If I was Anne, I’d have drilled a hole (or two!) in that canoe
The Thief, His Wife And The Canoe ITV, Sunday to Wednesday ★★★★★
ITV Hub ★
Chivalry Channel 4, Thursday ★★★
The Thief, His Wife And The Canoe was based on the ‘unbelievably true story’ of John ‘Canoe Man’ Darwin, who attempted to fake his death at sea to collect the life insurance money, and his wife, Anne, and it’s the most glorious series of the year so far.
I could not stop watching. It was delicious. It was comic yet tragic. It made you laugh, made you cry, etc. It was unavoidably gripping. As all episodes were made available at once, I did the four in one evening, even though that put me at the mercy of ITV Hub, goddamn it, as it’s the worst streaming service known to man. (‘Oops, something’s gone wrong’; I’d sort of guessed as much, given that the screen had gone black?)
This was written by Chris Lang (Unforgotten), who perfectly balanced the ludicrousness of their plan – even though, to be fair, they got away with it for nearly six years – with the sheer mounting horror of what it meant, if only for her.
There was never any doubt who Lang’s sympathy was with. It starred Eddie Marsan (superb) and Monica Dolan (ditto), and when we first meet the pair he has embarked on his latest get-rich-quick scheme. He’s taken out loans to buy cheap houses in former pit villages to rent out, and two seven-bedroom ones in a grotty state in Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool. One to live in, one for bedsits.
The tenants aren’t forthcoming, and they’re already massively in debt when he turns up with a new Land Rover complete with personalised number plate before, Anne’s voice-over explains: ‘We’d even got the gas connected.’ If I’d have been Anne, when the canoe came into play I’d have drilled a hole in it.
When, in 2002, he suggests paddling off in his canoe, with the aim of being declared dead, why does she, a doctor’s receptionist, go along with it? That’s what, cleverly, drove the narrative. John had the delusions of gran deur of a narcissist, but it also meant he could be seductive and manipulative: ‘We’ll find somewhere beautiful and warm, Anne. Just the two of us.’
But we also understood that he had belittled her all their married life: ‘No one is queuing up for a woman like you, Anne. They weren’t when I married you and they certainly wouldn’t be now.’ She didn’t know if she could exist without him. What she did was unforgivable. She lied to the police, the coroner, his family, her family and, most grievously, to their two sons. It was unforgivable but, as played here, perfectly credible.
There were so many excellent scenes. When he first disappears, and she reports him missing, her mounting despair is read as fear for her husband’s safety by the police, but we know it’s because a massive sea search is now in operation. What has she done? Dolan was outstanding at acting someone who is grieving but also not grieving really. John camped for a couple of weeks and then, most unbelievably in this unbelievably true story, moved into a secret bedsit next door.
There were moments of pure comedy. She’s eating Christmas lunch with their boys one side of the wall, and there he is, sat in a paper hat, on the other. Otherwise, he spends his time chatting up women online. If I’d have been Anne I’d have drilled two holes in that canoe.
I don’t have the space for all the twists and turns. The land in Panama, that photograph, John’s false passport, John returning to the UK to claim amnesia, the truth finally coming out and the sons realising they’d been deceived all those years. It was brilliantly handled, including a scene in prison where she was allowed to hold her first grandchild, which had me in tears.
As for where they are now, after six years in prison each, they divorced and, while she lives quietly up north and is still rebuilding her relationship with her sons, he has married a far younger Filipina and has exited to the Philippines. I’d have drilled two holes in that canoe and also filled it with lead weights.
Quickly, quickly, on to Chivalry, the new comedy written by and starring Steve Coogan and Sarah Solemani. She plays a feminist director hired by an old-school producer (Coogan) to detoxify the set of his latest film in the wake of the #MeToo movement, and it was confusing. Who are we meant to be laughing at? Him, with the girlfriend who is ‘nearly 25’ or her, with her plans to make a Biblical feminist epic? Both, perhaps, but it did make it unsympathetic to the cause. The ‘intimacy counsellor’ brought in to advise on a sex scene is, for example, widely mocked all round. That just seemed crass rather than funny.
However, it launched with a double bill and it was growing on me by the end, and there are some very starry cameos (Paul Rudd, John C. Reilly) so I’ll probably stick with it. Plus, it does have this going for it: it won’t put me at the mercy of ITV Hub.