Last night my Virgin TV box got stuck.  This happens quite regularly if I’m trying to watch something on TV Choice on Demand.  I’d made the mistake of watching 5 minutes of LA Ink because I was interested to see what Kat Von D looked like after her name coming up all over the TV and internet recently.  I didn’t need more than 5 minutes to come to the conclusion that she’s a skank.  I’d had my suspicions beforehand.  Anyway, it seems my Virgin box agreed because it wouldn’t work for ages after that and it was so upset it punished me by refusing to allow me to watch anything other than Hotel Babylon.  Now, I’ve never watched this before because it looks like pap so I was quite upset about it.  And then I saw it.  Darius from Pop Idol was on it (I didn’t watch that either) and he was “eyebrow acting”.

Eyebrow acting is something I’d only really noticed once before (though I’m sure it happens lots) and, to be honest with you, I had thought I was alone and that I’d made up the phrase.  A Google search, however, has set me straight, I am neither the first person to have noticed and I’m not the only person to call it that either.  Oh well.  Let me describe the phenomenon to you.  Eyebrow acting manifests in the over-actor, presumably to make them appear earnest and serious, but in fact making them look as though a pair of caterpillars are dancing a jig on their face.  Or making them look like those kids on the Cadbury’s advert and who knows what was the thinking behind that one?  Or the drumming gorilla for that matter.  Darius was pretty awful, his eyebrows were all over the place (in fact only Peter Serafinowicz would have done him better than he does himself) but by far the worst offender is Emma Watson who plays Hermione in Harry Potter.  As if it wasn’t bad enough that Hermione is the most irritating character in the history of all book or film (or both) characters, the actor they chose to portray her just happens to be incredibly irritating too with eyebrows that act with such gusto that they should probably have their own separate contract.

I know nothing about Emma Watson but I imagine she’s your typical stage school brat belonging to pushy parents and who takes themself rather seriously.  And waggle their eyebrows about to prove it.  She’s a bit of a ninny, really.  But if she does come from a stage school background that probably explains the eyebrows to a degree.  I found out from wikipedia that old Darius had been doing some stage work, musicals or something so I have come to conclusion that these thesps (if you can call them that) have a tendency to exaggerate their facial expressions for the benefit of the old dear in seat Z6 in whichever crappy theatre they’ve been appearing.  I doubt it has much effect other than to make them look very silly but hey, what do I know?  But don’t they have acting coaches to help them with the transition from stage to screen?  The old biddy in Z6 might not have noticed something was amiss but I certainly have.  If someone you knew well started waggling their eyebrows about when they talked to you wouldn’t you take them to one side and ask them if everything’s OK and suggest that maybe they should cut down on the Red Bull and double shots of espresso?  It’s not Am Dram for goodness’ sake, you’re on the telly!  People can see!