Television Roger Lewis
The midlife-crisis drama Us began well, with Saskia Reeves, playing Connie, saying she’d had enough; she was off: ‘This is my time, Douglas.’
Douglas, played by Tom Hollander, hadn’t been expecting such dramatic news – so he hastened to the rubbishdisposal unit and tore up cardboard boxes in a fury. Opera played on the soundtrack, to indicate class. Though the pain on Douglas’s face was subtle and real – tiny flinches and frowns – the series quickly degenerated into rom-com chick lit, with plenty of nice, sunshiny views of European cities.
The idea was that Connie had always pined to be an artist; she was a bohemian at heart. But, as is always the way, she’d been cramped and squashed by two decades of domestic and uxorial duties and the child-rearing drill. Here she suddenly was, sitting on the fat-armed sofa with nothing to look forward to, save a beetroot detox and a book club.
All of this was interwoven with flashbacks to the couple’s younger selves – and what was remarkable was that the actor and actress cast didn’t resemble their older versions in the slightest.
I suppose, in this politically correct, colour-blind casting era, we should be grateful the characters didn’t suddenly become Asian or Bantu, as in the recent David Copperfield film, where Steerforth’s mother steps out of a carriage looking like Xena, the Warrior Princess.
In these earlier scenes, the Hollander character was a fussy little pedant, always having to correct people, always needing the last word. The scene where he blew his top because his toddler son inventively made a dinosaur from the Lego pieces, instead of following the instructions on the box … Connie should have walked out on him there and then, not waiting another 15 years.
In the final scenes, Douglas was attacked by jellyfish and had a heart attack and an affair with a Danish dentist, the son revealed that he was gay, and Connie, who all her adult life had yearned to be irresponsible, put her possessions in cardboard boxes.
Mike Bartlett’s six-parter Life consisted of yet more unravelling relationships, principally Alison Steadman’s. After half a century, she woke up to the fact her husband was a jeering bully. ‘It’s my time, Henry,’ she said, chucking her frocks in a suitcase.
As played by Peter Davison, the husband in question was indeed one of those recognisable codgers who always mock and belittle the lady wife, making flat jokes at her expense. I rather cheered when Alison left in a late-night taxi but sadly she came back, as her husband couldn’t work the dishwasher and said he had terminal pancreatic cancer.
The programme was an ensemble thing, set in a Manchester block of flats. Everyone was implausibly spiteful, drunk, snooping, secretive or in turmoil one way or another. Victoria Hamilton had a whale of a time, banging and
bouncing off walls, alternately wallowing in self-pity and going off like a rocket with pent-up sexual frustration – I expected her to set off poltergeists. Life was six hours of mine I won’t get back.
By contrast, I enjoyed Roadkill, principally because Hugh Laurie has shaped up as a first-class actor, the pop-eyed comedian well in the past. Here he was immensely likeable (paradoxically) as Tory swine Peter Laurence, who despite his lies and swindles somehow connects with the electorate – who warm to his naughty persona. On the other hand, Laurence – or Laurie – has these eyes that at times can glaze over rather frighteningly.
The complex scenes with the family in their nice kitchen had real Chekhov weight – deep emotion and hurt, which the characters are trying to come to terms with, and may never. David Hare at his best.
Saskia Reeves was back as Laurie’s cheated-on wife, conducting amateur choirs (‘This is my time, Peter’). Millie Brady was a beautiful daughter, who quite saw through her father, refusing to fall for the charisma. Helen Mccrory, as the Prime Minister, made me realise she should have played the Queen rather than Olivia Colman, who is hopeless. I much like Sylvestra Le Touzel, who always has an air of comedy, like Margaret Rutherford.
Enola Holmes, about Sherlock’s sassy sister, is on Netflix, and is full of anachronistic feminism: ‘Don’t be thrown off course by other people, especially men,’ says Helena Bonham Doodah to Millie Bobby Brown, who may even have actually said, ‘This is my time, Mycroft.’
The Oldie