From a period farce to Gillen at his peak
HOWARDS END Sunday, BBC1, 9pm PEAKY BLINDERS Wednesday, BBC2, 9pm
SADLY, I’m old enough to remember Tracy Ullman before she was famous. I’m talking about the days when she was just a midranking comedy actress who occasionally turned up singing on Top Of The Pops.
Little did we know that fame and fortune were only around the corner.
Had I been asked back then what the future held for her, I’d have guessed that she would end up doing panto in Skegness or as a panellist on some obscure afternoon show watched by bored housewives.
So much for my powers of prediction. The reality is, of course, that she became a megastar in America and even played a key role in the success of The Simpsons.
Now she has turned up in Howards End, a four-part miniseries based on E.M. Forster’s novel about social codes and class relations in early 20th century England.
I wouldn’t normally have much interest at all in this particular sort of period drama, but I’m amused to see that a row has broken out over the etiquette portrayed in the adaptation.
Trouble flared when Ullman’s character, Aunt Juley, was seen using a spoon to apply a dollop of jam to her toast at breakfast.
One viewer, a chap by the name of Malcolm Chase Fleet, got especially exercised by what he claimed was a historically inaccurate depiction of the way people behaved at the time.
‘At the beginning of the 20th century, no one like Aunt Juley would have held a piece of toast in her hand at the table and spread it with jam direct from the spoon,’ he wrote in a letter to the Daily Telegraph. Perish the thought. He then added that no gentleman would have ‘failed to remove his hat indoors’ back in those days.
Given the amount of effort that it must have taken to huff and puff himself into such a state of outrage, I strongly suspect Malcolm is a man with rather too much time on his hands.
At least he has confirmed my long-held suspicion that the sort of people who write ludicrous letters of complaint to newspapers aren’t representa-
tive of the general public. No, they are instead only representative of the sort of people who write ludicrous letters of complaint to newspapers.
Meanwhile, the fourth season of Peaky Blinders – which is very much my sort of period drama – just gets better. It was difficult to see how the series producers could have topped last week’s opener, but they did so in quite some style on Wednesday.
The introduction of gypsy hitman Aberama Gold (Aidan Gillen) into the action was a masterstroke. All’s sweetness and light so far between him and mob boss Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy); so much so, in fact, that Gold’s son Bonnie (Jack Rowan) is even welcomed into the gang.
But there was a distinct undercurrent all along suggesting that it is all going to end in tears.
Credit where it is due, though. Gillen was on spellbinding form and practically dominated the episode. Even if you were watching on a 92in screen, his performance was still too big for it.
Incidentally, there was more than one lingering camera shot of Murphy’s bare buttocks as the drama unfolded.
Unless I am very much mistaken, my good lady wife seemed to be paying very close attention during these segments.
I suspect she wasn’t the only female viewer doing so.