From Whispers to Screams, Beware of Natalie Dormer’s Terrifying Character in SHOWTIME’s PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede In normal circumstances, many would feel that having actress Natalie Dormer whisper in your ear would be a nice thing. But opinions may change, thanks to SHOWTIME’s PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS. The first episode of the exciting and terrifying new series is available for streaming on Crave on Friday, ahead of its linear premiere on Sunday. Subsequent episodes roll out Sundays at 10 p.m. ET. The original PENNY DREADFUL was a fascinating fantasy-horror-drama that ran for three seasons, all of which are available for streaming on Crave. That story began in Victorian London, in a world where many of the famous literary characters from that era – Dr. Frankenstein, Dorian Gray, individuals from the Dracula novel, etc. – were real people. This new spin-off – as one would assume from the title – is set in Los Angeles. The year is 1938, and creator and executive producer John Logan (who also created the original series) explained why he chose that specific time and place while speaking at the Television Critics Association event in Pasadena, Calif., earlier this year. Logan showed TV reporters two maps of Los Angeles, the first of L.A. in 1938, and the second of L.A. today. “When I look at (the 1938) map, what strikes me is the free exchange of ideas, information, and culture through neighborhoods and along roads,” Logan said. “But the first thing you note (in the current map) is the freeways. So what began as a civil-engineering project turned into a sort of de facto social engineering. And because of these freeways, we no longer have Sugar Hill, or Bunker Hill, most of North Main Street, Sonoratown. What we’ve created are quarantine zones for ethnic minorities. So we have Watts. We have East L.A.” Logan said that this pattern of freeways destroying existing neighbourhoods, and segregating the truncated neighbourhoods that remained, was subsequently replicated in many cities across the United States. “So 1938 is when the Arroyo Seco freeway was being built, which is now the 110,” Logan added. “And to suggest the scope of this, if you live on Cesar Chavez Avenue now, and you want to walk to Los Angeles County General Hospital, less than half a mile away, you have to cross 41 lanes of freeway. I found that a compelling story to tell, and that’s where it came from.” There are many tensions building as PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS begins, not only because of L.A. civic officials clashing with ethnic communities that are about to be bulldozed (literally AND figuratively), but also with the Second World War on the horizon. “The biggest revelation I had in the years of researching this was the extent of the Third Reich infiltration of Los Angeles in the late ’30s,” Logan said. “New York was closed to them because Mayor (Fiorello) La Guardia was half-Jewish, so he wasn’t letting Germans in. There was a real iron wall around New York. But California, particularly Los Angeles, was like the wild west, and the aircraft factories were centred here, the armament factories, the film studios, so it became really rife for sabotage and for clandestine activity of the Third Reich.” And there to whisper into ears at every opportunity is Dormer’s character, who is … well … it’s hard to explain. As was the case in the original PENNY DREADFUL, supernatural evil is a definitive thing in PENNY DREADFUL: CITY OF ANGELS. Let’s just say that Dormer’s character is named Magda, she can present herself in many different ways, and she does not have humankind’s best interests at heart. “John Logan has given me such a gift here,” Dormer said. “This is the actor’s dream, to play countless iterations and countless characterizations. By adding the supernatural element to it, you have this catalyst, you have this metaphor that can lift the story in a way that illustrates John’s themes even more emphatically. Every good protagonist needs an antagonist, and I just have a lot of fun interweaving with all the cast, being several antagonists. I mean, every character, a different wig, different voice, different physicality. This is catnip to an actor.” billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv