After the disappointment of Valmont, Colin appears to have retreated for a while to the safety of television, theatre and relatively small film projects. Out of the Blue is one of a number of projects he has made for BBC TV. As he said at the BBC 60th Anniversary Awards ceremony in 1996 (where he won as 'Most Popular Male Actor'), BBC TV has "provided me with some of the greatest satisfaction I've ever had in terms of work."

Out of the Blue remains for me an utterly charming if a minor work. In this play, Colin gives us a young man who is completely driven by ambition and "art", completely self-centred, unable to come up with an original thought, but always re-working what others say, and very funny. This character is played for humour from start to finish. I heartily recommend it - there are some first rate actors in it, and it is a terrific little satire, held together by Colin. He has no fear of playing a character who loses his dignity (one of the core elements of comedy) - for example, the tiny sequence near the start when Colin (as Alan, the "arty" video clip director) calls for a retake of part of a song, and then stands there with the sound guy trying to identify the exact part of the song he wants to go from (they are both quite wonderfully foolish here).

If you haven't seen Out of the Blue yet, seek it out. Yes, it's a minor work, but it has many charms, not the least of which is Colin being utterly charming, wilful, self-centred, 'artistic', unable to express himself except through plagiarising the words of others, the object of humour, and very sexy indeed.

I always enjoy going back to this play - proof that Colin can do self-deprecating comedy really well. Also, his eyelashes are extraordinary - watch out for them in the final shots.

Out of the Blue features some of Colin's best kissing scenes - a lust-filled encounter across a restaurant table with Julie (Cathy Tyson), and several sexy and romantic sequences with Catherine Zeta Jones.

 

I believe Colin is highly adept at playing comedy, though he plays 'truthful' comedy, which is much harder than mugging for the camera, etc. He plays comedy through characters which are perfectly observed, both for their foibles and human weaknesses as well as for their strengths. He plays flawed human beings. He chooses roles of this kind, and he is not afraid to be the object of humour. Other leading examples are his roles in The Advocate, Fever Pitch and Pride and Prejudice.

In my opinion, Out of the Blue is most definitely a comedy. It has all the hallmarks thereof. It is a parody/satire in which all the characters, however subtly they may be represented, are targets of one kind or another. Colin proves himself a very able comedian in this lightweight but entertaining piece. He gets the 'arty' director down pat: "Okay, don't forget your face, we're coming in tight - expressions and everything". As a comic creation, Alan is very, very funny without once being played for laughs.

An extraordinary number of Colin's fellow cast members in Out of the Blue have achieved significant success as actors on the big screen:

• Welsh-born Catherine Zeta Jones is currently burning up the big screen as the heroine of The Mask of Zorro (1998), opposite Antonio Banderas. She has another CF link - she appeared in The Phantom (1996), which starred Billy Zane.
• Irish actor John Lynch (The Secret of Roan Inish, In the Name of the Father. . .) plays another of his whiny (but cute) roles. The most recent is Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow, in which he plays a character something akin to Colin's role in Out of the Blue.
• Dexter Fletcher has quietly worked extensively in British film and TV - most recently in the hit movie Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
• Cathy Tyson has appeared in a number of successful films, including Mona Lisa (1986) opposite Bob Hoskins and Priest (1994) opposite Linus Roache, Tom Wilkinson and Robert Carlyle. She is also one of the principal characters of a recent Granada TV mini series, Band of Gold (1995) and its sequel, Gold. And just to make that series of CF links even more complex, Gold co-stars Mark Strong, Colin's co-star in Fever Pitch.
• Mention of Gwynneth Paltrow brings up yet another link - she stars in the Oscar winning movie Shakespeare in Love, in which Colin plays her husband, the Earl of Wessex.

• A search of the Internet Movie Database reveals no fewer than eight films or TV programmes with the title Out of the Blue, the earliest dating from 1931.
• One of these (Out of the Blue, 1995) is a BBC TV series which follows the personal and professional lives of the detectives at an English police station. Featured as Frankie Drinkall, one of the principal characters, is the wonderful Scottish actor John Hannah of Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), who has another link to Colin. He starred with John Lynch and Gwynneth Paltrow in Sliding Doors (1998).

In the rowing boat:

CHRISTY: Move your tongue.

ALAN: (After kiss) What was that for?

CHIRSTY It's best.

On the island:

CHIRSTY: "I can do magic. I can blow out the moon! Watch! "

Island seduction scene (shades of Valmont):

ALAN: You know, we could do anything we ever wanted here. Our own little island. Anything. We could take off our clothes and lie in the rain. We could listen to the sound of the leaves, moonbathing in the quiet dark. Warm foggy blanket. And your eyes will be like cobwebs after a shower. And your breath will be as soft as one o'clock on a dandelion clock.

CHIRSTY: What was that noise?

ALAN: It was just the ducks talking to themselves under their wings in their sleep.

CHIRSTY: No, really.

ALAN: I dunno. It's - something somewhere. Maybe an animal. You really are afraid of the dark, aren't you.

CHIRSTY: Hold my hand. It's best.

ALAN: You know Chirsty, I just want you to know that I think it's a real thing happening here, you and me. That it's not just - that I really respect you.

CHIRSTY: Stop talking.

Two mouse scenes:

(1) ALAN: Let me through, I speak fluent mouse.

ALAN: Tell her if I don't here from her the mouse gets it. She can expect a tail in the post. [Hangs up. To mouse.] I didn't mean it. Go on, say it. Do I have to screw up every chance I get? Hmmm?

The first time he looks at Chirsty is through the lens of the camera. And the best of their relationship is in that form. Image, surface. What can be cut and remade? Can he have a real relationship with a flesh and blood woman? When she falls asleep on his bed (thus ruining his first attempt at remaking the story of Rudy's finger), his filming of her sleeping form is very sexual, invasive, reprehensible. It's the nearest he gets to rape. He even breathes heavily, as he does when he is aroused elsewhere. When I look at this scene coldly, I can best understand Chirsty's negative response to it. He really has taken something from her.

Alan plays with romance, but it isn't him - he's really a cynic who would like to steal back that innocent view of the world that Chirsty has. She engages directly with the world around her, takes pleasure in her body and in natural things (blowing out the moon). He is always one step removed, planning, shaping, manipulating her response. He orchestrates the message in the bottle. He gets his kicks not from being with Chirsty, but from how he can remake the event on the editing machine. It's better than sex. And it gives him all the control. "I love the way you can control everything. Be nice if we could do it with life, but life's a bit more tricky". Another telling moment occurs after Chirsty walks out when Rudy tells her how his finger was really lost. Alan says. "Cut. Can we go again on that one? Little bit of a hair in the gate."

He is often surprisingly inarticulate. It's endearing, and funny, and satiric, that he expresses himself, when unprepared, in cliche and imprecise ramblings. "Now don't forget - we're coming in tight on your face, so expressions and everything" is not the most useful directorial comment. But he gets away with it. Or when he tries to describe Chirsty to Rudy: "You haven't met her - she's - she's - wonderful - she's so - she's just so -" He hasn't got a handle on how best to reconstruct it yet! He takes things people say to him, borrows them, stores them up, replays them, just like the video clips he is endlessly working on. He reworks images, most notably the loss of Rudy's finger. He tries out other realities and points of view, because he is rudderless himself.

Rudy's view

Why does Rudy react so strongly to learning that Alan has been spinning yarns about his finger? because it is a real part of him that he has lost. Something he can't ignore, a real event, a real loss. "I wish you'd stop using my life as your own personal bloody chat up line . . . you click your fingers, I lose mine . . This is planet earth calling Alan".

Alan as voyeur