Belgravia’s packed finale missed the best bit out
Six episodes we’ve waited for Charles Pope to discover the truth about his background in Belgravia (ITV). Six hours of being set up for this wonderful, tear-jerking moment with the two families he never knew he had. And they diddled us out of it. Or, as writer Julian Fellowes might have put it (cue dramatic, swirling music): “By God, Sir. How could you?”
All the pieces were in place: Charles had been confirmed as the rightful Viscount Bellasis, leaving him free to inherit an earldom and marry the saucer-eyed Lady Maria. The dastardly John Belassis was out of the picture. Charles (Jack Bardoe) was finally to learn why the Brockenhursts and Trenchards had taken such a keen interest in him. And then we cut to a dinner party to hear James Trenchard declare: “So there you have it! Charles Pope will be the next Earl of Brockenhurst.” It had all been explained to him without the viewers being privy to the big reveal, which felt pretty unsatisfying after all these weeks of investment in his story.
Perhaps Fellowes simply didn’t have the time. The final episode wrapped things up at breakneck speed. Trenchard (Philip Glenister) took a trip to Manchester, where he swiftly established that stories of Pope being a bully and a cheat were untrue. The
Trenchards’ useless son, Oliver, went from zero to hero, saving his father and his rival from drowning in the Thames. Susan (Alice Eve) was the busiest of the lot: she offered to marry John Bellasis but was knocked back, retaliated by stealing some letters which were pivotal to the plot, confessed to her husband that the baby wasn’t his, then agreed to settle down with him in the country, a life that until five minutes ago she had despised. And there was space to cram in a wedding before the credits rolled.
The plot moved so fast, and the bit with the letters was so convoluted, that sometimes Fellowes had to remind us and the characters what was going on. When Anne Trenchard (Tamsin Greig) told her husband that they should have established 20 years ago that the “bogus” clergyman who married their daughter was actually a real one, Trenchard had to point out: “How could we? We didn’t know his name.”
A tongue-in-cheek “great expectations” reference nodded to Fellowes’s ambition – Belgravia was originally published as a novel in weekly instalments, Dickens-style – and the ending left things open to a sequel. Belgravia has been a drama to like rather than love, but a second outing would be perfectly welcome – provided all the dramatic moments happen on screen.
When the going gets tough, the tough clean toilets on a bus in Argentina. Race Across the World (BBC Two) reached its penultimate leg and the contestants were running short on cash. Siblings Lizzie and Dom decided to rely on the generosity of strangers, begging people to pay for their ticket and, when that failed, hitching a lift. Emon and Jamiul went for the glitzier option, working as deckhands in Punta del Este and teaming up with Maradona’s barber.
It was the ever-resourceful Jo, on the trip with her son Sam, who negotiated the bus job after realising the pair did not have enough money for their journey. Frankly, I would like to undertake all my future travel with the lovely Jo, who is calm in a crisis and never seems to stop smiling.
Meanwhile, married couple Jen and Rob spent five fruitless hours looking for work, but won the leg anyway. The past couple of episodes have been a bit too heavy on the personal journeys – barely five minutes would pass without Jen complaining about how Rob’s deafness has affected their marriage, or Lizzie and Dom explaining that they used to be close and no longer are, or Jamiul referring to Emon’s mysterious estrangement from the family. Thankfully, now that they’re in sight of the finish line, everyone seems to be concentrating on the race itself.
The mechanics of the show remain something of a mystery to me, such as the question of whether the couples are obliged to visit tourist hotspots (if you’re engaged in a race to win, would you really risk throwing away your lead to spend a day having a dip in a natural infinity pool?). At what stage were they told that this year’s race would be across Central and South America, and why did none of them but Jo think it might be a good bet to have some rudimentary Spanish?
But these are minor quibbles, because the format of this show is great. The race element is gripping, the whistle-stop tour of faraway cities is a treat, and the programme-makers resist any temptation to make the contestants look like idiots. Roll on next week’s finale, and please let my favourites be the winners.
Belgravia ★★★
Race Across the World ★★★★