10 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE May 4, 2001

evening'sout

The fun returns in the third TV 'Tales' installment

Further Tales of the City

Showtime

Begins May 6

Reviewed by Anthony Glassman

Twenty-five years ago this month, the San Francisco Chronicle began publishing a serialized, fictionalized account of life in the city by the bay, penned by a gay Southern gentleman named Armistead Maupin.

Maupin's stories, called Tales of the City, centered around an odd cast of people living at 28 Barbary Lane. There's the land-

lady Anna Madrigal, a transsexual who treats her tenants as if they were her children. There's Michael Tolliver, the gay man whose search for love leads him to (and from) Dr. Jon Fielding's arms. Just to be inclusive, there's the heterosexual couple, Mary Ann Singleton and Brian Hawkins; she is an aspiring TV journalist stuck hosting a noon movie program, and he used to be a lawyer.

Maupin's Tales eventually stretched out over six novels, following the cast's adventures from 1976 to 1988.

The TV shows began eight years ago, when England's Channel 4 dramatized the first book, Tales of the City. It then came

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over to the United States, where it was broadcast on PBS. The show's matter-of-fact treatment of its gay characters, along with nudity and marijuana, threw PBS's conservative critics into a frenzy. The network. passed on the second installment.

The pay-cable movie channel Showtime stepped up to the plate, airing More Tales of the City. Starting Sunday, May 6, they will première the third installment, Further Tales of the City.

SHOWTIME

Laura Linney (right) is Mary Ann Singleton, and Barbara Garrick is DeDe Halcyon-Day, who was last seen headed to Jonestown.

Olympia Dukakis, looking for all the world like Yoda in pancake makeup, reprises her role as Anna Madrigal; Laura Linney returns as Mary Ann Singleton, and Paul Hopkins is Michael Tolliver. On the heads of these three capable actors and

Paul Hopkins is Michael "Mouse" Tolliver, whose search for love leads him toand from Dr. Jon Fielding (Billy Campbell, left).

formidable characters lie most of the storylines in the four-part miniseries.

Michael, as mentioned before, is looking for love. Instead, he usually finds sex, with a cop (Randy Thomas), a cowboy/construction worker from Arizona, and in the bed of famous actor Cage Tyler (John Robinson). A side note here: In the novel, Maupin refers to a closeted Hollywood leading man who later turned out to be Rock Hudson. Now that the threat of lawsuits is past, and everyone on earth knows that Hudson was gay, they gave the character a name. It would have been cute, had the TV show come out ten years ago, to simply blip

out the character's name every time someone said it, just like the blanks in the book.

Mary Ann, meanwhile, is trying to become a reporter. Her former employer's wife, Frannie Halcyon (Diana LeBlanc), calls her to her mansion to offer her $5,000 to keep something secret for three weeks, after which

she will pay her to manage the press about the secret. From there, Mary Ann's career will be made and her life will be in dire jeopardy.

Anna Madrigal's mother, in the meantime, has come to visit from the brothel she runs in Nevada. It seems she has a crush on a man who runs a soup kitchen; the truth, however, is something she needs to get out in the open before she dies. Well, she is 90, after all.

The miniseries is dazzling, and nothing less than one would expect. It's pre-empting Queer as Folk for the month of May, so those needing their weekly dose of sex, drugs, and bad clothing won't be disappointed-Further Tales takes place in 1981.

What really makes it fun, however, are the cameos.

Bruce McCulloch of Kids in the Hall fame plays Father Paddy, a gay television priest with a heart of gold and a mind like a steel sieve. Lea DeLaria is given the role of her life, playing a heterosexual pilot, and Joel Grey plays Cage Tyler's personal assistant, Guido. Oh, and Parker Posey has a brief appearance, to boot!

(So sue me. I still like her, even though her status as the Queen of Indie Films is in serious jeopardy.)

Throw in Jim Jones of Jonestown and Kool-Aid fame, the end of the pre-AIDS era, and some really atrocious mustaches, and you've got the whole tale. Or rather, you've got Further Tales of the City, which will be shown at 10 pm each Sunday in May, with repeats during the week.

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