HBO’s My Dad Wrote a Porno Live Show Is Betting on the Universal Appeal of Embarrassing Parents
Photos via HBO
HBO is in the midst of its final season of Game of Thrones, a series that’s historically been a spectacle of cleavage and contortions, and also involves some characters knowing way too much about what their family members are into after lights out. The channel will also soon air its long-gestating TV movie to bookend its series, Deadwood, a Western known for bawdy language and prostitution.
But the most gratuitous depictions of sexposition on the premium channel’s current lineup might not go to either of those productions. Instead the honor could, arguably, be bestowed on a recording of a live reading that requires viewers to be brave enough to simply use their imagination. On May 11, HBO will air a staged production of My Dad Wrote a Porno. Based on the immensely popular British podcast, it stars Jamie Morton, a regular chap whose father really did write some (very, very bad, not at all sexy, but written like he’s Charles Dickens trying to make a word count) serialized erotica about a pots and pans sales lady named Belinda Blumenthal who has an odd manner of making quota, and his friends James Cooper and Alice Levine as they share this—chef’s kiss—prose with the world. Morton’s dad operates under the nom de plume Rocky Flintstone both because he’s a retired geologist and a fan of the classic James Garner series The Rockford Files who wanted to pay homage to Noah Beery Jr.’s character, Rocky Rockford. Obviously.
Although this broadcast is similar to the live show the trio toured with recently, it may not be an exact replica of the one fans might have gone to see in real life—Cooper says it’s because they have “terrible memories” and the fact that they’ve made the readings into a drinking game of sorts doesn’t help matters—with the jokes now fine-tuned and the televised version running about an hour. There are also no celebrity guests, which is surprising given the network’s reputation, and also sad for anyone who was hoping to catch an appearance of known MDWAP devotes—aka “Belinkers,” as the series of novels are called Belinda Blinked—like Thomas Middleditch, Rachel Bloom and Michael Sheen (or Rocky himself, as it was recorded at London’s Roundhouse Theatre).
“There’s a temptation with these sorts of things to throw the kitchen sink at it and then, somewhere along the way, you can lose the true identity of your show,” Morton tells Paste of the decision to keep the focus away from stunt casting. “We were quite careful about how much we wanted to upscale and how much we wanted to do that was different. And we had faith in what we do, and thought that that would be enough to entertain people.”
With that said, he stresses that these and other famous fans could still be involved if (let’s be honest, when) the books are optioned for a film; after all, they all verbally committed to playing choice parts when they guest starred on the podcast. Plus, Levine offers the indisputable argument that “the material is so strong; Rocky’s writing is gold dust” so why waste time with cameos. (For those who doubt her, there’s a Reddit thread dedicated to the best quotes from the source material. It includes the following description of a woman’s areolas: as large as “the three-inch rivets which had held the hull of the fateful Titanic together.” There are also numerous examples of how little Rocky understands the female reproductive system—a point with which Levine takes particular issue).