A Very English Scandal: Episode 2

"She's the love of my life."

"Don't be ridiculous!"

Another utterly compelling hour of telly, then, as things move towards their inexorable conclusion. Russell T. Davies, Stephen Frears and an utterly revelatory Hugh Grant are all spellbinding in this artfully crafted bit of telly, and we get to see along the way just how much human devastation is left behind by self-centred posh boy Jeremy Thorpe. And this from a series that has yet to even mention his probable cover-up of the vile Cyril Smith. And yet, as the opening scene reminds me, Thorpe was very much the sort of man of whose politics I tend to approve. I would have voted Liberal back then. Yet progressive politics do not necessarily stop one from being a complete and utter bastard.

Thorpe's desire to see Norman Scott is thrust in our face from the beginning, but we are allowed, at first, to wonder whether it all might perhaps be a joke; Grant plays this ambiguity well. Yet Ben Whishaw is equally excellent in what is, perhaps even more so than the first episode, a double character study heavily reliant on the abundant skills of both actors. Whishaw truly captures both Scott’s odd innocence and his quietly dignified insistence in a homophobic world (the wedding speech is deliberately both funny and undercutting that with horror at the sheer bigotry, very RTD) that his relationship with Thorpe was real and deserving of recognition, whatever the tragedies that befall him, from his abandonment by his wife (and the taking away of his child, the worst thing that can happen to anyone) to the tragic suicide of poor Gwen- why isn’t the fantastic Eve Myles on telly more often?

Much of the episode sees the possibility of scandal slowly simmering, with an attempt to raise the temperature by Emlyn Hooson here (Jason Watkins is bloody good) and a quiet word to the police by Reginald Maudling there. But there is real pathos as Thorpe genuinely mourns the sudden death of his first wife, and shares real affection with his second. Thorpe may be gay, and closeted, but the women in his life are more than just beards. People are complicated.

The whole business of the 1974 election is handled with admirable economy of storytelling, and then the final stretch running up to the attempted assassination is rightly played as the comedy of errors that it seemingly was, with a delightful appearance from Betty Spencer herself, looking perhaps just a little different. The whole thing is a gripping piece of telly, with script, direction and acting all first class. Er, but I have to say that’s an interesting choice of actor to play John Le Mesurier...