BBC reduces Thorpe drama to a Carry On farce, says MP’s son
AVerY english scandal — starring Hugh Grant as the Liberal Party leader Jeremy thorpe plotting the murder of his ex-lover, norman scott — has earned critical acclaim.
But the BBC dramatisation has dismayed Paul Bessell, whose late father — Liberal MP Peter Bessell, a key prosecution witness at thorpe’s trial in 1979 — is played by alex Jennings.
Paul Bessell, 65, says the ‘Carry on’ tone of the series fails to convey the evil intended by thorpe, who told Bessell senior that killing scott was ‘no worse than shooting a sick dog’.
‘it’s a disappointment to find the BBC treating one of the darkest moments in late 20th- century political history as a Carry on film,’ he tells me.
‘We are, after all, talking about a prominent politician attempting to incite murder. i personally struggle to find the funny side of that.’
Bessell is particularly antagonised by comments made by Jennings. ‘Contrary to a statement in a [BBC] tV interview given by alex Jennings, my father was not a “serial bankrupt”.
‘Yes, his business failed pretty disastrously in 1973 — like so many businesses. But agreement was reached with all creditors.
‘i would ask Mr Jennings to show me one single court ruling declaring my father a bankrupt — just one, let alone serially.’
almost as galling, says Bessell, was the assertion by one critic that his father was a ‘sex maniac’.
acknowledging the frailties of his thrice- married Methodist lay preacher father who died aged 64 in 1985, Bessell says: ‘Promiscuous, yes. sex maniac, no. the two things are completely different.’