The hit BBC comedy series “Beautiful People” returns to this side of the Atlantic for a riotous second season on Logo this month. The series is based on the memoirs of openly gay creative director for Barneys department stores and style guru, Simon Doonan.
The real-life Doonan is in his late 50s but this series finds a teenage Doonan growing up in the 1990s in a working-class suburb of Reading, England, where he dreams of someday moving to the more glamorous London. Until that day, he’s got to make do with his equally gay best friend Kyle (who refers to himself as Kylie) and his supportive, but dysfunctional family.
Doonan said that when the producer of the show, whose credits include “Absolutely Fabulous” and “The Office,” approached him to turn his book “Nasty: My Family And Other Glamorous Varmints,” into a TV show, he expected his story to go through major changes.
“I knew it was going into a world of exaggeration and hilarity where the essential elements of my life were preserved but it was not an attempt to do a documentary-style construction of my childhood,” he said. “If you read my book, you would think this is quite different. But then you look at the core elements of the dynamic of the parents and the characters are definitely there.”
Even though season two seems to up the ante as far as the family’s eccentric behavior, the returning characters remain the same. Simon’s parents have their hearts in the right place, his sister is still rebellious and Kylie remains as flamboyant as ever despite the abusive homophobia of his mother.
“Kylie’s mother represents the unsympathetic side of society,” Doonan said.
“She represents a belligerent homophobic moment. Even though it is a comedy, I don’t think it would work if everybody in the show were gay-positive. You have to have somebody who’s ignorant and not that way. Kylie’s mother plays an important role because she plays a broader, less sympathetic character, which juxtaposes with the parents. The parent embrace and comfort level with Simon’s gayness is exceptional and that’s one of the special things about the show.”
Since the show is loosely based on Doonan’s life, one might wonder if he will eventually appear on the show. But he said that probably won’t happen.
“They asked me if I wanted to do a cameo, but I think if there was an American version I would,” he said. “In England, no one would know me. They would just think, ‘Who’s that grey-haired old queen in the background?’ Here, I have minor celebrity wattage. In England, I really don’t have any.”
At which point, we remarked he should appear as himself on the show c. 2040, when the character Doonan would be around the same age as the real Doonan.
“That could be hilarious: the window-dresser of the future,” he said. “What would that be, with some fabulous future staple gun? That would be genius.”
The second season of “The Beautiful People” premieres at 10 p.m. June 12 on Logo. For more information, visit www.simondoonan.net.
Larry Nichols can be reached at [email protected].