Our Flag Means Death - Thread 5: Ahoy! Surrender! You have no chance of escape!

[TriceratopsRocks]

Hi all!! Roll up for thread 5 and join our chat about our favourite show, its cast, its music, fan edits, fan fiction and more than a little obsessing over our fabulous leads - pictures extremely welcome! It’s utterly brilliant, and some of us are still in the grips of obsession many months after the last episode aired (the last for now, that is… We live in hope🙏)

If you haven’t yet seen Our Flag Means Death, what are you waiting for? Go watch it (on BBC iPlayer), then come back and join us.😀

You may have heard that this is a comedy about pirates and think it's not for you. But it’s actually a show about self-discovery, healing and found-family with a love story at its heart. The joint leads are both damaged by abusive backgrounds and want what the other has. It’s tender, romantic, funny, emotionally intelligent and utterly refreshing. It subverts genre expectations. There is comedy, absurdity and a good amount of heartbreak and despair - sometimes in the same scene! The acting is outstanding (Taika Waititi and Rhys Darby especially). But the writing, music, costumes, sets, the sheer attention to detail – for a show with only 18 half-hour episodes it is still keeping us talking, two full threads and many re-watches later.

If you think this might appeal, do watch it and come back and talk to us. It would be lovely if more were to join our crew. But it's a show that needs time. It’s structured like a theatre production with a prologue and 3 acts. The 2nd lead arrives (briefly) in episode 3, and in episode 4 (the start of Act 1) the tone changes and the main story begins. You need to give it at least that long. It gets better and better and it still took me several more episodes to fully appreciate what I was watching, but by then I was hooked and had to immediately watch it all over again. If you like Good Omens, What We Do in the Shadows, Ghosts or even Bridgerton, this might be the show for you.

(I’ve kept this spoiler free, but if you scroll down you will no doubt find many, so beware!)

Thread 1: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/telly_addicts/5008593-our-flag-means-death-its-utterly-brilliant-and-i-am-obsessed?reply=135294204
Thread 2 : https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/telly_addicts/5076581-our-flag-means-death-thread-2-still-utterly-brilliant-and-we-are-still-obsessed?reply=136060611
Thread 3: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/telly_addicts/5101662-our-flag-means-death-thread-3-its-still-utterly-brilliant-we-are-still-obsessed?reply=137315706
Thread 4:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/telly_addicts/5136377-our-flag-means-death-thread-4-roll-up-roll-up-come-join-us-for-more-pirate-obsession?reply=139560831

We certainly did! Rhys was wonderful - so incredibly talented - and it was such a good atmosphere. His whole set was so well thought out and always hilarious, whether it was the 'rehearsed' bit or ad-lib. His beatboxing section was brilliant and I absolutely loved the whole thing. @Needlenardlenoo you are spot on about his weaving so many threads of story together. It was so good. And so much energy! I also loved it when he lifted his arms up and we got a glimpse of tummy 😆 (I was sitting very close). The only thing to criticise was his friend Steve's warm up set, which if I am being polite I'd say was 'mixed' (he started well but also showed some quite poor taste IMO).

I quite liked Steve but he relied too much on identity politics.

Most of the balcony was empty at Ally Pally but it felt very intimate. And what a wonderful grungy venue it is.

I was glad it was so good as the babysitter set us back £83. I may be in the wrong job!!

I just don’t think Steve is the right warmup act for Rhys. Rhys is anarchic and positive whilst Steve is one of those misery comedians a bit like Jon Richardson. There’s an audience for all types, but that isn’t Rhys’ audience. The warmup needs to be Harry Hill or something.

I would actually have rather not had warmup acts at all (did you have the rather odd young Antipodean girl as well?). Given the distance from where we live, it made it a very late night, an expensive babysit and I only got crisps for tea as all the other catering was closed. Maybe as well as riffing on middle age, the event should also acknowledge some us like to be in bed by midnight 😂.

When we saw Bill Bailey last year (similar audience but more men) there was no warmup. Just him and a bunch of roadies as he has instruments and stuff.

Agreed. I enjoyed Steve's Bill or Rhys skit, but then I could have done without so much American politics, and the submarine section just left a bad taste, which isn't what anyone wants from their warm up act! Rhys was outstanding though, so I'm just ignoring Steve and thinking about our lovely Rhys, and how quick, intelligent, funny, thoughtful, gorgeous (etc) he is 😁. And how lucky I am to have seen him perform.

@Needlenardlenoo no antipodean girl for us, just Rhys and Steve (and Bill Napier 🤣). DH was horrified at your babysitting cost btw. At least we did get home before midnight (just!), but part of the reason for that was hanging around the stage door afterwards in the hope that he might make an appearance (sadly he did not. Probably waiting for us to clear off 🤣).

Yeah, hopefully you have a slightly easier child. We have to use an expensive agency as DD has form for talking babysitters into stuff and I don't like to presume on friends for really late nights. Plus it's only minimum wage ish but 7 hours is a lot!

Your DD sounds quite a character! My kids are all grown now, so no babysitters needed for us. Not for evenings out anyway. I'm seeing Rhys in Edinburgh too - can't wait! It'll be interesting to see what differences there are between the 2 shows, if any. I did ask someone who has been to several shows on this tour but she misunderstood so I didn't find out.

She is a character.

I think seeing the same show more than once can be a real joy.

More Rhys activity. Seems he'll be on House of Games later this year. I really enjoy this show. And isn't he gorgeous 😁

Ahoy! Three of us are currently at the New Uni-Con - woohoo 🎉. Have a pic 😁.
We had the opening panel, which was great (a lot of that is already summarised on blue sky). Then@DJ47and I went to a meet and greet. This is my quick summary of what I can currently remember from that. @DJ47please add in what I've missed!! I'm sure there's loads. And I might have got some of it mixed up from the first panel!

David Jenkins
Told him what the show meant to me. He said he was moved by the response to the show and was so grateful to the fans for still loving it after all this time. We asked about how the initial marketing of the show hadn't pushed the romance. DJ wasn't sure how they would sell a same sex romance without frightening some people off. But he was amazed that people didn't pick up that it was a romance. He expected it to be really obvious from episode 4. They added the first YWFTW scene to put the romance firmly up front, with the beautiful moonlit night etc, and to have a moment where they were about kiss but chickened out. He was shocked that people still didn't pick up where it was going. Then they had Lucius watching the two of them gaze at each other, saying “this is happening” - and yet ep 8, where it's really obvious, still took a lot of people by surprise.

David Fane
He's loving his first con, and that the people are so nice. The belt on his head was added to make Fang seem scarier. They thought it was a ridiculous idea but filmed a scene with it on. The scene worked really well so it stuck. And we talked about how much he loves his dogs! (I may have

Ruibo
She loves the fandom. She talked about how unusual it is for cast members on a show to stay in touch like they have. It was so supportive and it feels really special. She would love to be in a sci-fi show (she adores sci-fi). Her favourite bits of the show to film were when she got to use a sword. She particularly loved filming the fighting scene on the dunes and was really upset about how much of that was cut.

Nathan
He mostly chatted about where everyone was from, where he'd met people before and what he thought of Newark (not fantastic, but it's home).

Con
If Con was in a fandom for a show he loved, it would be Jaws - he had a visceral reaction to watching that film that has stuck with him. Also talk of how he loves conventions, loves how fans support each other and how kind everyone is.

That's all for now!

Thank you so much for this update @TriceratopsRocks. So pleased DJ understands what a massive impact this has all had and that you reinforced that and that Rubio said that they have remained a crew.

I had another good chat with Ruibo today. She feels the same way about the show that many of us do, in that it really made her re-evaluate her life and make changes. To yesterdays up date, I can add that Nathan had pet guinea pigs (he said his spirit animal would be a guinea pig till Con kept telling him otherwise). David Jenkins is quick, hilarious and said again very moved by fan reaction to his show. David Fane gives wonderful hugs, just like you'd imagine, and he volunteers at an animal shelter IRL ♥️ He is absolutely blown away by his first convention experience and said it was so much more than he could have imagined.

It is such a joy to know that they really do like the conventions, especially David F coming halfway round the world to such love and Con who must be a bit used to it all.
I had a secret fear that it might be like Galaxy Quest where Tim Allen and Alan Rickman’s characters were scornful of the fans (but.. spoiler alert… they all worked together in the end to save the planet! Hurrah!)

WHAT a weekend! Still coming down from it. I don’t have great photos but those on instagram check out jacemerlyn who took the candid shots during panels, coffee breaks, meet and greets and autographs. Also Shauna_rachael who was the official photo op photographer.
On bluesky jacemerlyn has put up some great cosplay competition photos.

I don’t know if it was that I was more relaxed for my second convention, or the vibe was more chilled, or the organisation better, but it was just lovely. David Fane is up for my most lovely human reward. He is just adorable. He said he was blown away by the love that still exists for the show. Nathan was made for these sort of events - he is such a people person. Con was his usual “no filter” self! Ruibo - very reserved, self confessed social anxiety, but seemed to embrace the love. And David J - I hope he goes back to the US and just tells everyone about the love and enthusiasm that’s not going away. He’s certainly been putting plenty of photos on instagram!

if anyone hasn’t got a virtual ticket I would strongly recommend getting one so you can watch the panels yourself. I will be rewatching for sure. Siren Events were the organisers.

Sorry for lateness of updates. But I think @TriceratopsRocks and @DJ47 have covered a lot. Comprehensive coverage of the panels is also on Bluesky by AdoptOurCrew.

I’ll leave you with some pics on the next post.

Three Amigos

DJenks

pirate dad

David Jenkins

I told DJenks when I got his autograph about our little mumsnet thread. He couldn’t believe it. I thanked him for everything, and he took my hand and teared up. He says he cannot believe still the reach of this show, and how much it means to people.

In case anyone missed this yesterday

Thank you!

I want (that’s both btw)

There are some really nice new fics in the latest Reverse Big Bang challenge. This is when a fan artist is paired with a fic writer, but the art is created first. The writer then creates a story around the art.

A lot are still works in progress, but so far I've enjoyed

The Colour and the Shape by YellowMustard (Stede's first tattoo)
Off the Deep End by Serpentanddahlia (Ed pretends he can't swim so Stede can teach him)
These Broken Wings by Temporal Discounting (inspired by how to train your dragon)
Repair by epersonae (based around the sofa in the revenge - I really liked this one)

I know there are other good ones, but those are the only ones I've read so far. Enjoy!
Full list:
2025 Reverse Big Bang