Ben Whishaw’s a delight in raucous old-school Scandal
Last night on television Benji Wilson
The first episode of (BBC One, Sunday) ended with Liberal Party MP Jeremy Thorpe (Hugh Grant) proclaiming matter-offactly that Norman Scott, his former lover, had to die. “So, how?” he asked as the credits rolled.
By the end of episode two last night, Thorpe still wanted Scott dead, which might suggest that, like so many second episodes in three-part dramas, writer Russell T Davies had simply stuck the plot in a holding pattern. Certainly there is enough to enjoy in Grant’s performance as Thorpe to see anyone through several hours (not least his pronunciation of the word “motorway”, which contains a gap between the two words wider than a central reservation).
Yet, if not that much really happened, it was still a constant delight. Davies and director Stephen Frears simply turned their attention to Scott, played by Ben Whishaw, whose performance got better and better as his hair got worse. Whishaw’s Scott is a man-child perpetually on the edge. Set against the entitlement and egotism of Thorpe, for whom everything from politics to people is all just a bally old game, it’s impossible not to feel sorry for Scott. As Thorpe charmed his way to the top, we watched Scott literally having to dig for his supper.
While we wait for Thorpe to get his comeuppance in the final episode, Davies carried the plot through the Seventies by fleshing out minor characters. I had wondered when Jason Watkins was going to get his turn as the Welsh Liberal MP Emlyn Hooson and here it was. Monica Dolan popped up as Thorpe’s second wife, Marion. Eve Myles walked off with the few scenes she was in as Gwen Parry-jones, a Welsh hippy who fell for Scott’s floppy fringe and puppy eyes. It’s a spectacular ensemble.
Last night’s episode gave them a chance to have some fun: Thorpe’s instructions that Scott should be killed was played as a knockabout farce with Blake Harrison from The Inbetweeners on sure ground as Andrew Newton, a cocksure but ultimately useless hitman (who searched the whole of Dunstable for his mark, only to be told he was in Barnstaple).
At times A Very English Scandal was raucously funny, but it has maintained a bass note of menace throughout – it’s there in Grant’s twinkly eyes only when he thinks about Scott, a shot of pure loathing aimed at a mere pothole on his motorway to high office.
If I come back as a cow – and I plan to – I would like to come back as one of the Queen’s Jersey cows. This Countryfile Royal Special (BBC One, Sunday) was full of fascinating facts for that next royal-themed pub quiz, but none more so than the news that the Queen’s cows sleep on waterbeds.
As Matt Baker, Anita Rani and Adam Henson took us round Windsor Great Park, there was plenty to impress, but nothing like the cowshed. It wasn’t a cowshed, it was a moo-tique hotel. It had an automated cow brush for bovine titillation, the cows were milked as and when they felt like being milked and the floors were cleaned by robots. Viewers were given access to what was described unforgettably as “a majestic creamery”.
You get the picture – this was documentary as panegyric. The through line was that the Queen is a countrywoman at heart and, with two further hour-long films set at Balmoral and Sandringham over the next two weeks, we shall be seeing a lot more of her in her natural habitat.
As telly, you could take it as you chose: it was so relentlessly positive that it felt a little like one of those boastful films they show on the back of airline seats before you land in a new country.
On the other hand, anyone in the “What has the monarchy ever done for us?” camp might have found themselves a little taken aback by several things on show for which we have to thank the Queen. Cleveland Bay horses were about to die out as a breed when the Queen bought a stallion in the Sixties with the sole purpose of keeping the breed alive (they pull the carriages now). She reintroduced deer to the park in 1979; now they are thriving. Windsor was at the forefront of battling Dutch Elm disease, which was so catastrophic to the British landscape in the Seventies and Eighties. The Queen actively supported British farmers during the foot and mouth crisis, and it hasn’t been forgotten.
These things probably mean very little to staunch urbanites but, as the programme showed, to people in the countryside they mean a great deal. For all its obvious puffery, Countryfile was still something of an eye-opener.
A Very English Scandal ★★★★★
Countryfile Royal Special ★★★