A man, a plan and a paddle: The tale of a very British disappearing act
This dark comedy is a fascinating character study, brilliantly brought to life via smart storytelling,
John Darwin was a man who would buy a Range Rover he couldn’t afford and then spend £3000 on a personalised number plate – one who wouldn’t just acquire No 3, if he could kid the bank to let him purchase No 4 as well.
Known for a succession of hare-brained get-richquick schemes, he’d always say he wasn’t mad, ‘‘just a bloke who thinks outside the box’’.
These are all observations relayed to us by his long-suffering wife Anne as part of her narration for The Thief, His Wife and The Canoe. Based on a memoir by journalist David Leigh (who co-wrote a book with Anne in 2016), the four-parter dramatises the real-life John’s elaborate attempt to fake his own death in order to avoid bankruptcy and obtain a life insurance payout.
While opening with a Panamanian car chase in 2007, writer Chris Lang (appropriately enough a veteran of both The Bill and Hustle) and director Richard Laxton’s (Mrs Wilson) tale really begins in the sleepy seaside town of Seaton Carew seven years earlier.
As Anne – played by Monica Dolan – recounts, it was ‘‘the third worst Christmas of her life’’. John’s latest grand plan is to convert two rather dilapidated waterfront semi-detached houses into 13 bedsits. Things aren’t going well. Despite taking extra shifts at the prison, he owes £64,000 across 13 credits cards – ‘‘never mind the mortgage’’.
‘‘Filing for bankruptcy won’t make me love you one single jot less,’’ Anne assures him.
However, rather than face that shame, John – played brilliantly by Eddie Marsan – believes there’s only one solution: performing a permanent disappearing act. Horrified, Anne urges him to consider the feelings of their two boys.
‘‘They’d be upset for a few weeks – and then they’d get over it,’’ he reasons, before laying out his plan to take his canoe out one day, paddle a few miles up the coast, then send it back out into the ocean, while he ‘‘survives in the wild for an unspecified amount of time’’.
‘‘What could be simpler?’’ she scoffs. ‘‘Maybe you could get plastic surgery and I could marry this new bloke who looks a bit like you... I am not telling such an utterly dreadful lie to the police, to our family, or most importantly, to our two beautiful sons.’’
But despite all her attempts to dissuade or thwart him – including breaking his paddle – John Darwin is not for turning.
What follows is a gripping and darkly comedic drama which lays bare the absurdity of his venture, the pitfalls in his plan and the machinations and ongoing deception required to attempt to live a life while supposedly legally dead.
An interesting companion piece to this past summer’s Landscapers (where we joined the action as the unlikely perpetrators were confessing to their crime), this is another fascinating character study and seemingly ‘‘very British crime’’ brilliantly brought to life via smart storytelling and two terrific performances.
Known for his understated but memorable turns in the likes of Ray Donovan and Still Life, Marsan is a perfect fit for the deluded John, while Dolan (Appropriate Adult, A Very English Scandal) is quite brilliant – both as our vocal guide to the action – and as the increasingly fraught woman caught up in the tangled web created by her husband’s great lie. Surely TV Baftas await both of them.
The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe will begins streaming on TVNZ OnDemand at midday on Monday, May 9.