Full of 1940s intrigue and sex, Halcyon is Downton if the butler had an evil streak!
As ITV unveils its wartime blockbuster, our critic is gripped ...
THE HALCYON ITV, last night
Here we are again. urbane spies and their glamorous molls are jiving on the dancefloor of a swish london hotel, defying the Blitz, as a big band shakes the chandeliers and a sultry chanteuse croons into the microphone.
the Halcyon is Forties intrigue and romance – a love story in the tradition of Casablanca, a wartime adventure in the style of dame Barbara Cartland.
But if you tuned in and assumed you were watching another festive repeat, that’s understandable. For the first few minutes, the Halcyon looked very like a rerun of last month’s nonsensical Close to the enemy on BBC2, by playwright Stephen poliakoff.
the glamorous five-star setting and secret meetings in locked conference rooms were all very familiar. Both shows even star Charity Wakefield as a good-time girl with a taste for rich men and her knickers in her pocket.
But that’s where the similarities end. the Halcyon is straightforward fun. there’s no feverish atmosphere or endless, nightmarish corridors.
It isn’t interested in playing mind games with the viewer. Instead, we are treated to an upstairs-downstairs tale of the toffs who own the hotel and the staff who run it, while mysterious strangers eavesdrop on conversations and the band swings.
Hermione Corfield is hotel receptionist emma, a wicked flirt who is longing for a squeeze with her childhood friend, lord Freddie (Jamie Blackley), the owner’s son. naughty emma is also making eyes madly at an American correspondent, and getting away with it all because her father is the hotel manager.
She’s so confident that she dares stroll up to Freddie and his father in the bar and tells them cheekily to pipe down, because other guests are complaining about the noise.
If it wasn’t for who daddy is, emma would be lucky to be waitressing at lyons’ Corner House. But we forgive her, because when bad Miss Charity (whose character is called Charity too) starts singing the praises of Adolf Hitler and sneering at ‘grimy Jews’, emma empties a bottle of gin into her lap.
It’s blissfully corny stuff, but director Stephen Woolfenden makes sure it isn’t too predictable.
the chief villain of the first episode is the owner, lord Hamilton, who can’t keep his paws off Charity and treats his wife like a discarded chambermaid. All the staff are gossiping about what goes on during His lordship’s siestas. But they don’t know that the pervy peer is plotting to install his chum Viscount Halifax, the foreign secretary, as prime minister instead of Winston Churchill, and strike a deal with Germany. Alex Jennings played Hamilton just as he did the duke of Windsor in the Crown on netflix. And why not – they’re both aristocratic nazi sympathisers with a fatal weakness for a certain sort of woman. He seemed set to act the cad for the whole eight weeks.
NOTHING could harm him: he survived family rows, afternoon assignations, political machinations and the shock of discovering showgirl Betsey (kara tointon) in his bathtub, naked but for some suds.
And then he dropped dead from a heart attack while putting on his cufflinks. It’s a dangerous business, dressing for dinner.
now Freddie owns the hotel, though he’ll have to contend with his embittered mother (olivia Williams) and his twin brother toby (edward Bluemel), a wastrel who can’t get over the disaster of being born the younger by four minutes. It’s all set up to be soapier than Betsey’s bathtime. there’s a strong streak of downton Abbey, in the scenes where the porters gather for illicit poker games and the waiters swap gossip with the chefs. the cast below stairs is strong too, including two veteran comic actors, Mark Benton as a queenly footman and kevin eldon as a cook. new face ewan Mitchell gets a smashing role as Billy, the porters’ boy who is too thick to play cards and can’t even take His lordship’s wolfhound to the park without losing it.
Instead of a butler, we have the enigmatic manager Mr Garland (Steven Mackintosh), who sees everything and forgets nothing. Most of his time was taken up in exchanging wordless but meaningful looks with staff members, and quietly telling his employers what they could and couldn’t do. they might own the place, but he runs it. When the American journalist broadcast details of the politicking that went on behind the Halcyon’s oak-and-brass doors, it was Mr Garland who hushed it up, by summoning a newspaper editor and blackmailing him till he grovelled.
the hotel manager had so much dirt on his victim, it wasn’t enough for the poor man to promise to rewrite his front page – he was forced to say, ‘I like you, Mr Garland.’
Here was a glimpse of what downton might have been like, if Carson the butler had an evil streak and daisy the kitchenmaid had a mind to smuggle an aristo into her bed.
All this, and a jazz soundtrack from Jamie Cullum that sets your foot tapping. Monday nights are looking up.