love - when's your review coming???!!!