Hugh-dunnit that’s choc-full of stars
EASTER IS traditionally a time for watching television while eating your bodyweight in chocolate. Strange then, that the main broadcasters have let us down again this year with a schedule bereft of treats. With this in mind, and if you like drama, might I recommend Britbox for the remainder of the Easter break? It’s £5.99 for a month, during which time, you can watch all the second series of muchanticipated Sanditon, with hilarious lady of the manor Anne Reid in a chocolate box coastal setting, followed by the streamer’s latest period drama offering.
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? (Britbox) is a satisfyingly puzzling Agatha Christie novel, adapted by Hugh Laurie and accompanied by a galaxy of co-stars such as Emma Thompson and Jim Broadbent.
Then cancel the subscription if you wish (and no, I’m not on commission, honest).
That’s £6 for nine hours of quality telly – and more satisfying than a mammoth milk chocolate egg stuffed with truffles. Over-egging it?
If there was any doubt about the fact that Hugh Laurie is a highly talented chap, it will be put to rest by this superb effort.
He created, wrote, acted and executively produced Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? Why didn’t they ask Hugh before?
This is Laurie’s first full foray into British telly since The Night Manager in 2016. Was it something we said?
Here, he plays a creepy doctor in a sanitorium, with large-rimmed glasses and a goatee to make him look even more clever. Some dodgy stuff is apparently going on, but no spoilers here – although spoil sports could go on Wikipedia to find out anyway.
That would ruin your enjoyment of a quite complex though compelling story which begins when Bobby Jones (Will Poulter) finds a body at the bottom of a cliff while caddying a golf game in Wales.
If you like your Welsh scenery you will be at home in the series, which, at times, is accompanied by a male voice choir, too. Always emotive.
Jones joins Lucy Poynton’s posh gal Frankie, a sweetheart from before the war, as they try to solve this taxing mystery while avoiding the killer themselves.
This tale is traditionally told, not updated, nor messed around with significantly. Hugh Laurie is one good egg.
And Evans? Well, you do find out after three hours!
Gentleman Jack (BBC One, Sunday) returned at pace, for a second series.
Much of this is down to Suranne Jones’s incredible walking speed for character Anne Lister, which is considerable as she bounds from one money-making venture to another before she throws herself into the arms of her lover, Ann Walker.
Arguably, there’s one Ann too many in this drama, but it’s hard to fault it otherwise, in a first episode which had far more comedy than many previous ones.
Writer Sally Wainwright knows how to write a double-entendre.
Of course, this is a potentially comic situation ripe to exploit as Lister largely tip-toes around the fact that she has a same-sex lover living within the same house after their “private marriage”.
People do know, not everyone, but some choose to ignore it, which is very un-yorkshire, especially for her dad, played by acting legend Timothy West who is infuriated with the renovations for the new guest, and barks at Anne: “We’re so fed up with all this banging.” Tumbleweed. Well, it was just after the watershed. Gentleman Jack is a global hit and it’s easy to see why.
Precious little attention to the watershed in Hard Cell (Netflix), Catherine Tate’s return to TV with a becalming prison mockumentary in which she plays a clutch of characters (no Nan you will be relieved to hear). Swear words were flying about like a troopers’ reunion in a show that felt very Noughties, and simply wasn’t funny enough. For devoted fans only.
On a more cultural note, the most stunningly creative piece of television this week was La Voix Humaine (BBC Two, Good Friday). It had nice echoes of the 1970s and 80s when TV would show more experimental telly.
Opera singer Danielle De Niese wowed with a highly emotive performance of this Jean Cocteau play turned into a short opera by Francis Poulenc. It’s all about being dumped by your lover, but having crossed wires – in every respect.
Finally, bouquets too for Happy Valley’s Sarah Lancashire who has turned in arguably her best ever performance in Julia (Sky Atlantic), a drama about Julia Child, America’s answer to Fanny Craddock, who came to prominence in the early 1960s with America’s first TV cooking show. Did they have any idea what they were unleashing?
Of course not. Everyone thinks they can cook on TV, to which 18 series of Masterchef will testify.
It also reminds us of a period of excess when we smoked, drank and ate what we liked. Blissful.