Inspector Morse: The Dead of Jericho

 "You're one of these people who have breakfast, aren't you?"

I've read all the Colin Dexter novels at least once although, I'm sure, it's been at least twenty years. I've never seen any of the TV series before though, at least not a whole episodes. I'll not be blogging these quickly as the episodes are bloody long, but the first one is fascinating. This is in some ways the Morse of the books- bloody minded, knows his beer and his culture, but in other ways he isn't: this isn't the course misogynist that Colin Dexter wrote but more of a gentle soul who courts Anne Stavely sensitively.

John Thaw is superb, but credit is also due to Anthony Minghella for perhaps the hardest adaptation- one that has to introduce the series and the characters. He does so with subtlety and writerly restraint, with shortand simple scenes that don't show off, and by showing, not telling; the hallmark of a certain sort of good screenwriting. A shockingly young Gemma Jones is also excellent as, of course, is the great Patrick Troughton in what must be one of his last roles.

I thought I remembered little of the story as it unfolded but the Sophocles red herring came to me as the camera focused yet again on a copy of Oedipus the King just after we learned that Ned had blinded himself. But it was all quite clever, and a cosily enjoyable thing to watch without being too cosy. It helps that morse himself is a compellingly nuanced character.

I'll keep occasionally blogging these. Look out for another episode sometime...

The Crown: Season 4, Episode 7- The Hereditary Principle

 "Idiocy and imbecility..."

Another strong episode here, and the first Margaret episode for ages (will there be many more?) as she hits her mid-life crisis with the realisation that her life has been unhappy and there isn't much time left to put things right, certainly not if the lung operation she's just had is an indicator.

There is, of course, a wider theme here of mental health and stigma, as Margaret discovers a family secret in the treatment of some insttutionalised members of the Queen Mum's family- and the first scenes of Katherine and Nerissa give us some juxtapositions characteristic of The Crown as they watch the Royal Variety Performance on telly (is this the one where Tommy Cooper died?) in their institution, and Katherine's birthday is contrasted with that of Prince Edward.

We hear the reasoning, and the voice of a royal generation, from the Queen Mum; when the Abdication propelled the Bowes-Lyons from minor Scottish aristocrats to toyalty by marriage, those within the family seen as suggesting a bloodline that as not "pure" needed to be hidden away. It was, as Margaret says, cruel, inhuman and reprehensible. Genetically, it seems, the royal family cannot have inherited the gene- but that has no bearing on the matter. If the hereditary principle depends on this sort of thing, the hereditary principle must go.

But the episode is also about Margaret, doomed to a life of heartache, emptiness and self-conscious usefulness, where potential lovers turn out to be "friends of Dorothy" and she feels threatened by Diana. I'm not sure she needs the Queen to give her purpose- she's rich and famous; there are plenty of things she could do to make the world a better place. But she is a paradox- a terrible snob who rails against her position as a "spare" whose proximity to the crown grows further apart with each royal birth and, as Gore Vidal said, far too intelligent for her station. And yet, especially as played by Helena Bonham Carter, she's a perversely likeable bitch.