The Herald - The Herald Magazine
TV review An awfully good end to the year’s best drama
WHILE one appreciates the bods at Bafta are still clearing up after the 2018 awards ceremony (it must be murder trying to scrape host Sue Perkins’ career off the floor), may one suggest they crack on with the engraving for 2019 and give as many awards as possible to
This was as fine a piece of television as we will likely see this year. What made it stand out, apart from the quality of cast and crew, was its cheery determination to put right the wrongs of the past.
Yes, it was gloriously farcical, but it could also be quietly devastating. The small screen is perfect for such moments as when Jeremy Thorpe (Hugh Grant), expecting an ear bashing from his wife, was overcome with emotion when she said what a lovely thing he had done writing “I miss you” at the end of one of his letters to Norman Scott (Ben Whishaw). Thorpe’s entire face quivered, almost imperceptibly. Was he moved by her humanity, or did he have genuine feelings for Scott? Writer Russell T Davies employed a lot of artistic licence on this, later suggesting that Thorpe stayed so long with Scott because picking up strangers had led to him being beaten and robbed several times.
As to the victor, Davies made his feelings plain. Thorpe was acquitted, but the last words to him came from his mother: “Of course, you’re ruined.” Scott, meanwhile, was on the top of a bus, smiling, aware that it had all been a stitch up but at least he had had his say.
tried hard to equate the march of Ally’s Army to Argentina for the World Cup with the failed Darien Scheme, but a story like this, packed with such tales as how a group of fans on Knoydart dug four miles of trenches so they could get TV in time to watch Scotland, hardly needs gimmicks. Talking heads of the calibre of Jim Naughtie, Stuart Cosgrove and Archie Macpherson did the rest.
After 40 years, the fans interviewed were able to look back wryly. Spare a thought, too for Andy Cameron. After the Iran defeat he went into a pub to be told by one stoney-faced punter that if he sang “that song” he was going out the window. Still, to go with “that song” there was “that goal”, here played in suitably reverential slo-mo.