Alastair McKay A wee car crash leads to a big class clash thanks to this Glasgow lass
istic puzzle in which their untrustworthiness must be measured against their circumstances. By contrast, Dan and Emily live in an extraordinary house overlooking Loch Long. They have a piano, drink wine, and go to events in formal eveningwear.
Yet there’s something about Dan. He works out by boxing. He thinks rugby is pish. When he proposes a break from the stresses of the IVF extortion plot, his scummy undertones shine through. “We can shag under waterfalls,” he says, romantically. Later, when shopping him to the dodgy guy from the social, the gadge gives a brisk character reference for Dan. “Drives a Bentley. Minted. Owns half of Glasgow. Prick’s up to no good.”
Meanwhile, in The English Game, Julian Fellowes repurposes the invention of football as a class war played by Etonian rules, making the FA Cup quarter final of 1879 seem suddenly topical. Back when people knew their place, football was played by upper-class bounders in long pants. Then, against all historical precedent, Darwen, from a mill town in The North, played a hard-fought tie against the Old Etonians. Inspired by two Scottish mercenaries, signed from Partick — Fergus “Fergie” Suter and Jimmy Love — the game was remade.
Fellowes plays it as a straight cross between Roy Of The Rovers and Lenin’s My Boyhood. The invention of the 2-3-5 pyramid formation is accompanied by a millworkers’ revolt and a charge of felonious riot, which sounds like a jazz pianist, but is actually the contorted soundtrack to the invention of the people’s game.